On your layout do you act like the third rail is supposed to be there and weather is like normal, or do you try to cover it up as best you can?
"No childhood should be without a train!"
I have seen techniques where the center rail is weathered with the ties and ballast using the same shades. The outside rails are given different shades that stand out. Looked pretty convincing.
If only the 3rd rail could be made out of clear plastic with a thin flat strip of metal on the top.
Modeling the "Fargo Area Rapid Transit" in O scale 3 rail.
Bob Keller
I say 'wear it with pride'! Let that third rail stand out just like it's brethern...
To me the third rail looks natural as I grew up with O gauge trains. The advantage of three rail is that you don't need costly relays to do a figuire 8 or a reverse loop, guess that is what Bob K. was getting at.
Lee F.
Yea, the prototype looks naked without that third rail. Track gangs would have a much easier job with electrical had the real railroads gone with three rail.
You know, I'm so used to the third rail that I don't even think of it as "wrong" anymore, don't even notice it as being anything out of the ordinary. Now, 2-rail O gauge...THAT'S wrong
Embrace your inner third rail.... ...there's always 2 rail O gauge...
Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.
I have always lived surrounded by full-scale three-rail. In NYC, the subways are all three-rail. I live 300' from a Long Island Rail Road track which is three-rail. My only problem is they don't have the third rail in the right place: down the center of the track!
3railguyI have seen techniques where the center rail is weathered with the ties and ballast using the same shades. The outside rails are given different shades that stand out. Looked pretty convincing.
This is just so wrong! I stand with those who say "celebrate the 3rd rail." Supposed to be toys, ain't it?
Texas Pete
"You can’t study the darkness by flooding it with light." - Edward Abbey -
I embrace the 3rd rail too. it just looks wrong without it.
When I kick back and watch my trains snake through my layout, I don't even notice... I don't paint my rails, which I kinda like when I'm "night" runnin', and the tracks appear to be silver ribbons that reflect the available light.
David Vergun, who hasn't posted for a while, hand-laid his track, using tubular rails for the outside and copper wire soldered to the heads of brass brads for the middle. He later switched to radio control and gave up the center rail entirely. It might be possible to find his earlier posts describing his technique.
Bob Nelson
Texas Pete 3railguy I have seen techniques where the center rail is weathered with the ties and ballast using the same shades. The outside rails are given different shades that stand out. Looked pretty convincing. This is just so wrong! I stand with those who say "celebrate the 3rd rail." Supposed to be toys, ain't it? Texas Pete
3railguy I have seen techniques where the center rail is weathered with the ties and ballast using the same shades. The outside rails are given different shades that stand out. Looked pretty convincing.
Personally, I prefer to see the third rail as I implied in my second post. My first post was aimed at the question raised. I can tolerate another person's tastes.
My great uncle gave me (dad I think, really) my first train for Christmas when I was two. The third rail has always been there and it is as right as rain.
As others have pointed out, O gage started as toys. That third rail gives license to run neat things like the #45 missile launching locomotive and shoot at exploding boxcars.
A HO scale mile long coal train is neat to see at a train show, and I appreciate the work that goes into one. But all it does is go round and round.
This got me thinking of a new invention. "3rd rail hiding goggles". I made my first pair but they made my stomach feel weird after I put them on. Makes the cat look strange too. Buy my wife, oooohhhh baby!
Heres another point yes the 2 railers have there dcc but can they stop there new engines anywhere on the layout and uncouple them from where there sitting NO! go ask them. thank 3 rail for that ability
2 rail is fine but not for me I normally don't notice anything wrong to me 3 rails is supose to be the way Like I mentioned in spf a couple of weeks ago to the AF posters theres "just something wrong and been quiet up to now but your missing your center rail LOL "
Life's hard, even harder if your stupid John Wayne
http://rtssite.shutterfly.com/
Got my first Lionel at the age of 4. A couple of years later I was returning home from Northern Wisconsin by train (departed Wausau) with my two older sisters after a visit with my grandparents. I couldn't figure out why the train tracks only had 2 rails. I have been confused ever since.
Jack
IF IT WON'T COME LOOSE BY TAPPING ON IT, DON'T TRY TO FORCE IT. USE A BIGGER HAMMER.
8ntruck As others have pointed out, O gage started as toys. That third rail gives license to run neat things like the #45 missile launching locomotive and shoot at exploding boxcars. A HO scale mile long coal train is neat to see at a train show, and I appreciate the work that goes into one. But all it does is go round and round.
LOL I agree, I've seen many HO scale layouts that are really decked out with scenery, long trains, the whole nine yards. It's very impressive, but I'm always glad to get back to my O scale trains that make noise and actually do stuff!
Live with it .... like the looks the lord gave us ... LOL . I don't pay much attention to the rails .... just the engines and cars .... scenery next . If it would'nt be for Lionel and 3rd rail trains we'd all be doing something else in the way of train collecting on an extremely smaller scale of merchandise . I can still remember being hypnotized by the train sets/layouts that used to be in store windows and displays ... miss those days ! Now all you see is stacks of boxes ..... I'm not talking hobby shops now ... dept. stores .... yes fellows I'm old .... and they used to do that .
rtraincollectorHeres another point yes the 2 railers have there dcc but can they stop there new engines anywhere on the layout and uncouple them from where there sitting NO! go ask them. thank 3 rail for that ability
MTH has come out with HO electrocouplers. Otherwise, you can uncouple anywhere on the layout with Kadee, Micro Trains, Accumate, etc. delayed action couplers. Only as long as you are pushing the car into a release zone after going over the magnet. Works pretty well on my N scale pike.
