I’m somewhere in the wilds of Turkey as you read this, but here are a couple of scenic views from a year ago to show just how good the countryside is, and what the roads can do to a Land Rover tyre. I just hope the weather is as good (though it poured with rain the following day).
(Update – internet is good enough for a so far, so good report. Weather and food both excellent….)
Of course there is nothing new under the sun. Looking on the RMweb community and N-gauge forum, I find that people have been making their own transparent Rapido couplers, and that Mathieson fit their PO wagons with them, and offer spares. I think you will agree that transparency makes the couplers a lot less conspicuous?
And after my comments on 3-link coupling, I find that these are also available from Mathiesons. They are semi-permanent, so no auto-uncoupling is possible, but there is potential here for us in permanently coupled sets of stock.
The challenge for the railway modeller (at least this one) is always the couplers. You want a balance between something that works well and maybe even uncouples remotely, and something very inconspicuous. And if you don’t use the industry standard coupler, you need something easy to build and fit to your models, and that is also reliable.
If you model American (or indeed a number of other parts of the world), MicroTrains (or McHenry, or E-Z-Mate or Kato even) buckeye couplers are just the ticket. They work pretty well and are easy to fit. They are a little oversized, but don’t look too bad from most angles – and if you are very fussy, you can convert all your models to Z-gauge versions of the buckeye. For the UK and Europe, though, with buffers and 3-link and screw couplings, things get more difficult. The standard Rapido N-gauge coupler works OK, but looks enormous in pictures. If you want to add your own couplers there’s DG and B&B, similar designs that are generally thought to work well – and you can get one of them ready made. People have used MicroTrains on British stock (and Dapol make buckeyes for NEM coupler pockets), but they don’t look right, except on EMU’s and more modern coaches.
I recall articles in the model press where 2mm and N-gauge modellers used 3-link couplers and a coupling pole to hook things up. Good move if your eyes can take it. I could just about cope with ‘O’ gauge! However, it has to be said that 3-links are very easy to fit to a model, and of course look right.
I was exploring the works for FS160 (European fine-scale ‘N’, with 9mm gauge and 1:160 models, but track standards as or similar to those of the UK’s 2mm). And I came across this cool magnetic coupler. It looks like a screw coupling, but is operated by a hand-held magnet above the stock to be uncoupled or coupled. I am very tempted to try this out – having a screw coupling on unfitted wagons seems a small price to pay for such a good appearance. Even if the coupler is tricky to use, it could have mileage on rakes of permanently coupled stock.
I think the photographs taken from the site are self-explanatory, but for the full story, use Google Translate on this link – and if you are rash enough to want to buy some, try here (I assume this site is live).
I’m off to Turkey for 10 days looking at rivers, or at least where an oil pipeline crosses rivers. Same inspection job as last year, but at least I can’t get appendicitis again – or if I do, I’ll make medical history.
I’ve left some posts to self-publish, so please keep reading. Here’s a regional photograph of a branch line in Azerbaijan, that is crossing the same pipeline about where the photograph was taken. It would take real skill to weather track and catenary almost to destruction to match the real thing.
Tidying the loft, I found an old album of black-and-white photos. Although the photos are not of great quality, they have captured some memories back in the late 60’s and early 70’s. These are of Paddington, probably around 1970. Diesel hydraulics still well in evidence, and just look at the parcel stock!
The schools are back and the club was busy tonight. It was good to see Honest John back in circulation, and new member Roger actually came back. We must have been too kind to him last time. Mr Apps was back from holiday, and managed to collect almost all the outstanding annual memberships.
What was running? I ran in the power cars from my 2 4-CEP Southern Region EMUs. I have had them both for a while, but never ran them. Typical new N-gauge (new Farish), they ran beautifully straight out of the box. I have invested in some Dapol buckeye couplers, so will now replace the Rapido with some more realistic (for EMUs) couplers. Scrapyard Thomas made another appearance, together with another Japanese goods train. And Derek (Atfield) gave his latest creation a test run. This was a London Underground train. It started life as a Corgi 2012 Olympics non-running model, but addition of a Tomytec chassis got it running, and it will feature on the Union Street module subway.
it was also very pleasing that the repairs carried out on Sunday are all working OK, and the wiring has continuity on all tracks and all boards. I can’t think of much else to report, but it was a pleasant and sociable evening playing trains.
An interesting technique that was new to me too. Not sure how well it would work in N-gauge though!
I have become a fan of plastic modelers who build armor and aircraft models. No, I am not building them but I am learning new techniques from this band of talented modelers. I know many of you share my interest in seeing what the other side does.
