#model railroad

[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>.

[kcvulpinestudios]

Unusual Model Train Sets

A long time ago in 2020, I did a thread on Twitter of unusual model train sets. Mainly to showcase some that don't seem real, but are/were. Here's a selection of such trains.

I pity the fool who doesn't have this set.

It's more than meats the eye.

Our secret weapon in defeating Cobra.

I don't see a correlation between Rambo and trains to warrant this set.

Of course. When I think of a hit comedy show about medical personnel during the Korean War, I think a train set would make sense given the context. (Friend of mine said the following:

Though my point still stands just from the episodes I've seen.)

This has the best '80s aesthetic I've seen for a train set.

As someone who launched Hot Wheel cars in front or over trains, I legit think this concept is fun.

Speaking of Hot Wheels...

As someone who still has this set, I can tell you that while it's fun, it's not compatible with HO tracks. A real bummer if you ask me.

I have a soft spot for train sets based on tractor brands (I have relatives who live in Eastern Washington who collect old tractors). The only unusual thing I could find is when they are a passenger set.

Which makes no sense considering what the IP is.

I don't see the connection between auto parts and trains, but the Photoshopped image on the box is cool.

Again, don't see much of a connection, in this case of NASCAR sets. However, if your train is taking a left hand turn every time it goes around the track then it makes sense (I guess). And that is the list of unusual train sets I could find for this post. This is not meant to say they're dumb. I actually find sets like these quite entertaining and fascinating, particularly the TYCO sets of Rambo, GI Joe, A-Team, and Transformers just for how niché they were. And these came out around the time Shining Time Station premiered.

If you know any others, please reblog with the train set that you find unusual or barely has any connection to 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.

[adventurelandia]

"Railroading with Walt Disney" Electric Trains, December 1954

[dark0ta]

Model railroad museum Taken: 02/23/24

[aboutoriginality]

[valtionrautatiet-official]

Jos satut olemaan rikas (itse en valitettavasti ole) on nyt tarjolla mahdollisuus ostaa pala suomalaista rautatiehistoriaa: Haapamäen höyryveturipuisto myy Huutokaupat.comissa K2/Tk2-veturia vuodelta 1904. Lähtöhinta on suolainen 30 000 €, mutta tällaista ei kyllä sitten kellään muulla ole mökillään.

Samoin höyryveturipuisto myy neuvostoliittolaista L-veturia (40 000€) sekä matkustajia kuljettavaa puutarharataa Dr12-veturin näköisine vetureineen, vaunuineen ja ratoineen (45 000€).

Lisäksi myynnissä on ilmatorjuntatykki, mutta koska VR:n on rauhalle omistautunut yhtiö emme kommentoi sitä enempää. Höyryveturipuiston myynti-ilmoituksen löytyvät täältä: https://huutokaupat.com/haapamaen-hoyryveturipuisto-oy

[futurebird]

There is a whole genre of video that consists of model railroad hobbyists with realistic set ups doing video from the front of the train (making the world seem to scale) and their cats terrorizing the trains like the cutest, fuzziest kaiju.

[trainsinanime]

Today was a successful day! I've been dreaming of getting the Olympian Hiawatha from Katy for literally years (I think I first thought of it 2016 or 2017?), but it was always hard to justify. It's cheap per car, but not cheap in total, and I already have several Kato american train packages (Super Chief and Broadway Limited), and at well over a meter long each, they're not actually all that practical. But they are cool. Anyway, one of the german importers for Kato had sets of this at basically every train show, and it seems they finally wanted to get rid of them, so they were now heavily discounted: 100€ for the full nine-car set with display tracks. Well, that was not a hard decision.

I don't have the right locomotives yet, they didn't have those there. My options right now are to buy the FP7s from Kato, or wait until someone makes the Bipolars or Little Joes in N scale, maybe, eventually, some day. I do know one store in Germany that still has a very limited number of the FP7s in stock unless their website is lying. If I go that route, do I need an A-B-A set or is A-B enough? …do I want an A-B-A set? Will I put Digitrax decoders in them or solder myself? The last one's actually easy, soldering in normal decoders is easy enough, cheaper, and in my experience it works better.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[krazyjoe]

2"X2" mini N scale layout

[misforgotten2]

"Now that the kids are busy why don't we to the roundhouse for some old fashion caboose work."

Lionel Trains with Magne Traction catalog 1958

[existentialsophism]

Voila, the transformation. I have made @norfolk-bastard very sad and @conrail-official very happy. Weep, or rejoice, depending how much you like having slurdge spilled on your lawn

[pyro-hairedguy]

It was kettle night