Assuming, like the rest of us, that you have a credit card, remember that they are all the same size - 54mm by 85mm.

The short dimension is the height of a 5' 10" person in Gauge 1 - that's 1/32nd scale.

The long dimension is the just about the height of that same person in 1/20.3 scale - that's Bachmann's Spectrum line of 3 foot gauge models.

Check out that height dimension on any railroad item you care to - your 'test guy' for 1/22.5 should measure around a fourth of an inch short of the longer side of your credit card.

Note that you can also buy a 1/24th scale 'person' at any dolls house modelling store, and use that as a quick 'feasibility check' on any new purchase.  If the figure looks like Tom Cruise in height, a famous 'shortie' in real life, compared to the door height of your intended purchase, then you're good for 1/22.5.  You could, of course, also buy any of the well-known Preiser figures that ate actually MADE to go with 1/22.5 scale.

Hope this helps.

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

Quote from: Joe Zullo on November 19, 2014, 07:30:26 AM

Thanks for posting that image, Joe.  A picture etc.......

Best

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

Quote from: trainstrainstrains on November 17, 2014, 09:29:53 PM
Will check with the ohmmeter tomorrow and if I have time bond the
Shay's  cracked ring.  Later on this week I'll lubricate, first time ever. Will wait to see what more Bill has to say about the 4 6 0 chassis (plural) hopefully soon when he settles in. Nice to know the truth about the mysterious airborne middle driver. .Thanks.

Sir - there is no mystery to the 'airborne' middle driver.  As has been noted already, many locomotives that needed to traverse sharp bends had flangeless centre wheels, sometimes even TWO sets.  In reality, they wheels STILL made contact with the head of the track, but were not restrained by either the sharpness of the curve or the less-than-great condition of switches they might encounter.

As late as the middle 1950's the great British Railways locomotive designer Riddles built the 9F loco, a 2-10-0 fast freight locomotive.  Even in 1950's UK, it had a flangeless centre driving axle.

Bachmann have done this on their hauler and annie for precisely the same reasons - sharp curves and often less-than-ideal trackbed, but chose to lift the axle minutely off the railhead to  enable the use of tight bends on thrown-down trackage.

It's no big deal.  My $4000 Accucraft K27 is the same - maybe the Bachmann version is the same, too.

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

Quote from: Seaboard Air Line Fan on November 18, 2014, 06:26:24 AM
Thanks Chuck, I'll check them out.

I prefer decals over rub-on lettering, never had much success with that (maybe it's time to learn to do it right?).

Bob D.

Del Tapporo's vinyl lettering will last longer than the models they are put on, if done exactly as instructed.  They are incredibly thin, but dense, and very strong and abrasion-resistant.

I know many who have them on their locos and rolling stock in Canada, where the climate is somewhat less than friendly for a lot of the year.

Stan Cedarleaf and I have been doing business for the last ten - twelve years, and his products are also of the highest quality.

Both Del and Stan are renowned for their custom products, and I commend them both to you.

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

Quote from: trainstrainstrains on November 17, 2014, 01:15:50 PM
REFERENTE Q #5.
Looking hard at the wiring diagram I see a very interesting note that states "#9 & #10 PCB connector for triggering customer's speaker module."  Is the Dallee sound card a speaker module? I suppose it probably is.
Looking even harder I see that a Red and an Orange wire  connect the wheel pickups on each truck to terminals on the PCB . Safer to connect the Dalle there perhaps? I'm being very careful because although I can weld OK I'm not confident with electronics, I can sometimes  mess things up without  realizing it. The Dallee card has scary warnings like: CAUTION Speaker wires must not contact anything else, this will damage S.C. and void guarantee. CAUTION Device can be damaged by static discharge.  I suppose it's just a matter of being cautious.

Whenever I install one of these high-falutin' sound systems, I use a copper wrist strop to earth myself to the worktop.

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

Quote from: Loco Bill Canelos on November 16, 2014, 09:37:06 PM
Dear Fellow Bachmanites,

I will be out of touch for a couple of weeks, and may not be able to respond to questions on posts I have made to the board.

