Large Scale Central

Building a BIG "little" shortline RR

Other Scales
#81

Paul Burch said:

Gary,

Judging from one of those photos, I think you need a garage sale! Just kidding.

Hey Paul,

Actually we haven’t parked a car/cars in that garage since 1978! 12X36 Atlas lathe, small mill, 12" Craftsman radial saw, 10" table saw, 5 HP Delta wood shaper and a Shopsmith. Three storage racks for the 1-1/2 inch stuff and assorted small tools. Way too much hobby stuff. File cabinet after file cabinet of milling machine cutters and tooling for the lathe and mill. Most of the railroad guys call their garages something like a “Rubic’s Cube”.

#82

Ooooo…Nice…

Wouldn’t the flat car be easier to move track … not having to lift so hi … and just sliding of into place…(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

#83

Sean McGillicuddy said:

Ooooo…Nice…

Wouldn’t the flat car be easier to move track … not having to lift so hi … and just sliding of into place…(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

Actually…no :). This flatcar has a real wood floor and it’s made of oak flooring…individual pieces at that. That floor would be damaged if I slid the track panels off that car. The best reason for not using it is that the car is only 4-1/2 feet long. The track panels are ten feet. The steel gondola is over 6 feet long and stands about 12 inches above the railhead. I did use the wood gondola as an idler car to compensate for the track panel overhang…much the same way that the D&RGW did for carrying long oil well pipe in Colorado. Also the plastic ties on the track panel don’t scratch the steel sides on the gondola.

#84

Ok make sense ….

#85

Sean McGillicuddy said:

Ok make sense ….

Sean,

Much of what we do in this large scale ride-on hobby, relates more to running a 1:1 RR, than a model railroad. EVERYTHING is just bigger and bulkier :). Some folks on the garden railroading sites find that out the “hard way” sometimes. People are interested in getting started in 1.5/1.6 inch scale, but soon find out that the amount of “real estate” needed to run on can be overwhelming. Building engines and rolling stock this size is easy because it IS so large, but the material needed and the tools to build can also be overwhelming. Setting up a portable track (even a small track like I have) can be real work! Marty Cozad’s RR in 1" scale is really becoming a “club size” track now. He “knows” construction and what it takes to build a large layout (even in 1"). He now has thousands of feet of track. He found early on that what made the ride-on scales so interesting was the use of equipment and engines to do track ROW maintenance and building.

#86

Gary Armitstead said:

Sean McGillicuddy said:

Ok make sense ….

Sean,

Much of what we do in this large scale ride-on hobby, relates more to running a 1:1 RR, than a model railroad. EVERYTHING is just bigger and bulkier :). Some folks on the garden railroading sites find that out the “hard way” sometimes. People are interested in getting started in 1.5/1.6 inch scale, but soon find out that the amount of “real estate” needed to run on can be overwhelming. Building engines and rolling stock this size is easy because it IS so large, but the material needed and the tools to build can also be overwhelming. Setting up a portable track (even a small track like I have) can be real work! Marty Cozad’s RR in 1" scale is really becoming a “club size” track now. He “knows” construction and what it takes to build a large layout (even in 1"). He now has thousands of feet of track. He found early on that what made the ride-on scales so interesting was the use of equipment and engines to do track ROW maintenance and building.

I do follow Marty and love watching him spreading ballast with his hoppers …

#87

Operations and doing “heavy” work with models this size, is what makes it so awesome. But sometimes you forget that these things ARE models and stuff gets damaged :(.