Author Topic: Model Trains  (Read 47459 times)

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Online Analog Kid

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #250 on: January 23, 2025, 12:42:42 am »
I used to wrap a rag around a small piece of thick cardboard or wood to make a rail wiper.
 

Online andy3055Topic starter

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #251 on: January 24, 2025, 07:27:14 pm »
Some photos with VWs!
 

Online andy3055Topic starter

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #252 on: January 24, 2025, 07:28:16 pm »
More!
 

Offline MarkF

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #253 on: January 24, 2025, 07:43:22 pm »
I wish I had some HO scale vehicles but they are so... expensive.
The ones you see in my photos are old Matchbox vehicles from my childhood. 
They're a little too big for HO.

Oh, for the old days when you could get Athearn Blue Box rolling stock cars for $5.00
 

Online tszaboo

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #254 on: January 24, 2025, 08:44:24 pm »
I wish I had some HO scale vehicles but they are so... expensive.
The ones you see in my photos are old Matchbox vehicles from my childhood. 
They're a little too big for HO.

Oh, for the old days when you could get Athearn Blue Box rolling stock cars for $5.00
There are many 1:76 models available because that's a standard for car models. It's close enough.
Plus I've found you can buy scenery by the dozens on used model fairs.
 

Offline MarkF

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #255 on: January 24, 2025, 09:00:42 pm »
I wish I had some HO scale vehicles but they are so... expensive.
The ones you see in my photos are old Matchbox vehicles from my childhood. 
They're a little too big for HO.

Oh, for the old days when you could get Athearn Blue Box rolling stock cars for $5.00
There are many 1:76 models available because that's a standard for car models. It's close enough.
Plus I've found you can buy scenery by the dozens on used model fairs.

If I'm not mistaken, 1:76 scale is OO in Europe the UK.            (Happy now?)
While HO scale in the USA is 1:87.  Making my Matchbox cars a little big.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2025, 01:24:47 pm by MarkF »
 

Online tszaboo

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #256 on: January 24, 2025, 11:17:36 pm »
I wish I had some HO scale vehicles but they are so... expensive.
The ones you see in my photos are old Matchbox vehicles from my childhood. 
They're a little too big for HO.

Oh, for the old days when you could get Athearn Blue Box rolling stock cars for $5.00
There are many 1:76 models available because that's a standard for car models. It's close enough.
Plus I've found you can buy scenery by the dozens on used model fairs.

If I'm not mistaken, 1:76 scale is OO in Europe.
While HO scale in the USA is 1:87.  Making my Matchbox cars a little big.
Most EU model trains are H0. The English have OO, which also goes on the same rails as H0.
Cars independently have 1:76.
 

Offline RoGeorge

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #257 on: January 25, 2025, 09:26:56 am »
When we were kids we knew them as 9mm, 12mm or 16mm, the distance between tracks (in Romanian the distance between rails is spelled 'ecartament', the automated translation gives the English words 'gauge').  I don't know if those 9/12/16 millimeters were in metric system or if the values were the closest (rounded) imperial->mm conversion.

We never refer to the size by HO, or by scale 1:nnn (like in maps).
I'm not sure if the model trains correctly preserve the track gauge.

For example, when trains were traveling between Europe and Russia, the wagons were lifted with a crane (without wheels), and placed on a parallel track with another set of wheels.  This was because there is a gauge difference between the European and Russian railways, and it was faster to change the wheels than to disembark everybody, or to unload and reload the transported goods.

Are there any Russian train models, too, and if they are, do they have a different gauge between tracks?  ???

Offline MarkF

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #258 on: January 25, 2025, 11:53:35 am »
We never refer to the size by HO, or by scale 1:nnn (like in maps).
I'm not sure if the model trains correctly preserve the track gauge.


They don't. 
According to Wikipedia the track gauge for both HO and OO is 4' 1½" where as standard gauge is 4' 8½".

While both scales run on the same track, the models themselves are actually different.

   
OO scale (left) and HO scale (right) models of the EMD Class 66 from Wikipedia.
 
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Online tszaboo

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #259 on: January 25, 2025, 12:23:16 pm »
We never refer to the size by HO, or by scale 1:nnn (like in maps).
I'm not sure if the model trains correctly preserve the track gauge.


They don't. 
According to Wikipedia the track gauge for both HO and OO is 4' 1½" where as standard gauge is 4' 8½".

While both scales run on the same track, the models themselves are actually different.

