#scale model railroad

[primerjohn]

Visited the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, and they had a scale model railroad display. I honestly like seeing them to learn what I can for my own craft. This was one of them.

Lime Kiln

The Lime Kiln diorama, based on an actual set of lans in Felton, California, was built by the late Jim Vail. Look for the miniature workers in the kiln, and the detail of the limestones as they are processed. The lime from Felton was used to make cement for the growing city of San Francisco and surrounding Bay Area cities.

West Side Lumber

Located in Tuolumne, a small city in the Sierra Foothills, the West Side Lumber Company once operated an extensive logging operation served by a narrow gauge railroad. This HO scale model by Jim Vail is a foreshortened representation of the sawmill, which was modified to include a small farm scene.

[whirligig-girl]

[sharknoseshenanigans1951]

STEAM POWER RAHHHH

I LOVE NEW YORK CENTRAL 4-6-4 HUDSON STEAM LOCOMOTIVES

HERES A COOL VIDEO

AND GIFS

[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.

[krazyjoe]

2"X2" mini N scale layout

[trainsinanime]

I have a cold and I'm tired, so I'll post better pictures later, especially ones of the new T-Trak module I recently built. But I did want to show at least this little thing I did with some of the leftover material. Not all of the leftover material, though. I have so much leftover wood strips…

Anyway, this is a very small section of a North American style railroad trestle (I think they're also a thing in Australia?), based on plans by the Great Northern, but then adapted with more bracing because I think that looks better. The height is chosen so that it can be connected to T-Trak modules if you replace the connectors. The track is… I don't actually know. Might be Minitrix? Something I found on my desk.

The wooden structure is all built by hand, out of 2x2 mm balsa wood (main frames), 3x3 mm pine (the sections under the plastic track piece and 1x1 mm linden for the bracings in the longitudinal direction. All cut by hand with a sharp cutter knife (except the 3x3 mm pine, I used a tiny saw for that) and glued together with wood glue.

The locomotive is either Athearn or Atlas, I can never remember which of these is which. I think Atlas. And yes, the rear truck isn't on the rails properly, as I said, I'm sick.

This project was a lot of fun, as was the full T-Trak module (I'll post about that later, hopefully in a couple of days), but also sometimes a bit annoying. I know a couple of places that I could do better, but the main one is the ties. They should be much wider for a bridge like that, but I am not aware of commercially made wide ties. Maybe I'll need 3D printing for that, because I don't think gluing rail profiles to wooden ties is the proper solution. Still, it looks neat as it is. Feel free to ask questions if you have any!

[punalippulaiva]

Today I went and assembled the teeny Multicar M22 models in N scale I bought earlier this week. I'm glad I had two different pincers, working just with my giant fingers would have been a nightmare.

[pxmun]

This is Buckle a 2-6-2 prairie tender engine for Union Pacific.

They've been a way for a while but are thrilled to be back on the Dream-A-Way railroad, especially once they got the word that the railroad was in trouble with the a good chunk of their engines out of commission.

Personality wise, Buckle is a "smokebox in a steam cloud" kind of engine. They can get distracted easily, but is a loyal friend and will work their hardest to help out. Buckle is extremely shy around people, this they prefer doing freight work. They also love bird watching and bug catching.

[kcvulpinestudios]

Just a simple llama, making her way from town to town.

I made this as a fun experiment of building model sets for character pics. Bastet, our friendly neighborhood llama hobo, was the perfect subject for this pic.

[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.

[barrylowis]

My new N-scale railway, (railroad) layout is progressing. I have several Metcalf models in preparation, ready to be installed.

#n-scale, # n-gauge, #railroad, #railway

[primerjohn]

I was awestruck by this display. The density of detail between the buildings, people, and ships, is almost overwhelming. This was the last diorama of the series (or the first depending on which way you were coming from). The California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento was worth visiting for this series of dioramas alone.

*Smuggler’s Cove*

This O scale narrow gauge layout, Smuggler’s Cove, built by Michael Flack and the late Geoff Knott in Australia, depicts a fictional New England fishing community modeled after towns in coastal Massachusetts and Maine. Small and large fishing boats and the steamboat Sabino near the Maritime Museum play a prominent role in this coastal diorama. Look for intricate details such as the scratch built lobster traps, floats, and fish crates stacked on the pier. How many seagulls can you spot in Smuggler’s Cove?

*Geoff Knott and Michael Flack*

The late Geoff Knott and Michael Flack were insprred to build Smuggler’s Cove after discovering the history of rum-running along the East Coast of the US, in the carly 1900s, their inspiration for Smuggler’s Cove came after Geoff and Michael traveled to New England and visited Cape Cod, Boothbay Harbor, Bar Harbor, and Kennebunkport, Geoff and Michael helped to popularize O scale models. <Layout furnished by the Australasian Region of the NMRA>.

[whittlemethis]

Sorry for the lack of whittle posts. I got into a model train mood and decided to try and get this partially built layout working that I was gifted a few years ago.

It's been too many years since I've had a continuous running layout. And I miss the sound.

We'll see if I have enough attention span to juggle two hobbies at once.

[sharknoseshenanigans1951]

Another Timelapse

[pyro-hairedguy]

It was kettle night

[eltristanexplicitcontent]

Poles, as opposed to pantographs, were by far the most popular means of current collection for interurban lines in North America. The pick-up is held against the live overhead wire with about 28 points of pressure applied through a spring-load3d trolley base mounted on the roof. (This is why they are called "trolley cars" -- much to the amusement of the Brits 🛒). 2-rail DCC in HO scale may or may not have a live overhead, but getting the pole on the wire is one of the most fiddly bits of model railroading ever...

"Poling" is something else entirely, where freight cars are shunted ...with a pole! One end of the thick pole is seated in a cast iron "poling pocket" on what the Brits might call the buffer beam of the locomotive and used to push against the same poling pocket hardware located on any corner of every freight car. Tight radius, incompatible couplers, adjacent tracks -- all problems that poling solved. Obviously not OSHA compliant, but it was railroading!

Andy Gautrey has done a bangup job of modeling North American traction -- Yakima Valley Transportation Company's General Electric interurban steeplecab freight motor and other very typical equipment and operations that were archetypal of electric lines, especially those that engaged in a large amount of interchange freight business.

More vids on Andy's channel -- seems he's moved on so look for oldest vids…