Thanks guys for welcoming me, even if I'm not a teen as of a few hours ago!
cdog565, I would also recommend against using track with plastic roadbed for a layout. I liked using E-Z Track when all I had was a floor setup, because it's easy to put together, works smoothly, and keeps carpet junk out of the trains. But when I finally got a base for a layout (2" foam over OSB, because all the plywood at Menard's was warped), I found that the plastic roadbed made everything too noisy for me to withstand! I switched to regular track (Atlas, but any good track works fine) on cork roadbed, and couldn't be happier with it. When put down correctly, it works smoothly, and it's quiet! The cork roadbed also sits lower than the E-Z Track, so it ends up being a little more realistic when finished.
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I don't know why I';m here. Somehthing said click here, so I did. I'm eightteen, it counts right?
IVRWCdog. DONT USE PLASTIC BALLASTED TRACK IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!!!!! If you are planning to make a decent quality rr, plastic ballasted track is an option, but it is very hard to ballast and you wont like how it looks. I MADE THE MISTAKE OF DOING THIS AND I WILL FOREVER REGRET IT! Have a nice day!
What you have here is a slight misues of gift. Plastic based track does one thing very well. You can;t kink it like you can a piece of flex track. Most especially in turns. The EZ trck is not commonly carried in the larger radius, but they do have 32 and higher. There's no reson you can;t toss EZ down on your layout and ballast over it. You do the same thing with cork anbd flex track. The only difference is that the EZ will sit slightly higher than a cork/flex will, so for realism, I wouldn't use it in a yard or for street running. (Mainline grades tend to sit higher, especially in modern era. For earlier era, probly before Transition, thewn what we would think of as a Branch Line grade would be the then standard mainline grade height.) Plus, the EZ can later be popped out of it's plastic base, and has railjoiners on it, so you ccan build up a flextrack to the end of it.
If you wanna go plastic base, the Kato track has a thinner plastic profile, However, I do not know if the railjoiners are exposed like Bachmann does.
-Morgan
Sawyer Berry
Clemson University c/o 2018
Building a protolanced industrial park layout
Hey Everyone,
Sawyer, you will be the first if I can just find somewhere to build it, i'm thinking of building it on 4(3x2 feeet) foam sections that can go together and apart, kind like modules that I can set on the table to run and work on and then stick it in the closet when i'm done. Just a thought. Do you guys think this would work or just be a pain in the butt.
Taylor
P.S. Have a good weekend guys, i'm going camping.
Bear Down!
hi cdog 565
yes it is possible to get great looking results with EZ track but it is impractal to glue balist to the track. the balest makes the track 2 times noisy. and if youse the rong glue it warps the plastic. it is not so bad if the balist between the rails is not glued but i came in to problemsthe balist getting caught in the turnouts, because theswich motor is in side the plastic caseing, well lets just hope you dont have exstensive vocabulary if you are the turnout is not close to the edge. like the crule fate that awated my 080 steamer.
HI everyone
this is probly a dumb question but how do you get pictures from your computer to the posts you make
My Model Railroad: Tri State RailMy Photos on Flickr: FlickrMy Videos on Youtube: YoutubeMy Photos on RRPA: RR Picture Archives
to all our new members! It's good to see this thread finally becoming popular again! It was so quiet for most of the Spring...
I have nothing to post right now, but a friend is coming over to help rewire my lift bridge and reversing section to the staging yard and then run some trains, so a new video may be coming whenever I can find the time to edit and upload it!
~G4
19 Years old, modeling the Cowlitz, Chehalis, and Cascade Railroad of Western Washington in 1927 in 6X6 feet.
IVRWI have several things to say. 1) I have ordered the modurail kits and should be recieving them sometime soon.
What are modurail kits? And do any ho scale locomotives (with DCC of course) have a automatic uncoupling thing?
Chris
Quinton Fallonand if youse the rong glue it warps the plastic
Umm, I've always been planning to use watered down Elmers White stuff. What did you use?
Quinton Fallonthe balest makes the track 2 times noisy
Quinton Fallon it is not so bad if the balist between the rails is not glued
Oh, this is much worse. Get it in your loco's truck gearing, you won;t be happy. (also a problem with non-based track)
Quinton Fallonbut i came in to problemsthe balist getting caught in the turnouts, because theswich motor is in side the plastic caseing,
I suspect the problem is worse with the EZ switches, and this would be a good point to make at least a temoporary jump to an Atlas switch in the tracklaying if only becuse they offer more sizes, but you can get ballast in the switch points on these too, in which case you see engines learn to fly with no certain grace.
IVRWCdog (is there a name to go with that? Im John, BTW), a Mod-U-Rail kit is a layout module kit. They come in modules of 3X3 and 1.5X3. They have all the scenery materials needed to build that module. Few people use them, but in the interest of time, dislike of benchwork, and to prevent prolonged lack of exposure to model railroading, I chose these. Look at woodlandscenics.com for more information.
Oh ok thank you for explaining that. My name is Chris.
John, I don't know of anyone that makes Code 55 in HO. And I THINK it's Shinohara (pretty sure, but too lazy to look it up...).
