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American O Scale: "Portway Terminal Short Line, MN".


F-UnitMad
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On 24/12/2020 at 14:44, melmerby said:

I was reading about F units and that popped up

Resistance is Futile *evil laugh* :spiteful:

 

As for my F-Units - cue gratuitous repeat photo...

20201223_215358.jpg.5666da0b86c7f058360e09423b2a3280.jpg

They are a bit of a concoction; the body shells are old Atlas/Roco from the early 1970s. I bought a 'modern' Atlas F3 A+B set a few years ago, and transplanted the motors and trucks into my models, & resold the F3 shells. As the F3 set were 'power & dummy' I fitted one motor & one unpowered truck in each of mine; at the time I was still using 12v DC & had a small layout called "Schiller Point", which if no one remembers, looked like this:-

000038435328.Jpeg.72ba7ff0ce1adafb43a5306e4f94c89e.Jpeg

 

However one motor per loco has proved somewhat inadequate on the Portway High Line, so one of my plans for this next year is to swap the gubbins about again, & make 502A powered & 2203A unpowered, which will also enable it to 'lash up' with other locos without the hassle of speed matching, a very dark DCC Art at which I am incredibly useless. They currently have NCE DA-SR (1amp) decoders which I will keep as they are set up for the lights, but I'll piggyback the 502A's with a bigger NCE D408. I went to town with the lights on the 502A; not only does it have a flashing roof beacon as well as lower headlight & upper Mars headlight, it has a back-up light at the rear, red 'rear' light in the lower headlight for when running backwards, and step lights under the cab doors. 

Sound might be a later option, after all who can resist the noise of an EMD 567 engine, and that Blaat!! horn??!!

 

As for the Anoraky details, 2203A is finished as it was close to withdrawal in 1980, with blanked off top headlight & masking tape around the nose door, a common trick by crews to keep out drafts!! It also has a replacement orange number box, likely off a Milwaukee Road F-Unit.

The 502A lasted until 1986 albeit in storage from 1981 for snowplow service, and was extremely unlucky to be the only one of the last four Soo F-Units not to be preserved, but my model depicts it in happier times circa late 1960s, before the top headlight was plated over & the decline set in as they were run down in the '70s.

What lets these models down is the front pilot with that massive coupler gap, and the shape of the windscreens isn't quite right, although they are notoriously difficult to get spot on, and many model Fs in many scales have failed in this area.

There is a recent Atlas F7 which is much better, but finding one in 2-rail & reasonably priced is a bit like finding hen's teeth or rocking-horse poop. It would also involve yet another repaint.

Edited by F-UnitMad
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22 hours ago, Regularity said:

That is blowing it up out of all proportion.

 

I merely passed on a comment made to me many years ago by a fully-trained electrician who happened to be an excellent modeller, when I suggested using twin and earth for the DCC buss, obviously with the earth unused.

 

That’s it. That’s all there is behind it: a word of caution in favour of safety, but it appears that in a desire to provoke a controversy and create a storm in a tea-cup, you and Melmerby have taken on the role of keyboard warriors, when Jordan is not only perfectly capable of dealing with the issue rationally, but has demonstrably done so, and by not feeding mains into the layout (I know some modellers who have their transformers mounted under the baseboard surface, and who have no problems with this as they don’t use wire intended for mains as part of the layout wiring) has reduced the potential for confusion to a minimum.

 

But, it’s like internet security, where the only 100% certain way to make your computer safe from viruses is to never connect it to a network. The only way to be 100% certain that this sort of mistake can’t happen, is to eliminate the possibility of confusion.

 

Bit like the 100% sure way to get idiots rising to the defence of someone in absolutely no need of it (because they aren’t being attacked) is to suggest that there are safer ways of doing something by completely eliminating the possibility of confusion.

 

Apologies if you only intended it to be a warning to take care  that is not how it read to me.  I personally believe that the use of mains cable should not be an issue.  For a start no one who has not the knowledge to understand the dangers should be working on any live mains cables. Any layout wiring should only connect to mains at a normal household socket and be converted to low voltage before reaching the layout. I would always recommend using a good quality PSU my preference is for a double insulated unit.  

 

Don

 

 

Apologies too as I posted this before seeing the request to go back on topic.

Edited by Donw
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1 hour ago, Donw said:

Apologies if you only intended it to be a warning to take care  that is not how it read to me. 

Humour, and a raised eyebrow, don’t always come across very well, which I should know about as I have been using bulletin boards since 1989! So apologies for appearing more forthright than intended. 
 

Anyway, no harm done and Jordan has asked us to desist, so we should.

 

Happy Christmas one and all.

