O Scale at the 2010 NMRA National Convention - National Train Show

Here's a short video of O Scale at the 2010 NMRA National. There was not much O Scale there and not many trains were running when the National Train Show opened, so I don't have much. I even forgot that I had these clips until I was cleaning up my old laptop preparatory to moving to a new one.

My video hosting service has recently made a change to their player. Now all embedded videos are standard definition by default. If you want HD (and have the bandwidth for it) click the "HD" on the player bar at the bottom of the screen.



The truck side frames on the passenger cars, seen from the oblique angle that I shot them from, really stand out as too wide. This has not been obvious to me on the Atlas (and a little MTH) 2-rail equipment that I have. But this video may sensitize me to their appearance.

New Life for an Oldie

The All-Nation B&O B18 Ten Wheeler that you can see on other posts on this site is an 'old school' O Scale loco that I bought in the '90s and the loco was probably 40 years old at that time. This specimen of the B18 has a sand-cast bronze boiler that dates it to no newer than the late 40's or early 50's.

Since these were produced as kits and assembled by individual modelers, the running characteristics of each example can vary greatly. This one had sub par running performance. Since this one of the few models of B&O steamers made, I wanted to salvage this one for use on my layout.

I decided to go all out and see how well this loco could be made to run and I invested more money into upgrading this steamer than it is worth.

For starters I obtained a Faulhaber coreless motor from Micro Loco Motion (www.micro-loco-motion.com). The ball-bearing Faulhaber 2342 12CR motor will deliver 17 watts of power with a recommended torque of 16 mNm. The motor is 23 mm in diameter and 42 mm long with a 3 mm shaft 10 mm long. The motor had one quirk, the mounting holes are on the opposite side of the motor from the shaft.

I sought out Joe Foehrkolb of Baldwin Forge & Machine (home.comcast.net/~omodeller/) known for his 2 rail to 3 rail conversions and upgrades to 'classic' O Scale. Joe had reservations about the coreless motor, especially with it's non-standard mounting; but he decided to take the job anyway. I provided a backup motor to Joe should he not be able to make the coreless work.

Joe solved the problem of mounting the coreless motor by fabricating a brass sleeve into which the motor fits and is held in place with a cap set screw. See the pictures below:





The gearbox on the center driver is a new Northwest Short Line Mod 0.6 ball bearing gearbox. Joe also fabricated a coupling utilizing rubber tube and two sleeves bored to fit the two very different diameter shafts.



The loco worked well after remotoring, but I thought that it could be more. The next step was to add a BEMF DCC decoder; but not any DCC decoder would do. The decoder had to be compatible with coreless motors and that meant high-frequency drive. Lenz, ESU and Zimo fit the bill as explicitly stating that they are fine for coreless motors. I generally use Lenz, but for this installation I choose an ESU unit. The Faulhaber motor draws less current than many HO locos, so an HO decoder was all that was needed.



I also installed an NMRA 8-pin wiring harness so that I could swap out any other 8-pin decoder in future. While I was at it I installed a warm-white surface mount LED into the heretofore unlit headlight.

After tinkering with CVs the loco ran better, but still had a tendency to hesitate. I figured that it was bad contact and resolved to fix the problem by replacing the tender, which I was going to do anyway, and use tender-mounted pickups for both rails. Recently I have discovered that it was simply the old, oxidized drivers that was the source of the problem and cleaning them up with a sanding sponge has just about eliminated the stalling. The loco will still get a new tender as the original tender has no rivet detail!

I find it ironic that this loco now has a motor, DCC decoder, and an LED headlight (surface mount no less) that were not even conceived of when this model was manufactured. Was it worth it? Economically, no; I could have had one of any number of modern die-cast steamers for the money that I spent on the original locomotive and the upgrades. However, I now have a model of a B&O locomotive that can join my fleet of DCC-equipped motive power and have another decade or two of use on my model railroad.

O Scale Trains Article

It been another long time since I made an entry in this blog, work has been demanding recently. That does not mean that nothing is happening. The March/April issue of "O Scale Trains" has an article that I authored. "Easy Molds and Castings" outlines how to make a reusable open face mold out of readily available materials. You will not have to mail-order specialty materials nor spend a large amount of money to get into mold making and casting.

While I'm at it, a shout out goes to John Sethian for the cover story article on his railroad. John is a member of our local Baltimore/Washington O Scale Group. Also a shout out to Jim Lincoln for his review of a modern building kit. Jim is a co-host on Model Rail Radio.

O Scale Trains is the best magazine for the O Scaler - try a copy at your model railroad hobby shop.

