I am starting to build a railroad

[Anonymous]

Dear Trains.com bretheren,

I am happt to announce that I have purchased a Bachmann "Gold Rush"
Train Set and am now saving up for their new Porter and Mogul. As well as LGB's porter and some leahmann toy train products. These will be kitbashed and detailed as time alows and as I become more interested in details.

I have come up with a plan for my railroad that will replace the one I first had.

The first one used plastic track, had no building, plants and used rocks Collected from the driveway. Now I have taken up the plastic track, taken out the rocks, and filled in the trench that I had dug.

The railroad will be a basic oval with things to break up the sceane, a bride (wooden trestle) and a water feature. A couple of tunnels and soome track around abandoned tunnel portals are going to be in the Mountains.

I have com up with a design for a mountain line that will be added t a later date. I will notify you of my progress. By the way, I am using aristo-craft track and as my railroad will be set in the Smokey Mountains of tennessee (pigeon forge, seveirville, and Gatlinburg). As a real railroad never ran through the towns, I can use commercial buildings and free lance scratchbuilt buildings.

I have to go.

At a later date I will ad what I forgot to say.

Nicholas Parker

[Anonymous]

Nicholas you sound like all the other Yankee Model Railroaders; not that their is anything wrong with that, but a little new thinking from a young man would not go astray.

Rgs ian

[Anonymous]

Way to go! Just remember to have some fun. Sounds like you have a good long term plan. Good luck with it. Keep us posted.

[Anonymous]

Remember, the fun of this type of railroading (at least for me) is in the building. My layout, when I build (I just cleared a lot of bru***hat will enable the construction of my fence), will be adaptable.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by iandor

Nicholas you sound like all the other Yankee Model Railroaders; not that their is anything wrong with that, but a little new thinking from a young man would not go astray.

Rgs ian

Hi Ian,
I'm not clear on this whole "new thinking" thing.
I am building a Gn15 line into my layout, does this count as "new thinking"?[:D] How about spline roadbed and cement scenery?[:D][%-)]

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you on this one.
At least the garden lines I have seen here in Minnesota and Colorado are quite varied in their style and concept.
Also, the U.S. layouts shown in Garden Railways magazine exhibit the same diversity of style and concept.[%-)]

OLD[%-)]DAD[:D][:D][:D]

[Anonymous]

Hey Nicholas
Glad to hear your on your way!! I just started mine this summer, and all i can say is WOW.I started with the bachmann also, and i have to say, there are a nice piece to start with.Also you made a good choise on the aristcraft rail, it works great, one word of caution.... be carful with those LITTLE ITIBITY SCREWS :)

keep us posted on how its going... would love to see some pics of your building process

Keep em on the rails :-)

Jeff

[Anonymous]

Yes, please keep us posted and hang in there!

I have to grumble, I am waiting on 330' of track right now. lol

[Anonymous]

Bluebonnet-71
go to LSOL ,GO TO GALLERY ARISTO CRAFT, HERSHEY TRAIN , NEW BRIDGE. I MUST GET MORE TRACK. BEN

[Anonymous]

I am happy to announce..... A new project list.
To acompany my oval, I have designed a mountain line for my railroad. I f you want to see the railroad design, e-mail me at [e-mail].

Also, to raise money for my railroad, I am selling photos that I took of narrow gauge trains taht I took at Dollywood theme park in Pigeon forge tennesee. I got a picture from inside the cab of the fireman throwing coal into the firebox. You can see the coal in the glow of the fire. The second is the engine in use at the station taken from the walk in front of a western style eatery. The round tables, belive it or not, are old unused train wheels. You can see the haze of the smoke around the eatery and the cinders falling on the people. I took it just as the trains started out from the station. The third is one of the other engine that is not used. They have two ex-white pass and yukon narrow gauge mikados. The park has numbered them #70 and #192. The owner, Dolly Parton was not satisfied with just numbers. So she spent a day veiwing the trains inoperation. She closed the Park aand the two engines were fired up, she saw that #70 was not the hardest worker, yet put out alot of cinders, so she called #70 "Cinder"ella and #192 Klondike Katy, as that pulled #70 and the coaches with no strain, living up to her alaskan mountain name.


Any wayy, the mountain line will be added at a later date, after I fini***he track work of the first loop.

Nicholas Parker

[GP-9_Man11786]

Hey Nicholas, Good luck with your new railroad. I built mine when I was 8th grade. I'm now halfway through college and the line has been growing steadily. My line models early Conrail. It's been a real learning experiance. Here's some tips based on my trials and errors.

1. Use the largest diameter curve possible. Your trains will look more realistic going around them and they will be less likley to be a source of problems.

2. Use heavy gauge wire and always solder your connections. Shortcuts will come back to haunt.

3. Aristocraft track is greate but always use LGB switches. Aristo's switches have weak springs that allow them to miss-aline easily.

4. Think big but take it slow. Don't try bite concentrate on one thing and don't get sidetracked.

5. Photograph every step of construction. It's fun to look back on your railroad's evolution.

Best of luck to you. There are photos of my line on my website.

[Anonymous]

Uh oh.

My therory has proved wrong. LGB track is better then Aristo. But they work great when combined.

Nicholas

[Anonymous]

Nicholas you are quite wrong about LGB track being better than Aristo, it is not. They both have their strong points, ie I think Aristo has more zinc and less copper than LGB, I havent assayed them or any thing like that, just by appearance. That means the aristo will not oxidise as much as the LGB and it will be marginally stronger, but it will not be quite as good a conductor of electricity as LGB.

I am not impressed with the LGB joiners in practice; I solder all mine and they work fine. The Aristo join is screwed and it looks crude but it works, I have had little or no trouble with the joins at all. Don't forget you are unlikely to have trouble with the rail itslef the weak point is the joins and I try to do without them if I can by using long pieces of rail our club rail is 3.65 mor 12 ' long and that is just great for me.

So my young friend don't jump to conclusions until you have had a bit of experience and and nothing improves knowledge like fixing failures

Regards


ian

[Anonymous]

That is why I keep coming back to this board because I learn. By others and my mistakes.
Truthly I try to "log" what people have to say on a .doc format.
Not the B.S., but the learning part ie: "What color (colour) he used for the great Santa Fe RR look on his loco"
"How to build this or that...."
The list can go on.