What schism exists between Large Scalers and other Model Railroaders...

[Anonymous]

Vic, do you really think Ian has anything with the Bachmann name on it? Well maybe on his shooting range[:D]

[vsmith]

QUOTE: Originally posted by iandor

Third rail has never been legal in htis country for safety reasons, nor have i done anything to do with it in Garden Railroads so i don't knw much about it.

I thought it was interesting what Vic had to say about about plastic wheels melting in the sun, mine don't and i think this is generally regarded as a hotter zone than anywhere in mainland USA. Somewhere between Florida and Hawaii. 26 degrees from the equator or 1560 nautical miles not much is it.

Truly I have never had a plastic wheel that even looked like melting. Is this because I opnly run LGB? another advantage huh, for the extra money it costs.


Rgds ian

Try leaving a set of plastic Bachmann wheels on a exposed siding next time its a sunny hot hot day. [:0][}:)][;)][:I][:o)]

[Anonymous]

Third rail has never been legal in htis country for safety reasons, nor have i done anything to do with it in Garden Railroads so i don't knw much about it.

I thought it was interesting what Vic had to say about about plastic wheels melting in the sun, mine don't and i think this is generally regarded as a hotter zone than anywhere in mainland USA. Somewhere between Florida and Hawaii. 26 degrees from the equator or 1560 nautical miles not much is it.

Truly I have never had a plastic wheel that even looked like melting. Is this because I opnly run LGB? another advantage huh, for the extra money it costs.


Rgds ian

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by fievel

That third rail brings back pleasant chilhood memories for me, so I overlook it.
[sigh] Sure do miss my Lionel set from the sixties. A lot of fun![:)]

I don't really find the "third rail" aestetically pleaseing for outdoor trains. I like the look of two railed track better for outside. Indoors, the "third rail" is a great nostalgia. Like holidy fun and big Lionel parties to show off to friends.

Capt Carrales

[fievel]

That third rail brings back pleasant chilhood memories for me, so I overlook it.
[sigh] Sure do miss my Lionel set from the sixties. A lot of fun![:)]

[Anonymous]

Fievel, I am one that enjoys all the scales at the shows, even Lionel O even though I never aquired the blind third rail eye.

[fievel]

I'm an N scaler who appreciates ALL scales. There are some elitists out there who
think that their scale is the only way to enjoy . I've met quite a few,in every scale
from Z to G. Even some" real world " railroaders put us down. They disparage us
by calling us "wannabes" and "foamers",etc.
But many more people who model trains ,whether indoors or outside, are civil and
accepting of the differences between scales. I'd love to have an outdoor RR, but
right now I don't have the time.[:)]

[Anonymous]

My apologies for hijacking the thread. But I sure appreciate the thoughts on dogs.

I'm lookin' forward to getting started. Already picked out my loco. :)

Now to get the honey truly behind the idea.

[Capt Bob Johnson]

SK, I raised my layout 28 inches by using retaining wall and filling (expensive proposition), but my labs don't get up there and leave land mines on the track! Also don't get blowing debris, leaves, corn husks, or snapping turtles and other reptiles other than frogs! Also tends to keep smallest grandchildren at observing distance til they learn what they can & can't touch!

Height makes it much easier for a senile citizen to work on it! Didn't have to dig for pond, just didn't fill that area!

The main thing is to enjoy. If you can get mama involved you can maybe get her to take over the planting/weeding, which would leave you more time for running trains! My wife is quite happy to work out there as long as I have something going around the track.

[vsmith]

SKMoss

Welcome from another SoCal LS modeler, I'm indoors though, not enough room outside[}:)]

GENTLEMEN, THE RULES.....

Rule 1, for us in the Hot zone, never ever use plastic wheels outdoors in summertime, they melt!

Rule 2, Have fun!

Rule 3, Rule 1 and Rule 2 are the ONLY rules, everything else is whatever you want it to be! Make your layout as small or as big as you want, as detailed or spartan as you want, thats the beauty of outdoor railroading, it whatever YOU want it to be[;)][:D]

[Anonymous]

Hi SKMoss
[#welcome] to the mad house
My dog and late dog don't worry about the trains anymore at first they ran away
then they checked them out.
Now happy to just sit by me and watch the trains or in a shady spot and watch trains.
The surviving dog makes the occasional perway inspection but is carefull not to break anything
regards John

[Anonymous]

Capt,

I currently hail from Temecula, CA. Sorta between San Diego and L.A. Western edge of the desert. I know some about So Texas. Grew up in a prarie dog town called Abilene.

