With the old year drawing to a close and a new one appearing over the horizon, it is customary to offer up some sort of resolution. Something to do in the new year. Quite why you need the arrival of a new year to resolve to do something is something that I've never quite understood. You can resolve to do something anytime you like. You don't hear of many folks offering up a birthday resolution though do you? So I might as well jump on the bandwagon, even though it is probably very full with well meaning overweight, unfit, smokers etc: and offer up something. By this time next year. I'd like to see track down and trains running on the P87 experiment whatever form it takes. I'm not going to make any rash promises about a full detailed working exhibition layout. For only having converted on freight car and soldered up a P87 frog I know there's still a long way to go. But with the Model Railroad worksops at Lakeside hobby to look forward to. Positive progress would seem to be assured. If only I can decide what to do...
So a Happy new year to all of you. May your new year turn out to be as successful as you wish for.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
H0 Scale agonies (part 2)
As well as things seem to be going with this P87 experiment. It is still very apparent that the whole thing is floating around in some sort of limbo for I have no concept for the layout. I've thrown a few ideas out there in the hope that one of them might stick, but all to no avail. I know that it would be a mistake to copy Wingetts recycling in P87. Why would I need two of the same layout?
The layout will likely be used as a demonstration piece for the Micro layout workshops over at Lakeside hobby so it needs to be simple. You might well question the wisdom of using P87 for this purpose. But the workshop is all about techniques and ideas so what scale I make the model in is immaterial. Besides it will be an education to most to learn that Ho scale is not the be all and end all.
So a simple test track, easily transportable. About 4-5' long that isn't Wingetts recycling.
The inglenook style trackplan has been proven time and time again to produce interesting layouts in a small space.
So an inglenook track plan then as a basis. How to treat the plan to produce something interesting is the quandary.
Wingetts taught me that if you can create a story with the action on the layout people will get interested and watch. The story on Wingetts was the scrapping of wagons. Though we never saw what hapenned. The actions around lead the story to form in the imagination of the watcher.
So I need to tell a story too.
What about an Oil depot as a subject? No story there. Tankers arrive, tankers depart, ad infinitum. Model railway equivalent of the music of Phillip Glass...
Warehouse? Much the same situation. Plenty of variety of you like box cars though. But no story.
Independent Locomotive works? Better. Battered, broken down and dirty locos arrive. Nice clean repaired ones depart. Great if you've got lots of model locomotives. I do have lots of loco's but I'd have to re-wheel them all for P87 to be effective.
A Sawmill? Ooooh hang on a bit, this might be it. Here's a modellable story Logging line brings lumber down to Sawmill where it is processed into various wood products. To later leave the mill on Centerbeam cars, Bulkhead flats even in Boxcars too. Could even have wood chips loaded somehow. This I like. I've long been fascinated by logging lines. The more modern ones in particular. I like to see pictures of logging line switchers that have airtanks and dynamic brake housings added to them.
So I may well have talked myself into some kind of logging line scene. I have no problems with that at all.
Now all I have to do is find some inspirational imagery. I know of some very inspirational video of the Hull-Oakes sawmill in Oregon you can find that at the Dawson Station blog along with other interesting photos.
So I could be onto something here. We'll see.
I hope you enjoyed this ramble through my scheming mind.
The layout will likely be used as a demonstration piece for the Micro layout workshops over at Lakeside hobby so it needs to be simple. You might well question the wisdom of using P87 for this purpose. But the workshop is all about techniques and ideas so what scale I make the model in is immaterial. Besides it will be an education to most to learn that Ho scale is not the be all and end all.
So a simple test track, easily transportable. About 4-5' long that isn't Wingetts recycling.
The inglenook style trackplan has been proven time and time again to produce interesting layouts in a small space.
So an inglenook track plan then as a basis. How to treat the plan to produce something interesting is the quandary.
Wingetts taught me that if you can create a story with the action on the layout people will get interested and watch. The story on Wingetts was the scrapping of wagons. Though we never saw what hapenned. The actions around lead the story to form in the imagination of the watcher.
