double post
double post
Ken Mathews/Imagination Station Kids On Track said:
Todd, Forum Members,
I thought I would share photos of all your hard work, supplies and craftsmanship for some of the other folks to see on this forum. I wish I could get the photos to display directly on this post reply but unfortunately, once again, photos do not post from smartphones, which is all I have. I do hope however, that these links to Dropbox will once again suffice.
I do want to thank Todd and his family for their support of our program and helping us get both of these locomotives up and running. The side rods on the Christmas engine were broken and as you can see in the photos, his side rods that he made worked fantastic. The main rod on our makeshift Polar Express locomotive needed a much longer main rod due to Barry’s Big Trains longer 2-8-0 wheelbase. Parts we’re added to this locomotive to try to bring it closer to the look of The Polar Express locomotive. This locomotive, of course, was a Lionel 2-4-2 Atlantic and Barry designed his drive to fit under the Lionel body. The only problem was that the wheelbase was too long for a standard Bachmann main rod.
That is where Todd came in and made us quite a long main rod for this locomotive that extended from the third wheel back to the piston assembly. When I receive this locomotive, it wasn’t completed, with the body completely separated from the chassis and drive. I had to add mounting brackets, put the bell up front, add various steam engine parts, add the steam chest the barry had, complete the electrical, add a few brakes, fix a loose wheel insert, fix the front truck contacts and of course ask Todd to make the main Rod longer along with the side rods he was already making for the Keystone Christmas locomotive. I know there are detail parts that are missing or inaccurate but it’s as close as we could come for now.
The Polar Express tender was found on eBay because our Lionel, New York Central tender was never delivered to us. We would have used that tender and decaled it in the Polar Express name, if we had it. We got lucky in one aspect because someone on eBay had this Polar Express tender and even though it is inaccurate to the film and in scale and the locomotive is not a Berkshire, I don’t think kids will notice or care.
Both locomotives run fantastic now and have most of the parts they are supposed to have, thanks to Todd. I hope all these photos are viewable and I want to express my appreciation, along with that of our volunteers to Todd for his time, supplies and craftsmanship in making these parts.
It is absolutely amazing, as seen in the photos, the detail and craftsmanship that he was able to put into these parts with the laser. He is also very patient because I gave him the wrong size at first and we had to mail parts back and forth a couple of times but eventually got it right.
Thanks Todd!
Thousands of kids will now get to enjoy these trains for years to come because of your help!
(One of these days we may figure out how to display photos on posts and replies off our smartphone, if it’s even possible. For now let’s hope everyone can view the links).
Ken c/o Imagination Station Kids On Track Model Railroad And Train Safety Program
E. Helena, Montana
By the way Rooster, both sides were broken and the side rods on this Keystone Christmas locomotive were not metal, as I previously thought.
Ken, I cannot find a web site for your Imagination Station Kids On Track Model Railroad And Train Safety Program …
I did find you have a big trailer, so you bring the trains to the kids?
I’m curious why no web site, I can put a couple of pages on mine if you need a place to refer people to.
Greg
Greg, Todd,
Thanks,
I appreciate it. I have been just posting the photos of the trains, operations and layouts on this site and also modeltrainforum.com. I think there are more photos on modeltrainforum.com than here due to data restrictions though. I did plan on doing a website in addition to our You Tube channel but websites are a bit expensive and we hang on by our teeth, so to speak, so I never started one. I just direct everyone to these 2 sites and G Scale Central also. This has worked quite well over the years and as a matter of fact, if you type our name with the word photos behind it into a search engine, it brings up sites/photos of all our programs and state reg. but only a few photos of our music program because it’s new.
https://www.modeltrainforum.com/album.php?albumid=124#/
https://www.largescalecentral.com/profile/Railroadinovations
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuSxEFy3BQBM-IndYrUkl5Q
http://forums.mylargescale.com/showthread.php?t=63546
https://www.gscalecentral.net/media/users/imagination-station-kids.3400/
To be honest, I am not to tech. savy, so I wouldn’t even know how to build or use a website anyway and besides, I use my smartphone all the time. We don’t have a desktop at all.
PS Are the photos Todd posted above working out on your end or should it be a separate post, or something?
Todd, Thanks for posting that. Not sure how it looks on a desktop though, like I mentioned above, we don’t have one.
Ken
Ken the pics in Todd’s post are thumbnail sized, but don’t open to a larger version.
My phone; Mister Smartypants isn’t very nice to me, I’m no help there.
No problem John, Just wondering if my links I posted above work or not.
Wouldn’t surprise me, if they didn’t but who knows, maybe.
Ken
Excuse me, I didn’t see the links before. Now they all appear to be good except one through Pinterest which may have blank spots. I could copy and paste in a new tab, then delete the spaces, if I cared to, but I’m lazy.
Ken,
I tried posting in various ways from your pics and other than pull them into a separate server/file (didn’t want to do that due to space), I could not get them to post the pics.
But, being resourceful, I just clicked on the picture and asked google to search for the image on the web and once google found it, pasted it in from there no problem. These are what it gives.
Once you post something anywhere, there is a record of it for anyone who searches with the right tools. (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Good to know! Thanks Todd.
John, Pinterest is always a Turkey. It says click here for link sharing but when you paste it, it doesn’t work??? Oh well, at least the rest work.
By the way I forgot to add the links, so it’s not your fault they weren’t there. I edited and added them. Apologies
Thanks, Ken
Ken, just to be clear, I was offering you some pages on my site, I would put pictures and text there that you wanted… and links, then if someone googled your operation, it would come to one spot, under your control, formatted the way you want, with links you want.
Regards, Greg
Greg Elmassian said:
Ken, just to be clear, I was offering you some pages on my site, I would put pictures and text there that you wanted… and links, then if someone googled your operation, it would come to one spot, under your control, formatted the way you want, with links you want.
Regards, Greg
No need to “own” him Greg…his pics are with dropbox which isn’t nice to play with forum wise but I found a way to format them for him that he still “owns” unless you cannot see them like me ?
Regards
Rooster
more along the the lines of giving him and his organization an internet “home”, since he cannot afford a web site.
Rooster,
The photos look great! How did you do that? Does it have to be done on a desktop?
If not, I would like to learn how to do that and then, just maybe, I can post photos normally for once.
Greg, Let me ask my staff and see if that is something that they think would work for us and if they would be willing to help me with that. Like I say, I’m not to tech savvy, so i may not know the ins and outs. I mean I have trouble posting photos here and like I say, I only use a smartphone. I think it’s a great idea though. I’ll send you a message and let you know after our next meeting in a couple weeks. Appreciate the offer!
Ken
imagination Station Kids On Track
Again no programming on your part, just a place to present any pictures and mostly links to your existing pictures.
Basically a “central clearinghouse” to your information. My site is very regularly “mined” by the search engines, so googling your organization would pop a page up that could be more like a “table of contents” to your information.
No big deal, just a free “home”. I would do all the work.
Greg
Greg,
That’s a very generous offer. (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)
Sorry, bur I don’t see the pics. Just broken links