On the inside of the roof, right over the stove or closely nearby, the stove pipe fit into a slighly larger pipe that the smoke stack was part of. The idea was to gain  draft for the stove without removing all of the oxygen from the caboose.  It also moved and could expand when the caboose was moving.

Sheldon is correct on visiting Strasburg. Even my wife was impressed and wanted a second trip. Across the road is the Pennsylvania State Railroad Museum and you can see at least one example from the Pennsylvania RR steam days. Plenty of fun there, the Toy Train Museum and Strasburg has a good hobby shop on board. You can even rent a coaboose to stay in overnight.

Yes, Paint was a luxury in the boomtowns. I've always wanted to do a town painted red like in "High Plains Drifter."

Bill Bradford Models offers some very nice kits for blocks of buildings like yours

Whether it's an RGS 4-6-0, SP or Tweetsie, they aree all about the same length, a little over 12 inches in 1/4" scale. The key is wheelbase.  at a scale 9'9"  that's pretty long. I have a pair of RGS 1/4" On3 ten wheelers and I can tell you that 36" radius is painful. The C-16s are actually smaller locomotives with a shorter total wheelbase due to small drivers.  The prototype had blind drivers which helped greatly.

I'd be more inclined to buy a Westside #14 shay. You have to really give Lee a lot of credit for picking smaller prototypes for model. The Porters are jewels as are the small shay and climax. These are true tight radius machines. Some of you need to see catalogs from the 1920s as the small shay was used to build many of the original US highways..

Dustin,

It would be better to have the western 4-6-0. While many On30 people like sharp cures and ridiculously small rolling stock, most 30 inch roads, including the Mexican and Cuban used 25 to 30 foot rolling stock unless a cane or field operation.

22 inch radius is pretty darn tight.  I have an MMI K27 and it runs fairly well, but it needs closer to 36 inch radius to look somewhat normal. Just a hint, the Silverton Northern used C-16s and had the Chattanooga curve to contend with, 270 foot radius on a 4% grade. Blind drivers helped a lot. Nothing else was ever used on that line. The sidings had to be reached by idler cars.

Before you ask for something, Learn more about what the real world was like. The Tweetsie (Which I live near) wasn't built much better than the Colorado Roads. Same problems. These were industrial railways first and anything else was gravy.

Steam Freak.

The first order of business is to crimp the railjoiner at the position you found the open. This means pulling the track loose and re inserting. That should get continuity re-established.
The joiners do corrode, especially wi5th fertilizer and sprinklers. I would solder the connectors using a 250 wat soldering iron as the size of the rail is a heat sink. Jumper wires will work. I am assuming you have brass track here. If you have aluminum, you will not be able to solder the rail. Use Split-Jaw mechanical rail joiners.

When you solder, use Electrical solder with rosin core, also use solder paste to remove the rail oxidation. You may want to put separate jumpers from your power sourcce to a number of locations on your railroad.

I covered all of this in 1990-91 for Garden Railway magazine when i did a column for them on electricity in the garden.

I have used the Atlas turntable for a reliable drive unit for the Walthers kit. If anyone is interested, write me direct.

Jim Pasha
japasha@aol.com

Harold,

I like the HO track method myself but I do it a bit differently. I use the rail and hand-lay on On3 ties. Pretty easy there. I use Atlas switches modified to be laid on On3 swith ties.  I remove the plastic HO ties from the switch and then lay the remaining rails and frog on the ties. My portable module has trackwork done this way and it has proven to be easy to wire and operate. I cheat on my On3 layouts but use #6 or #8 switches for that project.

I you use a typical over-and-under set for a figure 8 with 18 inch radius, you will have a grade of about 5.2%, about the same as the Saluda grade on the Southern Railway, a very difficult piece of railroad to operate on.

22 inch radius lowers this to 4.5%; still steep but easier on the rolling stock.

I recently built a GE centercab 45 ton locomotive using two Chivers 25 ton kits and a power drive from a Life-like RS-3. Runs great and looks the part of a former Hawaiian 30 ich gauge locomotive. I have an On3 version in the works.

If you are interested in pictures, write me direct

Jim Pasha japasha@aol.com

Peter,

Also look at the Wiseman C-16 tender which would be more appropriate for a larger logger. 

Jim

The gons are a Chinese design modified from Euro practice. The reason for so much vapor is that the shots were mare with the ambient temp under freezing. Lots of steam to see. Most lifters do not work at under 40 mph.

The locomotives are based on US designs along with couplers and brakes.

Those reading Model Railroader should turn to page 17 of the July issue and look at the PECO ad. It is a scale 48' (12 inches) with pit.

Frisco,

Woody has explained this well. Most of the smaller porters and industrial locomotives and rooling stock were built to be operated at 15 mph or less. Some of the portable track was as light as code 55 would represent in 1/4" scale. The D&RGW started with 35 pound rail but quickly went to 55 pound rail with the coming of the initial order of 2-8-0s. Tese were still slow speed operations at any rate. 25 mph would be something sonic for those trains.  60 and 80 pound rail found its way onto most of the surviving narrow gauges  about the turn of the century.

In the book "Rails Around Gold hill", Cafky describes many 3 foot gauge spurs as being built with old 35 and 40 pound rail removed from the D&RGW. In operations they seldom operated a locomotive on these spurs, they woul usually use either availble flat or box cars to "Reach" anything spotted on the spurs. 

While many modelers like the "rinky-dink" look of small rail, even the poorest of railroads knew tht larger and heavier rail was the best for operations.  When the light rail was used, reaching was used to keep heavy locomotives off the light rail. This makes for more interesting operations. As I recall, those SPNG spurs were serviced by reaching with cars rather than the locomtive making a direct coupling.

Code 83 represents light mainline rail, perhaps about 60 pounds. Code 70 would represent very light rail as used in portable panels for construction or a very early narrow or standard gauge operation. Those Maine 2-foot locomotives had a relatively high axle loading, note the 60+ pound rail illustrated in most pictures.

This method is for the steady of hand. I snip the exisiting dummy couple from the pilot. I then drill a hole the approximate size of a Kadee #5 shank. I cut the mount end off leaving a shank. I insert the shank into the pilot and ajust for height. I then ACC the shank to the pilot.

While this does not have swing side to side, the short wheelbase of the 0-6-0/2-6-2 works fine with most cars.

I have rebuilt the 2-6-2 pilots as in the other illustration when I lengthen it to accomdate 28 inch pilot wheels. The standard pilot wheels on the 2-6-2 are far too small to be close to any prototype.

The Bachmann USRA 0-6-0 is a very reasonable model of the prototype but inexpensively made. The later mechanisms are actually very good.