Jump to content
 


Northroader
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • RMweb Premium

No, it hasn’t actually happened, it’s just me thinking if a car gets accidentally nudged, where’s it going to go? Elf n safety kind of thing, so that’s been staged to demonstrate it wouldn’t need much to roll over the fence. There is a piece of 2x1 inside to give some weight, so the c.o.g. is fairly high, and that track is quite close to the front. The good thing about American cars is you don’t need to stick the buffers back on after they’ve had a tumble, but even so...

 

p.s. you haven’t met my granddaughters!!

Edited by Northroader
  • Friendly/supportive 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold

I do appreciate your concerns. I just thought a strip of acrylic sheet the same depth as the ply would do the same job but be less obtrusive.

 

Don

  • Agree 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Many years ago I took some of the perspex off a, what's it called. sun-bathing cabinet that was being scrapped.  Well I'd read all my railway mags in it and noticed my face was still curiously white still.  Anyway, the top lid wasn't curved, but flat with 2 bends lengthwise into a flattened upside-down U shape.  Anyone still with me?  Do you trust me to cut it lengthwise for some clear strips, if so how wide should they be?  They might be ready long before the Winchester Meet!!

 

Jason

  • Thanks 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

Turning from the main board changes to the fiddle yards, I’m showing the left hand one first. This is the smaller of the two, and has room on it to take three 36” cassettes, with a bit of space around them rather than a close fit. You’ll see there are just two cassettes there, and the nearest one is plugged into the main line, with a train just arrived.

 

The good news is I’ve now got a passenger train to run, a mainline diesel with a combination car, what we would call a brake third. You can see photos of trains like this, usually a branch  line feeders into a main line train, or where a train has left a major city and split into portions as it progresses for different destinations, so I’m quite pleased with this.

The bad news is the freight that’s parked on the other cassette. A mainline diesel, with one freight car and a caboose. “Just ONE freight car? you cannot be serious!” That’s all a 36” cassette will give, I’m afraid, so I might be tipping from a workaday old branch line to a sort of museum line with a collection of representative stock.

Moving swiftly on back through the main board, the sidings here can take two cars on the front road, and one on the back road.

 

Then on to the right hand fiddle yard. This needs to be full width, so as to support the view blocker at the front, and also give a useful shelf for the controller, before it steps back, to give room for four cassettes. There are three in the picture, and the empty one at the back is aligned with the main line run in, but has space behind to line up with the back siding when doing shunt moves. The one at the front has the other made up freight train, a local switching move, so not needing a caboose, made up from la specialite du maison, the Atlas Plymouth “Beep”, a tankcar and a gondola, which needs a comment. It started life as an Atlas 50’ Mill gon, but the clearances are very tight when parked on the front siding with another car, and also it is too long to make up in the “main line freight”, so it’s had a rebuild. I had to take an equal number of sections out, so it ended up as a 38 footer.

 

The other cassette leaves room for the spare motive power, the steam 2-6-0 still requiring finishing, as well as spare cars if anything occurs.

The required fleet to work the line is then three diesels, one passenger car, two home boxcars and a reefer, a home caboose and gondola, a foreign boxcar and a p.o. tankcar. Operation just has the passenger train shuttling back and forth, turning on the cassettes, and either freight appearing and picking up/ setting down in one or the other siding, depending on direction of travel. Very simple, but it just suits me to play with for twenty minutes or so before getting on with building something.

 

(sorry, no pictures

Edited by Northroader
  • Like 4
  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Very remiss of me, but its the first time I've had a proper look in this thread ........ full of your trademark originality and craftsmanship!

 

The safety barrier? Live dangerously; get rid of it and depend upon your cat-like reflexes in the event of an incident.

 

Or, if you aren't feeling feline, add a sort of horizontal safety net at the front, slightly lower down. A cheap table-tennis net, fitted horizontally, should do the job. https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/Wicked-Gizmos-Instant-Table-Tennis-Set-Portable-Indoor-Quick-Ping-Pong-Game-2/23017631388?iid=382437561009

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

I must be an old fuddy duddy, but there’s me thinking the world and their dog put a strip along the front of a layout to stop overshoots.

Jason, you’ve got me conjuring up a curious image, I would have thought with the Model Railroaders you must have you would have emerged from that contraption looking like a Zulu chief. Way back, I worked in a wagon shop when BR were still running brakevans, and we were substituting glass in the windows for a product called Makrolon, a tough clear plastic sheet, to beat the vandals hoying bricks. Marvellous stuff, best cut with a bandsaw on a table. Somehow one of my layouts later had it as a frontage, an N gauge Union Pacific, (CM 2/92) These days I’ve got a sheet of clear acrylic called Liteglaze, it comes from the big orange shed, and I’ve used this as fronting for the two view blockers. It isn’t as tough as Makrolon, and I don’t have the workshop bandsaw anymore, but I’ve learnt not to try cutting it with a handsaw. It’s best to deeply score it, then try to snap down the score, but you can bet on it cracking away from the score. So, thanks for your kindness in offering some, I’m not wishing to sound sniffy, but you can get trouble cutting Perspex, and if I had it I’d be scratching my head as to how best mount it and try to keep a clean neat appearance. At present the ply is just glued on, and does cover over the baseboard edge and rough sawn 2x1 underneath.

