The Walther's plow is charming. The belt drive is just bloody USELESS, and snaps about three hours into use. No, I don't mean USING it for three hours, I mean three hours after you take the plow out of the package! And no, I've tried rubber bands. The motor is quite good, why didn't they just connect the blades to the motor with a couple of gears? I'm in the process of trying to do that now, but since the little devil's only used for show, most of the time, do I really WANT to do all that extra work?
Right now, it's just parked on a yard track with my other MW equipment. Kind of an expensive static display, I think.
But I have to admit that it's kind of cute.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
Couldn't you wire the blades to a function output and turn them on and off??? Then on "clear" track you could them off (or idling...).
Brian
wjstix wrote: Midnight Railroader wrote: jecorbett wrote:Can I ask a stupid question. Why would anyone want an operating rotary plow? Even if you are modeling a winter scene, surely your track is not going to be snow covered. What is the point of running a rotary plow over a clear track? I've considered getting a rotary plow as a static model and parking it on a track with the rest of my MOW equipment, all of which is there for visual interest but serves no operational purpose. Does seem kinda gimmicky, doesn't it?Well some of my steam engines have working cab windows, but I never hear the crew asking to open them, so we can lose them. I suppose the engine's Walschaert or Baker valve gear doesn't really do anything but look good since the engine runs on electricity not steaml, so that could be removed too. The whistle sound comes from a speaker in the tender, not from the whistle on the engine, so that can go too. Point is, in the real world, rotary snowplows rotate - so why shouldn't a model too??
Midnight Railroader wrote: jecorbett wrote:Can I ask a stupid question. Why would anyone want an operating rotary plow? Even if you are modeling a winter scene, surely your track is not going to be snow covered. What is the point of running a rotary plow over a clear track? I've considered getting a rotary plow as a static model and parking it on a track with the rest of my MOW equipment, all of which is there for visual interest but serves no operational purpose. Does seem kinda gimmicky, doesn't it?
jecorbett wrote:Can I ask a stupid question. Why would anyone want an operating rotary plow? Even if you are modeling a winter scene, surely your track is not going to be snow covered. What is the point of running a rotary plow over a clear track? I've considered getting a rotary plow as a static model and parking it on a track with the rest of my MOW equipment, all of which is there for visual interest but serves no operational purpose.
Does seem kinda gimmicky, doesn't it?
Well some of my steam engines have working cab windows, but I never hear the crew asking to open them, so we can lose them. I suppose the engine's Walschaert or Baker valve gear doesn't really do anything but look good since the engine runs on electricity not steaml, so that could be removed too. The whistle sound comes from a speaker in the tender, not from the whistle on the engine, so that can go too.
Point is, in the real world, rotary snowplows rotate - so why shouldn't a model too??
But do they rotate when the train is just running along a track without snow on it to plow? Because that's what you'd be doing--just driving along with the blades turning for no discernable reason.
The Athearn rotary is the prototype for the SOO and the Rock Island; don't know about UP, but I wouldn't doubt it! Athearn made a model of SOO X-19, but the tender is wrong. They would have to have a ex-RI Vanderbelt tender to make them prototypical (and if they made RI Vanderbelt tenders, I would model the RI and C&NW push plows made out of them).
Phil
The Athearn rotary appears to me to match up exactly with UP plows 075 and 076. There are pictures of 900076 (former 076) on pages 114 and 115 of "uP Color Guide...." by Lou Schmitz.
On pages 450 and 451 of the 19th Edition of the "Car Builders Cyclopedia", there are plans and some artwork for the Lima-Hamilton prototype. It is noted that UP, Soo Line, and Rock Island had copies. The UP certainly did (see earlier paragraph), but I don't know much about the other two. I wonder if perhaps SP got plows from Rock Island after the bankruptcy.
Ed
river_eagle wrote: gee, plasser, on the Bachmann board you said you already have a walthers rotary plow.http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,771.0.htmlstick to the truth, and "SPELL"-CHECK!!!!!!!
gee, plasser, on the Bachmann board you said you already have a walthers rotary plow.
http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,771.0.html
stick to the truth, and "SPELL"-CHECK!!!!!!!
Here's my version of a shortened Athearn plow, "at work":
(Click on photo to enlarge)
Bob Boudreau
CANADA
Visit my model railroad photography website: http://sites.google.com/site/railphotog/
In my case, I am modelling winter, but as you say, I doubt I'll be actually plowing snow with my Walthers unit (except maybe to try to take a pic.) I don't know, for me it's pretty neat to watch it work. I installed a DCC sound decoder in mine, which allows me to change the speed and direction of the rotation, and the sound synchs up quite well after some CV fiddling. I set the momentum CV's pretty high, so it takes about 30 seconds to get up to full speed with a very slow start to the blades.
Because it is neat to see the blades spin.
-George
"And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers ride their father's magic carpet made of steel..."
Whatever the truth is, where would one obtain a Walthers rotary? They were only produced once and I don't think they are available. I could be wrong, I don't check Walthers lists.
I have one of the original Walthers models, it is really nice, smaller than the Athearn version. The rotary blade has a motor that turns it at a constant speed, as it is connected via a constant lighting circuit. The only problem with mine is the motor and blade are connected with a drive belt. Looked at mine a while ago and it is broken. Just like the rubber band drives on older Athearn RDCs, Hustlers and other diesels, their band would break after sitting for some time. I never bothered looking at it to see how much effort would be involved in replacing the drive belt. Don't know if you can even buy replacement ones, but I imagine a small rubber band would do.