jasond

Mal, thanks for the numbers, does that include UK VAT? Jason

Sorry to be so boring, but how much did UPS charge, plus any other import costs ... VAT, etc. To save you embarrasment I looked up the price at Trainworld $190 less a cent. Great buy , nice loco, I always look forward to Atlas getting going better in O. Jason

Hi Dan Jordan's news of the Canons made me investigate, so I got some. Now you can investigate them properly for me, I think I've got your address still. My days as a greedy importer are largely over(!), so if it works for you and you can let us know how you did it, my cost was about £15 plus how much the Post Office stamp says ... OK? Pay when happy. Well OK, more happy than usual! Jason

C'mon Dan, it started life as a GP59, you must have a GP38 shell you can start on?!? Or is that nose a bit shorter ... camera angle? Yes John, the decal on the the cab says GP34ECO, so when you've carved up a Weaver GP38-2, remember in O we'll be able to read it! Someone tell me to concentrate on the D&H and stop staring at GP38-3s and even newer stuff! Jason

Take my hat off to them for trying. I'm partway (as usual) thru' an Erie-Lackawanna 50ft boxcar as acquired by the D&H on Conrail day. Yes, fade/grime the car down a bit and boxcar red over the old roadname, fresh panel for the reporting marks ... oh, that boxcar red - nearly the same as the E-L's. So much history in just mismatched paint! I remember standing on Mannheim commuter stn at the southeast end of CP's Bensenville Yard with a grain train slowly coming thru'. Deep grimed, cylindrical grain hoppers recently painted rectangle with reporting marks ending in X, with birds on the roof pecking furiously, and I suddenly realised that under the grime ... that one's an ex-CN like the MTH one ... and that one's ... well you get the picture. Weathering!! Jason

You lucky HOers, what do you reckon F-UnitMad, would Lionel, MTH, even Atlas ever do this in O? Jason

Here's a GP38-2, no ...THE GP38-2 #3124. It's got a small inspection window under the right-hand end of the long grill. That long grill is under the two rooftop fan assemblies mounted close to each other. The CP versions have a winterisation hatch mounted over one of the fans: http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3668828 Here's the nearest thing to a GP38 that CP had, a GP38AC an earlier model than the -2. No inspection window, roof fans are visibly further apart than the -2, with two smaller grills below them: http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3306766 Following the D&H and Lehigh Valley forced all that on me and when everyone stops saying you've forgotten the ..., some smart*** asks if the D&H and Santa Fe GP39-2 were the same? Great hobby!! Jason

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

Have you had the time to fit one of your Canon motors yet?

Of course a roundy-roundy, you never get to see the 'other' side. Just like the Moon and -for now - Pluto. Prototype for everything!! Now be careful John. As you get older and, if you're like me, the fingers get stiffer and bulkier (I'll have to give up trying to learn the guitar again and stick to playing the drums) indulging your hidden desire for O-scale will be the only way to get that tingle Jason

D&H RS-3 John? Don't you remember my similar gaffe back in October 2014?!? Portway Terminal RR please!! Had to check Jordan hadn't already reminded us, but he must still be getting Chinchilla hairs out of the sand....

The July/August edition is out now. Yes it's free. No it doesn't cost anything. No, you don't get a bill later. Just press the link: http://oscale.uberflip.com/i/1264058-july-august-2020 Jason

Buckeyes replaced the dangerous link and pin. If link and pin was adopted because it was cheap and simple, I suppose buffers would have been seen as an unnecessary cost and complication. https://trn.trains.com/railroads/abcs-of-railroading/2006/05/couplers Jason

It's always a relief, or maybe a regret when I post something based on dusty stuff at the back of my memory and no-one has a laugh and sets me straight! Stourbridge Lion was the first English built steam loco in the USA, but was too heavy for the wood with iron straps on top rails then in use on the D and H Canal Co system. By the time the company decided to sell it, American builders had started making the regular design we know, not the vertical cylinder type originally made. It was treated as useful scrap and the boiler made it to the Smithsonian in Washington and eventually to the B&O museum in Baltimore, where it was used in an event organised by the B&O to celebrate a 100 years of railroads. I saw this reincarnation there some time before the museum suffered bad damage in a storm and now the museum's inventory doesn't appear to include it. The Wayne County museum, close to the original D&H rail line, has a replica on display. Is this the ex-B&O Museum exhibit, relocated because the B&O Museum focussed on ... yes, you guessed ... the B&O after the museum repairs? Or is it the replica built by the D&H for its 150th birthday train that toured the system in 1973, complete with a fine selection of HO models of its steam locos, prototypes hardly ever produced for modellers (a 4-8-4 and a 4-6-6-4). It's on the second car, behind those BEE-YOO-TEE-FUL PAs! http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2172111 Sorry, must stop rambling, got a Kadee to respring before lunch! Jason

