AZL

A knock on the door today brought me the Nickel Plate trio I ordered last week. Here are the pictures:

They are beautiful little...might I even say, tiny...models, just as detailed as the N scale offerings, far outshining the Marklins that I had been buying as donors for Nn3. I had made this purchase with the nefarious scheme of converting one, maybe both, locomotives into Nn3 locos but the Geep is a bit too short to be used for the M1 and, as can be seen in the following photo, the Mikado drivers are too small to be used for an EBT locomotive although it may be suitable for another prototype.

Besides, they are just too nice to be cut up as donors, so it looks like I may be building a small freight type layout in Z scale instead.

Motivation

Yes, it's been a while.

No, I ain't dead yet.

Plans this year are to finally get off my 5th point of contact and disassemble the table I've been threatening to disassemble for a while, then I will have the room I need to bring both standard gauge modules into the "train room" (and maybe finish the scenery on them) and finish the narrow gauge module. For now I'll keep them separate but eventually I may try to link at least one standard gauge to the narrow gauge with a bridge.

To that end I've been assembling completed FastTrack narrow gauge turnouts and throws to basswood bases in preparation for mounting to the module. I'm using Caboose Industries ground throws with the integral electrical contacts for this purpose, and I've pared the module needs down to four (three left and a right) for this purpose.

I've also ordered some new motive power, this time from AZL. They are running a special right now, a Mikado and a GP7 with a caboose, at a very attractive price. My plan is to compare the Marklin 8827 chassis to the AZL and see if the AZL will be a good stand-in to build EBT Mikes on. I have no idea what I'll use the Geep for, maybe it will be a good start for an M7.

They should be here Wednesday, so I'll do a review and write-up on both of them then.

Roundhouse

EBT modeler Russ Norris is building his HOn3 version of an East Broad Top themed narrow gauge road to include the Orbisonia/Rockhill shops complex. One of the most important building in this complex is, of course, the eight stall roundhouse.

He writes about it on his blog and mentions the fact that the first version of the model was unfortunately too small. Fortunately the next version was just the right size, and the process of building the model can be found here and here.

I made a comment wondering what it would look like for Nn3, and he generously sent it along.

Comparing it to the pictures that Russ has on his site you can see that it is quite a bit oversize for Nn3, but doesn't look too far out of scale for standard N scale.

I guess I'll just have to build it and see how it looks.

Rock Quarrys and 4-4-0's

So I started a new project just as a fun sort of thing, it started out as an experiment/test track but I'm also doing some new things with it. It's all fun and games, right?

Anyway the theme for the new layout is a rock quarry set sometime around the 1880's. The inspiration was the winning on the auction site of an old timey Bachmann 4-4-0 freight set, you know the one. You also know that the B-mann is...to put it mildly, not the best running or pulling locomotive in the world. It can barely pull its 4+caboose freight train around the layout, and when I added a combine and coach to the mix it was completely lost.

As you may also know Atlas has recently (within the last few years) released its own version of the 4-4-0, so I ordered an undecorated unit. It got here today.

First impressions, man this thing is fra-JEEE-lay! As in, the pony truck fell off as soon as I took it out of the box and one of the boiler stays was already gone, fragile. The pony truck is pretty easily fixed, but it means you have to turn the loco upside down and pry up on the base plate, which means either you pull the whistle off the steam dome or risk breaking off that fragile plastic whistle. A brass unit may have been a better choice for this part.

At any rate, with the pony truck and whistle both installed the examination went on. I compared it side-by-side with the B-mann (note: the Bachmann 4-4-0 in the pictures is not the one from the train set; this one is a newer release and was used primarily because it has a knuckle coupler installed. The dimensions are the same) and dimensionally everything actually looks pretty even although the Atlas certainly shines in the (small and fragile) details. The undec/unpainted Atlas has a clear headlight which is kind of hard to see details on, but the reason for that is this loco has a working headlight (unlike the B-mann), or at least it does when the clear unit is painted.

The tender is closer coupled, and it's cast-on (fixed, non-swiveling) trucks have bigger wheels and no copper springs showing, which also means the loco is a bit shorter than the B-mann although the tender dimensions are pretty close (I didn't break out the micrometer). The top of the tender looks a bit funny to me, too, since the fuel load (coal, cast in) only takes up the center instead of spreading all the way to both sides as the Bachmann does. From the pictures and plans I have seen the Atlas is technically correct, although the load (usually wood) was generally heaped high enough to overfill the fuel bunker and cover the tender top as on the Bachmann. An Atlas Accumate coupler is affixed to the rear.

