MTH CTA Spam Cans, Headlights & Markers

While I can't help you with your actual question, I can tell you that even though this content seems a bit "forum ambiguous", this is the correct forum for this question.

Furthermore, it is not good practice to multi post to different forums, since your replies will end up all over the place, and it's hard to have a decent discussion that way. You are allowed to delete the other two, as long as nobody has posted to them, leaving just this one. I think you'll be happier with your results taking this approach.

I have the bicentennial version of those:

Rapid Transit Holmes posted:

I received my first set of MTH CTA Spam Cans (6000 series cars), today, and I'm quite pleased with the overall package.  Its a Rail King set but the quality is the equal of a Premier set, except for the few details listed above.

This is my first entry into the world of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), save for infrequent trips made on the 1:1 when the Spam Cans were in their heyday.  A visit the CTA website was instructive for an old railroad guy:

https://www.chicago-l.org/oper...signals/markers.html

Surprisingly, CTA includes what I would refer to as "class lights" or "destination lights" under the definition of "markers" as well as traditional markers, what some transit systems call "tail lights".  Its a learning curve.

My frustration and my search for a practical remedy revolve around the fact that 1.) both headlight and markers on the "engine" are extinguished when direction of travel is reversed and 2.) there is no trailer car equipped with a working headlight for reverse moves or markers of either variety for rear end protection or destination information.  My searches of the OGRF site only produced threads related to large, traditional markers and general information regarding CTA, the latest dated 2017.  I may have failed to use the right search criteria.

The partial solution may be to simply buy a second set and use its "engine" as a second head/hind car in a lashup but that seems like an awfully expensive fix and would not solve the rear end protection issue.  Regardless, an appeal to the Wise Guys of OGRF is always the right move and best done before I create my own wreck...

Since my questions fall logically into two other "Forum" categories, I will re-post there and apologize in advance for any annoying duplication.  Thanks for the help!

My take on these cars.  Green marker lights were not working.  No LMK on the DCS remote.  I spoke with Jason at MTH, and he informed me of a sound file error.  They posted the new file on the website.  I installed it ands still no LMK.  Sent in and they found a wire connection issue.

I also bought the add on set.  I cannot haul the whole consist because of traction issues.  I has turned out to be a nice set.  I just wish they would sell a lone powered engine.

I like to run mine on Auto mode.  It allows me to have the wow appeal and run trains on the main.

Bryant Dunivan 111417 posted:

Rapid Transit Holmes posted:

I received my first set of MTH CTA Spam Cans (6000 series cars), today, and I'm quite pleased with the overall package.  Its a Rail King set but the quality is the equal of a Premier set, except for the few details listed above.

My take on these cars.  Green marker lights were not working.  No LMK on the DCS remote.  I spoke with Jason at MTH, and he informed me of a sound file error.  They posted the new file on the website.  I installed it ands still no LMK.  Sent in and they found a wire connection issue.

I also bought the add on set.  I cannot haul the whole consist because of traction issues.  I has turned out to be a nice set.  I just wish they would sell a lone powered engine.

I like to run mine on Auto mode.  It allows me to have the wow appeal and run trains on the main.

Bryant,

Thanks for the input.  Though I have used DCS for years on a very limited test track, only, I have not delved into the Dark Arts and am now dizzy from my first encounter.  I finally got a "lash-up" to work...  I'm afraid that I don't know what an "LMK" is, be it fish or fowl; however, my markers are working just as MTH would have them do - albeit incorrectly.  I wrote a query to MTH regarding the matter but have yet to hear back from them.

I will confess that I fell for the entire package in order to have operating headlights and markers on both ends of the consist.  I started out with the add-on cars but found that they were only bait and now the hook is set.  I bought a Bicentennial 6000 set and swapped out the body shell from a green and cream add-on unit for the Bicentennial shell on the "engine" (A Unit), thinking that would satisfy my yen.  Nope.  An "as delivered" (green and cream) set appeared on eBay, providentially(?), and, you guessed it, I bit.  So, I'm now awash in 6000s.  Like you, I intend to run my cars on "Auto" on the layout I'm currently designing, while running trains on the adjacent B&OCT.

I could not agree with you more.  Individual A Units should be made available to solve both the traction and the headlight/marker issues.  I now have my two A's running back-to-back in a "lash-up" and can sandwich as many "B Units" in between as I like.  Now, all I have to do is to get the markers to act like markers...

Since the A Units will never be "buried" in a consist, the over-long electrocouplers have been replaced with a Q-Car  WABCO H2A (http://qcarcompany.com/listing...ts_Exterior.html#HXC) on the front and an MTH "short" coupler on the rear to match the little claws on the B Units for closer, more realistic car spacing.  The WABCO H2As are NYCTA, not CTA, prototypes but they look a lot better than the electro-claws.

