HO Railroading.

[puros_bran]

Nope, it's a firing for dereliction of duty.

 

[Fazby]

No written job description, no employee manual, violation of union rules... the labor attorneys will have a field day. Probably age discrimination, OSHA violations, and a hate crime or two in there as well. But we can settle for some reasonable multi-million dollar amount.

 

[puros_bran]

No management, no real property, and no revenue.. Only a politician would think there's money to be made by regulations and court proceeding. :tongue:


Ever play with N Scale? I've went so far as to look for clubs in the area. There's a N Scale club across the river in Indiana, but I think I shake too bad for that... Go to plant a tree by the home office and plant it in the intersection of 5th & Main. Lol.

There's also several HO clubs.. But they are a little further away.

I don't guess one needs to belong to a club but it's got to reduce the learning curve.

 

[Fazby]

N scale is terrific, but my eyes are not improving with age. Lots more can be done in N with the space of a small HO layout.

Do play around, whatever scale. Shelf layouts are simple for switching. It is the curves that eats up the real estate. Pretty much 18" radius for HO is the smallest. Larger for bigger engines.

That said, a "roundy-roundy" can be fun to watch.

 

[KevinM]

One Christmas when I was a very youngun, my Dad gave me a Lionel train set. Dad was a mechanical engineer, Gramp was head of the carpentry shop at a steel mill and up the street was a neighbor who was an artist My train set took up a whole room in the house, it had a paper mache mountain, a plateau, and a control booth modeled after a streamliner's cab overlooking the whole thing. I remember the control panel had three transformers on it. The paper mache mountain had three tunnels with a switch inside, so onlookers couldn't predict where the train would exit. Problem was: a) The grown ups hogged prime time in the control booth and gave me track, switches and smoke pellet maintenance tasks, and b) the set was so big and noisy that Mom refused to give one room in the house to it on a permanent basis, so it was up from post Thanksgiving to New Years. I don't know what happened to it. Damn.

 

[swhipple]

I guess I'm more of a HO train collector at this point as opposed to a modeler. I've got a lot of trains but no permanent layout. I'm lucky to still have some of the trains I got as gifts when I was a kid although a lot of them didn't survive childhood. I'll buy a new train occasionally now if I find something cool. Most of my older trains are Hornsby train for England since we didn't move back to the US until I was 10. I throw some track down around the tree for Christmas and run them around in circles for awhile. I think the track with built in plastic ballast is the best thing ever, since it allows the trains to run pretty reliably on the floor with everything being nailed down.

I've enjoyed reading everyone's stories about the trains they had as a child. My childhood story is this; I actually got a 4 x 8 layout delivered by Santa Clause one year. No it wasn't just under the tree, Santa actually brought it in the back door. Every one in the family remembers it because I noticed that Santa had the exact same watch as my Uncle and they were all afraid I figure the whole Santa thing out right there. I must have been 5 or 6 at the time and I didn't even put 2 and 2 together that it was just my Uncle dressed up.

 

[puros_bran]

Okay... There's been some progress...

I am going with N Scale.   I purchased 53 rolling stock in HO size before making this decision so...  Go figure.   I also have rethought doing coal cars..

Here's representative pics of what has been aquired in N.  

eBay pic.  


upload gif

Proto pic.


pic host

And some cars.  


capture screen

Car Proto pics.


adult picture hosting


how do i print screen

Can't find the proto of this one yet, but pic for more detail.


image hosting without registration

 

[J Soshae]

Tinkering with a real train set looks like fun. If you like trains in a computer environment then don't miss Railroad Tycoon 2. It is only 4.99 on Steam at the moment. This is the best business simulation game I have ever played.

 

[swhipple]

The timing on this was just a coincidence but my brother-in-law asked me to see what I could do with this HO scale locomotive when we visited them over Christmas. It wouldn't run at all when I got it, the motor didn't turn. I ended up cleaning all the contacts between the wheels and the motor. Then I put it on a test track and the motor ran, for about 1/2 a turn of the wheels.  :x   :x   :x   It looks like the running gear had taking a hit at some point in time, the connecting and piston rods were all jamming up on one side. I carefully bent all the rod back to straight. That got things moving again and little more cleaning and a touch of oil and she is running smoothly now. Woo!! Woo!!   :lol:   :lol:

</a><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/120498845@N06/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">

 

[puros_bran]

That's pretty interesting. It's all set for a Free Lance.

 

[puros_bran]

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jIXBiZjRrac" frameborder="0" loading="lazy" allowfullscreen ></iframe>

 

[Richard Burley]

Because it's purty:

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[puros_bran]

The Indiana Railroad.. They run not far from the homestead.

 

[RobJ]

That's a fantastic picture Mr. B!

:cheers:

 

[puros_bran]

I've got the table work finish and some 'earth' under the track.

screen capture

Plus I've added some locomotives and cars.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EuiSa81acQ0" frameborder="0" loading="lazy" allowfullscreen ></iframe>

I've also ordered some more track, and scenery material (Woodland Scenics clump foliage, tree armatures, some paints, etc)


I sold some basketball cards, a cell phone, and some other junk to finance the expedenture. However, even being an extremely frugal shopper,it's turning into a money pit..Out of shame,I won't disclose how much I've sunk into this..lol

 

[Fazby]

On the back side, you could add a siding, which would let you park a second train. When switching is done with the first train and it goes off into the rest of the world, you can bring in the other train for more switching.

As for cost, I have read that it can be at least $50 per square foot. However, if you rebuild, al the locos and rolling stock is reused, the buildings are reused, and much of the track, especially the turnouts are reuseable.

If you enjoy it, it is worth every penny.

 

[tarheel7734]

One day I will get into it. I really love the streamliners from the UK, so would have to run oo vs ho.

 

[puros_bran]

Tarheel: model trains is one area where size really doesn't matter, well except for how much room one needs.


Fazby: I'm going to put an Appalachian mountain all across the back side and run a tunnel from one side to the other. I'd actually planned on running a siding in 'the tunnel' one train comes in, then a different train comes out.
There's going to be a spur into a freight station that's connected to the imaginary town via dirt road. Unless I decide to build a highway along the tracks, in that case I'll just pave everything.
I also plan on running a hollow road around the hillside with assorted trailers and shotgun shacks.

 

[Fazby]

Sounds good.

Do not "seal" the tunnel. Leave the back open. The illusion will still work from the front. You REALLY don't want derailments within the tunnel. Adding turnouts in the tunnel (unless the back is open) is trouble waiting to happen.

If you operate alone, the derails will be in the tunnel. If you have visitors, the derailments will be in the open where you never had problems before the visitors showed up. Murphy's law.

 

[Fazby]

Also, just for grins, google "carolina central n scale". It was a layout in Model Railroader in two issues (one with Atlas track, and a later revisit with Kato track).

I think it is a nice simple layout, and close enough to yours, that you may find some useful tweaks.

If you send me your email address, I'll send you a scan of the articles. (I don't know how to upload here.) I am in HO, but I kept copies of these as I liked them. Maybe some day...