In order of acquisition, and with great regards for my Father, who chose quality model railroad gear...
The MRC throttles are somewhat difficult to photograph. Their cases are copper colored or coated, and highly reflective due to that. I need to work on a non-point-source lighting setup (diffuse light) to make a more uniform lighting, to eliminate the "boom" or "hotspots" from reflected light which makes photographing these innoccent objects more difficult than it would seem.
It's not that I don't know how to photograph things, these were casual photos for a friend... Which made me realize I had to actually setup a lighting stage for items like this. Yet another project!
When I played DC trains with my Dad, Josef, he had purchased about 3 Dual Throttle MRC controllers. These were the great models, with Pulse Power, "Spinners" on the throttle knobs, and a respectable amount of power. They could power even consists of 4 Athearn locomotives with ease ... on just one of the two throttles!
One interesting point -- these are two completely independent power packs in a single case. The only thing they share is the case, and the line cord.
They worked great, were super reliable, and... well they disappeared when my Dad died. I miss them, because I had many many years and hours of model railroading with them.. but they vanished.
These are traditional Rheostat Designs, no electronics; the dual had one power switch, shared by both throttles.
I dug up some photos online, since I can't photograph my Dad's ones any more..
ps: one of the spinner knobs (right) is broken in these photos; the front panel is accurately rendered instead of blown out by light being reflected.It is basically 1/2 of the Dual Lock Pack 700, same design and such.
I think we picked up one of these at some point in time, I don't remember why. It may have been for special layouts, like running a train around the Christmas Tree, or on the floor of my Dad's office.
I think it was probably what we used to operate our little round portable Trolley Bus layout.
My dad built it, and we took to Republican Party booths, such as at the County Fair. I was stationed there to run the bus.
It was pretty cool, dual catenary, and dual pickup shoes on the bus ... which also steered the bus to follow the Catenary.
People would stop by just to watch the bus. It was actually quite an effective draw, and had people talking about other than politics ... which is probably a good way of dealing with politics -- you deal with people and their interests instead!
We may have also had an old Cab Control 50; I don't think it was transistor based, but it has been too long since I've seen it.
The big thing about it was that it was small, and could control the tiny little N-scale motor better than the huge Throttle Packs.
I think we got it to run a small HOn30 mining locomotive and ore tipples. HO n 30 is a narrow gauge HO scale locomotive, using N scale track as a 30" scale rail spacing :-) We never built a mine to run that thing back and forth with.
Knowing what I know now ... an automatic reversing circuit would have been perfect to simulate mine operation!
When I was a kid, I oogled all the cool transistor throttles, and salivated over the advanced features they had, such as Momentum, Braking, adjustments, etc.
For many years, the MRC Control Master X was the bomb ....
Well, I could read Model Railoader and Railroad Model Craftsman all I wanted, but those weren't in the making for us. We were "farming", and we spent our time and resources on the farm. So, I watched as all these cool advanced throttles with transistor controls came out, and ... well I never had any.
As I got older, my Dad did buy me my own Throttle -- and it was transistorized -- a Troller TRA-1000 which you can read about there.
When I started getting back into model railroading in the 2010s, I wanted to have more than just my Troller to work with.
I recalled lusting after all the cool MRC transistor throttles, so went searching on eBay for some.
The first I found was an MRC Control Master X. This was for a while, the top-of-the-line MRC Transistor Throttle. It had a number of adjustments to make it respond well, including
Alas, the Control Master X that I purchased has some odd problems. It powers up and runs OK as a straight throttle... but then it does some odd things. My guess is that some of the capacitors in the Momentum circuit are not doing well.
It works OK for now as a power supply, and once I find the driver for the screws on the case, I'll take it apart to see if I can fix it, or just use it as a power supply.
OK, so the real thing I drooled over was the Control Master XI, It has it all --
I found a near perfect one on eBay, and it made my Day!
It was everything I imagined it to be, and it was better. So very cool. So, 20-30 years later, I finally have one of them....
Then early in 2021, I bought a 2nd one that needs some work on it... because it is a good solid throttle. I even bought it had a reasonable price, since the condition was unknown... but the MRC stuff is well built, and usually easy to fix.
They do take up a lot of space, but real loco brake to play trains like you have a real locomotive -- very cool.
So, the Throttle Master 550 was the top of the line analog throttle from MRC. Think of it as a Throttle Pack 500 on steroids. More Amperage, Reverse Loop Addition, and an Ammeter and a Volt Meter.
The Ammeter, is not working yet... and the vendor gave me a couple bucks off once I discovered it, since I had chosen theirs --with everything working -- over another one.
I hope it is just the burden resistor for current sensing that is the problem... otherwise trying to find a matching lighted Ammeter is going to be a problem.
The Cab Control 77 is basically most of the control half of a Control Master XI; it has a throttle, realistic brake, and a Momentum On/Off control.
So, it basically lets you have a cab which acts like the XI, but is hand-held and simpler.
The first one I bought worked perfectly. Then I found a second... which needs to be worked on... but since I have a working unit, well, that is a starting point. I is a decent little box, though it doesn't have the spinner knob throttle of the XI or the Cab 55 -- no room for it with the large brake quadrant.
It works well, and takes up less space.
The Cab Control 55 was one of the first transistorized throttles which MRC built.
The big reason for it was N-Scale trains. The large rheostats on some of the ordinary throttles couldn't control the smaller N scale locos correctly, because their resistance was too lo.
So, instead of building a more expensive rheostat -- let's try transistors instead! Voila, it worked.
I have this Cab Control 55 more or less by default; it was thrown in with my Cab Control 77 as a "take it all" deal. Cool... and maybe it can power a Trolley Bus or a HOn30 Mining Locomotive some day!
MRC makes a true walk-around throttle system, where you can plug in the throttle at different locations to run the trains. That way you can be where the train is.
I don't have one, and there are two identical models which aren't compatible with each other... but MRC makes quality things, and if I wanted a true walk-around cab, it would be on the short list.
