Weekend Photos - May 2025

[ScaleCraft]

1964 MK2 Jag, 2.4/L, RHD. Some of the engine gauges are, too.
Idiots.
US practice on speedos was 1,000 RPM read 60 MPH. Adjustable with usually two springs.
Not Smiths!
One set of gears for speed, one for odometer, one for trip.
Mine is off 10% to radar reader boards, I mentally compensate. The Jag folks tell you if you send it in to a shop that claims they can do Smiths, they are worse when they come back.
According to the RPM/Speed chart in my manuals, RPM is correct for indicated speed. I have a reduction unit of .9 to fit between cable and speedo, never installed it.
My guess is tyres. I did a study, original size, replacement for that, replacement for than, and on and on.
These "correct" tyres....aren't. My spare is who knows how many iterations old, and MUCH bigger diameter.
Vredesteen makes a correct size, but last I checked over $300 a pop!

[webenda]

Do you think it’s the same Smith’s, Dave?

I am not answering for Dave. I am not a telepath or mindreader.

Within these pages:
https://www.electric-clocks.co.uk/smiths/sm-hist.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiths_Group
It says, "In 1956 Smiths offered clocks with the new "floating balance" movement invented by Hettich in Germany and licensed to Smiths."

What do you think, Healey?

[healey36]

Some good research, that, Wayne. I saw one out there on the web with the exact same configuration, same face, but marked “Made in England”.

I thought it strange that this one I have says “Made in Germany”, not “Made in W. Germany” like so many things from the early postwar era.

[healey36]

Not much train-related this week...house projects are taking over (and I've got a bunch of them).

One "house project" I did complete a couple weeks back was this glitter-house version of the prewar bungalow-style home that was quite popular locally:



Combining attributes of a couple houses here in the 'hood, along with "The Bedford" from the 1926 Sears catalog, this is sort of an amalgamation of all of them. Not the best photo, but you get the idea.

[Wburg Pete]

Paul,
Very Nice!!

[healey36]

Thanks, Pete. They are fun to build and don't require much precision (Mod-Podge and glitter tends to obscure all of the screw-ups).

How's it going down in Williamsburg? Last we talked, you were looking at dismantling the layout, I believe.

Paul R.

[gregj410]

Glitter houses alway a hit with me! Nice work Paul!

Working out my church scene

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[ScaleCraft]

grim reaper!

[healey36]

That's a sharp little church, very reminiscent of those seen in small western Maryland and West Virginia towns in some of the mining communities. Not much bigger than the local schoolhouse. Very cool.

[gregj410]

Wish I could claim it as my own work. I picked this up at the Narrow gauge show in Harrisburg 2 years ago. This church was there with many of his other Stoney Creek buildings and they were less than you could buy the kits for. I’m assuming his wife just wanted to unload this stuff for obvious reasons.

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[Wburg Pete]

"How's it going down in Williamsburg? Last we talked, you were looking at dismantling the layout, I believe.
Paul R."

Paul,
Staying too busy with "non-work, non-paying" work. Next week we're off to Europe for a couple of weeks to visit places in the eastern Med we haven't seen since the '60's and early '70's when I was flying off the Saratoga.

The layout just sits there. No real interest and little time to putz with it. I'm 83 and we're both in good health, however, at some point we're going to have to move to a CC facility, maybe very quickly, so I need to get rid of it before something gets one of us. I've seen that happen to many good friends and it wasn't pretty to watch.

I had a group come by from a large botanical garden in VA and ask if I would donate it to them. Need to figure out what its worth.
200+ kit/scratch built buildings
~50 turnouts, Tortoise machines, and custom controllers
200+ vehicles
lots of peoples
6 locos
~40 freight cars
10 pax cars
~1,000 trees
some nice custom bridges and trestles
10 amp NCE DCC with 4 controllers
etc..

