Mea Culpa. I was writing Marklin and thinking LGB. Sorry about that. LGB also uses 45mm track gauge. The LGB trains we get here in North America are approximately 1:22.5 ratio making the track representative of 1012mm gauge which is almost meter gauge. Close enough really to be considered meter gauge since the error is only +0.55mm when reduced to
1:22.5 ratio. I suspect that full-size meter gauge equipment would operate quite well on track that was 1012mm gauge.Froggy,
Eeehhhh, not so fast Doc. Standard gauge is 1435.1mm. 1/32 scale 45mm gauge is 1440mm. That means the full size difference represents a widening of 4.9mm or 0.193 inches which is just a fuzz over
3/16 of an inch. Standard gauge equipment will operate just fine on track that is 56-11/16' gauge. Gauge widening in curves exceeds that.If you still have enough daylight in that part of the world, grab your tape and measure the gauge of some of the tracks in your area. If you have not already done so, you may be surprised at what you find. That is, if you can find the tracks under the snow . . .Brrrrrrrrr!(shiver).
Froggy,
(Waving hand frantically) . . Ooo, Ooo, I do. Call on me. Froggy,
If you don't get the point here, there is no point in trying to explain it. It's simply lost.
Froggy,
I have to have a point???
I built an HO "Toby the Tram Engine" to go on my layout - correct era, totally the wrong location, to attract them back 8-)
Regards, Greg.P.
You could sand that much off the railhead using an abrasive block regularly to remove oxidation! =8^)
scale and use
That's ok, I've just spent the best part of the day* converting a Chinese toy Union Pacific box car (2 axle) into a European goods wagon to run on my (planned) LGB garden railway. The scale is precisely (well it looks right...ish :1)
Total cost so far; NZ$10-, but I will probably need to turn up some brass wheels on the lathe to replace the plastic wheels. (* the bit spent converting the wagon)
Regards, Greg.P. NZ
Heh heh heh... looks to me like it's GP that doesn't get it.
The point? YOU'RE BORING THEM. You want to count rivets, fine - do it on your own time, not at a public show. If you open the show to the public, then you have to show the public what they want to see.
Where do you think the next generation of model railroaders is going to come from, anyway? It's not going to be from the kids sleeping as their parents carry them past your "perfect" layout - it's going to be from the kids that keep dragging their parents back to the Thomas the Tank Engine layout.
I don't expect the general public to be entranced by accurate models, accurate scenery and reasonably prototypical operation. However, I have often thought that showing those who want to see, the 'geek' extreme of the hobby, or at least something more representative of the serious hobby than toy trains rushing around in circles should be displayed at model railway exhibitions. I tried to do that and consider my efforts justified by the interest shown by a small percentage of the public. My comments about Thomas layouts was entirely tongue in cheek - the children wanting to see Thomas and Harald and Percy and ... is just fine with me as it leaves the serious entusiast with the opportunity to discuss couplers or control systems or whatever.
Regards, Greg.P.
I just love Thomas. And I love finding a small sprat that just loves Thomas, too.
I guess what i'm saying is their looking and who cares what the kids watch. They're watching something you did!
Operation: It's not a free-for-all of trains running helter skelter, hither, thither, and yon, like so many modular setups. It's more like war-gaming in a setting engineered to reflect the realities of actual, real-life railroading in compressed time. The game is the thing. Running trains simply to watch them run is boring as hell.
Froggy,
Operation:
Agreed, 100%. Running the "coal train", then the "reefer train", then the "Coca-Cola train", then the "Christmas train" is not operation.
Which is why the vast majority of train sims are as boring as hell.
-- Cheers Roger T.
Home of the Great Eastern Railway
When I was making my living driving trains I had to endure sessions in a real train SIM. It was supposed to be a railroad equivalent to a flight simulator like the ones used for pilot training. A profile of the appropriate division was loaded into the thing and the subject sat inside in a replica of a typical EMD control cab.
1: It was even more boring than driving a real train. 2: It did not emulate real life train handling worth a damn.I can count on my fingers the number of knuckles I broke, and have some left over. I could rarely move a SIM train across the division on the SIM without breaking several
- until I learned how to drive the SIM. The SIM was totally different in most respects, because it was programmed by someone who had not a clue about how to really drive a real train. What a joke and waste of money that thing was.