Never Say Never Again

Here's a photo of this weekend's project, a switch installed on Cranberry grade which will lead off to the left to a coal mine that will be located in the distance by the bottle of glue. This switch was manufactured by Old Pullman and comes as a set of formed rails held in "approximate" gauge with a set of soldered-on straps. The switch is supposedly made to NMRA standards and carries the NMRA conformance seal. The buyer must install the switch on to ties, make final adjustments to gauge then cut the straps as well as cut gaps around the frog. The switch as it comes from the manufacturer is shown in the next photo:




There are not many sources of switches in two-rail "O". Atlas sells assembled switches and you can occasionally find European Roco and Peco assembled switches on e-Bay. Other "switch kits" like Old Pullman's are available from B&K Precision and Right-of-Way. Of course there are Fast Tracks assembly fixtures and you can always hand lay from scratch.

"Whose switches are you using?" is a common question whenever O Scalers gather at someone's layout. What usually follows is a long tale of woe as the layout owner relates his quest for the perfect switch. The pros and cons of each brand and approach are recounted with the listeners nodding in sage agreement. At one such gathering (not at my layout) I was asked if I used Old Pullman switches. I quipped that I had six of them, I had installed one and the other five were for sale. This brought knowing chuckles from the group.

The mine switch is laid in a short section of straightaway (about 16") between reverse curves. This straightaway was too short to take a switch built using Fast Tracks fixtures, even assuming that I had one. Nor would a switch hand laid using one of Fast Tracks' templates fit. It was too short for an Atlas #5 or a Roco LH switch which I happened to have on hand. I could have built a turnout to fit; that would have taken a weekend or two. That left the Old Pullman switch, which fit perfectly. The fact that this switch fit into a space where no other one would to me belies the fact that this switch could be built to NMRA standards. I gave in to temptation; I should have known better than to ever say 'never again'.

The Old Pullman switch saves only a little time over scratch building inasmuch as the points and frog are already formed for you - if you can live with the parts that you get. The wing rails and guard rails are already formed too, but like the rest of the switch, requires a lot of work to get the final product to pass the NMRA gauge.

Long story short, I could get most measurements on the assembled switch to pass the gauge, except for the area of the points. As you can see from the next photo, the track gauge is tight at the points and for a considerable distance along each closure rail.



Worse still, the gap between the open point and the stock rail will not admit the NMRA gauge, which means that the opening is too tight; a fact confirmed when running my All-Nation B&O B18 through for the first time and before I had isolated the closure rails from the frog. It shorted.

I can't just widen the stock rails to correct both problems as then the gauge at the approach to the switch is too wide to mate to flex track. The switch will work because wheelsets gauged to NMRA standards have enough clearance to pass slightly tight gauge trackwork. The shorting problem with the B18 has been only partially fixed by isolating the closure rail and then making it the same polarity as the adjoining stock rail. The B18 still exhibits intermittent anomalous behavior going through the switch. It could be that the B18's wheels are out of gauge; more troubleshooting is needed.

The Springfield Show and Swag

I attended the Amherst Model Railway Society train show, the "Springfield Show", Jan. 29 and 30. This year's show was a bit of a treat because I was meeting some of the Model Rail Radio crew for dinner Saturday.

Usually the weather in Springfield, MA is bitterly cold the last weekend in January for the show; but this year was practically balmy with temperatures near freezing and a break in the frozen precipitation that has plagued the Northeast US this year.

2-rail O Scale at this year's show was not as well represented as in most years. The only 2-rail layouts that I saw were the Southern New England Club; the New Haven Society of Model Engineers; and the Narraganset Narrow gauge layout; Bachmann had their On30 display layout. Since I covered all of these layouts in last year's video; I did not make a new video this year. You can find the previous one here:


http://2railoscale.blogspot.com/2010/02/o-scale-at-springfield-show.html

This year's O Scale pickings were particularly slim because two of the major dealers who have been there in the past were not in attendance. Norm's O Scale from Maine was listed in the show directory but was not at his assigned tables and Just Trains of Delaware was also MIA; the latter probably because of the death of the owner in 2010.

That is not to say that I did not come away with a bit of swag (for our Canadian friends "swag" is old school US mob slang for stolen goods, used here metaphorically). Here are the larger items that I found:




Usually I'm lucky to find a freight car or two that I am interested in. This year I bought two; but one I had pre-ordered for pick up at the show. Left to right in this picture are a rock mold from Sterling Models; a rather spiffy kit for "Uncle Bill's Cabin" from Deerfield River Laser; a bottle of C&O/B&O blue paint from Truecolor Paint; a Funaro & Camerlengo kit for a 9-panel, USRA rebuilt hopper; and an AHM boxcar.