Just wanted you to know what is going on with me, and don't want you to think I am being rude by not responding.

We will be returning to Colorado form Missouri and the trains are coming with. It is a big move for me and I have torn down both my large outdoor and my indoor railroad as well.
It is amazing what a large pile of trains I have been packing up to move.  67 years of collecting train stuff is a long time and I still have some of the trains from when I was a kid in 1947.

I do have a basement in our new home and I will build there first, but my son is pushing me to build outdoors again.  Maybe I will if I can get him to lay the track .  The hands and knees work has become somewhat difficult for me. My son has perfect track on his large outdoor layout and runs the full length California Zephyr on it with virtually zero derailments, so I have no problem with him doing the work.

Enough Blah Blah

See you all soon.

Cheers & Beers,

Loco Bill

Mazel Tov to you and Mrs Bill!

I know from many years in the miltary that moving around is as much a PITA as anything ever invented.

Take care, we me and ig and the boys look forward to reading you again soon.

Best

tac, ig, ken the GFT & The Canada Day Removal Truck Boys of Ol' Montréal.

Quote from: trainstrainstrains on November 17, 2014, 10:04:13 AM
Bill thank you, It will take me some time to absorb all the information in your answers and reference articles, I have already exchanged  a chassis  on a 4 6 0 , my Swanee River Special,  you helped me with that,  I know you are right about better exchange than fix , it's  just that everytime I see the discarded chassis from the Suwannee  River loco I get an urge  to fix it. It seems such a waste, but we must adapt to this consumer society.

How much better is the 6th generation 4 6 0 chassis  than the 5th ? You say most problems have been fixed on the 5th but it still has nylon gears. The 6th generation chassis  you say has an improved front car and metal gears, a great improvement over the 5th surely. So it is tempting to adapt the 6th generation chassis  to shells meant for the fifth, you mentioned this as being possible  and not difficult.  What exactly is involved in this adaptation and do you think the 6th gen chassis is sufficiently better to prefer it over the 5th generation when one needs to replace a 4th or older chassis?

I dunno about generations of Big Haulers and so-called 'Annies', but my original 'Annie', bought new when it came out, what, fourteen years ago [?] is still going strong with no issues whatsoever.  Guess I'm lucky, eh?

Mind you, I take good care of it.  It's interesting to show it, as I often do, haulings its train of five or six lit-up White Pass cars - all bought off **** for around $35 each, and then running that same train behind another company's loco that cost literally 30-times as much.

My 'Annie' remains a beauty, as a runner or a looker...

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

tac

Quote from: Seaboard Air Line Fan on November 16, 2014, 06:44:29 PM
The Annie I recently bought had some broken parts, I fixed them with MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone).  It works well on styrene and so far on whatever the Annie is made of.  I bought a quart can of it at a local hardware store.  It'll take paint off in a hurry and well dissolve styrene if left in a bath of it too long, makes a good putty though for filling holes 

Wow!  What it must be like to live in a Free country!  Here in UK it's sold as 'Plastic Weld' in a tiny glass bottle for around $9.  The store clerk will only sell you one at a time, too.

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

TTT - if you have a centre drivewheel that is positioned 1cm above the track then you have one serious problem.  I just measured mine, and found the gap to be  just over 1.6 millimeteres - nowhere near the 10 millimetres you say that you have.

Have I missed something here?

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

Hi, here, T!  Well dimensionally there is little difference - the main difference is that the new mouldings are far superior to the older model - not only is eveything crisper/sharper, but the new version has different buffer beams/couplings, and loads and loads of rivets.  I re-modelled the roof hatch on my first model as it was very crudely-done - looking more like a model from 1950's Hongpan than 1990's production.  The new model is much sharper and finer in every detail and less 'blobby'.  The mechanism is far superior, as is the modelling of the valve gear, although it is is 'Stephenson' and therefore disarmingly simple.  Mine starts to move [very smoothly, too] at less than 2V.

The new model is a genuine joy to behold, whether running or on its display track.

