Wanna know where you can see narrow gauge articulated steam locomotives in action in 2008? Check out the Eritrean Railway (1 hour video):
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Layout Tours
So this past weekend, my wife and I loaded up our car and headed to Plano, TX for the North Texas Council's annual Plano Train Show. The show featured more modular layouts but less vendors than I recall from years past. All in all, a pretty good train show.
The real highlight of this show for me was the self-guided home layout tour. There's nothing better than seeing first-hand how other modelers have built their layouts. A real gem on this year's layout tour was Mr. Smith's Rock Island layout. The layout depicts the Graham Branch of the Rock Island from Bridgeport through Jacksboro to Graham, all in the state of Texas. The most remarkable feature of this layout is its simplicity: there's no yard, no engine terminal, no signal system, no spaghetti bowl of track. The result is a small layout that accurately depicts the branchline operations of the Rock Island in Texas.
The layout goes around the walls of a small bedroom and tunnels through closets to reach an adjacent guest bedroom where the staging yards are located. The track schematic is basically a loop with a wye to the outside of the loop. Operation starts in the Bridgeport staging yard. Trains run from this yard into the main layout room, which features a depiction of Jacksboro, TX. Jacksboro is the main attraction of this layout and it features all of the industries that the Rock Island switched over the history of the branch. Mr. Smith commented that modeling Jacksboro during any particular period would have resulted in a town with very few industries, so he decided to model all of the industries in Jacksboro as though they existed concurrently. This creates about 8-10 industries to be switched, which is very reasonable for the space. After switching Jacksboro, trains continue on to the staging yard that represents Graham, TX. After switching out the cars (to represent work done at Graham), the train is turned on the wye and retraces its tracks back to Bridgeport.
Here's some pictures for your enjoyment. You can see more of them at my Webshots page.
After seeing this layout, my wife is open to the idea of allowing me to put a staging yard in a spare bedroom! That's something I couldn't have convinced her of without her having seen it in person.
The real highlight of this show for me was the self-guided home layout tour. There's nothing better than seeing first-hand how other modelers have built their layouts. A real gem on this year's layout tour was Mr. Smith's Rock Island layout. The layout depicts the Graham Branch of the Rock Island from Bridgeport through Jacksboro to Graham, all in the state of Texas. The most remarkable feature of this layout is its simplicity: there's no yard, no engine terminal, no signal system, no spaghetti bowl of track. The result is a small layout that accurately depicts the branchline operations of the Rock Island in Texas.
The layout goes around the walls of a small bedroom and tunnels through closets to reach an adjacent guest bedroom where the staging yards are located. The track schematic is basically a loop with a wye to the outside of the loop. Operation starts in the Bridgeport staging yard. Trains run from this yard into the main layout room, which features a depiction of Jacksboro, TX. Jacksboro is the main attraction of this layout and it features all of the industries that the Rock Island switched over the history of the branch. Mr. Smith commented that modeling Jacksboro during any particular period would have resulted in a town with very few industries, so he decided to model all of the industries in Jacksboro as though they existed concurrently. This creates about 8-10 industries to be switched, which is very reasonable for the space. After switching Jacksboro, trains continue on to the staging yard that represents Graham, TX. After switching out the cars (to represent work done at Graham), the train is turned on the wye and retraces its tracks back to Bridgeport.
Here's some pictures for your enjoyment. You can see more of them at my Webshots page.
After seeing this layout, my wife is open to the idea of allowing me to put a staging yard in a spare bedroom! That's something I couldn't have convinced her of without her having seen it in person.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Mocking the HOG
It's been a bit since I've blogged anything. Chalk that up to Ph.D classes, qualifying exams, and teaching a class. So anyway, my wife tells me that she'd like for me to build something over the Christmas break so we'll have a layout to show people when they come over. Not being one to argue with an agreeable spouse, I've been toying around with building a 7.5' x 7.5' N scale layout that takes its design cues from the Heart of Georgia beginner's layout. Scenery will depict either generic North Mississippi scenery (for those shortlines I love) or Memphis, TN (where both my wife and I grew up). I'm leaning toward the latter since I think it'll hold her interest a little more...