Kevin, thanks for your kind comments, but I dunno about a table tennis net, it would give it even more of a Heath Robinson appearance than now. I never had good hand to eye coordination anyway, lost in admiration for the tennis yesterday afternoon.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

I just thought I’d feature the passenger coach, now it completed. It’s made from an old Walthers kit which I picked up second hand, complete set of parts except the bodysides were missing. These are a metal sheet with the windows punched out and the rivets embossed. It was an 80’ heavyweight 12-1 Pullman car. The roof and floor are machined sections of a nice straight grained softwood (is this what they call basswood?) and the domed ends of the monitor/ clerestory are shaped as well. These two parts are joined at the ends by cast metal car ends, having lugs extending inside to locate the two wood strips. I’m a bit belt and braces, and fit small wood blocks inside close to each end for extra support. The car was also shortened to be a 60 footer, which helped it fit on a cassette with a loco, and reduced the throwover on the reverse curve through the depot. The bogies are nice bronze castings with metal wheelsets, and these went underneath with as many of the small bits for detail as I could squeeze in. That really just left the sides. The CNR had a programme in the early 50s of converting old Pullman cars into combination cars for branch line service. Generally termed colonist cars, they had handled immigrant traffic in the past. You could pick out the conversions as they still kept a vestibule entrance at each end, which baggage cars never had. Generally they had steel panelled sides with loads of rivets, but I came across an old Canadian Northern car which had the rebuild, and this appeared to have the older wooden matchboard sides. I say appeared, as I gather some cars were produced for a time which had steel panels grooved to look like traditional matchboard.This saved me worrying about all those rivets, so I made the sides out of thin ply with an overlay of Evergreen vee groove plastic sheet. The kadee couplers were mounted on brass strip pivoted from the bogie centre rather than on the car ends.

Edited by Northroader
  • Like 4
  • Craftsmanship/clever 6
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • RMweb Premium

One job which needed doing, to finish the line off, was the supply company warehouse at the back of the line. This is just a basic “flat”, and I haven’t tried one of these before, so here’s a closer look at it. The basic outline was sketched out on some cartridge paper, then squared up and straight lined. It was then glued on to a piece of eighth inch ply, which was cut to shape round the outline. It took two goes before I thought the building was in proportion to the rest of the surroundings, the first time I made it too small. The edge of the ply was surformed  off to a feather edge at the back. Another strip of ply was added along the bottom at the front, to suggest a loading platform, and a thicker piece at the back. This gave somewhere to screw in some locating dowels, these just being woodscrews with the head sawn off once in. Then it was just draw in and paint all the roofs, walls, doors and windows, using the same pva paint and pen outlining as the backscene, pulling it together visually. The chimney and stovepipe would have been a fiddle to cut round, so I drew these on paper stuck on top of the rest, then reinforced with some card support behind.

 

Edited by Northroader
  • Like 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
  • RMweb Premium

After a long, very patient wait, the passengers at Englefield greet the incoming train, crawling to a stand. They climb on and quickly find seats, but it takes a bit longer to sort the express traffic laying round the baggage section. Then “Boarrdd” from the conductor, and off it goes down the line.5AF7F6A3-AE49-49DF-A8CB-33C07F898BC4.jpeg.8959ffe18d8f0cd8b8f4e2fb1b53bc8c.jpegD5A96DDB-7138-427D-8CF5-25822AE22319.jpeg.419659d5bc52e3c5db2a5516f0f2685e.jpeg

  • Like 6
  • Craftsmanship/clever 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Gold
On 14/07/2019 at 22:30, Northroader said:

The bad news is the freight that’s parked on the other cassette. A mainline diesel, with one freight car and a caboose. “Just ONE freight car? you cannot be serious!” That’s all a 36” cassette will give, I’m afraid, so I might be tipping from a workaday old branch line to a sort of museum line with a collection of representative stock.

 

If you close one eye, you can't see the end of the train. Problem solved.

 

On a more serious note: One car and a caboose may be unrealistic, but that's not what I pick up when looking at your photos. What registers in my mind is the general scence, the sense of place and the type and weathering of the stock. 

