T&MW Railroad, a project (Update 5/10/16 - Rolling stock - part 1)

[FifteensAway]

As in the "Tentacle & Monopoly Western", the railroad that roams about a certain fict-tictional county where a variety of untoward events are bound to unfold.

What, no pictures?!  Somebody get a rope.  (and, yes, we may be needing to quicken the "pace" a bit later)

Well, hang on, now, the pictures will come - just got to wait for those glass plates to arrive.  

In the meantime, I seek moral support.  You see, I have 45 pieces of equipment to assemble and paint.  And I want all of you to help keep me on task to get this done by winters end.

Now, by forty-five, you may be thinking something along the lines of caliber, or maybe you're thinking that's how many pieces altogether that need to be assembled.  That last would be a partial bit of the truth, such of it as can be found in these wayward parts.  But not the whole conestoga, no, sir.  Forty-five locomotives and tenders and cars to pull behind them.  Yup, that's the 45.

Got some idea, there, about why I need that moral support?

There are the three Peter Pig locomotives and the six Glencoe Models as well for a total of nine iron horses.  And then there are the 11 coaches from Peter Pig, some of which will be re-crafted into combines and maybe a special car or two.  And then there are 8 box cars.  And 4 cabooses.  And, why, oh, why, are there 13 flat cars?  Well, there aren't; there are 16 - but three of them will become chassis for additional tenders for those Glencoe items without ones.  But 13 stills seems excessive.  And it would be were it not for 6 planning on growing up to be stock cars (cattle cars), 2 thirsting to be tank cars, 2 grumps who aspire to gondola lives, and 3 unassuming little items content to remain flat cars.  Imagine that.

I do believe, once all done, that ought to make for a nice variety of trains to ply the tracks east and west - and allow for some pleasant scenario variety.  I'm also hoping to get the track done about the same time but I'm not holding myself accountable on that front.  First priority is what will 'roll' on that track, those 9 locomotives and 36 bits of rolling stock.

Yes, ladies and gentleman, the elixirs in the budding new year of 2016 have affected my wits and I must crank on some steam if I am to get this done before the spring thaws out the already surveyed right of way.

Your support and encouragement - and cajoling and, even, threatening - may well be needed to carry this arduous task to timely completion.

No doubt, if that support is well evidenced, you will be invited aboard for the inaugural run with a hearty cry of,
"ALL ABOARD!"


(now will someone please tell me how the heck to run a "thread" here on TMP?)

[Westfalia Chris]

(now will someone please tell me how the heck to run a "thread" here on TMP?)

I'm by no means an expert, but here on LAF, I hazard the guess it involves using the "quote", "modify" and "reply" buttons, and maybe the occasional help of a moderator to delete accidental double posts.  

The last part makes me wonder, though, if you haven't taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque.  

Sounds ambitious, though. And thanks for the Glencoe pointer, I've been looking for railroad stuff for my 15mm ACW project myself.

[Heisler]

I'm looking forward to seeing the work. Flatcars are a wonderful basis for just about anything. I might rethink using them as the basis for a tender though but I have certainly seen similar conversions on the real thing. The one thing that I do when I'm working on a whole series of freight or passenger cars is to assemble, paint and weather all of the trucks separately from the freight cars. I'm not sure how these assemble but this makes a rather tedious process go faster and they are much easier to handle that way.

[Golgotha]

Bust my buffers you are going to be a useful engine. Best get that boiler stoked. All the best and looking forward to seeing more...

[FifteensAway]

Project moving along, supplies being laid in.  And a challenge realized.

You see, while the models are 'static' in the sense that their wheels don't roll, they won't be static in the game.  One of the reasons for multiple trains, besides I just want them, is for a train robbery scenario where the robbers have to nominate which train they will rob without full knowledge of which train it will be (as in third southbound train chosen to be robbed).  And the challenge comes in when moving static models around the already too tight curves - how to build the models so they will still look okay on the curves?  No solutions yet.  But at least I know the challenge is in front of me.  Solving this - or just living with it - is part of the fun, or the frustrations.

