Model Train Journal

Happy Friday! Can't wait for the days to become a bit longer next week Still deciding what to do with the layout, but leaning more towards giving O gauge a break & going w/ a small HO layout in the office. I have plans for a 4x8 postwar style layout drawn up, but don't have anyplace to put it. Let this be a lesson - always get a house w/ a basement As long as some trains are running, it's all good

NS GP38-2 5662 (ex NS GP38 2907, exx CR/PC 7726) heading through Hummelstown, PA w/ H24, the 'Hershey Shifter'


UP ET44AH-T4C 2743 gets a nose full of golden afternoon sun as it leads a light engine move through Mableton, GA on the NS Atlanta North District.


NS D9-44CW 9221 hustles Jersey bound 20K through Fleetwood, PA on the Reading Line.


NS SD60E 6961 (ex NS SD60 6524) leads 18M through Salem, VA on the Christiansburg District.


A pair of NS GE motors cross a very high Sherman’s Creek in Duncannon, PA with Chicago bound ethanol train 67X.

Love the last shot of the ethanol train. Empty? I mean why would you ship ethanol to Chicago? I would have thought it would go the other way with all of the corn in Illinois/Iowa?

Good luck with the layout. 4x8 HO is pretty small, maybe N?

chuck wrote:Love the last shot of the ethanol train. Empty? I mean why would you ship ethanol to Chicago? I would have thought it would go the other way with all of the corn in Illinois/Iowa?

Good luck with the layout. 4x8 HO is pretty small, maybe N?

yeah it's an empty train. Loads go to Delaware or Jersey, depending on the train.

N is too small for the kids. I thought about it, but I thought HO was a nice middle ground. 4x8 w/ a small yard is about all that room can fit.
Whenever I get it up, I'll post a pic

Did you ever consider S? There is a club out of Lansing with a very nice single 4x8 transportable layout that would show up at local shows. I was sorely tempted by the S gauge LionChief PE set Lionel did a year or so ago. I thought it looked better than the traditional or even the scale set.

chuck wrote:Did you ever consider S? There is a club out of Lansing with a very nice single 4x8 transportable layout that would show up at local shows. I was sorely tempted by the S gauge LionChief PE set Lionel did a year or so ago. I thought it looked better than the traditional or even the scale set.

I kick this around all the time. Why is it S never really took off? I have a 5x10.5 2 rail layout. it will be coming down soon. We need the room for the kid. I'll probably go N scale on a door. I have a place with a basement. Not all basements are equal. Mine is better off being a root cellar. A creek runs trough it 6 months of the year. I thought about buying a cheap shed and using it to store a module layout. Then every once in a while bring it in to run it.

Why is it S never really took off?

Lionel's marketing efforts in the 50's and AF's screw ups in handling the trains and insanely poor marketing skills. AF couldn't decide whether to go for scale/fidelity or gizmo action cars like Lionel's. Two rail track with three rail tie spacing isn't very realistic. By the time AF adopted prototypical track HO had established itself as THE scale model railroading standard.

The technology needed to make "action" cars did not scale well the cars suffered in appearance and functionality (we were a long way from small powerful motors). This meant a train set that wasn't fish or fowl. Lionel did the same thing about 10 years earlier with OO. That was another product that had a lot of potential and it was squandered by in fighting and mis management.

I seriously tried to get into HO but found the size needed for a decent layou was well worse than O. I had a brief fling with N until my eyesight couldn't handle the small size and the trians did not sound anything like trains, more like a sewing machine.

Gilbert S-gauge would probably require as much space as HO...it takes up a lot of real estate and I agree with Chuck, Gilbert's 2-rail track looks weird (profile is too tall for its width, at least to my eye).

That said, it was my first love. I still have most of the second-hand Mountaineer set The Old Man got me back in '62 or '63. Later I accumulated a small collection of stuff which we played with when my kids were small.

Hands down, my favorite loco is this Flyer 310 Pennsy K5 from 1946 or 1947:



No smoke, no choo-choo, just runs quietly and the valve-gear/connecting rod action is just great.

As a teenager I got into N. I remember having a three-foot-by-five-foot piece of foam-board upon which I would lay Atlas sectional using straight pins. Endless variations of track arrangements. although the equipment was rather primitive then. Never ran particularly well over turnouts, crossovers, etc.

Here's a nice steamer from that era that I've hung onto, a Trix K4:



Sarge patched this guy up for me...my solder skills have gone in the crapper.

Healey

Here s another ho K4, this one MTH, and a few Lionel scale loco's...

I thought about S, but like, it was said, it does take a bunch of room. I think the HO was a good way to go. My wife likes the HO idea bc of the low volume. The room they are in is between the 2 kids bedrooms, so the noise was an issue. I still plan to put a 4x8 Lionel layout up someplace in the house at some point

Why oh why do they put B&O and other road names on a loco so well known as a PRR K4?
How about PRR on an SP GS-4? Even worse, PRR on an NYC Dreyfuss Hudson.
Oh well. I guess if it sells it is OK and may help the hobby go on.

rogruth wrote:Why oh why do they put B&O and other road names on a loco so well known as a PRR K4?
How about PRR on an SP GS-4? Even worse, PRR on an NYC Dreyfuss Hudson.
Oh well. I guess if it sells it is OK and may help the hobby go on.

I know.

Torques me, too.

rogruth wrote:Why oh why do they put B&O and other road names on a loco so well known as a PRR K4?

B&O was controlled by the Pennsy for a while.

J. S. Bach wrote:

rogruth wrote:Why oh why do they put B&O and other road names on a loco so well known as a PRR K4?

B&O was controlled by the Pennsy for a while.

Yes but they never had K4s marked for B&O.
They did have some E2s, I think, and some Hs.
I have an E6 marked B&O but I pretend it is an E2.