I'll be ordering a Walthers Airslide for the bakery and some gondolas for MOW service soon (like this week or next probably). I'll also get some cork, so the track gang can start work once I get another sheet of plywood and some foam.
Micro Engineering Makes Code 55 Flex in HO. No one makes turnouts, unless you choose to go the Central Valley route(kits). The smallest manufactured turnouts in HO are Code 70 by Shinohara and Micro Engineering.
Alex
Hey everyone, and welcome to all the newcomers!
Sorry I haven't been around, school is just insane. But we're in exams, one week left! Then I should be here a little more often. But no more promises, as it seems that I can't keep them...
Here are a few things I've done in the past few weeks.
A bit of simple LED lighting for a club member:
Difficult to see with flash, but it looked good!
Pulpwood anyone? I'll ship the mty's down via the WRS to Delery Pulpwood.
I made the load with some scrap branches from my neighbour's tree he cut down. I think it looks pretty darn good, took about 3 hours per car to do, and I did 5 of them!
Proto photo:
Railfan AlexPulpwood anyone? I'll ship the mty's down via the WRS to Delery Pulpwood.
Purdy car! Very nice load too, is it live? I can see (the other) Alex having a lot of fun with that, almost as much as the hopper full of sand! But just so you know, Delery Pulpwood & Lumber receives pulpwood and ships woodchips. No empties. I really should change the name to Delery Wood Products.
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Note to self: Don't put a psuedo-dummy unit at the end of an intermodal train. I got 5817 back a few days ago, and I'm not ripping it apart to find an electrical problem until I have lights for it anyway. Once is enough. So I removed the drive shafts and am running it as a dummy. But as a DPU/helper unit, it totally fails. Heavy weight on the back of an extremely light intermodal train? STRINGLINE!
(Oh yes, I've figured this out before. But I keep making the same mistake, and this was a particularly impressive incident. Well car off the rails, Impack set off the tracks and pulled apart, trailers everywhere, and the rest of the train plus the offending GP7 rolling downgrade out of the photo. That's the head end you see.)
That's a wicked hot pulpwood car. I need a few of those for the layout. Though industries continue to be switched around I'm thinking of turning the team track into a trans-load for a paper mill, thus outbound boxcars and inbound pulpwood cars!
im sorry if for the misswording of my post.
elmers white glue is fine so is most of the products on the market i just said that so you wouldent go to town and buy some off the wall brand, just be carful what you get and read the fine print see egsactly what it is good for bockman changes the composition of the material often that is anouther thing to be worried about also you will come to fing that you should use elmers glue right out of the bottle for the best resulsts
also on aouther note
yes unglooed balist between the rails is not smart but in 2 years of useing EZ track i hve never got a jamed loco from loose balist if this is luck i dont know but youseing n scale atlas deasle with the drive geares are located were it is almost fully coverd i gave never ran in to this problem.
now involving i have seen a tempory gap with a atlas swiches they are much more work than the seem its okay if you are only doing a fey but not to many, it is much more understand a ble in a yard or in a stageing but getting the road bead right and to blend in right is worth the efort if done corectly but a eyesoree to a layout if you mess up.
Trio of Pan Am Units all with ditch lights and the PAR unit got a full repaint.
Also did some virtual railroading...
Hey eeveryone,
Nothing much just got back from camping. Hope everyone had a good weekend.
Alex those are some awesome pulp cars. I love the wood chips that you put at the bottom of it.
Railfan AlexYep the pulpwood is a "live" load. Certainly don't want to pull a Tyler with a string of those cars. But then again string-lining with a bunch of sand loads would be pretty messy...
Luckily, loaded sand cars are really heavy. If there's enough weight behind them to stringline them, then you're either going to need seven engines on the head end (maybe less on other railroads, but the WRS only runs GP7s, GP18s, and GP15-1s) or four head-end units plus rear end and/or mid-train helpers, which would solve the problem anyway as long as the helper engineer knew what they were doing.
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Here's that new video I promised, chasing work extra GRWJ westbound over the White River Southern Railroad. We'll meet intermodal hotshot WJNA and manifest WJCD along our route. The work train equipment is leased from the Merrimack & Souhegan Railroad, the WRS' southern partner.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEqCO_vkaBY
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I also got artsy
Yeah, so thats that. Anyway, Florida doesnt have proper basementage. Thus, I am stuck with the happier alternative, sleeping in the layout room (the bed and desk were afterthoughts). So here is a tour my room and it's relation to the layout.
Looking in from the door
The layout (3 3X3s)
Looking from the layout (panorama):
And last, looking from the side of the bed:
Happy Model Railroading.
Very nice work everyone!
Today was the last day of school! Hard to believe that HS is already half over...Survived exams. And actually did a lot better than I was expecting
And, tomorrow's my birthday! So I'll have a nice quiet 1st day of summer/bday.
I have nothing to do for the next week and a half (except I'm going for my 6 hours for my permit next week. And yay for the rape stickers [red Kyleigh's Law decals {rediculously stupid}] that I'm gonna need for the next two years...), so if I can get the second sheet of plywood, then benchwork will be done before I have to go down the shore.