Why have dummy units largely disappeared

[zstripe]

Quote: BRAKIE:                                                                                                                               

Jim,MRC's  "Golden Throttle Pack" could handle up to 5 Athearn locomotives.It was the power pack to have in the 60s. 

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The super duper one to have, was the ''Golden Tri-Pak''

Frank

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[BRAKIE]

zstripe

The super duper one to have, was the ''Golden Tri-Pak'' Frank

Seen them but,never owned one..

Of course I started building ISLs in the early 60s much to my dad's disdain since such wasn't a "real" layout.

[zstripe]

Larry,

Got mine 1959. $45.00 Brand new, still have it, although it hasn't been plugged in for 35yrs.

Frank

[AVRNUT]

I have to say that reading this thread finally inspired me to get off my duff & buy a dummy unit, while they're still available. I've been meaning to do it & always just figured I'd pick one up "someday". But, they are getting tough to come by & might just go the way of the dinosaurs before much longer. I wanted an undecorated F3-B dummy to do up for my BAR passenger train. I knew Bowser still made one, so started looking online & couldn't find one anywhere! M.B.Klien didn't have any in stock, neither did Hobbylinc. Looked a couple other places & same thing. Did a search on Ebay & a Bowser F3-B Dummy, undecorated popped up! New in Box, just what I wanted, so bought it for $39.95. I only run a 3-4 car passenger consist, so my Proto F3-A shouldn't have any trouble hauling that & the B dummy.

Carl

[gatrhumpy]

I have an N scale dummy SD40-2 in Santa Fe colors running behind a sound and DCC-powered unit. I'm considering getting a decoder for the dummy too.

[wjstix]

Both Athearn and Stewart sell F-units in sets with a powered A unit and dummy B unit, but I'm not sure if either offers the dummies for sale separately?? A nice thing about an A-B F-unit set like that is you can put a sound decoder in the A unit and run wires back to the B unit and fit a very large speaker in the dummy.

[bobwrght]

I have several dummy units i purchased on Ebay cheap. Some were powered units i converted to dummy.

I run a lot of DC only sound. No problem running one power unit and 1 or 2 dummies with them.

With both steam and diesel dummies  you can add one in the middle or end of the train as a helper without speed matching. They run with anything on the track.

Some are also hard to find road names made years ago and now don't run well with today's equipment but do fine as dummies.

 

[Texas Zepher]

wjstix

Both Athearn and Stewart sell F-units in sets with a powered A unit and dummy B unit, but I'm not sure if either offers the dummies for sale separately?? A nice thing about an A-B F-unit set like that is you can put a sound decoder in the A unit and run wires back to the B unit and fit a very large speaker in the dummy.

Or better yet, also have the dummy's wheels pick up power and run wires to share it with the other.  That way there are 16 wheels picking up power instead of just 8.