The Glade 4.0

Began replacing the old hook-and-horn plastic couplers on the left with the metal whisker/knuckle couplers on the right. Mixed results. More on that later. The ones on the right are what most new stock uses, so started changing over, but the trucks I'm installing them in were designed for the older type so... a lot of tinkering is in my future no doubt.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I just finished changing out all horn couplers on the passenger train. Learned a lot about coupler height, swing, and random decouplings. The cars were Talog mounted flat spring and the F units were whisker type. Study Kadee's stuff intensely. Avoid mistakes like screws too short or long, improper clearances, wrong set height, etc. You will have fun/fustration!

I need to get a gauge for coupler height. I can see frusteration developing already. The wildly varying ages of these cars and the general unsuitability for the knuckle/whisker couplers mean a lot of truck replacement is almost inevitable.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The couplers in action.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The metal wheels compared to the older plastic ones. They're a definite improvement. You can hear it; they make a nice "whoosh" and the clickety-clack on the rails instead of the constant chatter of the deeper plastic flanges hitting the ties.



My coal train being towed with the new couplers. The green boxcar up front has one coupler of each kind on it as does the silver hopper behind it. I didn't have enough couplers to do every car so right now some are one-end-each in order to allow all the cars to be used. My green diesel loco still has the older coupler too.



I've managed to resolve a lot of the earlier problems with them. The little downward curing uncoupler on all of them can be bent upwards with pliers to provide better clearance of the tracks with the trucks that don't hold the newer couplers perfectly straight. Still, a long-term project will probably be complete truck replacement. A lot of these older trucks are in poor shape anyhow.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I used a Kadee gauge to set the height on mine. I didn't have to bend the trip rods. I also started putting decoders in and added rear facing red lights to the caboose and observation car. A lot of work but a definate cool factor. I had to change the trucks on those two for electrical pick up. I am wiring the frogs now. Don't even try to solder them. Bad cast metal for solder. I had to make some brass tabs and tap the frog electrical tabs for 2-56 screws to attach the tab to.

I need to pick up the Kadee gauge, although I think in most cases it's not so much the height as the fact that while the truck can hold the coupler, that isn't the type it was designed for. Some have to be adjusted after each uncoupling to be straight again.

In other news.. my first new addition has arrived. Feast your eyes on this titan of the rails!




Here she is with my other, smaller steam locomotive so you can get a good idea of the size. I was actually rather taken aback when I opened the package; I knew it was big but it was even bigger than I thought.



Coming down the tracks under the bridge on a test run.



This particular locomotive is known as the Allegheny type, after the mountains of the same name, which is where the C&O used them as super-heavy coal haulers. The Virginian railroad also used them, calling them Blue Ridge, where it used them, but since they were actually the same locomotive, not just the same wheel arrangement, in my opinion at least the Allegheny appellation takes precedence.

While it technically isn't appropriate for a Rocky Mountain setting, this locomotive will be appropriate for my next layout, years down the road, which will be set in or near Fayette City, PA, where my wife spent her summers with her grandparents.

The Allegheny was a 2-6-6-6 locomotive (2-wheel lead truck, 2 sets of 6 drive wheels each, 6 trailing wheels) and was possibly the highest-rated steam locomotive ever built in terms of sustained horsepower at speed; testing at approximately 6900 horsepower with spikes almost up to 7500 on the dynamometer car. Although her tractive effort at low speed was not as high as other monsters such as the Union Pacific Big Boys or the Y5/Y6 classes of Norfolk and Western (#2156 of which is the strongest-pulling extant steam locomotive today although it is not operational), it is still higher than the vast majority of locomotives, at a little over 110,000 lbs starting tractive force. The other contenders for possibly higher horsepower are the Pennsylvania Railroad's 6-8-6 steam turbine locomotive, which doesn't really count since its not a piston engine (and thus not really an apples-to-apples comparison) or the PRR's Q2 duplex-drive locomotives. Depends on the source. The Alleghenys were also the heaviest locomotives built by engine-only weight (i/e/ not counting the tender) and the reason for the unusual 6-wheel trailing truck was the tremendous firebox of the type.