Meanwhile, I noticed that the third rail pickup/sideframes castings are too long to look prototypical and have undertaken to trim all of them to better represent the original:

Fortunately, there is a convenient indentation in the MTH castings, located at the end of each "shoe beam", that I use as my guide while carving away at them with my Dremel Mototool.  As you can see from the above, the shoe beam mounting panel just barely extends beyond the ends of the shoe beams, themselves, and the wheels are almost entirely exposed.  Some camo paint on a Q-Tip weathers the ends of the axles and the wheels.

These are swell little cars and I only hope that MTH will seek to improve them with each re-issue.

Rapid Transit Holmes posted:

Bryant Dunivan 111417 posted:

Rapid Transit Holmes posted:

I received my first set of MTH CTA Spam Cans (6000 series cars), today, and I'm quite pleased with the overall package.  Its a Rail King set but the quality is the equal of a Premier set, except for the few details listed above.

My take on these cars.  Green marker lights were not working.  No LMK on the DCS remote.  I spoke with Jason at MTH, and he informed me of a sound file error.  They posted the new file on the website.  I installed it ands still no LMK.  Sent in and they found a wire connection issue.

I also bought the add on set.  I cannot haul the whole consist because of traction issues.  I has turned out to be a nice set.  I just wish they would sell a lone powered engine.

I like to run mine on Auto mode.  It allows me to have the wow appeal and run trains on the main.

Bryant,

Thanks for the input.  Though I have used DCS for years on a very limited test track, only, I have not delved into the Dark Arts and am now dizzy from my first encounter.  I finally got a "lash-up" to work...  I'm afraid that I don't know what an "LMK" is, be it fish or fowl; however, my markers are working just as MTH would have them do - albeit incorrectly.  I wrote a query to MTH regarding the matter but have yet to hear back from them.

I will confess that I fell for the entire package in order to have operating headlights and markers on both ends of the consist.  I started out with the add-on cars but found that they were only bait and now the hook is set.  I bought a Bicentennial 6000 set and swapped out the body shell from a green and cream add-on unit for the Bicentennial shell on the "engine" (A Unit), thinking that would satisfy my yen.  Nope.  An "as delivered" (green and cream) set appeared on eBay, providentially(?), and, you guessed it, I bit.  So, I'm now awash in 6000s.  Like you, I intend to run my cars on "Auto" on the layout I'm currently designing, while running trains on the adjacent B&OCT.

I could not agree with you more.  Individual A Units should be made available to solve both the traction and the headlight/marker issues.  I now have my two A's running back-to-back in a "lash-up" and can sandwich as many "B Units" in between as I like.  Now, all I have to do is to get the markers to act like markers...

Since the A Units will never be "buried" in a consist, the over-long electrocouplers have been replaced with a Q-Car  WABCO H2A (http://qcarcompany.com/listing...ts_Exterior.html#HXC) on the front and an MTH "short" coupler on the rear to match the little claws on the B Units for closer, more realistic car spacing.  The WABCO H2As are NYCTA, not CTA, prototypes but they look a lot better than the electro-claws.

Meanwhile, I noticed that the third rail pickup/sideframes castings are too long to look prototypical and have undertaken to trim all of them to better represent the original:

Fortunately, there is a convenient indentation in the MTH castings, located at the end of each "shoe beam", that I use as my guide while carving away at them with my Dremel Mototool.  As you can see from the above, the shoe beam mounting panel just barely extends beyond the ends of the shoe beams, themselves, and the wheels are almost entirely exposed.  Some camo paint on a Q-Tip weathers the ends of the axles and the wheels.

These are swell little cars and I only hope that MTH will seek to improve them with each re-issue.

LMK come up on the DCS remote as LMK for marker lights.  I don't think that options is available with this sound set.  In any event, my markers work as advertised.

I must say, I'm in the presence of a master when it comes to subway cars.  Nce job, beyond description.  I had to look to see if it was real or not.

Bryant,

I am no master modeler, that's a real car being loaded onto a "ro-ro" gooseneck truck trailer in South Elgin, Illinois, for it's return to CTA where it became part of their "Heritage Fleet".  Due to the lighter coloration of the shoe beam area, it was the better of only two side-view photos of a 6000, clearly showing the arrangement, that I could find on the web.  Here is the second, less well lit, also taken at a railroad museum - IRM:

I was amused that the first, better lit photo was taken at the Fox River Trolley Museum, formerly known as "RELIC" (Railway Equipment Leasing and Investment Co.) where I began my railroad career as a volunteer in 1967.  I found that picture unintentionally while searching for photographs of 6000 trucks.

It is interesting that CTA, having long ago burned all its bridges to the 6000s, had to buy back examples from museums, a la UP and the 4014.  Sadly, all examples of many remarkable but now extinct classes of equipment were scrapped for pennies and will never be reproduced.  Who could cast a one-piece frame for a NYC Niagara?  The Chinese?

Thanks, again, for your input.  Learning that markers on other pieces can be controlled by the software inspires me to learn more and hope for a solution.  I'm an old spike pounder but still marginally educable, sometimes.