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warning - New Railroading Man


Kennel
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Hi railroaders,

 

I'm plunging into the world of us railroading out of the blue, as I've always loved our dear old steam days Britiish Railways but................ I'm going to model approx 1954 in 2mm with long passenger and freight trains on a resticted width shelf but giving me a 20-25m continuous run by cutting through walls and having scenic and non-scenic sections: because I can. I want to focus on Union Pacific and Santa Fe sytems and plan to model a desert section, and urban 'street running' section, a Pacific Fruit icehouse depot and one through station. I'm going to go for DCC and full sound. Phew!

I've decided to use Kato unitrack, though I'll almost certainly ballast cosmetically. I'm a slow modeller, so don't expect rapid progress. Your comments and encouragement (along with dire warnings) will be most welcome

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2mm/foot is 1/152 and N is 160, seemingly not that much of a difference, but a 90 ft car in 1/152 is 180 mm and a 90 ft car in 1/160 is 171 mm, a roughly 4 scale ft difference.

 

Odd mixes of metric and imperial scale and gauge seems to be a particularly UK kind of thing (7 mm, 2 mm, OO).  Interesting.

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23 minutes ago, roundhouse said:

Luckily Japanese N scale vehicles are close enough for British N scale

...and also right-hand drive too. ;)

 I started my US outline modelling in N; due to the size of locos & rolling stock it seems a bit more reliable than UK & EU stuff, especially as freight stock is all on trucks, rather than small 4-wheel wagons. Of course reliability is why the real US stuff is on trucks, too!!

Only thing I'd say is to go with Micro Scale couplers from the outset, rather than the old standard N 'claw'. I've not looked at N much recently but I'd imagine most if not all recent US N models have MS couplers as standard these days?

 

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9 mm (N GAUGE) scales out to 56.7" in 1/160.  

9 mm gauge scales out to 52.4" in 1/148

9 mm gauge scales out to 53.1" in 1/150

 

Since standard gauge is 56.5", is there a particular reason why the choice of various scales and odd gauges?  I understand that 7mm was an attempt to get closer to scale gauge with 1.25" gauge track and wheels, but why the odd scales when 9mm at 1/160 is very close to scale right from the start?

 

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Back on topic.  The UP and ATSF touched each other at Kansas City and Los Angeles and pretty much no place else.  Street running is possible in either place, but desert is only around LA.  Kansas City would be grain fields outside the city.  LA itself is very flat, Kansas City is very hilly.  LA is lower, more widely spread out buildings.  KC is a lot of old multistory brick buildings.  LA has relatively few bridges and a low to medium number of crossings between railroads (UP, SP, ATSF).  KC has LOTS of bridges and LOTS of railroads going every which way (every railroad in the midwest, UP, ATSF, CRIP, MP, MKT, MILW, WAB, CNW, CGW, KCT, etc).

 

If you want UP, ATSF and desert, go with southern California.  If you want UP, ATSF and the ability to include more stuff and have more vertical scenery, go with Kansas City.

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2 hours ago, dave1905 said:

9 mm (N GAUGE) scales out to 56.7" in 1/160.  

9 mm gauge scales out to 52.4" in 1/148

9 mm gauge scales out to 53.1" in 1/150

 

Since standard gauge is 56.5", is there a particular reason why the choice of various scales and odd gauges?  I understand that 7mm was an attempt to get closer to scale gauge with 1.25" gauge track and wheels, but why the odd scales when 9mm at 1/160 is very close to scale right from the start?

 

For the same reason 'OO' - 4mm scale models on 3.5mm scale track - developed in Britain; to allow contemporary motors to fit in small loading-gauge models. So British N boosted the scale to 1/148, but kept the 1/160 track gauge.

 

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57 minutes ago, F-UnitMad said:

For the same reason 'OO' - 4mm scale models on 3.5mm scale track - developed in Britain; to allow contemporary motors to fit in small loading-gauge models.

No. Not quite.

Not the motors, but the mechanisms, which is what we now call the “chassis”.

