Maybe I could bring ol’ #97 back over and let her stretch her legs on your awesome layout again. Your track work is buttery smooth!
This shows the new end handrails and truss rods (kept the queen posts.) Really really pops this little model out. This is a brass Cotton Belt long caboose I bought on eBay last year. I’m disappointed in it, it seems really undersized and I might sell it. It’s painted an awful lipstick red color too. But I’m thinking about getting another Bachmann combine, making a new roof, and putting on a cupola way at the end like that, roofwalk, and ladders. I have an old junk Roundhouse caboose to donate the cupola and all the handrails.
Code 100 rail looks fine once it's painted. The thing I look at when I'm not sure whether someone's track is code 83 or code 100 is the ties. They look way too wide. GS
Yes, the Atlas ties are way too big. Another reason I buried my track in locale-appropriate pea gravel ballast. Way down here in Louisiana some minor setouts used white oyster shells for ballast. I have some white ballast just for that. My MP track profile for the New Iberia sub shows sand or earth for ballast on the outer ends of the branch, and 65 lb rail. Sounds like your kind of railroad, Jim. I do have to say though that, at age 12, the Atlas track that came with the first HO train set looked BEAUTIFUL compared to Lionel 3 rail 0-27 track.
After seeing your layout, that is a huge compliment, thanks. Photos are great to study your work and see what needs improvement. Do you remember Ben King’s Timber City and Northwestern from the 60s? It was basically a photo diorama that he endlessly photographed using a 35mm camera with a pinhole lens for depth of field. In the days of Atlas track plan book spaghetti 5x9 layouts his was a masterpiece, like yours.... and I think all he had was 5 or 6 switches.
I couldn’t find photos of that layout. Very sparse detailing. Lots of room to breathe even on that little layout. Polar opposite of the Selios Cram’em’in thinking .
Jim here is one of my Bachmann 4-4-0’s with the pilot changed to footboards for switching. Changes the entire character of the engine from road work to branch line local freight! Maybe even a lumber company engine.
I have the lines drawn as to where I’m cutting the layout apart in order to save key scenes like Greenbrier and the Castor River bridge. The I’ll buy more 2” foam board, lay the salvaged sections on it and create an oval layout. The Greenbrier spur will remain as is and Zalma will also have a spur. A simple roundy round with two spurs, just like the prototype pretty much. I’m keeping it DCC because the ability to have realistic movement along with awesome sound is one of the reasons I’m even still into railroad modeling. That and scenery. My modeling time is being spread out among rc WW2 tanks and my outdoor fledgling G scale railway. So little time, so many hobbies.
That’s awesome, man. Keep on truckin’. I’m beginning to plan my modeling goals a little differently as I age. I’ll be 57 in August but of course age is relative. By downsizing the Zalma Branch back to its original simple oval I’ll be able to add castors and roll it around out of the way while other activities are going on. 6’ x 3 1/2’ should do it. I could even take it outside for photos. Mostly I just want sit back with a drink in one hand and the NCE throttle in the other and watch ‘em roll by. I could maybe take it out to the deck in the evenings for some outdoor railroading.
That’s an awesome photo! Makes me want to try my hand at hand laying track. I was thinking Micro-Engineering track without any ballast to replicate newly laid Houck constructed track. He was a cheapskate. What’s up with those hats?!
Who knows? That kid on the right looks about 14 years old, and has obviously not yet earned his hat! Here is the caption from the Arkansas and Missouri post on Facebook that went with the picture: It would be the railroads and the need for railroad ties that employed many families throughout the Ozarks. The Frisco Current River Branch was very active shipping lumber and railroad ties. It is around 1905 and we are at Frisco Depot in Winona, Missouri and we see the men are loading railroad ties into a Frisco Boxcar. This was hard work but the pay was steady and it supported many families all over Missouri. — in Winona, Missouri.
