Railworks America

build me one for the AT&N 280, and these thihngs depending on their quality should be valued around 100-150 bucks imho(all depends on how well crafted they are)

I think building life sized controllers for steam engines is a bit impractical.

mdurdan wrote:I CAN do steam but I can only model the levers, not the knobs and so on. This is mostly for diesel

There are home set ups for flight simulators (FS9, FSX, X-Plane) that costs 1000s of dollars. At one point I was tempted to get one for helicopter training. It included the seat, pedals, throttle, cyclic, etc., but it was just too expensive.

http://www.helicoptersonly.com/contents/en-us/d217.html

You could do a miniature model of the cab of a steam loco, that could sit on a table, the size of a raildriver, but I personally would prefer to just use the mouse and keyboard and move the controls in the 3D model on the screen.

good point mrennie. Well mike I would gladly pay for basically a life size control box for a SD40-2 and a table top controller for the table controls from ES44's, dash9's, SD70's...etc (the SD40 controller could basically be a plastic box about 2-3ft in the air with the reverser throttle brakes etc with if possible needle gauges that read according to what the game is telling it. oh! and don't forget the HORN! I would settle for one without the gauges as long as it has toggles for lights, sander, alerter etc...)

For steam engines I would love to have just the brake control stands.



To have the throttle and Johnson bar would be impractical. I have been tempted to build a complete cab in my garage though....

For this type of build you need a big screen monitor that cover entire room like you're looking outside. That something I can't even afford.

It would be better if you had three.

There was a guy on UKTS who randomly has a Class 47 cab in his garage (as you do) and he was trying to do something similar to this a while back. Not sure how he got on with it though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_47

We have a cab set up for this at the Lake Superior Rail Museum. Ex-CP trainer.

OR! You can put a desktop monitor in front of the cab. Can't be beat! . When Oculus Rift comes out, you just sit like you're in a real cab and move your head. Hmm not a bad idea.

A full size simulator would cost several thousand just to create the components, not including the prototypes for the finished bits. P.I. Engineering created a few, and IIRC, they cost in the neighborhood of $15k to the customer (I believe even then P.I.E. lost money after costs).

CSX2057 wrote:OR! You can put a desktop monitor in front of the cab. Can't be beat! . When Oculus Rift comes out, you just sit like you're in a real cab and move your head. Hmm not a bad idea.

Many years ago, I bought a Go-flight TQ6 6-lever throttle quadrant with interchangeable levers (for simulating a variety of aircraft) that cost several hundred pounds. I found it on Amazon, listed at over 400$. http://www.amazon.com/USB-Works-Windows-XP64-Vista-versions/dp/B004G9XBIO. That should give you an idea of what these things should cost.

EDIT: I also have a reproduction of a yoke from a Saab turboprop (beautiful piece of engineering it is) and that cost several hundred dollars too.

mrennie wrote:

CSX2057 wrote:OR! You can put a desktop monitor in front of the cab. Can't be beat! . When Oculus Rift comes out, you just sit like you're in a real cab and move your head. Hmm not a bad idea.

Many years ago, I bought a Go-flight TQ6 6-lever throttle quadrant with interchangeable levers (for simulating a variety of aircraft) that cost several hundred pounds. I found it on Amazon, listed at over 400$. http://www.amazon.com/USB-Works-Windows-XP64-Vista-versions/dp/B004G9XBIO. That should give you an idea of what these things should cost.

EDIT: I also have a reproduction of a yoke from a Saab turboprop (beautiful piece of engineering it is) and that cost several hundred dollars too.

JEEZ! Seriously? and I bought 2 saitek Throttle 6 levers for $100 bucks. Talk about money. Dang!!!! That is insane. No way I would buy that!

I remember an old article in Model Railroader where a guy bought an F unit nose, with cab front, windscreen, side windows, dashboard, seats and control stand. He had it all refurbushed, built a wooden cab around it and linked to his model railroad.
That was way back, before digital train control, computers, LCD projectors and such.
I also remember in the late 80's there was offered a miniature closed circuit TV camera that could be mounted in a model locomotive so you could watch your model railroad from an engineer's perspective.

mdurdan wrote:I can make any levers you want and make them look real

Mike, how will you do the electronics?
I mean, your levers have to actuate an electronic control that will transform the lever position into a digital value, then you need the circuitry to send the new value to the USB port using the USB protocol.

Here are a couple of UKTS threads that might be of interest/use.

This is the one with the Class 47 desk (not the entire cab)
http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic.php?f=314&t=115471&start=15&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

This one is a bit technical but might contain something of interest or use for you relating to hooking up your controls
http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic.php?f=318&t=112879&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a