Take the usual steam-roller wheels which accompanied early model railways, and add on outside cylinders/motion, which have to moved further out, and you have exceeded the loading gauge. Increase the scale so that the maximum width over the mechanism matches that allowed by the loading gauge, and you have 00, British N gauge, etc.

 

0 gauge is different. Originally, toy train track gauges were measured to the centres of the rails. With 1.25” gauge and rail made of 1/16” wide by ⅛” deep metal strip, the properly measured track gauge works out to be 4’9” - pretty good. Unfortunately, when the gauge was measured more properly, they didn’t change it to 1.3/16”, hence “0W5”.

And then the mechanism issues arises again...

 

The UK originally talked about moving to a version of the metric system in the late 19th Century, until Prussian belligerence made it an unpopular idea. But the idea that somehow millimetres was more scientific/technical came together haunt the British model railway hobby. The fact that 4mm:foot makes for easy arithmetic pushed things that way...

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dear friends - well I did introduce myself with a warning!

 

To clarify then. as I'm going Kato-US-based I guess I'm 1:150 (?)

Thanks Dave 1905 for those great tips. What do folks think of non-specific locations then?

If I'm honest, I think I'd like to invoke the spirit of the post war era < late 1950's rather than be the Prisoner of Reality. Realistic modelling, but it looks like I'll starting be 'somewhere in Southern California' and then via a 'portal' into Kansas City.

 

Onwards and upwards

 

Ken L

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19 hours ago, Kennel said:

If I'm honest, I think I'd like to invoke the spirit of the post war era < late 1950's rather than be the Prisoner of Reality.

 

Cool, and now you have some suggestions of where to look for inspirations for scenes.

 

If you want passenger trains, Los Angles Union Passenger Terminal was served by both the UP and ATSF.

 

You won't want to model everything that happened at LAUPT.

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So Ken, complete circuit rather than end-to-end(?).  Hidden thru' sidings for varying all those long frt and psgr moves.  50s ... hmmm,  changing diesel sets or adding units for the hidden climb coming?  DCC consists as well as great sound.  Tail-end of steam ... small loco yard with one or two switchers to service that, no ... those industries?  Hang on ... Santa Fe on one circuit 'paralleling' UP on the circuit 4" higher?  Well this is N-scale, OK calm down Jason, yes but folded figure 8 then for long, long run?  Cityscape to desert to greener California?  Shortline/branch connection (short passing sidings) in one of the quiet spaces for switching, psgr due thru' in 10 mins, clear that main and line it up right.  Thank goodness I'm doing O-scale with relatively short trains!  Oh, don't forget the car card system for switching and delivering freights!  Lucky devil, I've got to cut a hole in the garage wall!

Jason

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On 24/07/2020 at 06:55, dave1905 said:

 

Cool, and now you have some suggestions of where to look for inspirations for scenes.

 

If you want passenger trains, Los Angles Union Passenger Terminal was served by both the UP and ATSF.

 

You won't want to model everything that happened at LAUPT.

spacer.png

For LAUPT  Southern Pacific was the major railroad. SP and ATSF were the big players in Southern California. 

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advancing the idea. I'm going to have an 82' running line to allow those big streamliners and long freight consists to stetch out: but it won't all be scenic. I will have perhaps 4 scenarios and the first is an 84" x 14" board representing the industrial parts of a south western city. Sould be ready to post some pictures of construction soon. Getting acquainted with DCC bus wiring.

 

"nothing could be finer - dinner on a diner............."

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  • 3 months later...

Model Railroad space plan.xlsx

 

bad at this social media - but I have been busy. This is what I'm building. I've decided I want a combination of long trains passing through and a secondary feeder line. So the long trains will circulate and have access to a staging yard, while the three main scenic areas will give local operational interest and generate more varied short trains.

I'm still focussed on some desert scenery, but what industries/towns to put in the scenis areas?

All suggestions welcome - the available dimensions are in the attached Excel doc.Model Railroad space plan.xlsx

High level run.jpg

Scenic Area 4.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

after a loooong gap - this is the other side of the room, where I am looking th have a two-level 'dog'bone' plus the opportunity to have a round and round run. What I do need to add a staging area somewhere as I'd like to store a minimum of four long trains to circulate while a yard or depot area is operated seaparately

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