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Deliberately Old-Fashioned 0 Scale - Chapter 1


Nearholmer
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9 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Somehow I’d expected that garden fences in Oklahoma would comprise a single strand of barbed wire, possibly with endless cereal prairies just beyond...

My city is in what’s known as the Ozark foothills, a fairly heavily forested area at the base of the ancient and once grand Ozark Mountains. However about 30 miles west of here it does become barbed wire and, well, yes, endless cereal prairies. It actually looks more like South Africa than the USA in some areas. Most of those prairies aren’t actually in the USA, they are the property of the Osage Nation and Cherokee Nation, tribes moved here during the Trail of Tears. 

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38 minutes ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

My city is in what’s known as the Ozark foothills, a fairly heavily forested area at the base of the ancient and once grand Ozark Mountains. However about 30 miles west of here it does become barbed wire and, well, yes, endless cereal prairies. It actually looks more like South Africa than the USA in some areas. Most of those prairies aren’t actually in the USA, they are the property of the Osage Nation and Cherokee Nation, tribes moved here during the Trail of Tears. 

 

I briefly worked in Oklahoma, during the short-lived drilling boom of the mid-80s when the North Sea was past its peak and the North Sea Tigers were beginning their diaspora, or just giving up to do something a bit more sensible. It was.... different. I can promise you that it is in the USA, though... 

 

26ED6BED-D59D-4654-BF9A-3FD1B9FA8986.jpeg.7ac288bc03e3b247cd30a3ebac5bfbd5.jpeg

 

I would remark that it was my introduction to the terms “road trip” and “college football”. Anyone who remembers what going to an away match in U.K. was like at that time, that ALSO was different..

 

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Oh dear!

 

Perhaps too great a leap from 2mm finescale. That said, I can understand the lack of enjoyment without a layout, and currently without the ability to participate in church-hall gatherings. Quite a few people enjoy coarse-0 trains effectively as ornaments, but they really need to be let loose to romp round a circuit, and playing trains like that is best as a social thing.

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1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

they really need to be let loose to romp round a circuit,

Indeed. Usually old 3-rail trains aren't really my thing - this thread excepted, which I do enjoy - but at exhibitions I often watch the 'old tinplate' layout more than some of the scale stuff, as it's full of action, naturally sounds incredible, and isn't desperately trying hard to look realistic. :)

 

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6 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

Ah, well the old fashioned experiment has come to an end - thank you all for the fun and comraderie on the way, but I am just not getting the enjoyment out of stock that I was hoping!

I have a small amount of probably useless advice for you.  Go out and buy from wherever the cheapest oval of tinplate friendly track you can find, set it up somewhere where the engines won't get full of fluff, and run some trains. It normally works for me when i'm loosing enthusiasm. Unless of course you already have a oval, in which case, err, well...

 

Douglas

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Personally I feel the lack of a sensible compromise. I prefer two rail and I dont believe such big flanges are necessary but on the other hand want Curves that fit into sensible sized rooms,.  trains that are moderatly robust ( I hate detail that is too fragile) so you can get on with the proper business of running trains.

   Unfortunately my advice to William is not on at the moment. Ideallly a visit to a friendly show where people will let you come round the back and have a go will halp you find what fires your mojo. Operating Maristow fires me up. Working signals operated with the turnouts from a proper lever frame is a big part of it. However I want a longer run so an oval with a terminus and fiddleyard is about right.  With a 140inchx 108inch room that is a bit of a squeeze but short engines and coaches (VictorianEdwardian)  I hope it will work. 

Don

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I have been trying to avoid looking on ebay for old fashioned O gauge, however couldn't resist bidding on this 'Open wagon B' which emerged from the Hornby factory in the early 1930s.

Costing £1.99 plus post it came with 1 repaired spoked wheelset and is now fitted with tinplate wheels.

Really must build somewhere to run all these models, and unlike my Heljan and Dapol models they don't arrive with bits loose in the box, or fall off in use!

 

 

20201018_141948-1~2.jpg

20201018_142011-1~2.jpg

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3 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

I have a small amount of probably useless advice for you.  Go out and buy from wherever the cheapest oval of tinplate friendly track you can find, set it up somewhere where the engines won't get full of fluff, and run some trains. It normally works for me when i'm loosing enthusiasm. Unless of course you already have a oval, in which case, err, well...

