Jump to content
 

The telephoto lens may make it look worse than it is


shortliner

Recommended Posts

Anyone else think the phrase "chewed string" fits the bill?

 

"Out here son this railroad don't work on no shoe string budget, no siree, we're more classy and use only the finest dawg chewed string fer our budget!"

 

 

EDIT:

- Check out 1:46 onwards, I don't think the lens is distorting anything out there...
Link to post
Share on other sites

Great shots!

Don't confuse shortlines with the mainlines over here which are as good as anything in Europe. When you see a mainline freight hauled by 4 or more locos at 1.4 miles long doing 70mph it really is awesome.....

 

Best, Pete.

Link to post
Share on other sites

That Carolina Shortlines You-Tube clip is a famous one. :)

 

Not quite as bad as the track linked to in the OP, but I've been trying to lay some "Dark Side Style" track on my latest layout... B)

 

f8ebbc29.jpg

 

It's a bit hard to photograph, though. :(

 

Dear Jordan,

 

Yep, it can work real well in O scale... ;)

 

Handlaid_turnout_08.jpg

 

 

Industrial_spur_Trackage.jpg

 

...and O scale also has the mass to get the train dynamics looking right when operating over such kinks/bumps...

 

Happy Modelling,

Aim to Improve,

Prof Klyzlr

Link to post
Share on other sites

Yet apprentice still you are, Mmmm!

 

 

Dear Heruss,

 

Not totally sure who the "master" of whom Jordan speaks is,

 

however am very much convinced and assured that Jordan is easily achieving the results he is looking for,

(and knows that he can always ask if he feels he needs support),

 

no "status" assignment required, needed, or observed amongst modelling friends...

("Fun" spans all modellers ;) )

 

Happy Modelling,

Aim to Improve,

Prof Klyzlr

 

jack of many scales/gauges/outlines, master of none...

Link to post
Share on other sites

Jim Mansfield wrote an interesting piece in RMC in May 1981 looking at various kinds of track defects and what did and did not work when reproduced in miniature. I seem to recall one of his defects was a poorly supported rail joint that would give way under the weight of a car, it involved a strategically placed piece of stripwood to act as a guard rail.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Jim Mansfield wrote an interesting piece in RMC in May 1981 looking at various kinds of track defects and what did and did not work when reproduced in miniature. I seem to recall one of his defects was a poorly supported rail joint that would give way under the weight of a car, it involved a strategically placed piece of stripwood to act as a guard rail.

That has to be "Kinked Trackwork", pg 61 of the aforementioned RMC issue (which I'm afraid I have never read). I have read other articles over the years, which inidcates you can remove every third tie and respace the remainder (to mimic the lesser number of ties per length along lighter use industrial sidings) and adding shim of thin styrene strip under alternating rail lengths to mimic the wobble of freight cars of poorly maintained track (the author reported that if your freight cars are under weighed the motion looks rather wimpy), but deliberately introducing side-to-side kinks in scale track in HO/OO, let alone N, seems to be fraught w/ potential for derailments down the road.

 

BTW, the Model Railroad Magazine index is back up, but I am afraid it only covers North American magazines - still, it's kind of neat to scan thru the magazines of years past and see what topics were then current and popular...

Link to post
Share on other sites

Kinked Trackwork is indeed the article by Jim Mansfield. In the article he examined combinations of joints where the rails are not in exact alignment. The one he found would not work was where both rails are kinked inwards, leading to the gauge falling below minimum. He also found that with sprung trucks you could have vertical displacements of up to 10 thou. Other techniques involved pivoting rails and using strategically-placed pieces of wood or piles of spilled material glued hard to form a sort of guard rail.

The article assumed the use of NMRA standards, more recent developments towards finer standards may mean that some of what Jim Mansfield suggests isn't feasible.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Here's a video of a NG steam engine in China going over similar track. It looks ungodly bad, but as he zooms out, it starts looking better and better. But, the wobble of the engine (especially at the grade crossing) is all the evidence I need that the track is really that bad...

 

http://www.flickr.co...in/photostream/

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...