Be happy to bring my failures. Figure I'll have more than enough to go around. As far as triumphs? Bah, I don't need no stinking triumphs, triumphs are for wimps. Give me a good ole MGB. (Ok lame attempt a Brit Sport car humor, sorry)

Will have a half billion questions before I make a commitment to acutally building. It looks like yet one more expensive hobby. Prolly the first one will be post under the heading of "How to keep a golden retriever that thinks every thing is her toy and any place daddy dug is prolly hiding a bone, off my railroad."

Anyway, Capt, thanks for the welcome.

[Anonymous]

SKMoss,

Welcome!!! I think you will have a good time here. This is one of the best places for Large Scale Trains and information en re all thing G and F scale. Read the old posts, make some friends and bring your triumphs and failures to us and we will be more than glad to help you!

From whence do you hail? I'm banging a keyboard in South Texas!

Capt Carrales

[Anonymous]

Ah hi gang.

Very interesting thread. I came across it searching for some forums to poke around, to find out more about Outdoor Model Railroading. I had until 3 weeks ago a burgeoning N Scale layout. My layout was progressing, but I had finally gotten tired of family in house, me in garage, and just decided to give up on the whole thing. eBay’d off most stuff already. Rest will follow soon. Not an easy decision. I’m hooked into the N Scale world pretty tight. Even moderate forums on a couple of N Scale sites.

Daughter (11) has her own HO layout that receives scant attention for similar reasons as my N Scale layout. She’s resisting the eBay route to some extent.

Well she was resisting, now she’s all for it.

What happened? Wife, son, daughter and I visited The Living Desert this weekend. Wow, what an eye opener. All I knew about garden railroads was what runs around the ceiling of the dentist and barbershop here in down. Oh it actually to different offices. My barber does not pull teeth also.

Back to the story. Daughter agrees, sell off the rest of the N and all of the HO stuff and build one outdoors. Even my son says, “Dad, you build one of those and I’ll even help.” Quite a statement by a kid who, when not on a pitching mound can be found non-stop in front of the xBox.

Going to be interesting hanging around here.

[Anonymous]

Bman, His signatures always made me smile! He'd go from Old Dad to Grumpy Old Dad[:)]

[bman36]

Matt,
Larry and I still converse from time to time. He and the family did a Disney trip before Christmas. All is well there. I too miss seeing him on the forum. Maybe I can coax him into coming back. Later eh...Brian.

[Anonymous]

Walt, do you and Old Dad still converse? I hope he's doing well.[:)]

[Anonymous]

CAPT.
I went back through the forums , in DECEMBER of 04 looks like he last posted, ben

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by grandpopswalt

Cappy,

Our friend OLD DAD, who no longer visits our forum, Has done just exactly what you're talking about. He shapes his mountains out of a wire screen (hardware cloth) armature. He then covers it with several layers of mortor. He then applies the last mortor layer and "sculps" the rock detail into the still wet mortor. And last, he colors the mountains with a cement dye. The results are realistic and beautiful. You may recall that he's in MN where the temperture swings from a summer high in the 100's to winter lows down to -30. Despite the climate, his cement "mountains" have survived many years.

Walt

That sounds very interesting, I may try some of that. Now that you mention it, I miss OLDDAD.

Capt Carrales

[grandpopswalt]

Cappy,

Our friend OLD DAD, who no longer visits our forum, Has done just exactly what you're talking about. He shapes his mountains out of a wire screen (hardware cloth) armature. He then covers it with several layers of mortor. He then applies the last mortor layer and "sculps" the rock detail into the still wet mortor. And last, he colors the mountains with a cement dye. The results are realistic and beautiful. You may recall that he's in MN where the temperture swings from a summer high in the 100's to winter lows down to -30. Despite the climate, his cement "mountains" have survived many years.

Walt

[tangerine-jack]

Hey Ian, do you mean "amateur" philosophers or "immature" philosophers?[(-D][(-D][(-D]
Small minds talk about small things, large minds get great things done.....

[oX)]

[Anonymous]

Thank you folks,

This has been a very fruitful topic for my continuing education in all things Railroad.

Has anyone ever attemped to try to use the "screen and plaster" method outdoors? Could it be done with mortar or cement? It this less viable than building a real mountain out of gravel et al?

[Anonymous]

Well gentlemen you have plesantly surprised me, we actually have some brains amongst us, amateur philsophers even.

I tried to join the local railway club here on the Sunshine Coast and found that the peole involved were lame brains and the subjects they talked about were very small. Small people talking about small subjects in a very small way. Cauvanistic, egotistical nig nogs, is what i thought of them.