Also got to get rid of all my naval aviation and railroad memorabilia and books.
Our daughters don't want much of our "stuff"

Hope you're staying healthy and enjoying your family and trains.
Keep posting photos, I really enjoy seeing them.
Pete

[healey36]

Well, Pete, I've pretty much stopped the work-for-no-pay model I had going...a bit of pro bono tax work each year and not much else. We shuttered the publishing business last year, a venture that produced virtually nothing over seven years (for various reasons, some of them beyond our control), and the invitations to assist with wargames at USNA have dried up. Thankfully, I rarely hear from Hughes anymore, so things are a bit quieter now and I can focus on stuff I promised myself I wanted to pursue after I retired. No sign of boredom yet, something other retired friends had warned of.

Yeah, my memory was that you were looking to dismantle the layout as preemptively as possible. It can be heartbreaking to see them go, but the fact of the matter is that there are few with any interest in this stuff coming up behind us. If you see an opening, best to take it (IMHO), especially if they are willing to help with the dismantle and transport.

I'm about fifteen years behind you age-wise, so I haven't really spent too much time thinking about disposition yet. My situation is somewhat different in that what I have is basically just stuff on a big table...very little scenery to speak of, and everything can be picked up and moved rather easily. Still, I've accumulated a ton of it and I need to be more mindful of what the end-game might look like. The only new stuff coming in here is an occasional upgrade, or stuff folks drop off to get rid of ("Hey, I heard you are into toy trains...found these in my parents' attic.")

Hope you have a terrific time on the Med trip. I expect things have changed quite a bit over the last fifty years or so. Interestingly, I had a boss when I worked at Pfizer that was an ex-Marine pilot, flying off Saratoga on at least one deployment. We used to travel frequently to Puerto Rico to visit a number of electronic component manufacturers we dealt with. He was fun to travel with, consuming a lot of rum goodies at some of his old Navy hangouts in San Juan...not sure how I survived it

[healey36]

I've never heard of Stoney Creek Designs, Greg, but then that's a part of the hobby that I've not indulged in. Sounds and looks like Roger made some terrific stuff...unfortunate that he checked out so early.

[healey36]

Closing out May with a bit of an enigma. I've been working on replacing the Lionel 261's trailing truck, missing when my buddy dropped it off. I ordered a trailing truck frame (261-17) from Trainz (along with a number of other needed bits for this and other projects), and a replacement wheelset/axle from Hennings. I pressed the wheelset onto the frame using an old pipe-clamp I have from The Old Man's shop (one of these days I'm going to have to invest in a proper bench vise, even better, a wheel press, but for now, made do with what was handy).

It doesn't take much for me to get balled up on replacement parts lists. Lionel's parts diagram for the 261 lists the trailing truck frame as 261E-RT or 261-RT, but the only one I can find at the parts dealers is a 261-17. I ordered a used one from Trainz which, to their credit, noted it "fits 249, 249E". With the 249/249E being a later version of the 261/262-series locomotive, I made the misguided leap that this 261-17 would fit...it doesn't. It turns out that the post on the frame to which one secures the trailing truck is about 3/8" further forward as compared to that of the 249, so the 261-17 is too short to clear the wheel arches when the truck pivots on a curve. You can kinda see the difference here:



That's the 261 on the left, the 249 on the right. You can see the screw position on the 249 is clearly visible, while that of the 261 is tucked up under the collector assembly.

I stopped by Carver's yesterday to see if Don had any ideas, but the shop wasn't open when I got there a bit after ten. I was headed up to visit Sarge afterwards, so when I got there we took the 261 apart and managed to get the truck mounted, which confirmed it was too short. What was particularly weird was that, as best we could tell, the hole for mounting the truck to the frame wasn't threaded. Sarge was able to tap the hole and we got the screw I brought along to work. It seems unlikely that this 261 was made without a trailing truck, so not sure what's up with that. The frame looks original, not a replacement.

Anyway, if I can't run down the correct truck frame, I might have to make one. On the test track, this thing can't navigate an O-31 curve (which it should be able to do). Might start calling around first.

[webenda]

That's the 261 on the left, the 249 on the right. You can see the screw position on the 249 is clearly visible, while that of the 261 is tucked up under the collector assembly.

Here are photos (from eBay) of a 261 and a 261E.

The mounting location looks the same as on your 249.