The model was released by Riverossi, and I wouldn't have been able to afford it except I lucked out in 2 ways: They offered a DCC-ready version that you can put a chip in later, much cheaper than the DCC-equipped version, and I had an offer on the table for a gun I inherited from my dad that I didn't much want. That covered the cost.

The model is really a bit too large for the layout, although it will run, and it did help me identify some bad spots in the track, because its great length caused the drawbar to lift the front of the tender totally off the rails in certain spots, making them obvious. I thought clearance would be a huge problem but so far it's do-able, although the *** end of both engine and tender swing out incredibly on the curves, all of which are at or below the recommended minimum radius. Fortunately, on the model, each of the 4 sets of wheels articulate independently. On a real locomotive, the rear set of drivers would be fixed.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That locomotive will definately accentuate any track problems, which is good thing to find the problems. Heavey steam is still the best wow factor.

I still have small issues with my 4-8-4 Northern's twin 4 axel truck equipped tender but only at scale speeds over 100 mph.

I am redoing the center trackage on the town side of the river. I decided to use only 1 spur in the town for more scenery room and have added two wye turnouts that will go off table to another wye that will feed into a traditional type yard that will bolt on where the optional turntable was shown in the original plan. That way I can run some operations and go either direction out to either mainline. I will post a picture when I finish the rerouting.

That sounds fantastic! I'd love to see a diagram. Unfortunately I won't be expanding any time soon on account of the guest bed my oldest sleeps in when home from college.

I'm not really running at high speeds, and haven't calculated scale miles per hour, but this locomotive probably won't be used at more than 60% throttle on this layout, and normally more like 50%. Otherwise, the curves are just too tight no matter how well the track is laid.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

By the way, Jerry, specifically what type of Northern are you using, and what size drivers does it have?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It's a Bachmann. The driver diameter is a little under one inch.

Oh, sorry, I meant what real-life type of locomotive is it? Presumably, if the drivers on the model are just under an inch, the RL drivers would have been about 80" or so?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

see link, Mine is #3784 but this similar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_3751

Here is the caboose that I added the marker leds to and the reroute with the wyes to feed the yard off table. The program track will be moved when I add the yard.

Ahh, that's clever. I especially like the arrangement to make the yard double as a wye.

The Allegheny, it seems, does run, but only on one loop, the loop that passes through the yard. On the other loops, the grade down from the #3 turnout under the single bridge is just too much of a drop and turn; it was obvious on one run that no amount of track re-laying would make it practical to run there. As for the single bridge, the curve into it from the #3 layout is beyond the limit of the drawbar's swing. Again, no amount of track laying can widen the curve enough to make passing through practical.

That's really ok though, at least it can be run on one loop, so it will be more of an "occasional" locomotive on this layout. The rest of the time it has a nice display track to sit on the window sill behind the layout. I'm actually thrilled that it runs at all and that I got its track issues resolved in less than 24 hours. It can haul a lot of cars, but the couplers are another story. Still working on them. I'm planning to order a height gauge, and some new trucks for the worst offenders. The couple on the big locomotive is its only questionable feature; it seems to be rather loose in grabbing the others and its spring wants to push it away from the car's coupler, so while the engine will run fine, keeping its train attached to it is still a challenge.

That 4-8-4 is handsome, too, and I love the lights on the caboose. What's the issue with the tender?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The tender's 4 axel trucks show any track laying misalignment very easily. They don't tolerate much in minor vertical or horizontal discrepencies.

If you take the tender by itself and run it back and forth on a section of track that looks properly laid, is there any sign of the trucks not seating on the rails properly? I had one of my coal hoppers that was derailing like crazy, like every 3 feet or so, and I couldn't figure it out until I did this and noticed that one truck was very slightly lifting one of the wheels on the inner axle off the rail just enough that the flange could slide over the top of the rail.

Now that I have it working, the Allegheny is on display until I can get a height gauge for the couplers and install some safety racks at places where the track gets too close to the edge. I should have done that a while ago, but I hadn't really worked out how to do it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Not really into scale railroading, but I stumbled on this article in a local paper and thought i'd share it here.