Stourbridge Lion - well the replica with as many original bits as they could find is at: http://www.waynehistorypa.org/page/s-lion And from that beginning the Delaware and Hudson Railroad grew and was so captivating I couldn't help but model it! Jason

I wonder how many conversations Mike Wolf had about selling the company whole - brand name, different scales covering different prototypes, different ranges covering different markets. Anyway, if he's sold the building, told us there'll be closing down sales activities and got some of his guys interested in maintaining DCS, a potentially dead-end system, he's clearly got everything he needs for a comfortable retirement already. Maybe it'll give Atlas the prod we need them to get for their O-scale to expand. Jason

C'mon Mal what was the 'spelling mistake' you edited (4th post above)? You didn't by any chance say ... SOLDERING ON instead of 'soldiering on'? Now there is no escape!! Jason

I racked my brain for examples of American diesel ugliness all the way thru' my Weetabix this morning and, of course, obviously, surely the best example, no arguments, why didn't we all chant it together last Thursday at 8pm is that GE ( yes American-built diesel), built at Erie, PA where breath-taking beautiful designs have regularly been churned out ... the Class 70

Over on the private Facebook group American O-Scale in the UK a 6-whl Atlas is being converted into a 4-whl. Jason

I've just replied to a plea from Jordan about DCC, so I'm ready for anything!! Anyway, I've got a couple of Weaver GP38-2s to get right and, as you've found, EMD jazzed the line up some. I believe(!) the toolmakers close to Weaver's factory went down the local Lehigh Valley yard and measured/photographed either a LV GP38AC, (late GP38s) or early -2s which had the 2 spaced out radiator fans at the end of the long hood. Later 38-2s had the close together pair. Page 141 in the MR Diesel Cyclop. shows this in the L&N and Conrail locos (top left). Happily for me, the ex-RDG 39-2s the D&H acquired at Conrail formation had spaced out fans with minor roof changes at the front of the long hood and I acquired a nice conversion from the late Chis Iverson. You're working from photos so you'll have seen the variation in radiator screens. On the real thing they could be flush or have panels over, depending on climate, etc I guess. The later 38-2s have a single panel where the Weaver shell has 2 side-by-side. As the man said 'the more I know, the more I find I don't know'!! Photos please! Jason

Sorry Jordan, I promise I will may be a DCC user soon, but I'm ready to rise to the challenge ... so I asked Google and one of his links was a name I recognised: https://sites.google.com/site/markgurries/home/dcc-problems/decoder-problems/decoder-loss-of-control It may or may not have a useful clue .. shut up now Jason. Solve it and become our resident expert ... please! Jason

Andrew, not intended to make life any more challenging(!), but if the particular GP38-2 you're modelling has the later close fans at the end of the long hood, Des Plaines Hobbies may well have some appropriate etched overlays still in stock. Jason

OK. Great thread. Now ... what do I press to get my Loksound decoders, etc out of my container 45 mins away. Aaaaarrrgggghhhhh.......................!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I haven't been a member for a while, but the NMRA British Region has a library as well as meets (you know, days when many like-minded souls get dangerously close together, rummage thru' second-hand stuff that may have been touched by other humans and have ...er, fun?). Aaaaah ... anyway, books: https://www.nmrabr.org.uk/region-library/ Any other O-scalers in it? I might rejoin. Jason

The wheels only need regauging slightly with a little bit of flange area taken off the back. From memory, they are n-s plated whitemetal, so easing the wheel off the insulated end of the axle to do the 'turning' (electric drill) should be fine. If you're going to try NWSL, it won't hurt if you try and fix the Atlas wheels first!! Jason