#Model Railroading

[whirligig-girl]

Eaurp Guz's roughly 1:30 scale live-steam model of Slaibsgloth Coal Railroad No.32, a ~1.6 meter gauge 2-8-8-2 garratt steam locomotive built on planet Mellanus in (earth-)year 2346 and retired in 2379 (two years ago) for service bringing coal carriages from the coal pits up to the interchange at the Glooiw & North Eastern. It is unusual for a coal burning steam engine to remain in revenue service--the majority that remained in use after the development of Diesel-Hydraulics were decommissioned with nuclear-powered railway electrification in the 2360s, and the ones that remained were mostly converted to oil burning. The Slaibsgloth steam engines meanwhile persisted right up until the closure of the coal mine. Glooiw & North Eastern has acquired the 40 locomotives. Their fates are uncertain but railway preservation groups remain optimistic.

When Guz first came aboard the Cerritos she was overworking herself constantly, which lead to her being so tired that she was leaving residues on the consoles and generally doing sloppier work. It turned out that Guz had been working double shifts, and when Billups found out he put a stop to that. That's when Guz turned to a hobby she'd done a lot of before joining starfleet--model rocketry. Armed with far more advanced tools than she'd had on Mellanus, she made accurate working model replicas of real historical prewarp spacecraft from a variety of planets and would fly them in real space whenever possible.

Eventually, she also found a new appreciation for her childhood love of trains, and her model-making skills and tools translated well to model railroading as well. She has a little shelf layout in storage that she occasionally tinkers with, and she runs large scale model trains on the holodeck. She could run full-scale holographic trains on the holodeck too of course, but it wouldn't be nearly as satisfying. And then there's the 1:5600 scale BM-gauge railroad she's building on a microscope slide! (Bµ gauge is "Byte micrometer" gauge or a track spacing of 256 µm)

Guz eventually wants to build a roughly 1:80 scale modular layout of the Slaibsgloth Coal Mine, with smaller scale electric-powered models of the Slaibsgloth coal-burning steam engines and enough track to wrap around a room and give them a good run, but unless she can rally support for a Cerritos chapter of the Starfleet Rail Transport Modelling Club or she can get her own crew quarters, it's a pipe dream--or maybe something for her retirement.

Replicators and advanced computer aided design tools reduce the amount of time it takes to get modelling projects done by whatever factor is desired. Technically Guz could probably replicate fully assembled working models as long as they fit in the replicator bed, but where's the fun in that? But she's still only got so much time in an off-shift, and doing it 'properly,' scratch-built using machine tools like 'real' modellers on Mellanus, or manually defining all of the geometry in a CAD program like modellers on Earth, would take too much time.

see also: alt versions of the locomotive.

[thunderbirdxart]

From the Lower Decks mobile game.

[infinitybal1233]

Everyone, meet Runt. She’s the cutest menace on the island >:3

[pyro-hairedguy]

My club got this mini layout in a donation and we've been upgrading it for show use. It's actually starting to come together nicely and already good for some photogenic shots.

[sharknoseshenanigans1951]

Another Timelapse

[masterj]

BumBim Creative is an Indonesian Youtuber who builds their own model railroad - out of cardboard!

They have also made Thomas characters and their latest video is James! Be sure to check them out!

[bvlcorr]

October Update

It's been a few months since I last posted. Most of what I've done on the layout (besides running it), has been improvements to existing parts of the layout. I've rewired the sensors for my Arduino-driven turntable so they're more reliable, and managed to fix up some other bugs with it.

This staging area at the end of my layout was originally just meant to represent an interchange with a standard-gauge line. As you can see from the photos above, I'd already started working on it. I forgot to take a proper 'before' photo.

The siding that curves off to the right of the photo was built as a locomotive parking track, but wasn't really used. It didn't really feel right to park one of my engines off-stage. So I added scenery to this section.

Here's what it looks like now. It's a designated diesel parking area. I was also able to fit a short section of standard-gauge track at the back, and I've got some O scale boxcars that'll sit on it once it's weathered. I've been wanting to get this standard gauge track on for ages. In fact, the bumper at the end of that track is my first O scale scratchbuilt structure.

