The Randall Museum in San Francisco hosts a large HO-scale model model railroad. Created by the Golden Gate Model Railroad Club starting in 1961, the layout was donated to the Museum in 2015. Since then I have started automatizing trains running on the layout. I am also the model railroad maintainer. This blog describes various updates on the Randall project and I maintain a separate blog for all my electronics not directly related to Randall.
2025-07-20 - Santa Fe RDC on the Branchline
Category RandallThe Rapido Santa Fe RDC 191+192 is back on the Branchline automation:
What’s new about it? Well, last time, they both totally stopped working and I did a major overhaul of both engines:
- Replaced speakers,
- Replaced motors,
- Changed them to single-motor operation.
The original motors were known to become problematic. I contacted Rapido a while ago and they sent me new motors. Replacing the motors is a bit of a hassle as the RDC needs to be disassembled to the chassis.
These units have 2 motors, one per truck. With time, they tend to get out of sync and “fight” each other. Since the Branchline is mostly flat, the units are ok with running on just one motor. I simply disconnect the other motor and remove one gear in the trucks to make one truck free-rolling.