CRAIG WEATHERLEY tells us about this wagon that gives you all sorts of measurements from your layout.
A recent release from Piko is this PK55050 Messwagen (Measuring Wagon) in HO/OO, which can measure certain aspects of your model railway.
This clever device can measure the speed that the locomotive or train is travelling, the length at which the locomotive or train has run, the degrees that your gradients are set at plus many more special features.
Speed can be shown in centimetres per second, metres per second, and scale kilometres per second.
Although it costs more than most wagons, if you see what it can do then you realise where the value is coming from. By switching on this wagon and towing behind a locomotive (or even in a rake) it can read all kinds of data as it moves along.
A full display can be switched on, showing each attribute.
The first display is speed, you can see the speed in which your train is running and also can be changed to MPH or KPH depending on your preference.
The next selection is distance, this is very handy as you can use it to measure between certain pieces of track, or even around your whole layout.
The onboard instruments can also measure the grade or slope being climbed.
Lastly is the gradient menu. have you ever wondered how steep your gradients are? Well now you can find out. This selection enables a positive and negative read out to verify the angles.
This wagon has another feature that seems magical and stunned me when I first looked at one - this wagon runs from a battery, which means because it doesn’t pick up from the track there won’t be any glitches or power drops to the screen when going over a dodgy piece of track. This also means that you can use this to measure certain aspects of your railway that haven’t had main track power feeds going to them yet.
Once the data has been feed into the unit then it can be analysed by looking at the screen on the side on the wagon or by connecting it to a computer, using the PK55051 Expert+ Software for the PIKO SmartMeasure Wagon, available separately.
The downloadable app gives you complete control of the display.
Finally, for all those gadget gurus out there who want the live data coming from the wagon straight to your mobile device or tablet, then this is the wagon for you. I’m not joking, by simply downloading the app from the Piko website and then tethering the wagon to your device using Wifi you can view the live data.
In my opinion this is a great gift for a technically minded modeller, or even a treat for yourself!