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Just now, Regularity said:

Humour, and a raised eyebrow, don’t always come across very well, which I should know about as I have been using bulletin boards since 1989! So apologies for appearing more forthright than intended. 
 

Anyway, no harm done and Jordan has asked us to desist, so we should.

 

Happy Christmas one and all.

I also took it the same way as a "don't do because..." type warning and it raised my hackles somewhat.

It's cropped up on RMWeb before and probably induced the same sort of reactions then.

 

Like Don I've let it go and moved on also, hence the NS Office train clip.

Seasons greetings and I hope Santa's bag is full of (Model Railway) presents.

 

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On 11/12/2020 at 19:13, F-UnitMad said:

I'm going to have to video a high-speed run down that siding, now, aren't I..??!! :sarcastichand:  :blum:

And so today, I did, and recorded it for the Unbelievers. Crawling down rough track is for lightweights :blum:  :jester:

Behold today's Silly Season main event...

 

 

:locomotive:  :sungum:

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The Chemicals distributor buildings take shape....

20201226_210308.jpg.3c4471c3efd3a542ca569b9e4df760d3.jpg

The corrugated paper is okay, except that it has a flat backing sheet to it, so it can't really be properly overlapped like real sheets are. I've done an overlap along the horizontal layers, but felt trying to cut individual 'scale' 8' x 4' sheets and overlap them on the verticals as well was asking for trouble.

Also, on the unloading shed I fixed them to the foamboard with pva - this has caused some warping of the shell as the glue dried. I have just done the 'flat' with plasticard brick sheet for the loading dock wall and plain plasticard for the surface, and used UHU glue for those and the corrugated paper. Will see what the effect is on the foamboard shell tomorow. :scratchhead:

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Those high speed runs are brilliant, a sign of really good work on putting all the humps, dips and twists in  the track but keeping it in gauge such that you can run through it like that. 

I dont think many drivers would have the guts to go that fast on track like that.

 

Don

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14 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

I fixed them to the foamboard with pva - this has caused some warping of the shell as the glue dried

I had the same problem when using foamboard for background flats. I found that sticking a piece of paper or thin card with PVA to the rear of the foamboard section before applying cladding to the front helped to prevent this, as then (I am guessing) the PVA caused the paper covering on both sides of the foamboard to shrink equally. 

 

For the warping I encountered prior to trying this technique, I was able to remedy most of it after the fact by gently bending it flat by hand, sticking the paper on the rear and then using weights to keep things flat while the PVA dried. This could only be done on individual pieces though, not sections that had been joined together to make something more three dimensional.

 

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2021... the third decade of the 21st Century. 

I have to say that if this is the future, I'm not impressed. :nono:

 

Where are the Flying Cars, the Moon bases, the under-sea cities..?? :dontknow:  

According to The Eagle comic, Colonel Dan Dare was born the same year as me. I doubt he'd be very impressed, either.... :mosking:

 

Anyway, for something else offbeat but just very slightly more related to this thread, here's another photo of my very first model F-Unit, an old Atlas N gauge model. It's the one I repainted into Soo Line livery, but here it is as I bought it, 32 years ago, in Lehigh Valley colours (someone else's repaint!!)....

000023528704.Jpeg.f51f9f049e4237361870cb288519c76d.Jpeg

Edited by F-UnitMad
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  • 2 weeks later...

Once again nothing to do with US O Scale in general, or my layout in particular, but inspired  by my 'State of the Layouts' address recently, today I blew the dust off my small O Scale shunty-plank "Lyddlow Goods" layout, all 4ft8inch of it, including fiddle-stick....

 

msg-704-0-10806200-1531770963_thumb.jpg.26d544d3b89dd83a278abfb4be7b0bba.jpg

 

 

 

I had a relaxing hour or so of pottering about with a loco & a few wagons. After all, everyone who starts in O Scale claims that's all the stock they'll ever need. 🙄😝😁

20210109_173935.jpg.eb7b81bd95ccede1e3a74e9ba7ad0b83.jpg

 

20210109_173808.jpg.74ab6f7e5b2cdd7a6d0b8fd8614c8ee1.jpg

Edited by F-UnitMad
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Another Scattergun project started. 🙄

At least this time it is on the Portway layout. 🙂

 

I intend to have chain-link fences around the Transload Yard and the Chemicals Distributor, with working gates for rail access, to add to the operating potential & recreate an important part of real industrial branch line activity - unlocking a lot of gates! Of course in reality switches (points) are also locked with padlocks when not in use; I am still thinking how to best replicate this, if at all, especially given the locations of some of my switches.

However I digress; today is about fencing & gates. Having looked online at the price of O Scale chain-link fence kits 😱 ..and picked myself back up again, I decided that I should have a go myself.

