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gallium vs. lead

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  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, October 5, 2021 3:56 PM

doctorwayne
...such animation is still just another version of Lionel's "giraffe car".

To be honest, I'd think of it as being more like the Lionel milk-can loader, or those stock cars with the buzzing livestock.  It was the mercury pretending to be molten steel that qualifies for full giraffe-car... or maybe the nuclear-waste car with the flickering 'radioactive' light... status.

I think you're right about the sound -- would want to have a Rolling Thunder subwoofer, no?  And wouldn't there have to be some concealed smoke generators and fans or whatever down under the roadbed somewhere?

  • Member since
    March 2012
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Posted by PC101 on Tuesday, October 5, 2021 4:07 PM

I think sound might also be a requirement for more realism.  (Another reason why I don't use, or need, DCC.)

Wayne

 

[/quote]

Huh, what did you say? What? Say that again.

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Tuesday, October 5, 2021 5:51 PM

PC101
Huh, what did you say? What? Say that again.

He said that the whole idea of 'realistic' dumping slag was toy-train-like, and that adding the sounds would be even more toy-train-like so it bolsters his resolve to stay DC-only.

  • Member since
    December 2001
  • 1,190 posts
Posted by mvlandsw on Tuesday, October 5, 2021 11:18 PM

One of the model magazines once published a tip for connecting lighting in model buildings while allowing them to be easily lifted off the layout. A hole was drilled part way through the layout surface and filled with mercury. A wire from the power supply was placed in the mercury and another wire from the building dipped into the mercury when the building was placed on the layout; a kind of open faced mercury switch.

  • Member since
    May 2019
  • 1,314 posts
Posted by BEAUSABRE on Tuesday, October 5, 2021 11:51 PM

It's like the old joke, which is heavier, a pound of iron or a pound of feathers? What you want is density (pounds per cubic inch) - iron wins every time

  • Member since
    May 2019
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Posted by BEAUSABRE on Wednesday, October 6, 2021 12:13 AM
  • Member since
    September 2003
  • 21,669 posts
Posted by Overmod on Wednesday, October 6, 2021 11:36 AM

This reminds me of some of the 'formulas' in those old-time books of formulas, or the Boy Mechanic books that were parodied in the Iggulden 'dangerous' books.

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