Thanks, Gents! There's something about shooting low that attracts me, and I generally like a bit of tele as well. Wish my lens had a higher than f11 aperture....can't get the sharpness I want on a tele shot...but given the choice I'll spend it on trains
Amen to that. I have a cheap ($50 a few years ago) point and shoot digital. The optics aren't great, but I'm not going to spend two or three years of RR budget just to get a better camera to take pics of the RR. Your right about hand laying track. It does give you a better flow. I've been hand laying track for years, but I am in HO. Don't know if I would try it in N due to these old eyes as it is getting harder for me even in HO. I think you have done a great job making prefab track work in your case.
Jim, Your layout and especially your scenery is simply awesome, and inspiration to us all. I especially like how your detail work easily rivals the bigger scales and how you run prototypical long trains. That is what N scale is all about. I’ve read through this thread and I noticed that you’ve had a couple problems with string lining trains. Where these problems more a symptom of the couplers (i.e. truck mounted) or were the trains just too long? Have you operated long trains on smaller radius turns before such as your previous layout? The reason I’m asking is ultimately I’d like to shoot for ~20’ trains which translates to roughly 50 wells on a stacker but would like to use somewhat smaller radius turns for the 180 degree turn backs at the end of isles or an oval helix to save isle room. Any info is appreciated! Keep up the good work!
We have a slow earthworm on the sub today - here's a shot around the largest horseshoe: And now the reason for the crossovers becomes apparent - a hot stacker needs the road, so the dispatcher in Omaha gets him around: The earthworm had to wait only a few moments at Caliente but the hotshot picked up substantial time:
Nice Jim. How many cars in the earthworm? 90. I hope to have 60 more 5161 soon from a guy I know. JSL
Nice. The shot I've been waiting for. Exciting stuff for sure. I bet the noise from all those wheels constitutes some sound units, except all that clickity clack is nice.
Thanks, everyone! I quite agree, Daryl. But now that our Canadian friend has shut down, there's no one from whom to buy what I want (three LED with snow shield). Oh, Craig...you got 'em in HO... or
Excellent work, I love that shot of the earthworm going round the bend! How many locos do you have lugging that 90+ car earthworm? I'm, going to have around 50 bethgons, will three Kato SD70ace's pull that?
Just three. They get down on their knees coming up from staging but always make the hill. Two of 'em are Athearn SD75is which are brutes pulling wise. The prototype would likely have three up front and two in back but I'm not ready for distributed power just yet. Actually last week I had a situation that was akin to distributed power and had no problems....but I had a hand on the throttle of both ends. Depending on your grades, the 70ACes would probably have no problem, they're good pullers also. You could probably handle as much as 2 per cent with 50 cars....
It's too bad that BNSF didn't have any SD80/SD90's. The Kato locomotives of these type, two would pull about 80 cars up almost any reasonable grade...... Jim, You mentioned earlier in this post that you are not yet ready for signals and signaling. Yes it is a shame about Serge. But I was wondering if you had started the mental design to implement signaling, and what products are you considering? There are some tricky points to consider. There may be enough to work on before you need the signals themselves. By the way, I am still waiting on the decoders for the rest of the UP heritage fleet. I hope to have them this week. Anyway, it looks like things are just getting better all of the time!:thumbs_up:
Yeah, those SD80s will pull stumps! David, I've been thinking about signalling a long time. At the very least, I will have signals at the crossovers and the Oakville yard throat, and these can be controlled by switch position via the Tortoise contacts, probably through a seperate logic board. As to ABS, I dunno. To implement that, I need some sort of detection. Or I could go with transponding - most of the fleet has transponding decoders. Each rail already has it's own drop, so setting up blocks wouldn't be the hardest thing I've ever done, just need to cut some more gaps and interface with detection boards - lots of possibilities. And I am ALWAYS thinking! I'm currently converting the last of my toggles to puch buttons, working the Oakville yard. Using Digitrax DS64s.