I found several techniques on the web that were similar in approach. It involves the use of salt crystals to mask a base coat on a model. In my case, I am finishing an older single sheath boxcar that had a galvanized steel roof. This type of metal doesn’t hold paint well. Some roads apply car cement to the roof to improve finish retention. Car cement is a tar-like substance.
I started out by applying a primer or base coat that is similar to the color of galvanized metal. Once the paint is cured, I began the process by moistening the roof in spots with distilled water with a wetting agent added. You don’t need…
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It’s been a train-rich weekend, and a welcome relief from an interesting week. Firstly, I got a report completed for work that had been hanging around for far too long. Then we had a new central boiler installed. A good professional job, but the existing hot water tank leaked – a hairline crack opened when it cooled off and contracted, so we had to have a new one. And when the fitters went to fire up the boiler, nothing happened. Not their fault – the boiler manufacturers are in on Monday to find out what’s wrong – probably a computer software glitch. On a boiler of all places. And finally, the car wouldn’t start and needed a new battery.
So, come Saturday, I needed a little light relief, and headed for the Andover show. About 70 miles each way, but it was good to get out and just drive. And have a full English breakfast on the way. The show was pretty good, with some quality modelling. Well laid out in two big school halls as well, so there was no crush and plenty of room to move around. Too much GWR for my personal liking, but Andover is in the heart of the old GWR territory. I enjoyed the ‘O’ gauge and the narrow gauge offerings, especially.
On Sunday it was the ESNG work party and although only three of us attended (the hon. treasurer thought it was next month and went out for the day), we got a lot of useful work done. In particular, the fiddle yard has needed some protection to all it’s route selection wiring for a number of years, as it lives in a cupboard with all sorts of hoovers, mops and buckets.
It looks a lot safer now, and even a thin cover has stiffened up the ply framework.
We also checked the electrical continuity of the fiddleyard boards and all the club corner boards. We rewired a few plugs and remade a couple of dry soldered joints. All now looks good for Stuttgart in November. We finally cleaned all the track and made a few repairs to the scenery. And of course, the day finished with a curry!
The most excellent UK theologian NT Wright (almost my personal guru), talking about the Apostle Paul’s writings….
“All this is of course complex, but necessarily so. Attempts to reduce that complexity in the pursuit of an easier comprehensibility are the equivalent of trying to make a model locomotive out of Playdough. Some parts may look familiar, but the train won’t run down the track.”
Sorry Tom, but this applies to a lot of my modelling, as well as to theology! Now to read the remaining 9oo pages of the book. And you thought model railways were fun….
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the ecclesiastical world, the Rev. Awdry appears to be in trouble. Well, at least Thomas, Annie and Clarabelle are. Paul’s photographs from the last ESNG club night show the offending items being taken to the scrapyard – probably to face a charge of heresy. Thomas appears to have lost his funnel after a little heavy-handed questioning. No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
It’s been far too long since I posted on traction and trolleys. But the start of this post is a reminder of how useful Google Earth can be. First, here is a screen dump from Google Earth, “somewhere in Los Angeles”, with aerial data taken in 2o13.
Not much of interest here for the discerning railroad modeller, you say. But if you find the timeline slider on the Google Earth menu, we can roll back the years. And hey presto, we have a picture of the same area in 2002.
In fact we could have rolled back time to the 1980’s, but the photographs then were lower resolution USGS black-and-white shots, and amazingly, the area has hardly changed in that 20 years.
But what do we have here? This is Toluca Yard, at the entrance of the Pacific Electric Belmont tunnel that ran from here to the Subway Terminal in the centre of town. Below are some photographs of it at the end of its working life in 1955. (There are plenty of photographs on the web, some in colour – hunt the Pacific Electric Railway Historical Society site – but I think these are free-to-use shots).
I began to get interested with Toluca as a module. A little scaling off Google Earth gave me the following plan, with a 1200 x 400 mm module superimposed.
There were six yard tracks, and there was a cross-over just inside the tunnel portal to give access to both up and down lines. This size plan would make a good stand-alone layout, built into a box, so that the main line goes off scene under the flyover to the left and into the tunnel to the right. It might look best looking towards the slope, i.e. top to bottom. If one wanted to make an N-club module out of this, a longer board would be needed, to model the full flyover to the left and a little more of the hill to the right. I’m not sure that selective compression would work that well. The yard could be reduced to four tracks, and made narrower and shorter, but really, it’s already tiny! I think the grade was quite steep into the tunnel. If used as a module running any trains and not just interurbans, the gradient might also need to be a little shallower.
Anyways, Toluca Yard is a good minimum space design. Any models of it out there already?
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