The "N" Crowd

[Dave Vollmer]

No news, sorry.

Kato's site is acting flakey, so I wasn't able to get an update on the GG1/Broadway Limited status.

[fluff]

EDIT... It is now TWO WEEKS without The "N" Crowd. This is no good for this thread. Where have all the "N" Crowd gone???                                                         

i will gladly post on this. i have always loved n scale since 1969....for some reason, i decided i needed to switch to ho and bought track, cars and locos. they run great! takes lots of space to run them also. thats ok too! after reading "the n crowd" thread in its early days, i decided to bring out the best i had, kato f's, atlas gp 60, micro trains, lifelike fa's and decided i need a medical checkup!! theres just something about those little trains i cant shake, dont want to either!!! they have came along way since 1969 "postage stamp trains"...nothing wrong with ho, dont want to imply that, but n scale will always be my preference. thanks dave ...

[Blue Flamer]

fluff.

 I remember those Postage Stamp train sets. Here in Canada they came in a box that opened like a book cover and the trains were packaged inside little cut-outs and sealed with plastic wrap. The outside lithography gave the impression that the box was a stamp. 

Blue Flamer. 

[fluff]

yes...that brings back memories. i still have my original set, sure wished i would have kept the box though. back then, the sears christmas catalog had 3 pages of model trains! i was fasinated with mine because the santa fe f7 was the passenger scheme warbonnet instead of the freight colors. i would like to know how many miles it has on it! must have been among the first year or so because it had no headlight, i think the later ones did.... 

[R. T. POTEET]

I suppose most of you N Scalers have seen the Modeling a PRR I1 class 2-10-0 in N Scale article in the November '07 RMC by a Max Magliaro. Interesting article with outstanding photos of his construction techniques; these techniques could be utilized in almost any kitbash. His Bill of Materials is pretty lengthy but except for the two tender shells from the Minitrix Pacifics most are readily available!!!

I seem to recall a kitbash article from way back when Edgar Allan Poe was a cadet at West Point about shortening the frame of one of the old Atlas 2-8-2s and cutting a course out of the Minitrix Pacific boiler to make a Pennsy 2-8-0 of some identification. If I recall correctly this modification required the motor to be relocated to the tender but the author said that it ran great.

Anyway there Dave V., you have done a kitbash or two; are you gonna do one of these? I sure want to see it!

[Dave Vollmer]

I do want to do one.  I communicated with Max about it.  I just got the RMC issue yesterday.

It looks challenging, but doable.

My only concern is that even with the blind center driver, the loco handles 18" curves.  My inside track is 13.5" and outside track is 15".  I would have to monkey with it more to get it to make my turns.

Max had a little slippage at first until he got things properly sprung and balanced.  He's an experienced loco tinkerer; I'm but a novice.  I'm thinking of hacking another Minitrix/Bachmann Pennsy 2-8-0 out before I attempt the I1s 2-10-0.

[Canondale61]

Bump

[nscaler711]

new project a GP60M

[R. T. POTEET]

Bump

That comment is worth repeating!

[Blue Flamer]

Great minds think alike.  

nscaler at 9:21PM and R.T.Poteet at  9:22PM to keep the thread going.

Blue Flamer. 

[fluff]

i'll bump with my newly aquired santa fe kato passenger car set. in all my years of trains, i never did the passenger train deal until now with set b. they are very nice in my opinion. i also retrieved my old aroura postage stamp set and ran it awhile. the original trix f9 will run wide open at best, but its seen better days. i bought another one, (lighted) at the temple, tx train show a few years back and it runs like a top. n scale has came along way since then!!!!!!!

 

[Wdlgln005]

There's something cool about finding & running an old Postage Stamp Trainset & running it. Brings back a lot of fond memories. Nobody else makes those ribbed trailers that go on a flatcar with side rails. Somebody needs to update the old models with new paint & details.

[Dave Vollmer]

After a temporary server outage, my website is back up.

Here's a tour of my N scale loco roster:

http://kc.pennsyrr.com/layouts/dvollmer/Roster/index.html

[Anonymous]

Dave

 

I really like your site, and especially the you tube.  Anybody who hasn't checked this out needs to.

[njtaxland]

Hey sounds good to me, I am now in the planning stage of a layouy, freelance. Not big but well to me it is. Anyway I have a question for all, has anyone been having any problems with the Kato USA site on the web? The last few days I have tried to get on it but all I get is page cannot be found, I have checked and rechecked the address and its correct.

[Anonymous]

Is anybody besides me doing a switching or out and back type layout?

[Zandoz]

Anyway I have a question for all, has anyone been having any problems with the Kato USA site on the web? The last few days I have tried to get on it but all I get is page cannot be found, I have checked and rechecked the address and its correct.

I just tried it, and it worked fine.

[verheyen]

Part of a Bend Track based club modular layout. More info is at  <http://web.syr.edu/~pdverhey/eisenbahn/pvmodule.shtml>. It's a nice scale and it's been fun to do something different from my normal H0.

Peter 

 

 

[pcarrell]

You were doing fine, til you got to here.........

It's a nice scale and it's been fun to do something different from my normal H0.