So I need to tell a story too.
What about an Oil depot as a subject? No story there. Tankers arrive, tankers depart, ad infinitum. Model railway equivalent of the music of Phillip Glass...
Warehouse? Much the same situation. Plenty of variety of you like box cars though. But no story.
Independent Locomotive works? Better. Battered, broken down and dirty locos arrive. Nice clean repaired ones depart. Great if you've got lots of model locomotives. I do have lots of loco's but I'd have to re-wheel them all for P87 to be effective.
A Sawmill? Ooooh hang on a bit, this might be it. Here's a modellable story Logging line brings lumber down to Sawmill where it is processed into various wood products. To later leave the mill on Centerbeam cars, Bulkhead flats even in Boxcars too. Could even have wood chips loaded somehow. This I like. I've long been fascinated by logging lines. The more modern ones in particular. I like to see pictures of logging line switchers that have airtanks and dynamic brake housings added to them.
So I may well have talked myself into some kind of logging line scene. I have no problems with that at all.
Now all I have to do is find some inspirational imagery. I know of some very inspirational video of the Hull-Oakes sawmill in Oregon you can find that at the Dawson Station blog along with other interesting photos.
So I could be onto something here. We'll see.
I hope you enjoyed this ramble through my scheming mind.
More first P87 steps
Following my old friend Yan's first steps in converting an R-T-R loco to P4 standards you'd think I'd be inspired to do the same. That I'd get out my Ultrascale 08 conversion kit and convert it.
Well I was inspired but not in the way you'd expect.
I decided to try to see if I could convert a Micro Engineering HO scale #6 turnout to P87 by dropping in a Proto87 stores frog. I just hapenned to find a #6 turnout for cheap in Hub Hobby on Sunday so I thought it doesn't matter if I ruin it testing the method.
The first step is to make up the frog. I followed the instructions at the P87 stores website. Which I was most nervous about given my soldering skills (I am wont to refer to instructions as destructions to give you an idea of my abilities) But, I had a nice new soldering iron and set to, following the "destructions". On reflection I should have used my new 40W Iron instead of my new 25 watter as it would have heated things up quicker. But apart from that everything went as per the instructions. I looked at the finished item. It was then I got my first inkling of just how fine P87 standards are. The flangeways are barely there through the vee area. Still, I was most amazed that I had managed to construct such a piece. It did wonders for my confidence.
My confidence was so boosted that I then took the ME turnout in hand and ripped out the old coarse scale frog and wing rails. "Ripped" is a slight exaggeration. You have to exert some force to remove them but use careful force. They come out pretty easily. Then I had to file some protruding bits off of make the frog sit smoothly and level. The new frog is pretty much a direct exchange for the old one on these ME turnouts. I placed the frog in situ and carefully pushed a P87 truck through the vee...
Now good readers you'll have to wait for part two of the story as after that I had to go and start dinner.
Well I was inspired but not in the way you'd expect.
I decided to try to see if I could convert a Micro Engineering HO scale #6 turnout to P87 by dropping in a Proto87 stores frog. I just hapenned to find a #6 turnout for cheap in Hub Hobby on Sunday so I thought it doesn't matter if I ruin it testing the method.
The first step is to make up the frog. I followed the instructions at the P87 stores website. Which I was most nervous about given my soldering skills (I am wont to refer to instructions as destructions to give you an idea of my abilities) But, I had a nice new soldering iron and set to, following the "destructions". On reflection I should have used my new 40W Iron instead of my new 25 watter as it would have heated things up quicker. But apart from that everything went as per the instructions. I looked at the finished item. It was then I got my first inkling of just how fine P87 standards are. The flangeways are barely there through the vee area. Still, I was most amazed that I had managed to construct such a piece. It did wonders for my confidence.
