The North Atlanta Model Railroad Club O-Scale Layout.

DoctorZ Jul 28, 2021

  1. DoctorZ

    DoctorZ TrainBoard Member

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    Located inside of Hobbytown USA in Kennesaw, GA, is the NAMRRC. Four loops all running at the same time:

     
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  2. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    Pretty neat! At the opening, I can hear someone saying, "Slow it down. Slow it down more." Despite Magne-Traction, I too see worrisome speeds on some Lionel layouts. Not sure what the appeal of 200 MPH is. I brought my vintage GG-1 (from our family Lionel when I was young) to the local club layout and advised the same "Slow it down PLEASE." to the clubmember who for whatever reason ignored my request. I then told the guy to stop the train. I was done. I have some other equipment that would be nice to see run on a large layout, but I've never returned.

    2020-04-19 Lionel GG-1 2340 - for upload.jpg
     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2021
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  3. DoctorZ

    DoctorZ TrainBoard Member

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    The problem was the layout had two speeds, super fast or dead in the water; either dirty track or bad wiring. I had to slow down the video playback speed to make the video more watchable.
     
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  4. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    I see these speeds way to often on tinplate layouts. Being from that origin, I never ran mine that fast. Splattering them all over the floor had no appeal...

    Otherwise, I enjoyed watching and would like to see more such layouts.
     
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  5. country joe

    country joe TrainBoard Member

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    Doctor2, thanks for the video. I really enjoyed it. The NAMRRC has a great layout.

    When watching O gauge trains run keep two things in mind. Pre and post war trains were geared to run fast. Speed was a big feature for kids. It is difficult to get those trains to reliably run slow. MPC era, and most conventionally controlled O gauge trains run fast. More modern O gauge trains with speed control boards can run very slow. I usually run my trains in the 25 to 35 SMPH range.

    Also remember that O gauge trains are big. 40 SMPH, reasonable for a freight train, is about twice as fast on the layout as an HO train going 40 SMPH and almost 4 times as fast as an N scale train going the same speed. If you are used to watching smaller scale trains O will seem excessively fast even though the speed is reasonable in SMPH. The trains in the video were fast but not excessively fast.

    That short freight pulled by the GG1 at the start of the video is probably going about 50 to 60 SMPH, too fast for my taste but not unrealistic.
     
  6. DoctorZ

    DoctorZ TrainBoard Member

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    The layout is set up for kids to run. They push buttons and the trains run. However, with a little maintenance they should be able to run slower. I have G-Scale and I can crawl with my layout, but it's DC not AC. However, my S-Scale is all AC and I can go pretty slow with it, though not as slow as my G-Scale.
     
  7. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    Vintage Lionel steam, in particular, have an upright motor with an armature that spins parallel to the wheels. There is reduction gearing, but it produces nothing like the low ratio of a worm gear. Add pretty sizeable wheels and you get more than enough speed to fly off a 31" diameter curve.

    Enough torque to crawl in switching service? Not so much. But few of them have working front couplers, either.
     
  8. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    My post-war Lionel seems to do okay speeedwise. There's no tie-to-tie kind of performance of course, but I can certainly throttle them down to safe and credible speeds and if I had a better throttle (mine's a Lionel Type S from 1947), I think speed action would be even better.
     
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  9. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    As the years passed, my better throttles were the KW, VW and ZW. With these I could get decent performance without a problem. And not need to run the Daytona 500 to keep 'em moving. That tinplate track did need to be cleaned, however it was not a complicated task.
     
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  10. BNSF FAN

    BNSF FAN TrainBoard Supporter

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    Thanks for sharing the video! Seen that layout many times walking in and out of that store but oddly, that video is the first time I've actually seen a train running on it. Oh, I've been tempted by the push buttons to run te trains but just never seemed to have the time.
     

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