Francine,
Sorry to hear about your two engines laid up. I hope they're back on track and running like lightning very soon. I think you might be onto something re: stripes on some Berks, not on others depending on RR. Maybe to the extent in fact that the earlier and latter Berks are opposites of each other -- if it got stripes in the early release, it won't have them in the latter, and vice versa. The exception to that being the "whitewall" drivers. Those I think are only on latter Berks. Hard to tell, but at the next show or two I will pay more attention to what Berks get brought to run and see. Clubs and individuals are definitely zealously integrating and co-mingling every op sys du jour they can. Some club layouts are now to the point of "proceed at your own risk". I had a couple of TMCC engines get their "brains" scrambled on one a couple of years ago. Hard software resets straightened them out, but I might actually start taking my RRampmeter to first confirm exactly what (power) is on the tracks before I put something on them. It reminds me of myself the past 10-13 years as a major multi-system advocate who "had" to be able to switch between AC conventionally controlled by a Cab, TMCC, Legacy, LocoMatic (10-button boxes), DCC, and DC on my layout or I felt it came up short. Now its Legacy, DCS, Bluetooth LionChief, Wifi, and FlyerChief instead. But then too I had dozens of engines and hundreds of cars. Funny, now that I'm down to one TMCC engine with a Cab1, three conventional engines with a 30B, maybe a FlyerChief/LionChief Berk, and 20 cars I don't miss all of that piling on and complexity. Sometime less is more. I feel liberated, definitely more relaxed about the hobby, and enjoying things like club events more like I used to -- 10-13 years ago. Glad I pared down. What goes around comes around I suppose.
Thanks again for your reply. Good luck with your engines and have fun running your trains no matter how many, simplified, or complicated.
Dave
