And on curves, the wire makes a straight line (in the horizontal plane) between posts, so it doesn't exactly follow the centerline. I had been...
Trolley poles are known for their ability to handle much greater off-center wire positions than pantographs. This raises the question: How much...
A couple days after making that post, I was searching for information on Hornby Zero One and I found out about ASTRAC, among others. Before that...
In the 1930s, American OO scaler Temple Nieter was working on a control system that sounds like (a basis for) pre-digital control of multiple...
I know that distributed braking cars were used by roads including CP and BN, and their use has been attributed to cold climates. I sort of recall...
I can't remember if these have "always" been there, but recently I've been increasingly conscious of the appearance of a certain type of...
Not exactly "current railroads", but... The Hudson Bay Railway, in 1990s CN days, was rather famous as an anachronism. Grain moved exclusively in...
I see these figures for diesel and electric locomotives, "continuous tractive effort" and "starting tractive effort". But what exactly is the...
Are you modelling the metre gauge, the standard gauge or both? I ask because I was looking at the Railways in Vietnam website and wondering what...
In paying attention to the tractive effort of locomotives, I've realized I need to know more about coupler strength. I've heard of large early...
Driver size, for one thing. Those US fast freight engines - Mountains, Berkshires, Texans, Challengers - usually had 69" drivers, or higher in the...
The Russian 2-10-2s sold second-hand to China (FD class) wasn't the same as the later QJ. That link suggests the QJ was derived from the Soviet...
A mechanical question as much as electrical... Any model railroad book I've ever read was focused on US HO/N or occasionally UK OO/N, so 2-rail...
I'm unclear on your request. Do you simply want to raise the mainline on the left side of the plan for scenic purposes? Or do you want to add...
I also see some ~5" radius curves. And the layout seems to be made of several sections that don't connect.
My instinct (but I tend to favor track/operation-heavy plans)... Now that you've got a significant portion of the branch at sufficient elevation...
Couple thoughts: The passing track is long. Assuming you aren't running trains that stretch halfway around the layout, you don't need it. It'll...
A couple years ago, I was trying to learn about early AC locomotives. They arrived in Europe before North America....
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/LocoPicture.aspx?id=86671 ex-NKP, to Louis Dreyfus Corporation biodiesel plant, Claypool, IN...
When I was younger, I didn't think much about this. Canada bordered the US. Its axle loads, clearances, couplers, etc. were like the US. But we...