But before building this thing, I wanted to get an idea of just how big a 7.5'
square would be and (more importantly) how big a 5' x 5' or 4' x 4' operating pit would be. I needed a cheap way to do this and, thankfully, I had just the thing in some 1/2" PVC pipe and fittings that we'd used to support string beans in our garden. Turns out that rearranging these pieces gave us a 5.5' square that's 5' off the ground. That was perfect for letting me get a feel for how big the pit would be as well as how difficult it would be to duck under.
I used some 1' x 6' pieces of cardboard that I cut from an old furniture box to adjust the size of the pit. This allowed me to get a feel for how long I'd have to be stooped over while ducking under the layout. At the end of the day, a 4' square pit is about the minimum that we can handle. A height of 60" makes ducking to enter a snap, but it does make the layout awfully high for viewing (64"). I'll probably compromise a bit here and set the bottom edge of the benchwork at about 56". I'm 6'1", so this is about as low as I care to duck. More to come...soon!
But before building this thing, I wanted to get an idea of just how big a 7.5'
square would be and (more importantly) how big a 5' x 5' or 4' x 4' operating pit would be. I needed a cheap way to do this and, thankfully, I had just the thing in some 1/2" PVC pipe and fittings that we'd used to support string beans in our garden. Turns out that rearranging these pieces gave us a 5.5' square that's 5' off the ground. That was perfect for letting me get a feel for how big the pit would be as well as how difficult it would be to duck under. I used some 1' x 6' pieces of cardboard that I cut from an old furniture box to adjust the size of the pit. This allowed me to get a feel for how long I'd have to be stooped over while ducking under the layout. At the end of the day, a 4' square pit is about the minimum that we can handle. A height of 60" makes ducking to enter a snap, but it does make the layout awfully high for viewing (64"). I'll probably compromise a bit here and set the bottom edge of the benchwork at about 56". I'm 6'1", so this is about as low as I care to duck. More to come...soon!
Friday, September 5, 2008
Branding a shortline
I've really started something with this whole coupler thing over on the S scale Yahoo group. Little did I know what kind of nerve I'd strike by saying something about a scale 1:64 coupler. Ooops!!
Turning my attention away from that whole conundrum for a minute, I wanted to share with y'all some work I've done on making a logo for my freelanced shortline railroad: the Ouachita & Mississippi Valley. This is a shortline railroad in southeast Arkansas that connects the Cotton Belt to the Columbus & Greenville. For a more complete "revisionist history" of the line, check out my webpage. The "Delta Route" slogan is one that the C&G used over the years, but the real C&G was never able to obtain a western connection to turn this into a profitable through freight route. Since the Ouachita & Mississippi Valley provides the "western connection that never was," I'm going to use the "Delta Route" slogan for the O&MV as well. Kind of like the way the Mississippi Central and Louisiana Midland shared the slogan "The Natchez Route."
I came up with 10 different variations of the C&G triangle logo. Some of these are very close to the original, while others were modified with the O&MV railroad name. Misssissippi Central used the same herald shape with "Mississippi Central" in one type of herald and "Natchez Route" in the other, so why can't I? Here are the triangle logos that I came up with:
I've run these past a few friends and several of them commented that the logo looks a little too much like the C&G logo. Some also felt that a logo with just the slogan in it could really pass for an official company logo, so I decided to revamp things a bit. Here's an intermediate version that I came up with:
While this logo is different enough, I still thought it was too close to the Columbus & Greenville logo. So for the next revision, I borrowed from the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway's logo design. I figured that "the Louie" had a similar flavor to my freelanced line (albeit, the M&StL was much larger) and that it was sufficiently far-removed from Arkansas to prevent any confusion over the logos. So here's my effort at creating a bit fancier logo for the O&MV:
I really like that last one (the difference is the sans-serif fonts) and will likely use this as the "new" logo for diesels and newer boxcars. The older wooden boxcars and wooden cabeese will likely carry one of the triangle heralds just to give the railroad a bit more flavor.