 

Douglas

I did that, but took up the DCCentral RR* after a couple of years as the Atlas O-72 track was being accidentally kicked apart too often. The photo is of an earlier version using Lionel O-48 Fastrack:

 

IMG_2617.JPG.2d03401065722189d12d8d0de6a8b3d7.JPG

At some point in time I switched around/changed out some cars so the the motor actually was touching the cabin car. Another version of the trin used a Chicago EL car as the power.

 

And sometimes I decided just to be ridiculous:

IMG_20170903_221434.jpg.d881d4e6b915a026d17f600a9f183a41.jpg

 

So lay down some track and have some fun!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*DCCentral RR = Dirty Carpet Central RR :o

 

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34 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

I did that, but took up the DCCentral RR* after a couple of years as the Atlas O-72 track was being accidentally kicked apart too often. The photo is of an earlier version using Lionel O-48 Fastrack:

 

IMG_2617.JPG.2d03401065722189d12d8d0de6a8b3d7.JPG

At some point in time I switched around/changed out some cars so the the motor actually was touching the cabin car. Another version of the trin used a Chicago EL car as the power.

 

And sometimes I decided just to be ridiculous:

IMG_20170903_221434.jpg.d881d4e6b915a026d17f600a9f183a41.jpg

 

So lay down some track and have some fun!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*DCCentral RR = Dirty Carpet Central RR :o

 

I didn’t know any models were ever made of that 4-2-4, wasn’t it stored in Penn station for most of its life?

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13 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Quite a few people enjoy coarse-0 trains effectively as ornaments, but they really need to be let loose to romp round a circuit, and playing trains like that is best as a social thing.

 

While I agree about the social angle, unfortunately at the moment this is not an option. Running coarse-0 trains can be done in a surprisingly small area. The larger Hornby train sets came with an oval of track that required a space 75" x 54", which just happens to be the size of a traditional British double bed. I have been running Hornby clockwork for several years on an oval of Merkur all insulated track sitting on a double bed frame using insulating foam as a base with great success. The track also lets me run 2 or 3-rail, the only limitation being the 2' curves. It isn't always pretty, but it is fun.

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Works for other types of trains too (the videos were too large to upload, but this was a "one-day" layout from earlier this year, as I am 'between layouts' at present);

 

A1C4E28B-0C71-4699-B169-C0B1535F0E76.jpeg.87bdb826911a7887a4e88a09a2c9e0eb.jpeg
 

Ran flawlessly all day, giving the motors a good run - no indoor live steam (!).

 

If I may be serious for a moment, and speaking generally, the current situation can of course dampen spirits in a big way, lessening the enjoyment we might otherwise get from things (such as trains) without us necessarily realising.  Just a thought, Keith.

Edited by Keith Addenbrooke
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One thing that is worth adding to my comments about my bed mounted oval is that is it permanently available, and so gets a lot more use than it otherwise might. I also have track that I can lay down temporarily on the carpet or on boards in the loft, but that gets a lot less use. Ideally we would all have a ball room where the butler could lay the track out for us and leave it there until the social season took precedence, but sadly few, if any of us, are in that lucky position.

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We all find what works best for us individually, I guess.

 

Don - could we have a sketch of the room you have available, door position, other constraints etc., so that we can all let-loose our inner CJF on your behalf? A thought that strikes me about your wants is that they might be served by special orders from ETS via WJV, to obtain locos with fine-scale wheel-sets, rigged for 2R ...... such things can certainly be obtained.

 

I think "the market" dictates deep-ish flanges on "Modern Tinplate" for the British customer because of the widespread desire, de-facto standard indeed, to be able to run dependably on slightly battered, loose-lay tinplate track, with 24" radius corners. Personally, I'm content with what is provided, because it isn't significantly different from 1950s Bassett-Lowke, although my layout will happily accept finer coarse things (Leeds, G0G Coarse etc.), as well as some coarser coarse things (Hornby plastic wheels etc.).

 

Another personal perspective is that I am really missing the social side of this niche of the hobby. Many people on RMWeb seem to have capitalised on various degrees of lockdown to build lots of models, but my disposition doesn't seem to work that way. I get far more mental and physical tonic from solitary cycling than solitary railway modelling, so I prioritise pedaling when weather, work and domestic commitments permit. I've come to realise that its the social toy train playing that spurs me to get on with making/finishing things and that without it I'm apt to drift.

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24” radius! Luxury!.... I’ve just been reading a thread on OGR about a “railway room” 39’ x 12’6” , only in America.....

