With wood prices thru the roof, building a second stand alone O gauge layout was not in the cards. But I do have a slug of old second hand G scale rail on hand.... LETS dual gauge the railway!!! As of this typing, while I take a break and watch the evening new, I have about half my loop done, and that includes taking a crack at making the O gauge pass thru the switch into my engine house. And while its not a pretty set up, it works, the G scale goes thru fine both ways, and the O gauge passes thru pretty smoothly. How am I doing this you might ask? I am taking LGB ties, and cutting off the ends with the rail chairs intact. Then, I drill a new mounting hole at the end of the tie. I am using a Lionel freight car truck as my track gauge(this is coarse scale, so the gauge can be a bit loosey goosey and things run fine). I set the rail to gauge, then run a screw down into the wood under the track. My final test is to push the old Super Enterprise live steamer thru that new section in both directions. There is no center rail, so no 3 rail running, its for live steam, clockwork and battery conversions of 3 rail locos.
Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome
Like the planking. Would love to see that steamer in action.
Brilliant Mike! And you know what? What you've done looks very typical of real-world gantlet tracks.
Video of that steamer in action will happen soon, possibly even today if I get the final 20 foot of rail laid. I spent several hours late last night fixing a multitude of leaks in the old steamer, from fuel tank seams, to the boiler back plate and two hand rail stanchions that were loose allowing oily steam to spray out of the oiler tank at the front of the smokebox. Around 1am she ran on blocks with no leaks finally.
Mike,
that's an ingenious way to dual gauge your track! Never would have thought of that ! Bravo!
and you're right: 0 & G are easy to handlay because the tolerances are very forgiving....
Paul
Well in coarse scale they are more forgiving. Finescale in either scale is more demanding of excellent track work standards, especially newer models from Aster, they are less tollerant of dodgy track work. But for LGB and older tinplate O scale, it works just find. Once that turnout gets tarnished again, it will look much better, but works way better than it looks so far. I will see how it works when the train goes thru it at speed.
Its a bit breezy, so the run was short as it took forever to get up to steam, but it ran well for its first run on rails. I will go for a longer run when the wind calms down. But the dual gauge project is complete. Now its between an electric powered Bassett Lowke Duke of York and 3 Darstaed LNER coaches, or an electric Flying Scotsman and the rest will have to wait a short bit.
That thing is a beast! So cool. Thanks for sharing.
Wow, that thing's impressive! One question though, how do you STOP it?
And can you run fast enough to stop it when you want to?
It has a throttle, blue colored lever sticking out the back of the cab, so I can speed it up or slow it down/stop anytime I want. Just blow out the alcohol burner if I am done running or need to stop and attend to something else. The 4-4-0 version called just Enterprise did not have a throttle, you varried speed by adding more cars to slow it down, or capping off 1 or more of the wicks to lessen the heat from the fire. The live steam Mogul has a throttle and direction lever combined into one single lever, either thru the top of the cab roof on the older models, or inside the cab on the Corgi reissue model made in 2000.
Elegant solution!
On the Scotsman question, in my humble opinion, I think the Flying Scotsman is a nice loco, but everyone who's selling one knows that too. So the price is probably higher because of the loco's fame and I'd go for basic black and a larger quantity of fun pieces that you want. But that's just me, I'm a bargain hunter.
Same me, different spelling!
I plan to get the 3 car LNER Gresley coaches from Darstaed so i have cars to pull, Its a toss up right now between a brand new LNER J19 0-6-0 or a LNER green Bassett Lowke Duke of York thats been electrified. The Darstaed is in the lead as with a modern can motor drive, those are easier to fit with onboard battery power to run on my garden line, which is dead rail.
emdmikeIt has a throttle
Thanks Mike! I was hoping you didn't have a little Frankenstein when you turned it loose!
I ran it again just after dark as the wind died down, that run went even better as the breeze was only occasionaly. When these old steamers have been sleeping for many years, it takes a few runs for things to loosen back up, for old congelled steam oil to get flushed from the lines to the cylinders ect. It should have the power to pull the 3 Darstaed LNER Gresley coaches I am going to buy for it. Now I am working on which electric powered engine to buy so I can convert it to onboard battery power. Need something to run when its to windy for the steamers
Another engine and a visiting engine joined the stable today. I had a request on a couple forums for an inexpensive O scale live steamer for my autistic friend who is on fixed income. A very generious gentleman sent not one but a pair of Bowman model 234 engines. My friend wants the red one to pull his Hogwarts train. It needs a tender, so I am searching high and low for a LMS or any Bowman tender(I can repaint it if necessary). Anyhow, here is a family picture of all the tinplate live steam.
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