I've used two programs to make these logos: Inkscape and Gimp. Both are open-source programs and are available for FREE. Just the right price for a college student! While neither one are as slick as their for-pay counterparts, they're extremely useful and there's a whole bunch of online support in the form of discussion boards. For the model railroader on a budget, though, this is the cheapest way to start making your own decal artwork. Inkscape can be found here, while Gimp can be found here.
Happy railroading!!
Turning my attention away from that whole conundrum for a minute, I wanted to share with y'all some work I've done on making a logo for my freelanced shortline railroad: the Ouachita & Mississippi Valley. This is a shortline railroad in southeast Arkansas that connects the Cotton Belt to the Columbus & Greenville. For a more complete "revisionist history" of the line, check out my webpage. The "Delta Route" slogan is one that the C&G used over the years, but the real C&G was never able to obtain a western connection to turn this into a profitable through freight route. Since the Ouachita & Mississippi Valley provides the "western connection that never was," I'm going to use the "Delta Route" slogan for the O&MV as well. Kind of like the way the Mississippi Central and Louisiana Midland shared the slogan "The Natchez Route."
I came up with 10 different variations of the C&G triangle logo. Some of these are very close to the original, while others were modified with the O&MV railroad name. Misssissippi Central used the same herald shape with "Mississippi Central" in one type of herald and "Natchez Route" in the other, so why can't I? Here are the triangle logos that I came up with:
I've run these past a few friends and several of them commented that the logo looks a little too much like the C&G logo. Some also felt that a logo with just the slogan in it could really pass for an official company logo, so I decided to revamp things a bit. Here's an intermediate version that I came up with:
While this logo is different enough, I still thought it was too close to the Columbus & Greenville logo. So for the next revision, I borrowed from the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway's logo design. I figured that "the Louie" had a similar flavor to my freelanced line (albeit, the M&StL was much larger) and that it was sufficiently far-removed from Arkansas to prevent any confusion over the logos. So here's my effort at creating a bit fancier logo for the O&MV:
I really like that last one (the difference is the sans-serif fonts) and will likely use this as the "new" logo for diesels and newer boxcars. The older wooden boxcars and wooden cabeese will likely carry one of the triangle heralds just to give the railroad a bit more flavor.
I've used two programs to make these logos: Inkscape and Gimp. Both are open-source programs and are available for FREE. Just the right price for a college student! While neither one are as slick as their for-pay counterparts, they're extremely useful and there's a whole bunch of online support in the form of discussion boards. For the model railroader on a budget, though, this is the cheapest way to start making your own decal artwork. Inkscape can be found here, while Gimp can be found here.
Happy railroading!!
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Mulling over Couplers
So I picked up a couple-or-three S scale boxcar kits on my trip to Chicago this summer, just to try my hand at a larger scale you see. The only problem is that the kits came without trucks or couplers. I managed to pick up some S scale trucks while I was there, but the shop was fresh out of couplers. This has given me time to mull (agonize?) over the decision of what coupler to put on this car. S scale, like many other modeling scales, has a variety of couplers to choose from: American Flyer, Kadee #802, Kadee #5, S-Helper Service #1295, and Sergent Engineering couplers come to mind. The AF couplers, while robust and reliable, are WAY oversize for true 1:64 proportions. That leaves me with four choices. Decisions, decisions!!
For further discussion/debate, here are the particulars of my layout design:
Minimum radius: 30"
Car fleet: 3 currently, 30-40 anticipated
Locomotive fleet: 0 currently, 5-10 anticipated
The layout will be a walk-around design and I plan on using hand-held uncoupling tools.
From a coupler standpoint, I would favor reliability over appearance, but not by much if I had to put it on a spectrum. I was a Kadee #58 guy when I modeled in HO. I tried to use Micro-Trains Z scale couplers on my N scale stuff, but reliability suffered and my operators couldn't deal with the tiny couplers. From my HO days, I learned that I like metal couplers better than plastic. From my N scale days, I learned that I like couplers that don't rest on springs when tension is applied. While I like Sergent couplers in photographs, I doubt I'd like them in an operating session.
That said, here's the advantages/disadvantages of each S scale offering as I see them:
Thankfully, someone has already put together some information regarding these choices so you can begin to see what I'm deliberating over: Click here. Since it's impossible to say what the best choice is without trying them all, I think that's exactly what I'm going to do (though I may have already eliminated the Sergent Engineering option). I'll keep you posted...