You see, HO stands for Horribly Oversized.  N stands for Normal.

Great work BTW!

[Cederstrand]

And what is wrong with Postage Stamp trains? Most of my N trains are vintage and admittedly in need of upgrading (couplers). Having aquired some of the newer models along the way, I readily admit there is a BIG difference in detail and running qualities. The new locos are so quite you have to keep checking on them to make sure they are still running. But there is still something enjoyable about hearing the sweet motor buzz & churning gears of some vintage locos, not to mention that glorious smell of ozone they fill the air with.

(confession: Over the past few years I have gradually been selling off many of my vintage trains in order to purchase more state of the art production models. Some old stuff I'll never part with for sentimental reasons, but there are MANY new models on the market today I must have.) Rob

[SecretWeapon]

The "N" crowd is cool. Long live "N" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Cederstrand]

OK Folks, "N" question for you: Can anyone tell me if the motor from a Bachman DASH 8-40CW would be a reasonable replacement to re-motor an old Rivarossi BIGBOY with? Any suggestions (or who I should ask) will be apprecaited. Also, if there is an ideal "stock" replacement motor available for it, would like to learn about that as well?

Thanks! " border="0" width="25" height="23" /> Rob

[R. T. POTEET]

Cederstrand,

I can't really help you on this one but answers to your inquiry are going to be of interest to me because it involves dash 8-40Cs of which I have a few.

I also have a few old U30Cs; if my railroad's time frame shifts to now the dash 8-40Cs are relevent and the U30Cs are not and I would like to repower the one with the other. Anybody ever do a motor-truck swap of that nature???

[R. T. POTEET]

Nobody has said anything about this years Great Model Railroads so I will bring it up.

I found this years Special Issue one of the best of recent years however I have a difficult time fathoming that Kalmbach/Model Railroader was so bereft of submitted articles of N Scale layouts that they had to default to a rehash of David Popp's Naugatuck Valley Railroad. I will acknowledge that Mr Popp has a very well constructed layout and it is second to none in inspiration but a remolding of the modeled era from diesel to steam was not that inspiring and I would have preferred something else. This layout has been the subject of a feature article in Model Railroader in the April, '06 issue, was the signature layout in Popp's Building a Model Railroad Layout Step by Step, and was extensively covered in the Scenery Step by Step column in Model Railroader while he was editor. Enough already!!!!

I'm a little disappointed; since MR elected to run only one article out of eleven dealing with N Scale I would have at least expected that they would have given us something a little fresher! I enjoyed this years GMR but the N Scale coverage is much like a ham sandwich that has been allowed to sit out on the counter for a couple of days; it is just a mite stale! 

[Dave Vollmer]

I stopped getting GMR last year when it was nothing but basement-monster layouts, with only one N scaler.

It said to me Great=Huge to MR.  Now, David Popp's layout is big, not huge, and I like it.  But c'mon.  My hobby bucks can be spent on something more N-friendly.

[ChrisNH]

I don't think thats entirely fair. While I do wish they had an n-scale model railroad in there, not just the Naugatuk with some steam rolling stock on it, all the layouts they featured were excellently crafted. Some I had visited and admired on the web in the past. Certainly, that florida shelf layout is not a "monster". I enjoyed some more then others with the Hoosac being my favorite.

I don't understand the Popp article being in there at all.. seemed more like a layout planning issue entry since it was all musings for a plan he never implemented.

There IS a strong bias toward layouts that feature a lot of scratch built craftsman level structures vs other aspects and that does tend to skew toward the larger scales.. 

Chris 

 

[Dave Vollmer]

I get what you're saying...  And don't worry, I get plenty of inspiration from layouts in other scales.  It was last year, though, when I thumbed through GMR at my LHS and decided that none of it did anything for me.

I do offer, with respect to our fine hosts, that are other places besides Kalmbach's empire to get modeling information and inspiration.

I've recently been re-introduced to RMC and love it again, and I've been getting a lot of RMJ.  Most of the RMJ articles I've been interested were, in fact, HO, but there's a lot of Pennsy in RMJ so it works for me.

Don't forget N Scale and NSR!

[ChrisNH]

I just have trouble finding issues of the n-scale magazines locally. I will have to subsrcibe at some point.

I wish that my local newstands carried some of those rather then the british rail magazines.

Chris

[SecretWeapon]

I found it funny that the ONLY N scale layout was owned by a MR staff member. I do believe that if they actually looked behond there borders,they would've found other great N scale layouts.

[trainfan1221]

OK Folks, "N" question for you: Can anyone tell me if the motor from a Bachman DASH 8-40CW would be a reasonable replacement to re-motor an old Rivarossi BIGBOY with? Any suggestions (or who I should ask) will be apprecaited. Also, if there is an ideal "stock" replacement motor available for it, would like to learn about that as well?

Thanks! " border="0" width="25" height="23" /> Rob

To be honest, the motors in the Bachmann -8s, at least the ones I had, didn't hold up anyway so why bother?  I still have several left but don't run them anymore.  The wide cabs still run but all the original -840c engines I had more or less died.  I don't use the others because their operation is spotty and they really don't look good compared to my other models from Kato and Atlas.