I love it. Makes no difference to me. Its still a toy train.
laz57
3railguy rtraincollectorHeres another point yes the 2 railers have there dcc but can they stop there new engines anywhere on the layout and uncouple them from where there sitting NO! go ask them. thank 3 rail for that ability MTH has come out with HO electrocouplers. Otherwise, you can uncouple anywhere on the layout with Kadee, Micro Trains, Accumate, etc. delayed action couplers. Only as long as you are pushing the car into a release zone after going over the magnet. Works pretty well on my N scale pike.
Well I was misinformed as when I mentioned it to some in the modelrailroad coffee shop a couple of months ago they said they wish they could said something about what you said but as you said you need to back up over a magnet and not just hit a button anywhere
rtraincollectorWell I was misinformed as when I mentioned it to some in the modelrailroad coffee shop a couple of months ago they said they wish they could said something about what you said but as you said you need to back up over a magnet and not just hit a button anywhere
No, it does not work as well as an electrocoupler and I tried to emphasise that the best I could. Delayed action does give you the ability to spot cars anywhere on a spur under the right conditions and everything has to be properly tuned. It takes a little practice with the throttle as well.
There are other draw backs such as putting a permanent magnet in the mainline as it uncouples the train if there is slack in it. You want an electromagnet in that situation which is made for HO but not N.
I say love the thrid rail its the one thing that seprates us from the rest of the model railroaders out there!!!!!
Toy or hi-rail--it's all good.
RockIsland52 Got my first Lionel at the age of 4. A couple of years later I was returning home from Northern Wisconsin by train (departed Wasau) with my two older sisters after a visit with my grandparents. I couldn't figure out why the train tracks only had 2 rails. I have been confused ever since. Jack
Got my first Lionel at the age of 4. A couple of years later I was returning home from Northern Wisconsin by train (departed Wasau) with my two older sisters after a visit with my grandparents. I couldn't figure out why the train tracks only had 2 rails. I have been confused ever since.
Jack,
I'm thinking it has more to do with leaving the pristine beauty of Wisconsin that has confused you more than the number of rails to the track. If I remember correctly you mentioned in a thread a long time ago that you rode the Northwoods Hiawatha out of Wausau. Were they running the streamliners in those days?
Oh and for some reason the tracks through Wausau still only have two rails. Go figure.
For the record: I have both two rail and three rail, and some American Flyer 4 rail track too. If a train will run on it its fine with me.
Northwoods Flyer
The Northwoods Flyer Collection
of
American Flyer Trains
"The Toy For the Boy"
DennisB-1Toy or hi-rail--it's all good.
Well put.
Northwoods Flyer RockIsland52 Got my first Lionel at the age of 4. A couple of years later I was returning home from Northern Wisconsin by train (departed Wasau) with my two older sisters after a visit with my grandparents. I couldn't figure out why the train tracks only had 2 rails. I have been confused ever since. Jack Jack, I'm thinking it has more to do with leaving the pristine beauty of Wisconsin that has confused you more than the number of rails to the track. If I remember correctly you mentioned in a thread a long time ago that you rode the Northwoods Hiawatha out of Wausau. Were they running the streamliners in those days? Oh and for some reason the tracks through Wausau still only have two rails. Go figure. For the record: I have both two rail and three rail, and some American Flyer 4 rail track too. If a train will run on it its fine with me. Northwoods Flyer
Hi Northwoods,
I was born in 1951 in Chicago and lived 2 miles from the Milwaukee Road tracks that travelled South to downtown and North to Wisconsin. The tracks handled both passenger and freight. The Hiawatha ran on these tracks. Sadly, I neither rode on the Hiawatha nor saw one. I wonder if the steamer was still running in the early 1950s or had been retired, replaced by deisel.
I heard about it from my father and others because the Hiawatha was a speedster, a big thing back then. Picture the Hiawatha blasting across a grade level crossing with nothing but a wooden crossing gate between you and the speeding loco and passenger cars.....in the city limits!
I do believe the Hiawathas were running streamliners. I need to do some research. Re Wisconsin, you are right about its pristine beauty. On a relative basis, most of Wisconsin had been spared over-industrialization and urban sprawl when I was growing up.
I was at a church group meeting tonight and was sitting next to a fellow who was visiting from out of town. He noted he was from Marshfield and worked at St. Joseph's hospital where my mother had done her nurses' training back around the start of WWII. Small world!
Edit: Here's some info on the Hiawathas
http://www.ask.com/bar?q=Hiawatha+trains&page=1&qsrc=0&zoom=Native+American+Indian+Hiawatha%7CSong+of+Hiawatha%7CHiawatha+the+Indian&ab=0&u=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FHiawatha_%28passenger_train%29
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