Anyone doing the layout tour this upcoming weekend ? (october 4th).

I'm going on my annual fall trip up to a cottage we rent in Parry Sound for a week starting next Thursday. I'm taking my usual amount of modelling projects to work on ( no phone,TV,computer or child) and anticipate partaking in the tour, even though there is only 1 N Scale layout on the tour itself. This means an additional day of train related activities while I'm away. I usually go railfanning at the CN/CP crossover just south of Parry Sound at the James Bay Jct.

I am trying to get my scratch/bashed camelback finished for a north east prototype meet in October. I have bin working on it now off and on for about 5 years now . The valve gear is my biggest sticking point. It has held up completion for almost 2 years. Constant binding and a few Walschaert explosions have caused me to put it down and walk away from it for months at a time, I believe this is try #4. I came across a book called Locomotive Valves and Valve Gears, by Yonder+Wharen. It is filled with info on this subject, perfect for what I need. I was working from old pictures, mostly at a 3/4 roster shot kind of angles, and my only measured drawings did not show the valve gear. I had to do a best guess at the sizes. After reading this book I found that my link was to large and radius rod were to long.I have cut down my radius rods and am now retooling the links. I also have to redo the valve gear hanger.

   
Here is the hog as it is today, I cut back the radius rods about 4 inches and re installed them on the combination lever.

   
This is a pic from the book showing there drawing and my reworked links next to them.

For those of you that don't know.... I got my Ngauger name from when i designed and built an N gauge layout with a few friends in 1984. Now 25 years later, I have had a G gauge layout since 1994. it has been redesigned 2 times and was created whan i could crawl all over it and bend all sorts of ways. Well, for the last 18 months, I just havent had the "want" to go up there and clean the tracks.. No real physical reason, except "maybe" I'll be 51 years old very soon

Now, Christmas is coming up, My vacations are approaching and It's time to re-design the layout, possibly the final time. I've designed about 15 - 20 layouts, in N, HO, G, O and Z... But this time, I'm NOT doing it alone!! Nope!

Someone is going to help me..... Hopefully a bunch of you will submit an idea or 3 or 4 and i'll use them or build on them......

Don & I created Big Blue to help Model Railroaders exchange ideas, well now i'm asking for any ideas - no suggestion will go "un-read"

So.. Away We Go!!!!!!

I have for sale 4 Bachmann 70-Tonners. All are NEW IN BOX, and have never been opened. These are Powered and DCC Equipped.

**Diesel GE 70-Tonner - Powered; DCC On Board ~~ Painted, Unlettered (green) ~~ Walthers part number: 160-60608 ~~ <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/160-60608">http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/160-60608</a><!-- m -->

I have 4 available for sale. Im offering them at $49.98 each. I will also take $95 for 2 of them, $140 for 3 of them, or $185 for all 4 of them plus shipping.

The more you buy, the more you save!!

Shipping will be via USPS Priority Mail and will be based on your zip code and the amount of cars you buy. The more cars you buy, the better the shipping rate will be overall!!!

I accept PayPal, USPS or BANK Certified Money Orders, or Personal Checks

PM or post here if interested.

Thought I'd start in this new forum with some questions I hadn't really given too much thought to in the past, concerning caboose/cabin/hack/etc. operating rules.
For example.....with a helper on the "back end" is the caboose always pulled, or is it pushed some times, and is there a precedent for when push or pull is preferred, and used ???
Is "pushing" only done with steel cabooses, or were wood cabooses also pushed?
How about the case where the train has two cabooses, one behind the lead engine, and one at the rear of the train? ( C&O mainline wayfreight did this, a backing move would be the equivalent of a helper pushing on the caboose )

How do you keep your trains clean? alot of models have to get handled at one point or another, but i t seems even with clean hands, stuff gets on them. is there away to scrub things off? some models feel sticky, even though the paint has been dry for months (and i can no longer smell paint odors)

I have updated the article about making U-Link_n_Pins from EZ-Mates. We eliminate the "pencil neck".



http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/ez_link_n_pins/

Thank you if you visit
Harold

Did the Western Pacific railroad use the all-silver and streamlined California Zephyr passenger cars?

Was looking thorugh some of my old MR mags and was wondering if anybody here has ever had anything published in any magizines or books or something similar. Would be cool to maybe see something from a member.

Yesterday, the wife and I were browsing homes. We anticipate that we'll be moving in 4-5 years. Homes that fill the bill for us tend to have basements that are approx 45'x27'. So, I've designed a layout which would fit in just such a basement. (photos from the Ted Kierscey Collection so you can see the prototype) The three turntables designate the boundaries of the stairs.