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/201212 ... All-aboard

Yes indeed, people build these things everything from drawer size to acreage size outside.

Neat article!

Well, I had the monster working... but now the #1 turnout ir pretty much completely crapping out on me; when thrown to send locomotives left over the bridge every single one derails. No amount of manipulation seems to get it working again. I ordered a replacement. Fortunately the electrical switch machine is working. It does send trains straight just fine, but left just refuses to work anymore. In the case of the smaller locos, their deeper flanges may be part of the problem, and the Allegheny may just be experiencing problems because it's coming out of a turn into the switch, but it's looking mighty grim.

edit: I figured out what's wrong with it, now I just need to figure out a way to fix it. Basically, this turnout never wanted to seat against the rail properly when thrown to send a train onto the left arm, over the bridge, rather than the straight arm, to go around the rear of the layout. Part of the problem was that when the track was initially laid there were a lot of imperfections I didn't correctly diagnose right away and so I messed with the turnout itself too much thinking the seating was the main problem rather than the way the track was laid. I really didn't start figuring out where the problems were until I tried to send the Allegheny over the track. Unfortunately, my corrections to make it work messed things up for all the other locomotives. I managed to come up with a better solution, so now the track is smooth, but during all this I may have messed up the turnout to the point it can't be made to work, or at least not by someone of my skill level. It's made more difficult by the fact that a curve leads into the turnout, which presses wheels to the outside and makes them want to go straight even when not supposed to.

Also, the code 83 track is.. fragile. It's easy to accidentally rip a rail loose from the ties. The outside rail had done that near the points. I superglued it back into place; dunno how that will turn out.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I started installing my Christmas presents. Got the DCC system up and installed the electronics on the first panel. Fired it up and no sparks, smoke or other weird things happened. Amazing, you would think with all those connections something would go wrong, but the trains run.

Got my Christmas order, finally. 2 new tank cars and 3 new coal hoppers. One came with a nice cap that makes it look like it's loaded with coal. The other two look identical at first glance but are different road numbers that are supposed to be a limited run. Here they are being pulled into the tunnel by the monster. My mom got me the C&O boxcar that's right behind the tender.



Here's a better look at them

These cars are much nicer than the ones I had as a kid; they come equipped with metal wheels and are overall more detailed and realistic-looking.



This is my new New York Central GP-7 diesel engine. I'm trying to select stuff that fits well into an eventual mid 1930s-mid 1950s era layout when I have room, time, and money to expand.



I was astounded to discover that this little diesel is just as sensitive, maybe more so, to track errors, than the monster. It catches on almost anything. This has actually been a positive though, as its much easier to see with this little guy what's causing the problem than it is with the monster or even the Consolidation (2-8-0 steam loco). I've got it running on the double layout using the 2 tracks to switch loops, but I still need to work out some issues with the double bridges at the end going into the tunnel. It also has trouble with derailments and uncouplings when actually pulling a train, but I'm slowly working those issues out too; as of today it will run fine when not pulling a train, so its a matter of some fine-tuning.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I am really enjoying watching the progress from plywood to train tracks and trains to eventual landscaping! Reminds me of my dad's ever-evolving layouts in his garage when he was living in the Sierras.

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

Thanks Jas. Hopefully I'll finally have all the track issues fixed here shortly, and I'll be able to start working on the mountain again. I really should have put down a foam layer like Larry did, or some roadbed, or both, but the foam didn't occur to me and the roadbed would have cost more. I'm making a list of lessons from this layout for the eventual next one.

One thing I've discovered about this hobby already: There's a lot to learn beyond just how to properly connect track and wire it. It's a big jump from a perfectly flat 4'x8' plywood sheet layout to.. well, almost anything else. This layout is only 1' larger in each direction, but that need to splice together sections plus the cookie-cutter method used to make the rises and falls combines to make everything more complex than it seems. Knowing what you're doing in order to make a sturdy table and just to get trains to move is the tip of the iceberg.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I finally got that tempermental tender to run good. I don't like the fix though. I removed the center two axels from each truck. You can't hardly see them anyway. End of problems though.