And, of course, the robbers will have imperfect knowledge of train schedules and ladings.  Who knows, they might end up robbing a freight train instead of a passenger train.  Which might not be the worst thing.  Maybe the caboose has a safe with some gold in it!

[Heisler]

How tight is to tight? Model railroaders pretty much deal with that all the time. The prototype curves are rarely as sharp as you see depicted on a model unless you are working on some kind of switching layout. I'm not familiar with the Peter Pig models so its a hard question to answer. A typical boxcar from the period was only 30' long and a passenger car about 50' so from a looks department the curves would have to be really, really sharp for either of those to look "bad" from excessive overhang. Are you able to use commercial track with those models or is it something you purchased from Peter Pig? If you can use commercial track then I would just get some flextrack and create your own curves to a more appropriate diameter. If you need to match a Peter Pig product then you might consider hand laying the track, which is not particularly difficult to do although making it movable/portable might be an issue.

Edit: I pulled things up on my phone, they are displaying the equipment on N-gauge track so you should be able to find some flex track at just about any hobby shop that carries model railroad supplies. You could use some 3mm plywood to cut roadbed from and either spike or glue the flextrack down to that. It also means that you might be able to swap out the cast trucks for n-scale trucks so that at least the rolling stock would be free wheeling. There's not much you could do with the locomotives though.

[FifteensAway]

Heisler - appreciate your input.  The track is actually TT scale which is virtually impossible to get in California so I'm going to build my own and get whatever gauge I end wanting - which might be a bit less than TT but not as small as N scale (my personal model railroad scale).  I know I'll want a couple of 90 degree curves so probably 18"radius. 

[Heisler]

Would HOn3 track be a viable alternative?

Edit: HOn3 track is 10.5mm between the rails TT is 12mm. Might be worth looking into then.

[FifteensAway]

Heisler, as the blog post linked to here states, I do have one piece of HOn3 flex track to see if it will work.

Here is the link to the blog: http://whiskeyhills.blogspot.com/

I will try and post a photo from the blog here if I can.  If it doesn't work, maybe one of the other fine LAFers will post a couple photos.



Nope, doesn't seem to be working - getting the photo up.  But there are 21 images on the blog.

[Heisler]

I think the project looks pretty epic! Love the photos with everything layed out on the table. I think the conversions of the passenger cars are not going to be fun though. Everything else looks manageable. The Glencoe engines look like good candidates for re-gauging to HOn3 track, but I'm not sure how you would even begin to approach re-gauging the Peter Pig engines. Looks like hand laying track is the best option. Handlaying track is pretty easy to do so I don't think you need to worry about that and its going to be a lot cheaper than buying TT track or using the Peter Pig versions. 18" curves in that scale aren't going to cause any appreciable overhang so I think you are fine there as well, you could probably go down to 12" radius without a problem.

[FifteensAway]

I haven't time to experiment with getting a photo up just now but if you feel so inclined here is the link, again, to my blog: http://whiskeyhills.blogspot.com/

You can see some photos of the results of taking a Dremel tool to my three Peter Pig Old West locomotives to put some "daylight" underneath the engines - rather than blocks of resin to sit on the track.  Makes a nice improvement, in my opinion any way.

[Heisler]

That looks quite a bit better actually. Good steady hand there!

[shandy]

Wow, you are a brave man! Great work, I'd never dare to try this. But it does indeed improve the look of the PP engines.

[FifteensAway]

Yeah, it was definitely a bravery test.  But your unmodified engine looks just fine.  And rugged.  Though my modifications didn't really damage the ruggedness.  Fear not, next go, give it a try.  If you really mess it up you'll have a damaged locomotive terrain piece!   

[FifteensAway]

Yes, it says Iron Horse Stables - but, no, not a building, not even a roundhouse.

Check out progress on my blog:

http://whiskeyhills.blogspot.com/

One of you photo-capable folk feel free to post an image from the blog here for those who won't visit a blog without an image first.  But if you like 15 mm trains - don't delay, click away.

Enjoy.