 

I believe tests show that humans don't actually register details when we scan a new scene or setting. We pick up the key signals/items that our brain needs to know in order to assess what is in front of us, and to 'match' that with previous experience.  

  • Thanks 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Mikkel's absolutely right.  Viewers will be saying "Hey, I could try that...."  Or should I try and find the vid I saw the other day of 2 Delaware-Lackawanna C424s taking one covered hopper to a customer.  Just take the caboose off and use another loco!?!

Jason

  • Like 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • RMweb Premium

Thanks for your views, Mikkel and Jason. Two locos would pop the controller whether or no. Probably I’m trying to be too clever in trying to get an O line in an HO space. What is striking me in looking at those last two pictures posted is that there are some shady corners which don’t help, I really must sort out some better lighting arrangement.

  • Friendly/supportive 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

On 28/08/2019 at 05:16, Mikkel said:

On a more serious note: One car and a caboose may be unrealistic,

Not necessarily. In the book "1993 Soo Line Yearbook" that I have, there's a photo of a SOO GP38-2, with one Milwaukee boxcar, & a SOO caboose, out on the main line. Can't recall the date offhand but it was late '80s or early '90s.

Rare - maybe. Unrealistic? Nah. :no: ;)

  • Like 3
Link to post
Share on other sites

Lighting: I've acquired a reel of LED(?) continuous lighting to have a play with.  One of the reasons for splashing out was the original idea man pointing out that we could have 2 reels - one daylight and one night-time.  Sounded like fun!

Jason

  • Informative/Useful 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Eeeee, can't just go to bed without popping out to the garage to find the box...!  Ooops, disturbed the hedgehog there.  Anyway, this Amazon one is nearly identical to the one I got and there's technical info here.  The only reference to my ANIKA product - Neon Flex LED Rope Light 5metre with mains plug/use inside or outdoors, use mains plug indoors only - was on a CashConverters site so not much detail except their price, about £16, I paid about £20 for it new.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Global-Gizmos-Metre-Decorative-Light/dp/B072QH7G2V?th=1

Suppose I could plug it in next time I'm out there.

Jason

  • Thanks 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

I’ve got a 1.5m fully controllable RGB one stashed away, bought for a domestic lighting project that got vetoed. I fancy trying “various times of the day and seasons of the year” atmospheres on a small layout, but that requires a scenic small layout, probably with fascia etc, and I don’t have one of them ..........

 

 

 

 

Link to post
Share on other sites

Nearholmer's mention of RGB light rope reminds me of a school-friend (yes youngsters, it is easier remembering old stuff as you get older!) going on holiday in Eire and sending me 3 postcards, identical apart from their overall colour: yellow, red and dark blue.  In small print on the writing side were words like 'Ballynice in the day, Ballynice at sunset and Ballynice at ni... well you can guess the rest can't you!

Jason

  • Like 1
  • Funny 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
  • RMweb Premium
Quote

 

There’s a thread which appeared on the web addressed to Jack Trollope (shortliner) a while back, which was sparked by one of his bright ideas. He was always full of good schemes, and I’m sure everyone misses them since his untimely death earlier on this year. In this case he’d shortened a Budd RDC, and we were coming up with ideas for “shorties”, something that seems to be practised on American train models occasionally for light relief, but not something that has crossed the Atlantic (fortunately?)

My contribution was the “Beep” which has appeared as well on this thread. An American firm RMT produces shorty  outline items which are O scale running to coarse standards, that’s Lionel type third rail, which is more extreme than British coarse, and not very pretty to look at. The beep is an abbreviated GP7 outline, and faintly believable to look at. The chassis is four wheeled, not credible at all, and third rail etc. to boot, so I used an Atlas sixwheeler finescale chassis off their Plymouth diesel model. This is an industrial switcher, and I prefer the Beep body shell for more of a main line look. The Atlas unit can be found quite cheaply, and it’s a good runner and quite durable, and it turns out to be a most useful unit  when I do any running.

To go with the Beep I had a shorty wooden outline boxcar, a leftover from an experiment when I tried minimum radius (13”) 0 gauge. Now prepare to be totally scandalised, another shorty boxcar has been finished , an Intermountain steel outline job (cut and shut). Both these cars are 27 footers, a size which was around in  the 19th century for a time.

292DD975-F790-4AF1-8D57-024B0F1155B8.jpeg.40220c8ade1140e2b065dcf296fcdfd0.jpeg

 In other news, I looking at slimming the layout down a small amount. The move from having a terminus to a “through run” depot works very well, the fact is that I’m a builder more than an operator, and a simple layout of this nature is really all I want. Looking at the recent pictures of the line, I think that it is overcrowded for the small space it has, and I’m trying to give it a more open look.

Edited by Northroader
  • Like 4
  • Friendly/supportive 1
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...