Drivers are approximately the same size and the pony truck is attached via an arm (remarkably similar to the Atlas Pacific) rather than directly to the cylinders like the B-mann. The Bachmann actually weighs a little more, coming out on my super precision kitchen scales at 1.4 oz while the Atlas only clocked in at 1.3 oz. Also unlike the B-mann unit there is no weight in the cab, which means you can see right through it. There is no bottom or lower back wall to the cab on the Atlas (meaning there is no flat surface where the driveshaft goes through), so it looks a bit unfinished since the cab walls are just hanging out in space. The undecorated Atlas also comes with a straight stack in the box that you can add on in place of the diamond stack that is already fitted to the model.

The only real visual quibble I have about the locomotive, aside from the unfinished looking cab (that you really don't notice unless you are closely examining it due to the tighter spacing on the tender) is the driver centers, the spokes are almost not there at all. NZT Products makes the fix, but from what I understand it's not for the faint of heart.

On the track, neither pulling a train, the Bachmann takes a higher starting voltage and runs faster at all throttle settings. The Bachmann is also slightly more forgiving of track work, the Atlas derailed twice on its first trip around while I have never had an issue with the Bachmann. Oddly enough it seemed to me that despite its higher voltage requirements the Bachmann started a bit smoother, although the Atlas was not rough at all by any means. Somewhat leery of its lighter weight, I attached a train to the Atlas

Holy smokes this thing really pulls. I don't know what it is but I suspect the weight distribution is better on the Atlas despite its overall lower weight, the Spookshow article shows the split frame construction which surely makes a difference. With only 2 flatcars (I pulled the body off the tank car), the gondola and a caboose the Bachmann slips and struggles all the way around the track, but the Atlas took off smoothly with the same train and pulled as if it didn't have a train attached at all.

So I started adding cars to the smug little Atlas, and before long it was happily steaming around the track with two boxcars, three flats, a gondola, a bobber caboose, and Athern/Roundhouse Overland coach and combine in tow, nary a slip or a struggle in sight.

The only thing the Bachmann has going for it now is price. So you can't get the Atlas for 15 bucks apiece at the train shows, so what, they have just made the brand new Bachmann 4-4-0's overpriced at any level. The Bachmanns in my collection that don't immediately go on permanent display will either be converted to Nn3 or sold off (I don't need very many Nn3 4-4-0's after all...in fact I have all I really need at one) and the Atlas has found a permanent place on the Rock City layout.

In my opinion, if you want to run 1880's era 4-4-0 locomotives the Atlas is the only way to go.

Vintage Iron

I just got this on an Ebay auction for $20.00 plus shipping.

It's HO, so I'll have to test it on my son's HO track, and I'll probably only put it on a shelf to display but I thought it was interesting.

This little loco as delivered to the Camden and Amboy RR in 1831 started life as a 0-4-0 and was originally named the Stevens, after the C&A's first President. It was quickly converted to a 4-2-0 (the first set of big wheels was disconnected) by installing a pilot truck affixed to the leading axle stubs. As delivered it had no tender, so a 4 wheel flatcar was topped with a whiskey barrel to suffice. Railroad crews referred to it as the John Bull due to its English birthplace and the name stuck. The C&A also installed the bell, headlight, cow-catcher and a cab to the locomotive before it was acquired with the United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Company assets by the Pennsylvania Railroad.

The Pennsy never used the John Bull in mainline service, but was quick to realize the PR value of operating and displaying the vintage locomotive. They "backdated" its looks by replacing the balloon stack that had been added sometime in the loco's history with a straight stack, removing the cab, and installing the porch roof on the tender structure. They ran the loco for a while as an exhibition before selling it to the Smithsonian in 1885, borrowing it from time to time in exchange for upkeep and a caretaker in the person of medically retired civil engineer J. Elfreth Watkins.

The original tender had deteriorated beyond repair and was dismantled in 1910, so a reproduction was built in 1927. The Smithsonian further restored the "originality" of the loco in 1930 by having the PRR build a second reproduction tender using the fittings salvaged from the original in 1910 and minus the structure (thus restoring it to its C&A appearance), and a few years later the Pennsy built an operating replica (with the tender structure) which is still on display at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. The John Bull was put into steam for the last time in September 1981, making it simultaneously the world's oldest steam locomotive in operation and the oldest self-propelled vehicle. It is now on display at the National Museum of American History.

The model appears to be the John Bull circa 1885 after the PRR had "backdated" it before it was transferred to the Smithsonian. I think the tender shed is backwards though, the porch roof should be over the locomotive side to shelter the engine crew, but it could just be the tender is turned around in the picture. It also appears to be missing the tender vent and coupler. I'll know more about it when it gets here.