For further discussion/debate, here are the particulars of my layout design:
Minimum radius: 30"
Car fleet: 3 currently, 30-40 anticipated
Locomotive fleet: 0 currently, 5-10 anticipated
The layout will be a walk-around design and I plan on using hand-held uncoupling tools.
From a coupler standpoint, I would favor reliability over appearance, but not by much if I had to put it on a spectrum. I was a Kadee #58 guy when I modeled in HO. I tried to use Micro-Trains Z scale couplers on my N scale stuff, but reliability suffered and my operators couldn't deal with the tiny couplers. From my HO days, I learned that I like metal couplers better than plastic. From my N scale days, I learned that I like couplers that don't rest on springs when tension is applied. While I like Sergent couplers in photographs, I doubt I'd like them in an operating session.
That said, here's the advantages/disadvantages of each S scale offering as I see them:
Thankfully, someone has already put together some information regarding these choices so you can begin to see what I'm deliberating over: Click here. Since it's impossible to say what the best choice is without trying them all, I think that's exactly what I'm going to do (though I may have already eliminated the Sergent Engineering option). I'll keep you posted...
Friday, August 29, 2008
Funny what you find just driving around...
My wife and I have a habit of going out for drives on Saturday afternoons. With gas at nearly $4/gallon, this form of entertainment has certainly gotten more expensive, but not prohibitively so just yet (for us, at least). A few weeks back, we went for one of our drives and decided to trace the old M&O from West Point, MS to Mayhew, MS (about 10 miles), just to see what we'd run across. On our way out of Mayhew, we spotted this structure sitting next to a house:
Upon closer inspection, this looks to be the old M&O Mayhew depot!! We turned around and snapped a few more pics. Enjoy!!
It looks like someone may be living here. Either way, you gotta love the box fan in the window!! Happy railroading!
Upon closer inspection, this looks to be the old M&O Mayhew depot!! We turned around and snapped a few more pics. Enjoy!!
It looks like someone may be living here. Either way, you gotta love the box fan in the window!! Happy railroading!
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Scale Changes
So much for a monthly posting, huh? I managed to make it out of my spring Ph.D. courses with A's all around. This summer, I've been focusing my modeling time on applying decals to 40 N scale ICG coal hoppers. I'm about 4 years behind on completing this project, but hey, it's a hobby!!
I've also given a great deal of consideration to a scale change. I began model railroading in HO scale, but I've bounced back and forth between HO and N scale about six or seven times. In the process, I sold my whole HO collection three times and my whole N collection twice (the other couple of times were less drastic "shifts" toward the other scale). Each time, it's been a matter of scale fidelity vs. available space vs. movability. Code 40 rail in N scale is about 150% the size of the 75-lb. rail that's used on the shortlines I model. However, HO takes up about 4 times the area of N scale and 8 times the volume. Thankfully, these changes haven't been too costly. But I haven't been satisfied in either scale.
Then I saw O scale (2-rail, scale). Now it may seem odd that something that's roughly twice as big as HO scale would appeal to a guy in my situation. Here's how it started: A friend has an O scale layout. His policy is that whoever has the most cars on the layout has seniority and gets his pick of the jobs during operating sessions. Of course, he had the most cars, but the #3 guy on the totem pole only had one car. So I picked up an Intermountain O scale hopper car kit and an Atlas pulpwood rack and got to playing around with them. The sheer size of these models make them seem more realistic. Not to mention that I can read reporting marks and car numbers from across the room instead of having to pull out a magnifying glass. And then we had an operating session. The heft of an O scale model is enough to require metal couplers and you can actually hear the "chunk, chunk, chunk" of slack run-out when you start an O scale train. This guy's layout featured some sections of handlaid code 100 track, which is a dead ringer for 75-lb. rail! So what's a fella to do? I started acquiring some O scale equipment.
