Well said Joe!!! I have a few of those. Have some HO scale cars that were manufactured in the 60's that fall short with details, pretty crude. They were given to me from my late uncle and he got me started in model railroading. Treasures in my book but junk to someone else. Joe
It's been quite a while since I updated this thread. I added this Railking E8 AA set around November 2019. NYC E-8 by Joe, on Flickr The strange looking band on the nose of the loco on the right is the strong sunshine coming in through the blinds. I will show some other additions and improvements in the very near future.
Thanks Hardcoaler. I check in here most days but there's very little O gauge activity. I have a few updates which I will post in the near future.
Since we are all stuck at home and can't visit I shot this layout tour earlier this month. It shows my layout as it is right now.
I don't normally sit through entire layout videos without skipping ahead. Something about how you did yours made me watch every second. I really enjoyed it. and you caught the diesels right when they came out of the tunnel - Well Done Sir! oh oh, now I am eyeing my old O Gauge trains. hee hee hee
Thanks Geeky. I also often skip ahead when watching train videos. I tried to keep the video as short as possible and to keep it moving. Why not dig out your O Gauge trains? They are a lot of fun.
That's a good point. I need to dig out all my trains. Right now the current train obsession is scratch building 1/55th scale narrow gauge which is halfway between S and O scale and uses HO track and mechanisms. I do need to get out the O scale. I have a really nice 1950's Lionel hudson w/ smoke and a whistle tender. My cars are for a freight train with a bunch of track and 2 manual switches. It's plenty for making a decent little layout. That thing can really fly around the curves too. It's pretty amazing. I am on the O gauge forum too. It's one of a handful of places I visit to look at people's layouts.
WOW Geeky, you have picked a difficult scale to model. I don't think there is anything available off the shelf, not even vehicles, people or the like. Why didn't you go with On30 which runs on HO track? Bachmann makes some nice On30 trains and you can use all the details made for O scale. I'm just curious why you chose an odd scale like 1/55? I like trainboard a lot and while there is very little O activity here I check almost every day to see what's going on here. My main forum is https://o-gaugeforum.com and I am also a member of https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com though I don't go there that often.
In answer to why 1/55: It's a long story. On30 looks wrong to me. Either do 2' gauge or 3' gauge. On30 is expensive too. I got into HO scale garden railways. One day a guy showed up and posted HIS garden railway in 1/35 scale. It's the Mogollon railway here: http://freerails.com/view_topic.php?id=1222&forum_id=17&page=68 Then the possibility of doing 1/55 came up. I had this old Tyco switcher that was given to me. I got lured into an experiment in using anything ho scale to model either 1/55, or even 1/35th scale 2' gauge. After having already begun my model I realized that while On30 wheels are ok used for 1/35th, Ho scale wheels scale out too small. If you use standard HO scale crappy tyco wheels and motors the wheels scale properly for 55n3. Thus the models determined the scale. This is my one loco. It's not contest quality work, but I enjoyed making it. Learned a lot too. It isn't done yet, but it works for now. I found a guy on a 3D printing site who took some figures and scaled them for 1/55. All I need is a couple people. I can use S, or O female figures with what I have. I am planning a really small layout and I can build everything else. just gonna do a really small runner layout, like this 3x4 foot one here. I sort of want to do several small layouts in each scale I have right now: N, HO, 1/55, O lionel. I also really like HO/OO garden modeling, so I may rebuild my HO scale garden trackage this year, who knows.
Thanks for the explanation Geeky. Now I understand why you chose an unusual scale like 1:55. The locomotive you are building looks very good.
I've added some new trains and vehicles since I last updated this thread. I found this Alco PA AA set for a very reasonable price at a local train show a few months ago. 1F0C367F-8875-44B6-B853-8C3241050D07 by Joe, on Flickr I also added these 2 Evans auto loaders made by MTH Railking just before everything shut down. 5277049C-5C72-4F0D-8D09-3094DD723E1E by Joe, on Flickr This REA tractor trailer was given to me by a friend. 763DF89C-935B-4041-8C9C-0BF0BA0BAD77 by Joe, on Flickr I recently found these two autos at CVS. DDF69D74-29F0-4A8B-B8AF-00C0F51BD0AB by Joe, on Flickr C56E1441-36F2-4022-99A9-5248701791C5 by Joe, on Flickr I've been making small improvements to the layout and I'll have photos to show very soon.
Looks like you've been making some nice purchases, Joe. The PA's, the auto racks and the vehicles are all very cool. Also enjoyed the video. Nice look at your layout.
I recently added this sailboat to the lake 92CC8C57-343F-4F6A-9E94-AECC32BB1744 by Joe, on Flickr I also added cattails from JTT scenery 85167682-8D82-474E-95F7-3769962214B5 by Joe, on Flickr EB7F3722-99DC-4571-BAE8-F1F887B8F060 by Joe, on Flickr 23B67098-448E-4013-A441-C902AA7B4873 by Joe, on Flickr That's it for today. More to come.
A few friends and I took a drive to Roundhouse South Electric Trains, a cool train store in Port Orange, Florida. I wasn't looking for anything in particular but this locomotive and 4 car passenger set caught my eye. The engine and cars are Railking. I've wanted to get an Amtrak train for a while now. My layout is mostly New York Central in the 1950 to 1968 period but I enjoy running contemporary trains every now and then and wanted a modern passenger train. This train is perfect for my medium size layout. The 4 car set includes 3 coaches and a cafe/dinette car. The cars have interiors so I will be adding people to them reasonably soon.
Thanks Geeky. I will update this thread whenever I add something to the roster or make some improvements. Thanks BNSF FAN. I am having a lot of fun with this new train. It makes running contemporary trains more fun.
I recently visited Zitnik Trains in Pinellas Park (the Tampa/St. Pete area) in Florida with a couple of my fellow Vero Beach Model Railroaders friends. Zitnik's is a large train store with lots of O gauge new and used trains as well as HO, N, G and I believe S as well though I didn't really look at these sections of the store. Zitnik's is also an authorized Lionel and MTH repair station. If you are in the Tampa/St Pete area it is well worth the time and effort to visit this store. While in the store I found these 6464 boxcars at a very reasonable price. Lionel made the whole series of 6464 boxcar reproductions in the late '90s. These are from 1998. There is also a Great Northern boxcar that I can't find in my photos. I will post it when I can find the photo or I'll take another photo and post it soon.