If you are not a long-time O Scaler you may not be aware that in the 1970's both AHM and Atlas imported lines of plastic 2-rail O scale equipment. Both lines included diesel locos and rolling stock and AHM's offerings included steam locomotives. Atlas' equipment, manufactured by Roco, were considered the better of the two and still hold up well today; so much so that Atlas has reissued them as part of their "Trainman" line (although they claim that these are from new dies). This particular AHM boxcar was among a group of them that had been re-decalled by the previous owner. NYC, Pennsy, and B&M were available, I chose the B&M.

Funaro & Camerlengo make a few O Scale resin kits. Most of them are for welded covered hoppers that are too new for my era. After asking for the gondola kit at last year's show and finding that F&C did not bring any O scale stuff with them, this year I pre-ordered this kit for pick-up at the show. It's a flat resin kit that I am looking forward to assembling, it appears to be fairly simple.

Smaller items that I found at the show are shown below:



Tichy Train Group do make a few items in O Scale and I usually buy a few at the show. The windows were not bought for any particular project. Nor was the fire escape; in fact I don't think that I can even use it. But it was new at Tichy and I bought it just to encourage them to make more O scale. The faster they can amortize the cost of these dies the sooner they can reinvest in another set of O scale dies.

The LEDs from Evan Designs are a favorite of mine and a bargain. Each LED comes prepared with a bridge rectifier and a dropping resistor. You can hook these up directly to 7-19V AC/DC/DCC. With these you do not have to worry about polarity nor current limiting. These go into all of my locomotives, unless an existing headlight cannot be opened to accept the new LED. Now I'm an electronics guy, that's what I do for a living; and I can, and have, made these myself. But for $3 apiece, barely more than the cost of the components in small quantities, it doesn't make sense and it's not worth my time. They come in 1.8 mm, 3 mm and 5 mm in a variety of colors and two flavors of white plus blinking varieties. Try some.

Saturday night I attended one of the two dinners arranged by the hosts and listeners to Model Rail Radio (MRR). MRR is a bi-weekly podcast started by Tom Barbalet; more than a podcast, Tom is trying to create a community of listeners. The show's format is open and anyone, literally anyone, can participate in the show. After discovering MRR in mid-2010 and catching up on the shows by listening to them sequentially from the beginning, I decided to jump in with both feet during the Jan. 21 recording.



At the dinner everyone, most meeting face to face for the first time, were received warmly. I sat among a group of modelers from Canada who were very interested in my modeling efforts. Of course being a O Scaler, thereby a bit of an odd duck, probably piqued their interest.

Here's a poor photo of the table Saturday night:

Model Rail Radio Appearence

I appeared on "Model Rail Radio Podcast", Episode 30, recorded 1/21/2011. I introduce myself at the beginning of the show and then participate towards the end. At the time of this post I have not listened to the podcast so I cannot give you the times when I am speaking. Actually I'm a little reluctant to listen to myself because I might have put my foot in my mouth.

You can find the podcast here:

http://www.modelrailradio.com/archive.html#30





(P.S. (2/7/11) I finally had the opportunity to listen to the show today. I did not realize that I talked for that long! And another thing; I called in on my cordless phone and I sounded bad. I need to get a high quality headset.)

Hidden Storage

Sometime during this past year, I got a harebrained idea that I could put a John Armstrong style reverted loop off of the lowest level of the spiral on my track plan and tuck some single-ended storage under the yellow portion of the track plan as seen in the last post. Trains stored in the hidden staging could enter or leave the eastbound main from storage. If I could pull this off I could significantly increase the train watching capacity of the layout. (This addition to the layout is not shown on the track plan)

Putting a lift-out section at the door severely curtailed the length of trains that could be stored, by about 12 feet - or about 14 40' cars. But I estimated that it was worth doing anyway.

Now that I was building on the other side of the basement door, it was now or never to start building the staging. I did not need this diversion prior to the open house on Jan 8, but it had to be done. Three tracks could be fitted in against the basement wall underneath and to the rear of the main line. Because I was pressed for time, I took no in-process photos, these after-the-fact pictures will have to suffice.



The photo above is looking from inside the doorway towards what will become the ladder into hidden staging. The third track on the left is curtailed even more then the other two by the bracing which reinforces the opening in the benchwork at the door.

The track is the old (1970's) AHM sectional track; roadbed is Woodland Scenics foam. While this track is not acceptable by modern standards (it's not even American prototype) I had a lot of it on hand and no one will see this track in hidden staging. The waviness in the track to the right was caused by my reliance on the plastic interlocking tabs in the tie strip. It caused an unavoidable waviness. On the track to the left, I cut off the tabs and the the alignment is much better. On subsequent tracks in staging, I used the Fast Tracks 'Sweep Sticks' to get even better alignment.



Here's a low-level view of the same section. Every rail joint is soldered and there are electrical feeders about every other of the 10" sections.

This is a far as I got before the open house, but it is enough. There is room for 2 more (even shorter) tracks towards the front part of the benchwork, but those would have to wait for later.