Quote from: pdlethbridge on June 19, 2007, 12:56:48 PM
Now would be the time to produce a USRA type Pacific like this

Roger's right; that's not a USRA engine. It's a Harriman-Standard Pacific. I'd be happy with one, as I'm sure all of us other IC fans would be (and Alton, UP and SP too, I suppose)

Digikey sells lots of wire.
http://www.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail?Ref=88307&Row=496504&Site=US
$19 for 100 feet isn't bad.

Mouser has wire too, but they're more expensive:
http://www.mouser.com/search/ProductDetail.aspx?R=3053_BK005virtualkey60200000virtualkey602-3053-100-02
$26 for 100 feet

Whatever you do, don't bother with chain stores. Radio Slack sucks for anything but R/C cars and phones, and HD and Lowe's only cater to contractors and homeowners (which is why the 20 AWG wire there is so expensive; there's no demand for it).

Quote from: ebtnut on June 11, 2007, 12:52:25 PM
I think I would beg to differ on the copyright situation.  I believe the original Cyclopedias were published by Simmons-Boardman, which is still in business.  The Cyclopeidas were issued maybe every 10 years or so.  As noted, Kalmbach republished the '41 Cyclopedia about 15 years ago, and that by itself may have extended the copyright.  In any case, the 75 year rule would take you out to 2016. 

When Kalmbach reprinted the Cyclopedia, they created a NEW copyright on their edition of the book, not on the original itself. It's like Charles Dickens novels: anyone can publish one, but the copyright they hold will be on their version only, not on the story itself.

As I said, it's a murky mess when it comes to copyrighting. But the Kalmbach (and even the NMRA's ORERs) book is a good example of people taking old material and reissuing it without fear of legal action, same as all those Chinese fly-by-nights that are LEGALLY pressing old RKO and Republic films from the 1930s-1950s. (heck; I've got six copies of the original Little Shop of Horrors (Jack Nicholson's first movie), each made by a different company. The film came out in 1960)

Quote from: cmgn9712 on June 09, 2007, 09:32:47 AM
I believe you will find that violates copyright law.

I doubt it. ALL material printed before 1935 is open source, meaning that anyone can republish material at will. Material published after 1935 is open to interpretation, but in general is under copyright to the producer of the material for life plus 75 years (or something similar).

Corporate copyrights of trademarked icons are handled a bit differently, and is generally more open-ended based on the "protection" given to them by the originator, which is why you see $1 Woody Woodpecker DVDs from 1945 but not non-Disney reproduced Disney cartoons (although someone CAN reproduce a 1935 Disney cartoon at will, but cannot make Steamboat Willy T-shirts.

Abandonment is also a valid issue. Let something lapse for too long and you lose your rights to it. Material from a "dead" railroad like the NKP is copyright free, even though the road's only been gone since 1964. The N&W/NS abandoned the copyright to the NKP and any related materials, which is why the NKPHTS, I, or anyone else can reproduce anything we have from them without fear of being sued by NS.

Copyright laws are a confusing, murky mess. In general anything newer than 1950 or so should be looked at, but anything older than 1950 is free to reproduce. I'd scan and pass around that book in a New York minute!

Quote from: Bojangle

Scroll down near the bottom left side, picture is 088_img_5901.  That might be a 50 footer, I can't tell if it is "wood" or what.  Can you help on this.  I found a NP Accurail similar to this one, which is sorta out of sync with UP, but I am just trying to match up the freight roster in the pictures.

Hi Bo,

First off, thanks for that great link! I've always wanted to head out west to chase steam, and the HV is near the top of my list! (right after the Nevada Northern!)

That's a 40-foot car. It looks longer because it's a low-sided car. We're used to seeing boxcars with 10 foot tall sides, and this one has sides that are 8'6".

F&C makes a kit for a very similar NP car. If you don't want to build a resin kit, you could come close by taking an Accurail USRA double sheathed boxcar and replacing the steel fishbelly center sills with trussrods.

Scan every page as a high-res document, convert the entire book to a PDF file, and offer both versions (high-res for museums, PDF for hobbiests) for a nominal fee (Ebay works well here)

Quote from: Bojangle

Some advice needed.  I am in need of a few 40 foot boxcars, certain type and era, around 1900 -1930 , I guess wood. Seems there are "vintage" and "modern" but nothing in between. 

