In the Spring

a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of...


TRAINS!!!

And in that vein, I have acquired new motive power...well, new to me anyway. While poking around the local hobby shop with the lovely and gracious M in tow I ran across this little gem.

That is a Pennsylvania Railroad class K4 heavy Pacific steam locomotive, a mainstay on PRR passenger trains from before Dubya Dubya Eye right up to the end of mainline steam operation. In N scale there are exactly two manufacturers who have ever produced it, Bachmann with a brand new offering with digital controls and sound and everything, and this classic Minitrix offering.

Right out of the box it runs horribly because it only picks up power on one side by way of two tender wheels, which means it stalls whenever it hits any type of power interruptions (such as the plastic parts of the switches) on that side unless it is running at ludicrous speed. However, with the addition of all wheel pickup on the tender wheels it runs fairly well for a vintage locomotive (with it's vintage not-very-good electric motor). I have a remotoring kit on its way, but until then the tender truck swap has it capably heading up the Pennsy passenger train that runs through my layout.

And since we're talking trains, and since it is a new month, let me present this month's offering.

Apparently this is Samantha Abernathy. Relax, I think we're in good hands.

All aboard!

Playtime

As if my ventures into Nn3 aren't enough, I have a new scale now.

I picked up an AZL Mikado in a package sale (along with a GP7 diesel and a bay window caboose, which may or may not be right for the Nickel Plate Road) with the intent of turning it into an EBT Nn3 Mike, but it doesn't have the right driver diameter. So I'm expanding into Z scale a bit.

Besides, this little Mike is just too darling to take apart, wouldn't you say? Look at the astounding level of detail in this miniature loco, keeping in mind this is scaled down 220 to 1. I have N scale (1:160) locomotives without this much detail.

I've picked up some MicroTrains Micro-Track Z scale track with roadbed, I've had to fiddle with some of the turnouts (what us model railroaders call switches so as not to confuse them with the devices that route electrical power) but it's all running pretty well now.

And so with Z in mind I've been on a car buying spree lately. It looks like I should have gotten the locos in Pennsylvania Railroad livery (what us model railroaders call the paint job) since so much of the rolling stock is PRR. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a lot available for the Nickel Plate in Z, and besides there wasn't a choice of road names in the package deal (not that I would have cared at the time since I was going to strip them down). At least they are both northeastern roads.

Yes I'm well aware that I am mixing eras, the steam locos were long gone by the time the boxcar on the siding came into service (and most of the GP7 fleet had been rebuilt or replaced with newer series) and you would never have seen it on the same road at the same time as the yellow wooden reefer in the middle of the consist (what us model railroaders call a line of cars hooked together). What the hell, I'm sticking with Rule Number One; it's my railroad and I'll run what I want.

And speaking of the GP7, it's a handsome locomotive as well, with detail every bit as exquisite as its N scale counterparts. It even has directional headlights (what us model railroaders call it when the light at whatever end is leading is lit up but the one at the trailing end is not), something that my N scale SD7 is lacking.

Z scale sure is darned expensive when compared to N though, so there won't be much more of it.

A Tale of Two Companies

Bachmann and Model Power. Two companies offering products for model railroading.

One has consistently and steadily improved both its lineup and quality.

The other one is going out of business.

A little effort still apparently goes a long ways.

Steel Wheels

One of my hobbies is model railroading.  Yep, I'm a train geek. I've blogged about it here occasionally, but I've long since established another place for it.

But it's worse than that, oh yes. Rather than model in a reasonable scale I'm one of "those people" who go for the small stuff.

Not the smallest stuff there is, by any means, but the small stuff just the same.

My name is Larry, and I am an N scaler.

But wait, there's more.

Not contented with the small stuff,  and being a big fan since boyhood of the East Broad Top Railroad, I had to go one bigger (smaller?) and get into Nn3 as well. Narrow gauge, N scale on 1/4" gauge Z scale track using Z scale locomotive mechanisms as the basis for my N scale narrow gauge locomotives. The two on the top in the center of the photo are narrow gauge consists, surrounded by standard-gauge trains.

 (Note on scale and gauge: gauge is the distance between the rails, scale is a designation representing the size ratio between the model and the real thing. N is 1:160, Z is 1:220, standard gauge was 4' 8 1/2" with narrow gauge being anything below that, usually 3' in North America.)

Five locos and counting; one American built from a standard gauge N scale Bachmann locomotive, one Mogul and three Mikados built on Marklin Z scale chassis, with two more Z Mikes in the box awaiting sufficient materials to convert them from German BR41 Z scale locomotives to East Broad Top Nn3 locos.

Most narrow gauge modelers, regardless of scale, model the western railroads like the Durango & Silverton or the Denver & Rio Grande, so most of the modeling supplies and equipment are geared towards that end of the country. I'm one of the crazy persons select few that model roads east of the Big Muddy.

It only goes downhill from there.

Not satisfied yet with being a niche modeler in a niche scale, I had to go one even further and set my sights on a long defunct never completed railroad in Perry County, PA.  This gets problematic for a couple of reasons, the primary one being that research materials for a tiny railroad that went out of business before the second world war are kind of hard to come by.

Imagine my delight in finding a new book from the Perry Heritage Collection about the Perry County railroads. It got here today, it's nice and thick, and I am going to sit down and look through it.

I'm torn, though. It's a beautiful day, high 70's, perfect top-down weather.

Maybe I'll sit in the car and read it...