My confidence was so boosted that I then took the ME turnout in hand and ripped out the old coarse scale frog and wing rails. "Ripped" is a slight exaggeration. You have to exert some force to remove them but use careful force. They come out pretty easily. Then I had to file some protruding bits off of make the frog sit smoothly and level. The new frog is pretty much a direct exchange for the old one on these ME turnouts. I placed the frog in situ and carefully pushed a P87 truck through the vee...
Now good readers you'll have to wait for part two of the story as after that I had to go and start dinner.
Monday, December 28, 2009
My lost masterpiece?
In the preface to his extremely funny classic work of modern literature "Lake Wobegon Days", Garrison Keillor describes the early draft of a story called "Lucky Man" which he lost (on a train journey no less) and has never been able to recall or recreate in the intervening 35 plus years since its disappearance in the toilets at Portland Railroad depot.
Well I, like Garrison, have lost an early draft of a idea from many years ago. The fact that I have lost an idea is extremely galling. I normally file them so well.
My idea though was a concept for a model railroad layout and there the similarity ends. But it was a good idea. Actually time having blurred my memory insists it was a bloody good idea. But as hard as I try I can't recreate the niceties of my original sketch. I've tried below. The basic idea is there but it's not quite right.
The half relief water tower in the background isn't there and the cutaway multi-storey car park (parking ramp) is a 21st century addition. It's close. It recreates the feel and spirit of the original design. But it's not just the design that is lost. It's the scribblings that would be on the paper too. Those probably told me which DPM buildings to use. Every time I see a DPM building kit I am reminded of this idea. Other observations too. All gone.
Sometimes when I'm operating at a model railway exhibition I hope that the full idea will come flooding back to me or that one day when rootling behind the back of a bookshelf I'll find a crumpled up yellowing piece of paper that has all the details and scribblings that will enable me to make this layout how I saw it in my minds eye many years ago...
H0 Scale Agonies...
So having got that last rant off my chest I feel better now. Though it might mean I'm never featured in the pages of a Kalmbach publication again.
But it does raise some interesting points towards this Proto87 experience of mine.
There is no doubt that Lance Mindheims' turnouts look superb. I hope mine will look half as good when finished. Well, they look good until you look at the crossing vee area then you see what I have termed "the grand canyon of crossing flangeways".
So here is my H0 scale agony I want scale accuracy of track and pointwork as easily as possible.
But how?
If only there was a way to just drop in a P87 vee arrangement to an R-T-R turnout. So you could convert an R-T-R tournout to P87 just like that then. I'd be on that train so fast you wouldn't see me for dust.
Guess what?
There is.
Proto87 stores carry the turnout vee by itself so that you can just drop it into an RTR turnout they claim. I must admit that I missed this when looking through the P87 stores when looked for turnout kits to buy.
I am going to have to try this out. It would make thigs so much easier I think. Much of what is in Lance Mindheims article will be useful. I'll just have to cross reference it with the instructions on the Proto87 stores website.
But it does raise some interesting points towards this Proto87 experience of mine.
There is no doubt that Lance Mindheims' turnouts look superb. I hope mine will look half as good when finished. Well, they look good until you look at the crossing vee area then you see what I have termed "the grand canyon of crossing flangeways".
So here is my H0 scale agony I want scale accuracy of track and pointwork as easily as possible.
But how?
If only there was a way to just drop in a P87 vee arrangement to an R-T-R turnout. So you could convert an R-T-R tournout to P87 just like that then. I'd be on that train so fast you wouldn't see me for dust.
Guess what?
There is.
Proto87 stores carry the turnout vee by itself so that you can just drop it into an RTR turnout they claim. I must admit that I missed this when looking through the P87 stores when looked for turnout kits to buy.
I am going to have to try this out. It would make thigs so much easier I think. Much of what is in Lance Mindheims article will be useful. I'll just have to cross reference it with the instructions on the Proto87 stores website.
