Photographs of N scale Unit Trains

thanks mitch for posting them. didn't see you go to the second floor for the overhead shots

Colonel, yes, they are all DI. until the next release, there are only 21 different numbers. Nobody seems to notice or mind the duplication. As far as running, I was having problems with the coupler mate breaking couple with the lokeys until today. DI said to open the hole on the coupler mate, keeps the trailer from forcing the coupler down. I had been running 60-70 trailers, and had 30 that needed drawbars, wheels, etc. I had all but given up on these, went ahead and stripped them to use on Alans' flat cars Lo and behold, 5 months later DI sent me the replacement drawbars!! Mitch agreed to swap trailer bodies with me, as he is doing his roadrailers in mopac. I have one more, with an operating FRED... darn if I couldn't find it today!!

Alan, now you know why I work two jobs one for the family, one for roadrailers/AC intermodal equipment/DI containers

 

Ed I must say they do look marvelous.We will soon have dualling sets as I will be getting 120 Swift's in next week.Looks like my next modules will be a roadrailer facility.Then of course I will need to do a coal loading and industry for the 5 coal trains also.So much work so little time.Hey Hartman how long before you unveil the Mopac roadrailers?I know they are in the works.When you have time for yourself that is.....

 

eagle they are the old prcecision masters which is now red caboose. and they are all mopacs. when PM went out cnc trains in california bought out the stock they had and sold the cars minus trucks for $0.99 each, well when i found out they had 110 of them i jumped on them and pounded mt's on them. they are there are several duplicates of numbers as i have yet been able to renumber them, some poeple keep wanting stuff painted , when they are running around the numbers can't even be seen or read so it is not a big deal yet.

 

Colonel,

Yes, that photo was taken the evening I received my coalveyors in the mail. I was heading out of town the next day for a week and a half on business and I couldn't wait!

I did indeed have problems with the Accumates intitially. That night I had numerous uncouplings, especially once I put more than about 24 cars on the train. (there are 36 in the photo) Our club layout has good trackwork although there are some grades so I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt. Two weeks later we had our big local train show and I ran them there and started out with the same problems! I was adding cars in 18 car increments and once I added the second round (36 cars) the problems started again. At 54 (actually about 60...I added some LBF cars in the mix) I couldn't make it around our N-Trak loop (~70 ft.) without uncoupling, always at an Accumate-to-Accumate joint, not the M-T's. I was frustrated to say the least, especially after buying 75 of these suckers and thinking I was looking at replacing the couplers/wheelsets right off the bat. However after about an hour of following my train around the loop, things started to improve and I was having no uncouplings and I haven't had any problems since! Before the end of the show, I was running an 85-car train without incident. One other note, I haven't suffered from "exploding coupler syndrome" either, except one that came apart after being twisted in a derailment, but that's not entirely unexpected. The only explanation I can bring as to why they started working is that there may be some sort of "mold release" or other manufacturing agent that has to wear off before performance improves. But I've ran them several times since and have had no problems. And, BTW, these Coalveyors are GREAT looking cars if anyone is wondering.

Our club layout is in the neighborhood of 16x35, but that's just a rough guess....haven't actually measured it myself.

[ 08. April 2003, 14:40: Message edited by: Doug A. ]

 

Question for this thread: as I understand it (not sure about this) UP and SP had a joint venture to move reefer trains, the Pacific Fruit Express. Would this be considered a unit train?

 

yep, it sure is, anything that is a solid consist, fruit, perishables, etc...

 

Which leads to the trivia part of the question: when was the first unit train run?

 

Hallo Colonel.

Do you have Pic's from your Spine-Car's???

I am loking for Pic's to put the Deakles on my car's.

Here also a Pic's from Switzerland.

 

Paul,
It must be heading towards winter down under if you are posting pics of your trains - and they look great. How long is your average train length? I was just thinking I hadn't seen anything of pics from your layout for sometime now. Glad to see you've been busy.

 

Does a consist with only 10-15 of the same cars count as a "real" unit train?

 

Eugene,

is that the Caliente layout I saw few years ago during an american train show in Silandro (Schlander) - Italy???
If yes, I'm happy to see it again!

Ciao, Jgiovenni