With this completed, the layout scenery finally felt finished. As such, I've now started adding details to the layout. I've accumulated a large amount of detail castings over the years, a few at a time, for just this moment. People, animals, barrels, that sort of thing. I'm planning to add details to the whole layout, but I started with this extension, and some of the locomotives:

Now, having the diesel parked at the diesel facility left one of the turntable tracks empty.

Back when I got into On30, I purchased two Bachmann Climax locomotives. However, I could never get them to run properly. The motor speed would drop off after half throttle, and they would constantly lose power.

So I took them apart, to see if I could fix them. It turned out that one of the windings in one of the motors was shorting, and so I fixed that up. Testing revealed that both motors were working fine on DC voltage after this. As such, I upgraded them both to modern decoders, a Tsunami 2, with a KA-4 keepalive module in them. This fixed up the power loss problem.

I also made a few small modifications & repairs. I'd given them some additional details, back when I'd first purchased them. This time around, I gave no. 1 a Banta Modelworks closed cab. The other major change was repairing the front and rear pilots, as the plastic struts holding them had broken. These were replaced with metal castings. I made the pilot boards from coffee sticks, trimmed to length and painted black.

With that, I put them into service on my layout. These are some of my favourite-looking models, and it's good to have them running again.

For now, I'm mostly going to be focusing on adding details to the layout, to bring it to life.

[wncrails]

Finally back at the work bench. Finished up adding decals to this Delaware Valley Airslide. Also added an etched metal walkway from Plano Model Products.

[misforgotten2]

“Warning! Warning! There’s a school bus stuck on the tracks! Oh no! Watch out! Sceeeeeeach Bang Crash Aaah! There’s children strewn everywhere! Look there’s the head of that stinky Susie Johnson! So I guess it’s not a total loss.”

Lionel Trains with Magne Traction  catalog   1958

[sofficiposts]

Weathering some of my models, I hope to soon be able to get some matte clear and masking tape to hold the weathering powder down.

[greatnorthernofficial]

⚠️warning- noisy as hell, turn down your volume for the video ⚠️

Picked up an antique Tri-Ang model set from the UK. How wonderful! She's growly as hell but runs fine. Might get a little quieter when I clean and oil it...

The only big issue is, the Tri-Ang models have huge wheel flanges- sometimes they don't play nice on switches/ turnouts on modern HO/OO track. The only problem child is the dining car, which is the oldest of the models. Might look into replacement wheelsets.

The coaches seem pretty light, too- Might add weight to improve smoothness

Back on the floor again, as the new train table is taken up with a Lionel project. Adds British realism (cough cough Sam's Trains)

[whirligig-girl]

As a lower decker, Ensign Eaurp Guz doesn't have a lot of space for a model railroad. Arguably she could fit like a shelf layout precariously above her tub-bunk, but that's where she keeps some of her model spaceships. So instead, she builds larger scale model engines and runs them on the holodeck. Here's a roughly G gauge model of a Slopspit & Southern Class 80 "Easy"-type 2-6-0 steam engine with decorative smoke baffles. Like most of her models it's built with function in mind, so it's live steam.

Guz's model rockets and spacecrafts are either run in the holodeck, or in certain conditions on shoreleave or staged out of the shuttlebay on actual spaceflights. For example, the Orion Nuclear Pulse Rocket from Guzcomic was planned to make a round trip between Douglas Station and the planet's moon, DbII before it went and exploded itself, and the lunar lander she'd built for the Apollo 11 anniversary was going to actually land on the Moon.

When she can fully recover her models, she keeps them in storage and rotates them in the display above her tub-bunk.

Guz also has plans for a proper model railroad which would replicate a colliery circa 2350 with a late example of a revenue-earning steam locomotive in approximately HO-ish gauge, but it would require having her own quarters.

She's also kicking around plans to make a 1:4800 scale layout which would fit on a microscope slide.

[tygrstryke]

Reviving this account to post about my hyperfixations.

About me:

Loves trains, Lego (and off brands), halo, fallout, Star Wars, RDM Battlestar, cyberpunk, sci-fi, and anime/manga

Makes custom miniatures, has a train layout, has too many collections.

Sucker for romance manga and techno love songs

Some pictures of stuff I’m into/my collection

[infinitybal1233]

Just painted Annie & Clarabel, feelin good

[pyro-hairedguy]

It was kettle night

[sharknoseshenanigans1951]

Love that Clicky Clack sound