$500 layout

I may have mentioned that I got interested in a contest, unfortunately I missed the deadline but I've been having fun with the premise anyway.

The idea is to create a fully functional layout including benchwork, trackage, locomotives, rolling stock, scenery and control systems for less than $500. This is, of course, a beginners layout, so nothing fancy.

I bid on and won a LifeLike CB&Q train set that had an SD7 locomotive and a handful of cars. The CB&Q used to run through my little hometown, so that pretty much sealed the deal.

I have operating trackwork and control systems on my benchwork, and now I'm down to scenery. All told so far I have spent about half of the allotted funds.

The track plan is below:

Clockwise from the left we have the brick passenger station, which still exists and will have to be scratchbuilt (the picture would have been taken from across the tracks). Next is Lisle's Tools, an extant company that is currently the town's largest employer. Since the tracks are gone now they ship by truck, but they used to ship materials in and finished product out. Next is a scrapyard that handled the waste from the tool company. The next block is filled with industrial buildings that were never served by the railroad and now are part of the Lisle's complex. Next is the freight station, also still extant (the picture is taken from the south looking north, the tracks would have been on the right side of the station), and the Purina grain elevator, likewise still there and shipping by truck.

After that I've cut a lot of the town out and then I added a stockyard just beyond the meat packing plant, these two industries take the sidings at the far right. The Wilson's meat processing plant is long gone and the stockyard never existed (the meat processing plant took in frozen carcasses and output finished packaged products), but it seemed like a good idea to have them together and gave me a reason to use the stock car that was packaged with the train set.

The prototype entered town on the north side just east of 8th Street, continuing on a south-southwesterly heading in more or less a straight line, exiting across Highway 2/71 bypass about midway between 12th and 8th Streets. You can see on the map how 8th Street runs at a diagonal to follow the right of way between Garfield (just across the street from the freight station) and Cross Street.

The rails also ran along the east side of 8th Street through Miller Oil and the warehouses across the street from the grain elevator down to a furniture store that was in the building now housing Barker Implement. Another spur ran through the middle of the junkyard to a Co-Op grain elevator that used to stand across 5th Street from the auction house.

The layout encompasses the areas between Washington and 8th (where the passenger station still stands) to just beyond Garfield and 8th (the Purina grain elevators). The meat packing plant was south of town near the airport and has long since been shut down, although I believe the building still stands.

The prototype track continued to points south and west, but by the time the CB&Q became part of the Burlington Northern system the tracks were being pulled up. The trackage was still there through little Shambaugh, Iowa when I was in high school, but by the time I left for the Navy the tracks ended just south of town. This branch has been pulled up now all the way back to the mainline in Villisca, Iowa and is no more.

Rolling stock consists of a red and silver CB&Q SD7 locomotive, two stock cars, two reefers, two covered hoppers, two gondolas, two boxcars and a silver CB&Q caboose. Operation is simple, the train with the following consist enters from the north side of town: locomotive, covered hopper, reefer, stock car, gondola and boxcar, trailed by the caboose.

The caboose is dropped at the passenger station and the rest of the train is pulled up through the passing siding. The boxcar is switched out for one on the spur at Lisle's and the full car is pushed back to the caboose. The gondola on the scrapyard spur is likewise switched out and the full car goes back with the caboose. Now the last three cars are spotted on the passing siding while the loco does a run-around.

The covered hopper is switched out with the full car going to the main briefly so the empty can be spotted. The full car is then picked up and left on the passing siding as the loco, reefer and stock car back out to the main. The loco then pushes the stock car and reefer to their respective spurs, picking up the empty stock car and full reefer and leaving them on the main while it drops off the new cars.

The full reefer and  empty stock car are then pulled back along the main and pushed up into place behind the full covered hopper that was previously left on the siding. The loco runs around again and pushes these three cars back to connect to the gondola, box car and caboose. This whole consist goes to the mainline while the locomotive runs around the siding, spots the caboose on the siding, then connects and pulls the train back north. Back into the siding to connect to the caboose, and away she goes back to the off-scene mainline connection in Villisca.

I have since put another siding along the back stretch so that the loco and caboose can be switched back for another run through town. This also affords the opportunity to run a passenger consist through town while the freight is out of the picture.

The trackwork is solid and works well, the benchwork consists of two 2x4 foot tables that connect together in the middle. The control system, such as it is, consists of the train set power pack, Atlas slide switches for powering the track sections, and manual turnouts along the front with remote turnouts on the back siding. All track including turnouts is Atlas Code 80. The end curves are snap track 11" radius; if I were to do it all over again I'd use the 19" curves from the turnouts at each end and a 9 1/2" section in the middle to give some easement without having to expand the depth of the layout. At any rate I'm happy with it so far, and it gives me something to run on while I disassemble the large 4x8 that I had set up previously.