Of course, that whole scale fidelity thing bites both ways. Now the models are large enough to see the details that are missing. And those wheels are big enough that scale tread width is truly noticeable. Not to mention that now we're talking about needing a full two-car garage to house what would fit in a 5' x 5' space in N scale. And it's a heck of a lot harder to sneak in a 50' boxcar in O scale than it is in N scale if you're spouse is the type to worry over such things. (For the record, my spouse is extremely supportive and I return the favor by being reasonable in my hobby purchases.) Oh yeah, and the price. O scale locomotives run anywhere from $200 on the cheap end up to $600 for the ones with all the bells and whistles. Freight cars are anywhere from $20 for a kit to $50-60 for an RTR model. While extremely nice and a lot of fun to experience, O scale wasn't going to cut it on the sheer amount of space required.
Enter S scale. At roughly 130% HO scale, S scale has some of the heft of O scale but only requires twice the area of HO scale. I've picked up a few S scale boxcar kits and have decided to give it a try. I know it's a bit crazy to jump over HO when my only objections were required space and movability, but I'm still turned on by this notion of a model that rocks and sways like the real thing. Hopefully S will have that. I'm also encouraged by older modelers in HO and N who tell me that, if they could do it all over again, they'd model in S on account of aging eyes. Maybe a jump to S will put me ahead of that curve. At the end of the day, I'm enjoying the hobby in several scales now and look forward to the day when I can make a substantial effort in one of them...
I've also given a great deal of consideration to a scale change. I began model railroading in HO scale, but I've bounced back and forth between HO and N scale about six or seven times. In the process, I sold my whole HO collection three times and my whole N collection twice (the other couple of times were less drastic "shifts" toward the other scale). Each time, it's been a matter of scale fidelity vs. available space vs. movability. Code 40 rail in N scale is about 150% the size of the 75-lb. rail that's used on the shortlines I model. However, HO takes up about 4 times the area of N scale and 8 times the volume. Thankfully, these changes haven't been too costly. But I haven't been satisfied in either scale.
Then I saw O scale (2-rail, scale). Now it may seem odd that something that's roughly twice as big as HO scale would appeal to a guy in my situation. Here's how it started: A friend has an O scale layout. His policy is that whoever has the most cars on the layout has seniority and gets his pick of the jobs during operating sessions. Of course, he had the most cars, but the #3 guy on the totem pole only had one car. So I picked up an Intermountain O scale hopper car kit and an Atlas pulpwood rack and got to playing around with them. The sheer size of these models make them seem more realistic. Not to mention that I can read reporting marks and car numbers from across the room instead of having to pull out a magnifying glass. And then we had an operating session. The heft of an O scale model is enough to require metal couplers and you can actually hear the "chunk, chunk, chunk" of slack run-out when you start an O scale train. This guy's layout featured some sections of handlaid code 100 track, which is a dead ringer for 75-lb. rail! So what's a fella to do? I started acquiring some O scale equipment.
Of course, that whole scale fidelity thing bites both ways. Now the models are large enough to see the details that are missing. And those wheels are big enough that scale tread width is truly noticeable. Not to mention that now we're talking about needing a full two-car garage to house what would fit in a 5' x 5' space in N scale. And it's a heck of a lot harder to sneak in a 50' boxcar in O scale than it is in N scale if you're spouse is the type to worry over such things. (For the record, my spouse is extremely supportive and I return the favor by being reasonable in my hobby purchases.) Oh yeah, and the price. O scale locomotives run anywhere from $200 on the cheap end up to $600 for the ones with all the bells and whistles. Freight cars are anywhere from $20 for a kit to $50-60 for an RTR model. While extremely nice and a lot of fun to experience, O scale wasn't going to cut it on the sheer amount of space required.
Enter S scale. At roughly 130% HO scale, S scale has some of the heft of O scale but only requires twice the area of HO scale. I've picked up a few S scale boxcar kits and have decided to give it a try. I know it's a bit crazy to jump over HO when my only objections were required space and movability, but I'm still turned on by this notion of a model that rocks and sways like the real thing. Hopefully S will have that. I'm also encouraged by older modelers in HO and N who tell me that, if they could do it all over again, they'd model in S on account of aging eyes. Maybe a jump to S will put me ahead of that curve. At the end of the day, I'm enjoying the hobby in several scales now and look forward to the day when I can make a substantial effort in one of them...
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