Large Scale Central

Christmas eve train

General Discussion
#1

Hi guys,

My son and I ran trains yesterday afternoon. Warmed all the way up to 27 degrees!

Merry Christmas to all!

Cheers,

Matt

#2

OMG those pics look 1:1! Beautiful! Merry Christmas to you too!

#3

Great photos, Matt and Merry Christmas.

#4

I had to do a double take on that black and white shot! Merry Christmas to you and yours, Matt!

#5

Thank you for the comments. No New Year’s Eve trains - we got about twenty scale feet of snow earlier this week and nothing’s moving. Still can’t even see the tops of the telegraph poles!

Happy new Year!

Matt

#6

Matt;

I understand your dilemma. That is way too high for our model snowplows. Shoveling is not good when you cannot see what could be (relatively) delicate details at trackside. I have a small battery snow blower, but it still cuts a ten inch path.

Best wishes, David Meashey

#7

Okay, so the branch line from the staging yard in my garage to the mainline is built along a stone retaining wall. That wall is also south facing, so the snow melts off pretty quickly. I was able to make it down to the mainline this afternoon:

Now what? (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cry.gif)

Cheers,

Matt

#8

Matt Hutson said:

Now what? (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cry.gif)

Cheers,

Matt

Ya fire up the rotary…:wink:

#9

Hi Ken,
Once upon a time I had one of those USAT models. I doctored it up with a Black & Decker drill motor, but still it was not effective enough. These days I resort to other equipment.

Cheers,

Matt

#10

That’s one impressive piece of equipment right there.

#11

Bravo. What beautiful pictures!!

#12

Awesome Matt!

#13

Thank you all for your generous comments. When conditions are good, plowing snow is a blast.

I have a flanger too, but you can’t really get any good pics of it at work since it’s mostly covered with snow. Its blades are made from an Edge shaving cream can. The steel from the can has just the right curvature, and it’s springy enough to bend but not break. The blades have endured many Colorado winters.

Cheers,

Matt

#14

Matt,

Is that a custom build? I’m working on a similar model (ex GN). Would love to hear about the success and failures of that plowing snow along with any construction details.

Craig

#15

Matt,

Is that a custom build? I’m working on a similar model (ex GN). Would love to hear about the success and failures of that plowing snow along with any construction details.

Craig

#16

Hi Craig,

Yes, it’s scratch built. About sixteen years ago I found myself working in Helper, Utah where the prototype is displayed in a park. I took a bunch of pics and dimensions and was off to the races.

My model has metal trucks and wheels for weight. It also has a couple of Aristo SD45 or Dash 9 weights inside. The extension wings are made of 1/8" thick steel bar stock from the hardware store. I posted a pretty extensive build log at the time on mylargescale.com, but I imagine it’s long gone now, given the changes to that website.

As far as plowing goes, it’s good for up to 2" of light snow. The wings extend out far enough to plow parallel sidings. At the time I had a 60’ long siding and the first time I tried one of the wings I held my breath. It worked perfectly and cleared the whole siding in one pass. Pretty cool. Here’s a construction shot with one wing fully extended:

Here’s a pic of the plow doing its thing a little over fifteen years ago:

We got a light dusting of snow overnight, so here’s a shot of my flanger after a brief run this morning:

Cheers,

Matt