Best from up here.


tac
OVGRS.org



 

With very few minor discrepancies, this is a beautiful model of a much-loved prototype loco on one of the most picturesque, bucolic and much-missed of any NG railway in the British Isles - the Lynton & Barstaple Railway in North Devon.  As its history has been endlessly documented, and the line us undergoing an almost unbelievable revival, with brand-new locomoties as well as coaching stock, I won't dwell on that.  Instead, I'll mention the difference between the old and the new versions, both of which I have on my shelf.  The older version built to a different scale, and is a mechanically-crumbling ruin, although the paint, even after fifteen years, is remarkably good.  I've got nothing more to add to that.

The newer version, that fits in just fine with the 16mm [1/19th] scale rolling stock from another company, is a nigh-on faultless model in most respects that nobody would take to task unless they had the live-steam version to compare it with.

Sadly, I don't have that, but I know of three folks that do.

I haven't seen the US version, but since I'm only familiar with the real thing in green, I'd just note that even here it yUK it represents remarkable value for money.  IMO two passenger cars are just about right, except that nobody I know makes anything to suit.  The 1/20.3 J-S cars are ludicrously over-sized for what is a two-foot gauge loco prototype, and Bachmann's own cars of this type are not only too small, but ar totally of the wrong design.

You'll have to build your own, modelled on the Maine two-footers.

Loads of luck with that.

If you find one in green or black - buy it.  If you don't I'll prolly beat you to it.  Add a suitable sound system and some batteries and r/c, and you're good to go.

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

Larry, my pak Mike smith here is making up a CD of a bunch of pics of the so-called 'large Prairie' [bigger drive wheels - the smaller 61XX had small drivers for fast acceleration on commuter service].

I'll airmail it to you when I get it, OK?

I'll also email you details of the extant Gauge 1 models of these locos, as they are not made by Bachmann.

Best

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

Quote from: Stryker on November 12, 2014, 08:02:21 AM
Hi Tac,
Thank You in advance for Your help as well as Your local live steamers.   I've been trying to find pictures of the interior of 6013, but to date had no luck what so ever.  If, by chance You are able to get some photographs of 6013's cabin/( footplate?) that You could post, I'd be extremely grateful.  Right now, so to speak, I am looking on the internet to see what the terrain for a GWR Branch line looks like.  I've seen far too many Rail Road layouts supposedly representing the Middlewest of the U.S. that do not look like the builder checked his/her geology for the area supposedly being modeled.   I refuse to insult my fellow modelers in the U.K. by doing that to them!

Tac, might I please impose upon You and Your friends to let me know which books that You know of, over there that might help me to duplicate the geology of the GWR's branchlines?
Again, Thank You in advance,
Sincerely,

Stryker

Well, that's going to be pretty difficult to model in the scale you are looking to emulate.  The reason is that the 61XX locos were designed for fast-accelerating urban commuter train service around London.....they all spent 99% of their entire existence within thirty miles of the centre of London, which is, as a reminder, about fifty miles across.........the local suburbs of the London area are still pretty busy built-up places, nothing at all like the bucolic landscape that you imagine.

I'll have a look for you, but be prepared for some substantial upset...rural branchlines were the stomping ground of the smaller 14XX - a cute-looking 0-4-2 that usually hauled an auto-coach so that it could be driven from each end at terminus stations that had no turntable facility.  Turning Y's are virtually unheard of in this country, where space is at a premium.

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

Stryker - looking for you over here in UK.  There is only one survivor, based at the Didcot Steam Heritage Centre, #6013, but the loco is also very popular among the 1" scale builders, too, and my local live-steamers may be able to help with a true-scale backhead layout.

Meanwhile, here is a shot of such a model on a local live-steam track - give you some idea, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uW45TNEhUE

THIS one is even better - firing up and pressure test before a run at East Gilling...it's in the larger scale of 1.5" to the foot, over here called seven and a quarter gauge.  Some great cab shots that might be of use to you if you can frame-grab....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQXL2B-4QP8

I'll be in touch via this site, OK?

Best of luck

tac