Friday Fun

Some of us are available to run on Friday afternoons when the railroad scene is a lot quieter than Tuesday nights. That's when one can think through their switching moves with more logic and less pressure when other passenger trains and/or local or through freights are "still in the yard."  The only thing on the schedule besides switching last Friday afternoon is shown to the right; a B&O double header
chasing its tail around the Zorra Cement reversing loop.

Here's a shot of the same double header rolling west across the viaduct above Heron's Landing with a 39 car freight and a green light [thanks Don P and Jim F.].
At the same time, with additional runaround tracks now in places,
meaningful switching was also happening with only occasional appearances of the thundering monster to disturb things. If you are available on Friday after-noons, free free to join us for fun and fellowship. Call Glen at 519-
539-2403 to make sure we are going to be there on any particu-lar Friday.   

Sunday fun

A few of us ballasted sections of the branch line. A track crew shed was installed on the lower loop and a freight shed was added to Northdale. The 2 sidings to the shed and the pier were then repositioned. Glen brought in a 9 inch turntable which he thought would work either at the end of the yard in Wellington,  working in the sanding rack and engine shed, thus giving the railroad a diesel facility. Don thought it would work better at the Lincoln end of the branch line, because you could not use it to turn double headed engines at Wellington, hmmm.

A different scale

By Mike Lafond

Track Owner:​Mike Lafond

Live Steamer/ Father: Paul Lafond

The track is all home made with 1/8 by 3/8 cold rolled steel.  There are two generations of track design.  The first is largely hand made with slots cut in the ties for proper gauge.  This caused a derailment issue on Friday because track movement had caused a tight spot in one location and a lose spot in another between the steel slotted ties.  The second generation of track uses laser cut steel roadbed with the rail welded on.  Very reliable, but it doesn’t look much like track.

Garden size model railroads are anarchy when it comes to scale.  All the various scales of garden railroad run on one gauge of track and that is 1 ¾”.  This is standard gauge for 1:32 scale trains.  Simple right? Well, not so fast.  1:32 scale standard gauge trains have been popular in Europe for a long time. When people wanted to run narrow gauge trains instead of staying with the scale and creating an appropriate gauge track like for instance HO is 1:87 scale and so is HOn3, they made the scale larger and stayed with the gauge like for instance HO and On30.  Unfortunately, the early days of mass garden railroading were for the most part ruled by LGB (a German company) who modeled European narrow gauge trains that used a scale of 1:22.5.  This was fine for what they were doing, but when demand for North American narrow gauge prototypes began to build they offered a small 2-6-0 steamer to the same scale as their other products.  This set in motion the anarchy that was to become garden railroading, because the 2-6-0 was to the wrong scale for the gauge, it should have been 1:20.3.  If it had been built to the correct scale the loco would have seemed quite large.  Demand then began to grow for standard gauge North American prototypes.  However many people had a hodge podge of European /North American  LGB narrow gauge equipment and didn’t want to just dump it all and replace it with what at the time was virtually non existant 1:32 scale models, so Aristocraftjumped into the market with 1:29 scale standard gauge models.  These are standard gauge models made to a strange scale so that the models are close enough in size to that of the narrow gauge trains that the two can be run together without the size difference being jarring.  Eventually demand grew from purists who wanted true scale standard gauge and narrow gauge trains.  These are now both well served markets and the people who bought the odd scale stuff are out of luck as both companies (LGB and Aristocraft) have gone out of business.  

This is where Mike’s and Paul’s equipment comes in.  They are running 1:20.3 F scale 3 foot narrow gauge trains modeled after Southwestern US prototypes.  Mike’s train consists of highly modified Bachmann ten wheeler that is battery powered, radio controlled DCC.  The only parts on the loco that haven’t been rebuilt are the domes and the headlight.  The two passenger cars are completely scratch built from laser cut polystyrene.  The trucks are completely scratch built as well.

Paul’s  live steam loco is a 4-4-0 made by Accucraft.  He modified it with radio control so that he can control the forward/reverse and throttle.  It is butane powered, and runs about twenty minutes on one fill.  He also has a live steam 2-6-0 and a Bachmann battery powered K-27.

controls

 

adding water

 

Mike loading cars

 

live steam 4-4-0

 

Paul shutting engine down

 

Mike's 10 wheeler

 

scratch built passenger car

 

scratch built baggage car

Tuesday night at the Huff & Puff

Work night went well, the turnout at Heron's Landing was installed and tested.  More feeders were added on the branch and it was decided at the meeting to replace more code 70 at the logging area. We voted in our newest member, Mike Lafond and put him right to work on the track cleaning crew, baptism by bright boy, so to speak. More rolling stock was added to the roster and all the car cards were brought up to date. Don brought in a few building which were test fit in empty locations, more on them when they are installed. Don loaned a super snapper for a trial and if it works the club will buy one. Thanks everyone for jobs well done.

Springbank Snow Countess, top butterfat producer

more rolling stock

new run around

Monday report

Over the last 2 weeks all the new track has been laid on the Northdale branch. It is now code 100 track for allbut the ore yard and the last logging switchback. A test run was made on Sunday with out a derailment. A few more feeders need to be added, the rail painted and ballasted. We will probably test it for a while before putting the scenery back in place, good job to all that have put effort into this project. There is also 2 signaling projects in the works. The high line turnout at Warwick has the signals installed already, and signals for the upper return loop will be next. Other jobs for Tuesdays work night include adding a turnout in Heron's Landing and adding feeders to the caboose track in Wellington. We are also going to test out a snap power supply for all the remote turnouts which will keep the turnout motors from over heating.

Glen takes his street car out for a run

track on the branch is down

signals for the turnout at the end of the upper loop

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

Our fleet of hopper cars has increased by 14 so the coal mine is open for business. Don brought in an Atlas snap-relay that will make it possible to add signal lights to the high line loop switch, and Trent added a tank truck to the layout. Ralph and Don worked on the repairs to the branch line as Jim and Jim read through information on the Digitrax system, looking for a solution to our throttle problems. We also had a few guests to show around.

new truck

visitors

relay for turnout signals

more hoppers

Layout Power Procedure. -turn on the MAIN SWITCH -turn on the COMMAND CONSOLE MASTER SWITCH/SPLITTER BAR -on the DT400 press the PWR button -on the DT400 press the Y+ button power off -on the DT400 press the N- button -turn off the COMMAND CONSOLE MASTER SWITCH -turn off the MAIN SWITCH.



DT400

Sunday fun

Quad unit up and running. Two of 3 throttles test out OK, but still act up on our layout? Jim spent most of the morning reading the manual for anything we missed. Work continues on the branch line, with the roadbed replaced in both tunnels. Don brought in 6 shelves which were mounted around the layout. These will hold your car cards while switching various towns and protect some of the throttle pockets at the same time, nice.

new backdrop for the wye

Don's new card shelves

new track through the lower tunnel