I intend to try and obtain aluminium mesh for the fencing itself, and some 'dummy' barbed wire. For now I've made a start on the first set of gates, soldered from steel & brass rod - steel for the uprights as it's thicker and stronger than the brass I have.

First up a very simple plan drawn on some mdf. One leg of the uprights is left long for now, to go through the baseboard, inside plastic tube. A brass top hat bearing is soldered on the leg at the depth the gate will sit at. Solder is Carrs 188, and flux is the 'safety flux' from Build O Gauge Online. 

 

20210110_203202.jpg.303603a58bdae53911900782430ee87d.jpg

And in place on the layout....

 

20210110_204441.jpg.7d5349c0cdc967584f87be9741017deb.jpg

 

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Under the board I will fit some arrangement as yet not designed, to hold the gates in the closed position and held with a small padlock....

20210110_210320.jpg.708abe1065e3bc5105ef66d3cd8544ca.jpg

 

...so during operations the gates will literally have to be unlocked to be opened. 

 

...and woe betide any idiot who forgets, or who just tries to twist them open above the board!!! 😡🤬🤦‍♂️

Edited by F-UnitMad
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I am sure you will make a working padlock Jordan but how the hell will you be able to put the key back in once you have taken it out  :nono:

 

The gates look the business. I await with interest to see what you can find for the mesh I have a feeling Aluminimum will be too thick. I was looking a some strainers but they are made to be curved. I am wondering about trying a sample of this

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rodent-Mesh-1-19mm-0-4mm-Stainless/dp/B07L5N8WT5/ref=asc_df_B07L5N8WT5/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=265064983195&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15561844094

 

Don 

Edited by Donw
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I’m fairly sure I’ve seen a recent video of a layout where there is a line of padlocks attached to the outside of the layout fascia, in line with the switches but not actually connected operationally.  The operator just needs to remember to unlock / lock the padlock as part of each move - something which looked to have become a habit in the video so was no problem.

 

I suppose you could have that as an ‘if all else fails’ back-up.

 

Another approach could be to encase the operating mechanism for the gates in a small box of some sort, and the padlock opens the box to gain access to the gate control?

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You might want to consider this idea, Jordan. Trevor also used ground throws as well, with a similar arrangement of chain and padlock.

http://mrhpub.com/2014-08-aug/land/files/assets/basic-html/index.html#112

I got some switch stands via Anything Narrow Gauge, although it was a few years ago now.

1055938705_Screenshot2021-01-11at10_01_23.png.39c124f971223104ec7fdde936a44f58.png

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3 hours ago, Keith Addenbrooke said:

I'm fairly sure I’ve seen a recent video of a layout where there is a line of padlocks attached to the outside of the layout fascia, in line with the switches but not actually connected operationally

Yes sure it was linked to on a recent thread here, I know the one you mean. I'd prefer to have something that isn't just an "artificial" task, if possible. I recall one of Lance Mindheim's (may his disciples prosper) blogs, where he used some small ratchet wheels on the fascia to represent setting brake wheels on cars. I did think that was going slightly too far, unless a mechanism could be built under the board that maybe raised a post in the track under the car truck to hold it - that would be good!!

3 hours ago, Regularity said:

You might want to consider this idea, Jordan. Trevor also used ground throws as well, with a similar arrangement of chain and padlock.

http://mrhpub.com/2014-08-aug/land/files/assets/basic-html/index.html#112

I got some switch stands via Anything Narrow Gauge, although it was a few years ago now.

 

Yes I've seen that before too, and as it does actually work it's a wonderful idea. The style of switchstand suits the layout period, too.

In my case I use Caboose Industries ground throws next to each switch; fitting under-board mechanisms would be difficult now especially for one switch which sits above the support wall I discussed earlier.

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14 hours ago, Donw said:

I await with interest to see what you can find for the mesh I have a feeling Aluminimum will be too thick. I was looking a some strainers but they are made to be curved. I am wondering about trying a sample of this

Nothing ventured, nothing gained; I have ordered 3 sheets of this:- ('fine' grade)

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/556814094/aluminium-modelling-mesh-fine-medium-and?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=aluminium+mesh+fine&ref=sr_gallery-1-1&organic_search_click=1&bes=1

Although it says £1.99 per sheet, they do an option of 3 sheets for £3.89*, plus P&P, which was 90p.

Each sheet is 25 x 20cm, I will report back when it arrives.

Anyone any experience of soldering aluminium to brass? :scratchhead: :dontknow:

 

* Edit: In comparison, Ebay prices seem to be either almost a Fiver for just one sheet of similar size, or £12 - £20 for a roll 50cm wide by 3 metres long. I don't need anywhere near that much!!!

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