Back It Up

The Bachmann 4-4-0 conversion I have never did want to back up. Any attempt to reverse this loco would cause the locomotive to roll over and fall off the tracks.

I finally figured out what the problem was. I have a non-Bachmann screw in the loco to tender connection because I lost the original and couldn't find a replacement. The problem was the original screw was shouldered and the replacement was not.

The tender connection is a large open loop that goes around the screw. With the standard shouldered screw the shoulder fills this hole pretty well, with the replacement, not so much. So, when the loco would back into the tender it would get close enough that the driveshaft would bind against the loco body and tip it over.

I filled the tender loop with a piece of scrap styrene, drilled a smaller hole for the screw, and just like magic the problem is solved and the loco will back happily around the layout with it's train preceding it, no problems at all.

I only wish my standard gauged Bachmann 4-4-0's ran this well.

MP part 2

I just got in the other Pacific I ordered, from another vendor.

I have to take the tender apart tomorrow to repair the drawbar connection. Just as well I suppose since I have to replace the coupler anyway.

I am now 3 for 3 on Model Power Pacifics, I have three and none of them were ready to run when I got them. The first one was from a private owner, so I bought someone elses problem, but the last two were straight from dealers stock.

My statements concerning Model Power still stand.

Model Power

The buzz is all about Model Power going out of business. I've seen on the trainboards and such all sorts of excuses and blame passed around; some say the banks, some say the business practices, some say suppliers, a soft market, etc etc etc, but I can say I know exactly what it was...hit or miss product and poor to non-existent quality control.

I have two MP Pacifics (and one on the way) and so far neither one of them have been good performers out of the box. The only reason I even have them is because they are the only manufacturer that currently offers a USRA Pacific, and now that they are gone it leaves a hole in the N scale steam lineup.

The first one, which now serves as spare parts for the other two, had a gear train that never did mesh correctly and no amount of tweaking and tuning would ever make the motor gear stay in contact with the drive gear. I tried several times before giving it up as a bad idea; taking the darn thing apart is an exercise in frustration, every time you move something you pull another wire loose and the running gear has been accurately described as a "Chinese puzzle box" which, if you ever need to take it apart, is almost impossible to put back together.

The second one, which arrived just this afternoon, looked great but as soon as I took it out of the box I found the drawbar was disconnected from the tender. It is usually held on by a plastic stud that is melted down to hold the drawbar, the mushroomed end had broken off of the stud and there wasn't enough left of it to reconnect the drawbar. So, I had to take the tender shell off, dig around in my parts box to find a suitable screw, drill a hole and reattach the drawbar. In the meantime the smokebox front fell off and had to be glued back on, and of course one of the wires broke loose in the tender and had to be reconnected. This was, I reiterate, a brand new right out of the box locomotive; besides the hobby shop I purchased it from I am the first and only owner of said loco.

I also purchased a Model Power Mikado, mostly to compare it to the Kato and Atlas locos, and it was a good trouble-free runner right out of the box. Spookshow says the Mikado suffers from the same QC issues as the Pacific so it looks like I just lucked out and got a good one. The gold standard for Mikados continues to be the now-discontinued Kato of course, hopefully they will resume production for at least another run or two sometime in the future. I have two of the Katos, one with the GHQ Pennsylvania L1 conversion (and the other one will get it as soon as I get around to it), and they are phenomenal runners; all the hype is true.

One last thing...Rapido couplers with no knuckle coupler offered? Seriously? In this day and age?

So to recap - hit or miss products, seemingly non-existent quality control, and little to no apparent effort to improve either one. Bachmann, on the other hand, has steadily improved in both quality of product and consistency. If you would like to see how to do it...or how not to...these two companies are good (and bad) examples to follow. Yeah, good riddance Model Power.

It sure would be nice to have a quality Pacific from Bachmann or Kato, the Bachmann Spectrum line would benefit from another offering and Kato already makes a suitable chassis for it in their JNR models. For that matter, whoever owns the toolings now from the old Ted Brandon designed Rivarrosi Mikado and Pacific steamers that have been distributed by Atlas and ConCor, now would be a good time to bring both of them back with improved materials for the frames and better motors, maybe gearmotors to improve the low speed performance. One can dream at least.

And finally, for those of us who have been in N scale for a while, how odd is it to say "Gosh, I wish Bachmann would make a 4-6-2 steam locomotive!"