Hi Bo,

You may want to think about narrowing your focus a bit, because you're running into three distinct phases of box car development.

1910s: the height of the 36 foot, double sheathed, steel underframe car.

1920s: 40' DS cars dominate, but not by much, as 40' single sheathed cars are quickly becoming more popular, and 40' steel cars are making major inroads. Older cars are having steel ends and center sills added, replacing wood ends and trussrods.

1930s: due to the Depression, 36 foot cars are slaughtered wholesale. Almost all new cars (the few that are built) are 40' steel, except on odd holdout roads like the GN, which is still building double sheathed and plywood sheathed cars (which are otherwise "modern")

So depending on which decade you pick you're going to have a very different looking roster. You can't run all 36 foot cars and accurately call it 1936, no more than you can run PS-0's in 1912.

As for where to find appropriate boxcars for that broad period of time, they're all over. All of the Accurail wood boxcars are good, as well as most of the steel boxes offered by Bowser, Branchline, Tichy and Intermountain. If you're looking for variety and aren't afraid of a little building, Westerfield and F&C both make hindreds of correct resin kits for common cars that will likely never be produced in plastic (most of Sunshine's resin kits are good for the post-WWII period).

With a little work you can turn a run of the mill 1890s period MDC 36 foot car into a more modern car:

QuoteHas anyone tried cutting down a 50 ft car?

Sure have. MDC used to make a great 50 foot single sheathed boxcar. When cut down to 40 foot or so (by removing the two end panels) they become an almost dead-on accurate model of Wabash 40' double door, single sheathed auto cars. The Wabash, being a Detroit & Toledo road, had thousands of these cars, which lasted into the 1960s. Other roads copied their general design, making the car more common that usually thought.

The conversion isn't quite simple, as it requires turning the model into a flat kit by removing the roof and ends, shortening the sides, roof and underframe, and then gluing everything back together, but the overall process isn't hard. I've got five of them half finished, waithin for the day that I can get back to that particular project!

Quote from: Atlantic Central on June 04, 2007, 07:40:10 PM
docterwayne,

That is a good result, but for all that work, I think I will just buy a BLI mike with traction tires or build a Bowser kit before I mess with anymore Athearn Mikes beyond the two I have.

Sheldon

Oof; if you're looking for a USRA light Mike, stay FAR away from the Cary, Bowser, or Cary/Mantua engines. They're really NOT USRA light Mikes; they're freelanced engines that bear a vague resemblance to a real engine (sort of like how a transvestite sort of looks like a real female).

The BLI light Mike will give you FAR more bang for your buck. Sure, the old pot metal engines will pull better (I know; I own dozens), but how many of us really need to pull 100 car freights, or even have layouts large enough to do so? The BLI engines are better detailed, pull very well, run more smoothly, cost less if you factor in all of the parts needed to make one of the old metal engines the equal of the BLI, and even come with sound pre-installed. Even if you're attempting major redetail efforts like mine, the BLI engines are a better starting point, since it's faster and easier to scrape off and reattach details onto a plastic shell than it os on a metal one. Save the time and effort of a metal kit for the engines that you can't find in plastic.

Hi Wayne,

Fantastic work as usual. But I think Atlantic Central's right: I wouldn't have bothered with all of that work either, opting for a BLI light Mike instead.

I was able to add something like 2.5 ounces of weight to a couple of my Athearn Mikes, without having to do all of the heavy-lift work that you did on yours. Not that my efforts were really all that simpler:



Essentially, I replaced as much of the plastic details as I could with lead and brass parts, added a snotload of brass wire, and then crammed as much flat sheet lead under the polot as I could without interfering with the leads truck's swing.  Most of the new weight was added forward of the sand dome, which is where the engines really need it (it's not that the engines are badly weighted, it's that their center of gravity is behind the drivers).

Ah yes; another kit manufacturer bites the dust. I was wondering why I couldn't find any Accurail KITS in any of my local hobby shops: they're all being shipped to China to be assembled.

Strange that two years Accurail was running ads extolling the virtues of actually building a kit yourself. Now that marketing line has gone mute and they've jumped on the higher profits bandwagon.

And I love their new and improved pricing scheme for these cars:

                                 KIT           RTR
2 bay hopper:        $10.98     $15.98
40' boxcar:             $11.98     $16.98
40' reefer:              $12.98     $19.98

Of the three the twin hoppers are actually the hardest to assemble, and the 40' boxes actually have the most parts! So why are the reefers the most expensive? Simple: they've got the flashy paint schemes that everyone wants, so Accurail can gouge their customers a little for them and get away with it!