However the Garden Railway club I belonged to in Sydney was a different matter, odd people certainly, as are many people in model Railways. However we met monthly in different peoples homes / gardens; the actual meeting took about ten minutes the "runnings" took hours well into the night and very occasionally all night. Not just a bunch of blokes talking about very little, but all sorts of people from grandads to little kids. Have a glass of wine if you liked, have a barby; all outside and in the great Aussie sun.

You could give me the biggest indoor HO guage layout that was in existance and i would not accept it.


Regrds

Ian

[Bucksco]

I have been a "scale" model builder for years. I've actually spent many of my adult years doing it as a proffesional "design engineer" aka model maker. I have found that when I get too serious about details (recreating reality in miniature) it tends to take the enjoyment and relaxation away from what was originally suppossed to be a diversion from reality.
This is only MY opinion.

[ondrek]

I am one of those who like both HO and G, I dont look down on either, but what i have found is slightly different.

within the HO group, you have sub groups, those who are "make it look real or else" and those who like me, just want to have fun. I find that the two cant mix too well even within the same scale group. What i also find is that usually those that are not open to the idea of G scale are the same people who are the hard core realism modelers. i approach it like this, have fun, if not dont do it.

those that spend hours and hours trying to make their foam look like real rock, i have this to say, use real rocks, thats what i am going to do, my HO layout has a rock face and i will use real rock to do it, why? its better, its easier, and the rock was FREE.

I cant wait for spring to come, i want to build my G layout this year, i really do.
Kevin

[markperr]

I think Glen hit the proverbial nail right on the head. When you model a smaller scale in an environment that is never changing and everytime you look at it you're looking at the same snapshot in time, then the only thing you have to work toward is being as faithful to that snapshot in time as possible. In the dynamic outdoor environment, you have to deal with sudden rainstorms, trying to plow snow off your rails, high winds, animals crossing the track, washouts, UV damage that needs constant repairing. Couple that with living growing plants that every year make your railroad look just a little different than it did the year before and the difference becomes more of a chasm than a schism.

To each his own, I say. Long live the ten foot rule.

Mark

[DSchmitt]

NMRA members can be very cliquish. There were some (mostly gone now or have learned better) very active HO'ers in who didn't consider any scale scale but HO to be real model railroading. Because of this there are a number of very talented N scalers who will have nothing to do with the organization.

NMRA standards are developed by volunteer members. Early large scale/garden railway modelers came from outside the established model railroad community. Most didn't see any common ground with the NMRA , even if they had heard of it. More recently some small scallers have gone into large scale and some large scalers have joined and become active in the NMRA.

The NMRA did not, and in fact could not, come up with standards for large scale until there were members with the interest, knowledge and willingness to do so. The standards are not an attempt by the NMRA to take over. They are an attempt by some large scale modelers to impose some order and improve compatability.

It is probably too late in the game for the NMRA large scale standards to have any real affect.

[Anonymous]

For me, modelrailroading allows the modeller to tasp into that part of themselves that always wanted to drive a train. Agree?

Well, the only reallife indoor trains I have seen are in metro subways. If HO moddelers were fair dinkum, their WHOLE layout would be in a tunnell!

The great trains of the world are outside! I've seen countless episodes of Casey Jones where some act of nature blocked the track. The Ghan in Central Australia always had to contend with flooded or washed away track. So when nature attacks my garden with it'sfuture railway in it, that's an element of realism that the indoors mob would never get.

I have baulked on the idea for a few years now, basically because all of the sets that I had seen seemed small, almost childishlocos with little red carriages behind them. The HO range is phenomenal - allowing the hobbyist to recreate in detail what happens on the track in real life. However, from what I have seen lately, G scale is fast catching up. I want to run a real train around my garden, not a toy puffing billy. As G scale manufacturers conquer THAT problem at a similar cost, a huge pillar of support for indoor layouts will be gone.

The other factor is that a shed or a room for an indoor layout is an expensive thing to erect. My outside is already there. One acre of layout ready to roll!

[Anonymous]

I think it takes far less effort to make a given scene outside, throw in some rocks and plants, track ballast ect with a loco and some rolling stock and your done in a couple of weeks... or more, you can have a realistic layout. Smaller scales are all worried about backdrops, benchwork, DCC, NMRA etc. Can anyone really see the detail on HO or N?

I think their just jealous over the natural lighting[:D], I''ve seen several articals published where a smaller scale was taken outside to achieve what Marty Cozad does all the time " Is it real? or just outside?"