TAT-V Throttle Kit

I was thinking of digging up my old issues of Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman to build a TAT -- True Action Throttle, a model railroad throttle design by model railroaders that had been perfected and improved over almost 20 years to give ultimate traditional train control.

When quite by accident, I stumbled across a Kit for the same, complete with documentation, case parts, the article.... and I was like YES and just bought it. Talk about having everything in one place ... and since it has a PC board, much easier to build -- I don't (yet) make my own PC boards.


The TAT -- True Action Throttle

The TAT series of throttles were published in Model Railroader magazine over almost 20 years, adding more advancements and refinements to the throttle.

The TAT series concentrates its effort along three different areas of experience

  1. Controls that are similar to a Prototype Locomotive.
  2. Throttle design that works around the typical issues experienced on a model railroad, to automatically compensate for Locomotive, Track, and Grade issues, to make the train operation experience seem closer to prototype.
  3. Automatic Pulse power that fades off as speed builds, and cuts back in as needed. This is part of #2, but it is something that very few throttles do.
  4. Track feedback design, by reacting to Back-EMF from the model locomotive, used to run some of the automation in the throttle. Again part of #2, but cool.
This one is from... Model Railroader, April 1988

Sales Record

Here are my notes and sales photos of the throttle.
Model Railroad Throttles
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Last Modified: Sun Mar 7 16:26:41 CST 2021
Bolo (Josef Burger) <bolo@cs.wisc.edu>