 

I definitely agree about the social side, I’ve been missing the Monday nights at Obthorpe where extended discussions of life on the “big railway” are a prominent feature. Same for NAROGG although I only actually managed two sessions, and ran at one of them. 

 

Regarding carpet running, I’d definitely recommend Lionel Fastrack or similar. The moulded base is much better at keeping the fluff (and stray tinsel from the tree) out of the loco gears and axles, and the wider, more robust construction is more stable. I’ve presently got a loop about 8’ x 4’ on the study floor, I’m experimenting with various combinations of O31 to O72 transition curves (O72-O48-O48-O36-O48-O72 works well, I find, although less well in the opposite direction... O54 to O48 to O54 works well with tubular track, or O42-O31-O42)

 

It’s quite relaxing to just set a train running for a while in the evening, or when I’ve been working. The simpler, Post-War style trains are particularly good for this, clattering round with occasional whistle blasts. 

 

 

Edited by rockershovel
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On 18/10/2020 at 22:08, Florence Locomotive Works said:

I didn’t know any models were ever made of that 4-2-4, wasn’t it stored in Penn station for most of its life?

That 4-2-4 is (somewhat closely) a model of the Southern Pacific's C. P. Huntington and is scratchbuilt to 17/64 scale. Note that it never got closer to Penn Station than Chicago a couple of times; and that by means of being loaded on a flatcar.

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14 hours ago, rockershovel said:

24” radius! Luxury!.... I’ve just been reading a thread on OGR about a “railway room” 39’ x 12’6” , only in America.....

 ...snip...

Regarding carpet running, I’d definitely recommend Lionel Fastrack or similar. The moulded base is much better at keeping the fluff (and stray tinsel from the tree) out of the loco gears and axles, and the wider, more robust construction is more stable. I’ve presently got a loop about 8’ x 4’ on the study floor, I’m experimenting with various combinations of O31 to O72 transition curves (O72-O48-O48-O36-O48-O72 works well, I find, although less well in the opposite direction... O54 to O48 to O54 works well with tubular track, or O42-O31-O42)

 

It’s quite relaxing to just set a train running for a while in the evening, or when I’ve been working. The simpler, Post-War style trains are particularly good for this, clattering round with occasional whistle blasts. 

 

 

PRRMP54 on OGR. Which thread is that 39’ x 12’6” in ? I may have missed it.

 

I had a loop of O-48 Fastrack but pulled it up for Atlas O-72. K-Line 21" full scale length look quite strange on O-48! The box states that O-54 is the minimum but my "experiment" shows results of O-47 being the absolute minimum; Lionel O-48 Fastrack is just about O-47.5.

 

Yes, it is quite relaxing, especially just the sound of its wheels on the track.

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6 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

PRRMP54 on OGR. Which thread is that 39’ x 12’6” in ? I may have missed it.

 

I had a loop of O-48 Fastrack but pulled it up for Atlas O-72. K-Line 21" full scale length look quite strange on O-48! The box states that O-54 is the minimum but my "experiment" shows results of O-47 being the absolute minimum; Lionel O-48 Fastrack is just about O-47.5.

 

Yes, it is quite relaxing, especially just the sound of its wheels on the track.

 

Hard to find things again on OGR, but there are plenty of threads like it https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/dcs-tiu-andamp-aiu-on-large-layout  https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/multi-room-layouts-thoughts

 

 

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On 19/10/2020 at 10:22, Keith Addenbrooke said:

Works for other types of trains too (the videos were too large to upload, but this was a "one-day" layout from earlier this year, as I am 'between layouts' at present);

 

20200221_105137.jpg.b5b371365b0ea2458e6f9aaaa839cf87.jpg

 

Ran flawlessly all day, giving the motors a good run - no indoor live steam (!).

 

If I may be serious for a moment, and speaking generally, the current situation can of course dampen spirits in a big way, lessening the enjoyment we might otherwise get from things (such as trains) without us necessarily realising.  Just a thought, Keith.

 

I’ve been tinkering with a similar layout using the non-derail feature on O27 track, so that the train alternates routes in a clockwise direction. The problem proves to be that the outside loop between the two switches, needs to be longer than the train, so you need quite a lot of room...

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1 hour ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

Went a bit mad this afternoon and decided to try making my own coach. And it went half decent suprisingly, so now it just needs lining, and a bit more panel painting. Very Milbro like, with BL bogies off my mk 1s. 

 

Printed paper and card overlays are the way to go with that kind of thing.

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