Froggy,
Sorry Rich, I wasn't paying attention.
I've been very busy on Ebay trying to win:
( all HO scale )
Humvees and type water rescue craft. hundreds of ice boxes
1/87 scale blue tarps ( joking, I made them ) Salvation Army meal trucks Red Cross meal trucks etc.Since tearing out and remodeling the "crescent City section" we have been able to get the spillway in, the refinery & chemical plants in, the yard and loading platforms for the refinery, the three surburban stations for the commuter service as well as a revision of the produce docks in Spanish Fort after the power plant " run through " coal track was installed.
We had been stumped on exactly how we wanted to "see" the downtown area. One of the guys had scratchbuilt the old IC terminal in new Orleans ( that F.L. Wright was on the original design staff for ) and we had moved UPT several times over the past years before finally getting used to where it now resides.
It wasn't until about 6-8 weeks ago that we realized the main reason we could not visualize Crescent City ( no matter how we rearranged buildings and paper dolls ) is because it wasn't supposed to be modeled Pre Katerina, it was always supposed to be Post Katerina.
We've had the Sewage and Water board building and the pumping station for years. It just sorta moved around the layout never finding a home until now. While many areas of the layout have structure and street lighting, Crescent City will be dark with stop signs placed on saw horses next to non powered red lights at intersections, the trashed building now have a home, no windows but curtains hanging out of the openings. Yes, there will be blue tarps on just a few roofs but the water line on all the buildings........found the perfect way to do it.
There will be just a slight view of the chain link fence under the station shelter at UPT that was erected and used as a jail.
The "contra flow" is already in effect in two of the towns north of Crescent city with about 120 vehicles heading north with luggage and boxes strapped to the roofs amd LONG LONG lines at the two gas stations.. ( of course all the city and school busses will be left in the city and not used for evacuation )
No matter how bad you screw up a weathering job, it works fine when modeling a city that has just dried out from being flooded for 4 weeks. ( of course no one likes my idea of putting an old aquarium filled with old nasty water under the layout there just to get the aroma.........................
No, there will be NO helicopters or people on their roofs, or any "major" looting events or bodys, that would be just a little TOO insensitive. But what the hell,, I stayed for the storm, I should be allowed to model what I experienced, shouldn't I ? Besides this is a lot easier than trying to do a Mardi Gras scene, buildinbg the scale floats was driving me even further nuts than I am.
I have not been this excited about a modeling project since....... I discovered John Allens articles as a kid.
{snipola for bandwidth}
Are they on line and further more, did ya win the auction?
I won 5 humvees and some other assorted things life tents and a few rescue "raft type" boats.
I suspect that Greg meant this tongue-in-cheek.
But if he didn't, then I have only one thing to say: Lighten up, this is a fun hobby!
After all, we are just bunch of adults (younger and older) playing with highly detailed railroad models (aka. toy trains)!
While I have done some super detailed prototype modeling, I also enjoy the lighter side of this hobby. And even if the Thomas traverses some super detailed realistic module on our N-Trak layout, it still catches the attention of children (aka. posible future model railroaders). The only other realistic models which attract the youngster's attention (at least in the USA) are: Amtrak trains or any long trains (like coal unit or tank unit trains) we run on the layout. Youngsters couldn't care less about some local switching going on.
Sometimes I think that some anal-retentive rivet-counting modelers will spell the end to this wonderful hobby.!
There is a place in this hobby for Proto-scale and for fun whimsical models. Sometimes they might cross paths - no big deal...
Peteski
Ah. I see you haven't run into Greg before.
Your mouth to his ears! (or your fingers to his eyes, in this case!)
Do you remember the Bent Screwdriver Award in the NMRA Bulletin years ago? Cartoons of wonderfully impossible cars and locos drawn by the the creator of "Thumbs." At one show in the not too distnat past, I saw a couple of modles based on these. Lovely!
Maybe Scale Rails should reprint these, and model contests should have category for such inspired nonsense.
"Model Railroading Is Fun."
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