Time for a moan
Yesterday I bought a copy of Model Railroders special issue "How to build Realistic Reliable track"
I'm quite disappointed. The title can be seen to be somewhat of a misnomer. "Reliable track" OK so it seems to cover that aspect pretty well with plenty of sound advice and ideas on how to lay track so that trains run well and quietly.
As for "realistic" I'm sorry Messrs Kalmbach but by no stretch of the imagination can 3 rail O scale be seen to be realistic. There are three rails on the model track where there should only be two. How can this possibly be seen to be "realistic"? (In fact how come three rail O scale is still about? It should be consigned to the scrap heap or the model railroad museum.)
But my bigger gripe with this issue is relevant to this blog. Is how can a magazine that claims to cover "realistic" track not mention Proto87 standards?
The magazine starts with a very nice article by Lance Mindheim (who's work I am a big fan of) about superdetailing turnouts, it's why I bought the magazine in the first place. Very decent piece about all the details you can add to an R-T-R Micro Engineering turnout. The painting/weathering looks excellent, I shall try it myself. But you look at the frog/vee of the turnout and there's that RTR "Grand Canyon" of flangeways. Once you notice it the first time it screams out at you at every model turnout you look at.
Go and look at a real turnout. It looks nothing like how things are depicted on a model turnout. Nothing at all.
There are many, many modellers who could have put forward a decent, informative article about realistic trackwork standards. I don't know wether Kalmbach didn't approach anyone or no one knew about this magazine to actually sit down and write a piece.
But as a leading model railway magazine MR has a duty to let modellers know about all options to them. With Modelling realistic reliable track I feel Kalmbach dropped the ball in a very big way.
I'm quite disappointed. The title can be seen to be somewhat of a misnomer. "Reliable track" OK so it seems to cover that aspect pretty well with plenty of sound advice and ideas on how to lay track so that trains run well and quietly.
As for "realistic" I'm sorry Messrs Kalmbach but by no stretch of the imagination can 3 rail O scale be seen to be realistic. There are three rails on the model track where there should only be two. How can this possibly be seen to be "realistic"? (In fact how come three rail O scale is still about? It should be consigned to the scrap heap or the model railroad museum.)
But my bigger gripe with this issue is relevant to this blog. Is how can a magazine that claims to cover "realistic" track not mention Proto87 standards?
The magazine starts with a very nice article by Lance Mindheim (who's work I am a big fan of) about superdetailing turnouts, it's why I bought the magazine in the first place. Very decent piece about all the details you can add to an R-T-R Micro Engineering turnout. The painting/weathering looks excellent, I shall try it myself. But you look at the frog/vee of the turnout and there's that RTR "Grand Canyon" of flangeways. Once you notice it the first time it screams out at you at every model turnout you look at.
Go and look at a real turnout. It looks nothing like how things are depicted on a model turnout. Nothing at all.
There are many, many modellers who could have put forward a decent, informative article about realistic trackwork standards. I don't know wether Kalmbach didn't approach anyone or no one knew about this magazine to actually sit down and write a piece.
But as a leading model railway magazine MR has a duty to let modellers know about all options to them. With Modelling realistic reliable track I feel Kalmbach dropped the ball in a very big way.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Getting beyond the train set
Now Terry at Lakeside Hobby has gone public with this announcement
http://lakesidehobby.blogspot.com/2009/12/getting-beyond-train-set.html
I can talk about it.
I will be presenting a series of workshops on building a micro layout for under $100 (or thereabouts).
The sessions will cover everything all the way from design all the way through all aspects of building a layout that should end up not much bigger than 4' long.
In order to "put my money where my mouth is" I think I should be building a layout along with everyone else.
http://lakesidehobby.blogspot.com/2009/12/getting-beyond-train-set.html
I can talk about it.
I will be presenting a series of workshops on building a micro layout for under $100 (or thereabouts).
The sessions will cover everything all the way from design all the way through all aspects of building a layout that should end up not much bigger than 4' long.
In order to "put my money where my mouth is" I think I should be building a layout along with everyone else.
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