The bottom left is Gunnison, southern terminus of the DSP&P's mainline. I've designed a yards with 4 tracks (excluding the main). Additionally, there is a wye long enough to turn a short passenger train. Historically, the beautiful 5-stall stone enginehouse was inside the wye, but I've moved it to conserve space. The grid is actually 2'...so access points are mandatory to have any kind of a decent Gunnison yards. The additional line is the D&RG. It'll probably have a single siding or something...it will interchange with the DSP&P. North of the enginehouse is the South Park's Baldwin branch...originally it was part of the to-be-extended mainline.

The mainline heads east out of Gunnison, past the gorgeous stone depot and parallel to the D&RG (whom they used to race). There will be some sort of connection there. After the connection, the D&RG will drop on a 1% grade while the DSP&P rises with a 2% grade. The layout height at Gunnison will probably be 48"-52"...I'm 6'2. It will come out of the first curve (36" radius) into Pitkin. There will be a wye on this curve and three tracks (two sidings) on the tangent after the curve. Both on the real railroad and on my layout, the helpers will be added here. The grade will increase to 4% leaving Pitkin and cutting under the staircase.

The trains will turn on a loop and come back towards the east wall. There will be an aisle for the first 10-14', and then a duck under to get the operator to Woodstock. This will be the most dramatic scenery on the layout...the Woodstock loop and Pallisade rock formations. Both the tracks going to and coming from the loop will be in the same scene. It will then turn to the right (north) and pass the Alpine Tunnel enginehouse.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://narrowgauge.org/images/tkcok/m0017.jpg">http://narrowgauge.org/images/tkcok/m0017.jpg</a><!-- m -->
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://narrowgauge.org/ngc/graphics/tkierscey/dspp/dspp0010.jpg">http://narrowgauge.org/ngc/graphics/tki ... pp0010.jpg</a><!-- m -->


Coming out of Alpine Tunnel on the Atlantic side, there might be a siding if it "works"...and the train will round Sawmill curve and the only trestle on the layout. At Hancock, there will be one or two more passing sidings and a wye for the helpers. This wye probably will be too high to connect up with Pitkin.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://narrowgauge.org/ngc/graphics/tkierscey/dspp/dspp009.jpg">http://narrowgauge.org/ngc/graphics/tki ... spp009.jpg</a><!-- m -->
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://narrowgauge.org/images/tkcok/m0045.jpg">http://narrowgauge.org/images/tkcok/m0045.jpg</a><!-- m -->

The train will then continue out of Hancock and through the Chalk Creek Canyon. There will be some sort of additional trackage after it passes beneath Alpine Tunnel...Perhaps Buena Vista or something entirely freelance. For continuous running, the line will the connect up with the outer loop and act as the Baldwin branch coming back into Gunnison. I may drop the outer loop to a slightly lower level, slowly rising up so that the Mainline and loop lines are available for separate running. The loop will have a couple additional passing sidings as well.

Staging will be under the loop beneath the Baldwin branch...it will feed into Hancock/Chalk Creek Canyon. Another staging area under the Hancock/Chalk Creek area will feed into the Baldwin branch.

The operations will consist of the passenger train leaving Gunnison for Como (staging past Hancock). A coal train will arrive from Baldwin and head over the pass to Como. An empty coal train will run in the opposite direction, as well as a second passenger train. Local service will work its way over the line (an industry will exist between Pitkin and Woodstock, as well as another between Gunnison and Pitkin). Other freights will work between Gunnison and Como. The loop will have some D&RG passenger and freight trains coming and going...but only to provide the eye-candy of a town served by two railroads. The main action will be the helper service between Pitkin and Hancock (just like the real road)...as well as the action at Gunnison with the building of trains, interchange, and branch operations.

On the west wall, I plan to have display tracks, much like a display case, that are connected to the layout somewhere around Alpine Tunnel (connecting to one of the three levels of track. This allows me to admire the trains that don't belong on the layout, and be able to back them down to the layout for running (no touching!) If I can't swing the trackwork, there'll be a full-train elevator.

The mainline over Alpine Pass will have a minimum radius of 36". This is about as tight as will work with 2-8-2s and 42' passenger cars. I plan on the outer loop having a 42" minimum radius so that any On3 locomotive or car (the 48' Animas Forks) may operate over it (including a proposed C&S 2-10-2s I may decide to build).