   
OO scale (left) and HO scale (right) models of the EMD Class 66 from Wikipedia.
The "We" plural is not a neopronoun, it's a description of people, a country or several countries. In which case it would refer to several post Warsaw pact countries would refer to model rail.
OO is non existent In continental Europe. You have H0, TT and N, but TT fell out of fashion. People would just call it 16mm, or 12mm rail. Or in West Europe, they would just call everything Marklin, because that's what seems to have most of the market anyway, with their AC 3 rail H0 system.
 

Offline RoGeorge

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #260 on: January 25, 2025, 01:45:24 pm »
Be "we", I meant "we, the kids, were talking back then about train models as being of type 9/12/16mm".

Online Analog Kid

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #261 on: January 25, 2025, 07:13:16 pm »
For example, when trains were traveling between Europe and Russia, the wagons were lifted with a crane (without wheels), and placed on a parallel track with another set of wheels.  This was because there is a gauge difference between the European and Russian railways, and it was faster to change the wheels than to disembark everybody, or to unload and reload the transported goods.

That's interesting, and I didn't know that.
I had assumed that the Soviet Union used our (U.S.) standard gauge of 4'8-1/2" (1435 mm), but that's untrue.
I guess I thought this because of the "Little Joe" electric locomotives that we built and were going to send to the Soviets, but which were withdrawn before being shipped over there. They were then put into service in the US. So were they built to our standard gauge, and then the Soviets were to replace the wheelsets?

That's quite a big difference between their gauge (1524 mm) and ours (1435 mm).
 

Online tggzzz

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #262 on: January 25, 2025, 08:52:08 pm »
For example, when trains were traveling between Europe and Russia, the wagons were lifted with a crane (without wheels), and placed on a parallel track with another set of wheels.  This was because there is a gauge difference between the European and Russian railways, and it was faster to change the wheels than to disembark everybody, or to unload and reload the transported goods,

I expect you are aware of

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latour-de-Carol three gauges at one station in the Pyrenees.

https://www.revistaitransporte.com/changing-gauge-without-missing-a-beat/ main lines (URL changed)
« Last Edit: January 25, 2025, 10:22:00 pm by tggzzz »
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
Glider pilot's aphorism: "there is no substitute for span". Retort: "There is a substitute: skill+imagination. But you can buy span".
Having fun doing more, with less
 

Online Analog Kid

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #263 on: January 25, 2025, 09:48:26 pm »
 

Online tggzzz

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There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
Glider pilot's aphorism: "there is no substitute for span". Retort: "There is a substitute: skill+imagination. But you can buy span".
Having fun doing more, with less
 
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Online andy3055Topic starter

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #265 on: January 26, 2025, 02:46:45 am »
OO vs. HO:

This is a great explanation of the whole thing.
 

Online Analog Kid

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #266 on: January 26, 2025, 02:56:47 am »
This shows an automatic gauge-changer in operation.
The train doesn't even stop.

 
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Offline MarkF

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #267 on: February 09, 2025, 10:13:42 pm »
The opposite side of the tracks.

Layout update with new 3D items:
  - Shorter office building walls that are more to scale.
  - Rooftop air conditioning unit for office building.
  - Trash dumpsters.
  - New end-of-track buffers.
  - Pedestrian track crossing (Not entirely happy with it.  It might get the bin.)

2497983-0

That short section of track between the Iron Works and the Office Building is all that's left to do of the ballasting.  The little pedestrian crossing is holding up production.  That whole parking lot and road crossing area has been a headache.  It just doesn't look right to me.

Added lights to the Office Building but have to paint and assemble it next.

How do people do their parking lots?  I have seen a few techniques used but haven't decided the easiest way to make them.  Art was never my strong suite.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2025, 01:44:40 am by MarkF »
 
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Offline Njk

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #268 on: February 09, 2025, 11:09:05 pm »
When we were kids we knew them as 9mm, 12mm or 16mm, the distance between tracks (in Romanian the distance between rails is spelled 'ecartament', the automated translation gives the English words 'gauge').
Exactly. 9mm were too small and 16mm were too expensive so I'd 12mm (of so called TT scale, which corresponds to 12 mm inter-rail distance, according to Wikipedia). Mine were all from Piko, Germany. BTW, the company is still in business, that's amazing
 

Offline Infraviolet

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #269 on: February 11, 2025, 08:57:29 pm »
RoGeorge, reply 257:
I think there was something similar in Spain in the first half of the 20th century. Spain had a different gauge to the rest of Europe so there were special stations in the Pyrenees which had trains from Europe arriving and passing everything across to a Spanish gauge train parked alongside it.
 

Online andy3055Topic starter

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Re: Model Trains
« Reply #270 on: February 12, 2025, 01:35:51 am »
I think Spain still has them.
 


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