New Motive Power

The Model Power Pacific and the Bachmann Spectrum Consolidation arrived yesterday, and they are beautiful.

I had to rewire the Pacific because the person that put the rubber tired drivers in left some of the wiring out. It runs good, but is picky about it's power pickup. I'm guessing that has a lot to do with the heavier wire I had to use because I didn't have the fine wire used originally. The tender doesn't move as well as it should. The Bachmann ran like a jewel straight from the case, it's not as picky about it's power as the Pacific.

The only problem is that neither of the new locos will negotiate the tight radius curves on my present layout.

I made the beginners mistake of putting the toy train 9 3/4 inch curves on the layout, and they are too tight for all but diesels.

My standard Connies and my Northerns negotiate these curves only because I ground off the flanges on their center drivers (called blinded drivers), but they don't do so happily.

I have no problem blinding the drivers on cheap $50.00 train set locos, but I won't even attempt it with the $150.00 ones.

So for now my best locomotives are on the shelf until the layout can be rebuilt with broader curves.

But they sure do look good!

More About Trains

My first attempt to secure a 4-6-2 Pacific was an Atlas model made by Rivarrosi. I'm not a big fan of Atlas by Rivarrosi as a result, the frames are made of cheap pot metal that gets brittle as it ages. The loco I got had a badly broken frame and bent drivers, was missing the meshing gears and the motor. It has since been disassembled, maybe I can do something with the pieces one day.

I have another Pacific on it's way to me, a Model Power unit, as well as a Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0 Consolidation. I have two of the standard Bachmann Connies, so I am going to be able to compare the running characteristics of them. I expect to be pleased going by all that I have read.

I didn't really need the Connie (according to The Management I didn't need the Pacific either), but I couldn't pass up the price. I just missed out on a Kato Mikado from the same source, I didn't really need it either but it's supposed to be a sweet machine and I wanted to check it out.

My plan is to designate the Pacific as the passenger locomotive and relegate the resulting standard Connie to freight duties. As it was bought for that purpose in the first place, it's not really a demotion. I'll have to change the shells back from red (custom painted for the passenger consist) to black, but I have the extra shells just so I could do that. It makes the existing two Connies appear to be six, a quick shell change and I have four more completely different locos.

The two Bachmann Northerns I have are reclining in the roundhouse, waiting for the day I have large enough curves to be able to run them comfortably. The SF unit with the standard tender is a good runner, it has been remotored and crawls nicely. The UP unit has also been remotored, but in the UP's case the remotor didn't go as well as it could have. The worm gear is off-center and doesn't mesh right. I have to get a new worm gear from Northwest Shortlines and have it redone.

That leaves the Spectrum Connie. I have no idea what I'm going to do with this loco. Probably freight duties as well. I have Spectrum F-7B units that I really need to have A units for (trying to convince The Management is a different story altogether) because they are soldiering on with a pair of standard A units, and one unpowered A unit, to make AB pairs. They see occasional duties, whenever I want to pull long freights or when I want to "update" a bit.

I also have some of the Bachmann old-timer 4-4-0 Americans, an entire fleet of them, including the rolling stock to make either a UP or CP freight or passenger train, as well as a tourist era consist of open passenger cars and a gondola with benches. They get run occasionally.

Then there is the narrow gauge. You may have noticed the occasional EBT pictures scattered here and there. I have three narrow gauge locos, two of which are EBT prototypes and one which is a narrowed Bachmann 4-4-0. The other two are built on Marklin chassis, one is a 2-6-0 Mogul and the other is a 2-8-2 Mikado. The American was the cheapest and easiest to build, the Mogul has a scratchbuilt superstructure that started with a Bachmann smokebox, and the Mikado is built from a Republic Locomotive Works kit.

The Bachmann hauls a mixed passenger and freight consisting of a narrowed Bachmann combine, a Microtrains boxcar and an RLW flat trailed by a narrowed Bachmann bobber caboose. The Mogul, EBT#1, usually hauls the President's car, the Orbisonia, parlor car #20 made from a Bachmann coach, but occasionally gets pressed into freight (box and flat cars plus bobber) or passenger (two or three narrowed Bachmann coaches plus the Orbisonia) service, and the Mikado, EBT#17, hauls the rock train of ten RLW hoppers, one RLW boxcar and a RLW caboose or Combine #15 made from a MDC Overton coach and combine.

I'm saving my nickels and dimes for a couple of Fast Tracks jigs so I can build my own turnouts in N and Nn3. That's an expensive startup, but it gets cheaper with every turnout that gets built.

I'm going to go run some trains now.

Can We Question Their Patriotism Yet?

Now we find the New York Times admits that they were wrong to publish the story about SWIFT, saying that it was indeed legal, and that they were "embarassed by the how-secret-is-it" issue.

Also in the news is a story that Ted Kennedy conspired with the Soviets to wage a PR campaign against President Reagan. That's not all, he also conspired with the Soviets against President Carter, of all people, and was also instrumental in getting restrictions put on the CIA and FBI to hamper their intelligence gathering capabilities. Serious allegations, ones that certainly merit further exhaustive investigation, followed quickly by a long drop and a short rope if found to be true.

On a happier note, I got another locomotive, cause you just can't have too many (regardless of what The Management says). This one is a twin to one already on my roster, a Bachmann 2-8-0 Consolidation in N scale, and now I can double head my freight if I want to with steam instead of the F-7 ABBA lashup. I should have a 4-6-2 Pacific coming soon that will be just perfect heading up the passenger special.