End Of Train Devices

Greetings followers of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad and my blog!

Operations on the railroad continue to evolve. There’s a lot of action happening, on the virtual operations side as well as the live operations that I host with some of the guys.

When I participate in my virtual op sessions, or as we call them P.C.C.M. (Penn Central Car Movements), every train has a caboose on the end. Same thing for my live op sessions. 

At one point I had added to some freight cars an end of train device (EOT) that lights up. Ring Engineering makes them. It’s pretty cool to watch them flash on the end of the train. 

Here’s some information on these EOT devices, courtesy of Trains magazine, who did an article about them…

https://trn.trains.com/railroads/abcs-of-railroading/2006/05/end-of-train-devices

If I use this item, it would have to be on a dedicated train, which for the most part means I would need to leave the last car on the train at all times. That car could not be dropped off at a terminal or yard, unless the entire train was left there. I did have one on a freight car, but took it off as I had to get the 5F crane out to remove the car from the railroad.

I was browsing one of the magazines online and saw an ad for a company called MACRail Products  https://macrailproducts.com/products. They make a line of HO accessories for trains, including End Of Train (EOT) devices. They make them for both type of Kadee coupler heads. A pack of 3 is $20 and I ordered a pack in Yellow with Red indication. 

I added them to a couple trains. They look good and serve the purpose. 

One of the guys saw it on a photo and asked the question “What do you do with it when you take it off a train to switch it out? Where do you put it?” Great question. The easy answer is to put it on the layout where you are working, then add it to the train when you’re ready to head out. Looking on their site, the question that was asked had an answer – an EOT storage rack. 

I will order one of these as well as another set of EOT devices. These will work just fine during my live sessions. Not to worry, a caboose will work all locals and any other train I see fit including all of my virtual op sessions.

Thanks for reading!