Sorry; I guess I'm a bit grumpy this morning. But Accurail was the last holdout on this RTR craze, and you could almost guarantee that you could get the cars you needed from them. Now, looking at their website, it seems that everything is out of stock, and likely on a container heading East...just like everything else these days.

I'm modeling the NKP's Peoria Division between Gibson City and Bloomington, Illinois, circa 1949. As such most of my motive power consists of NKP 2-8-2s, 2-8-4s, and the occasional 4-6-2 and 2-8-0. I model two connections with the IC, so I'll have their 2-8-0s and 2-8-2s as well. I also model the P&E (which was a subsidiary of the NYC) so I have examples of their 0-6-0s, 2-8-2s, 4-8-2s and 4-6-2s. I ALSO model a connection with both the Wabash and GM&O, so I have one of each road's 2-8-2s. The roster for the "operations" side of my layout runs to 40 engines or so.

And then there's the collection. I'm a fan of the C&IM and TP&W, so I have the raw material sitting around to eventually model at least six of their engines. As a fan of the NKP, I also have examples of most of the steam that they ever rostered, including stuff that never ran west of Ohio (like the 2-6-6-2s and heavy 2-8-2s) and their Hudsons. I've got a pretty large pile of old Mantua engines from my old freelanced line, now without a job. Finally, I'm starting to slowly pick up Bachmann 4-4-0s and 4-6-0s, and IHC 2-6-0s, for the eventual time that I'm able to run 1914 period op sessions. The collection runs to 70-85 engines.

Quote from: ap0317ah on May 25, 2007, 04:00:36 PM
stephen

I may be new to this forum but I am not new to railroading. over 20 years time i can tell you i have done my fair share of bashs. The hallmark (HMK) loco may not be the best canadate for a boiler swap but the you could cut and swap domes and other boiler details.(this would require some kitbashing skill) then theres the diffentices in the icrr's front pilot deck you could take theses details from the HMK or make them or find them.   

Tom,

Unfortunately, about the only thing worth saving on those old brass clunkers are the tenders. That "Paducah dome" they added to the model looks nothing like any dome Paducah ever made, and is worthless as a detail part. As for the rest of the detailing, the basics are either exactly like the Bachmann model or are so bad as to need complete replacing.

Take a look at the model of 908 that Lanny's building: it's a near-perfect model of 908, which is what those brass "things" should look like.

I tried it Stephen; it won't work.

The Hallmark boiler may be just a hollow brass tube, but that's not quite how the Bachmann boiler and scassis are designed. The boiler shell is designed so it wraps around a solid metal weight inside the engine, that does double duty as support for some of the motor components, and which also acts as the lower edge of the boiler itself.

I suppose that it IS possible, but it'll take a lot of milling time to get the brass boiler to sit on the Bachmann chassis. It's a real shame too; if the Bachmann models were designed more conventionally (like the BLI engines) it'd be REALLY easy to pop off their boilers and add all sorts of new boilers to their excellent drive trains.

QuoteNow I got a question what all needs to be changed on a Bachmann 4-8-2 to turn her into a IC #2542 my friend out in Texas said he would do me one.
Stephen

Hi Stephen,

Do you want the short answer, or the long one?

Short answer is: lots!

The long answer is, well, long. Essentially, you'll have to strip everything off the boiler of the USRA HEAVY 4-8-2 (don't bother looking at the light for an IC engine) except for the boiler bands and the cab, and start over. It's really not all that hard a project, since IC engines (as Lanny pointed out) are pretty bare of "doo-dads". The biggest problem is fabricating the Paducah domes, and Lanny and I are working on that.

Oh: you'll need to work on the tender too.

I think I did a writeup on converting a 4-8-2 for Lanny about a year ago. Let me check my email stash; if I can find it I'll pass it along to you.

Quote from: BaltoOhioRRfan on May 13, 2007, 01:08:54 PM
They had a good bit of em. But none looked like that....they had 2-8-0 Camel Backs but they were built using 2-8-0's built around 1905-1911, not the one bachmann makes.

Ah, but the Bachmann 2-8-0 IS a 1911-built engine! The model is just of one with a 1943 rebuild.

But the 'bash looks good!