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+--- Thread: Liberty Industrial Spur (/showthread.php?tid=4454)
Re: Liberty Industrial Spur - Justinmiller171 - 11-11-2011
Since many of the NW-2 were used in the San Fransisco area, I came up with this for another idea for a railroad:
![[Image: BAT.png?t=1321070399]](http://i844.photobucket.com/albums/ab4/Justinmiller171/BAT.png?t=1321070399)
Re: Liberty Industrial Spur - Justinmiller171 - 11-14-2011
The train-show today was pretty good, I got 5 boxcars, a tank car, a gondola, and a airslide hopper, I now have enough cars to run an actual ops session which I plan on doing tomorrow.
I also got an old book from 1954 called "Operating manual for model railroaders" by "Boomer Pete", it is very interesting to read, it's funny how almost everybody in the book wears a suit and smokes a pipe when they run trains
Re: Liberty Industrial Spur - Brakie - 11-14-2011
Justin,Back in the day you dress your best for photos and wearing casual suits with a Fedora hat was the norm for some folk and pipe smoking was big during the 50s.Both was some what of a status symbol along with driving a large eight cylinder automobile..
Re: Liberty Industrial Spur - Mike Kieran - 11-14-2011
When I look at old and period piece movies, It amazes me how things have changed. Middle of July with a suit and hat, but you could wear short sleeves to keep cool. Now, we're dying in a t-shirt and shorts.
Or how when dad came home from work, there would be his slippers, a cardigan sweater, a pipe, a martini or scotch, and the evening newspapers.
I'm also amazed at the amount of smoking going on. I don't smoke, but I'm the only one in my family that doesn't. I never noticed how much people smoked until I looked at old movies. Man did people smoke.
If I was modeling the 1950s, I would buy a copy of Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road (Leonardo DiCaprio & Kate Winslet). The texture of the movie is what sold me on it.
Re: Liberty Industrial Spur - Green_Elite_Cab - 11-15-2011
Yeah, I also have a few of the OLD model railroad books. I even have some magazines dating back to the end of WWII. One add that stood out in my mind was a modular steam locomotive set up. You could buy the frames you wanted, then the wheels and matching bits and pieces. I suppose you were on your own for the boiler, but rolling your own boiler seemed to be a regular part of modeling trains in 1945.
Sometimes they have good "forgotten" stuff in the old books, but I usually try to stick to more recent times. I have a book on trackwork that i'm not sure entirely applies anymore!
Also, nice logo, reminds me of the New York Central oval.
Re: Liberty Industrial Spur - FCIN - 11-21-2011
Justinmiller171 Wrote:I now have enough cars to run an actual ops session which I plan on doing tomorrow.So how'd the operating session go Justin?
Been playing around with having the Proctor & Gamble peanut butter plant as my main industry too. Thinking that it might be better to have the one large industry along with a handful of smaller one's. Track plan I drew up look's promising, but haven't worked up the nerve to change the track around to test it out.
Re: Liberty Industrial Spur - Justinmiller171 - 11-21-2011
FCIN Wrote:So how'd the operating session go Justin?
Been playing around with having the Proctor & Gamble peanut butter plant as my main industry too. Thinking that it might be better to have the one large industry along with a handful of smaller one's. Track plan I drew up look's promising, but haven't worked up the nerve to change the track around to test it out.
Well, It went okay except that half-way through the session I had to stop and adjust some of the freight cars since I had tightened the truck alittle too much on a few of them, I have also been having some more problems with the track, since I only have one set of feeder wires attached to the layout the track on the far end of the layout are very problematic, one small bump and they lose power, I think I will have to get rid of the leg section of the layout and move the feeder wires up a little bit.
Ed, my peanut butter plant is really fun to operate, I highly suggest you try it.
Re: Liberty Industrial Spur - TTRAK_andrew - 11-21-2011
G'day Justin, In reference to your problems with electricity, soldering in one or two more power feeds along the length of the layout will be a lot more effective and be just as much work as moving the existing power feed. If you have live frog points it may get a little tricky, but I leave that to those with more experience than I in that regard. It also reduces any problems with voltage drop over any significant distances. From my reading about DCC, multiple power feeds are recommended for that also to make sure that a clear signal gets through.
Regards, Andrew G.
Re: Liberty Industrial Spur - Justinmiller171 - 11-21-2011
TTRAK_andrew Wrote:G'day Justin, In reference to your problems with electricity, soldering in one or two more power feeds along the length of the layout will be a lot more effective and be just as much work as moving the existing power feed. If you have live frog points it may get a little tricky, but I leave that to those with more experience than I in that regard. It also reduces any problems with voltage drop over any significant distances. From my reading about DCC, multiple power feeds are recommended for that also to make sure that a clear signal gets through.
Regards, Andrew G.
Thanks Andrew, I only have one set of power feeds since I am still testing track configurations, once I settle on a final plan I will add more.
I have also noticed that alot of my rail-joiners are loose, is there a way to tighten them?
Re: Liberty Industrial Spur - paulus_jas - 11-21-2011
hi justin
pincers might do the job.
Paul
Re: Liberty Industrial Spur - Russ Bellinis - 11-21-2011
Justin, I use solid wire from Romex cable for house wiring for main buss wires. Romex is cheap, and if there is a construction project near by, check to see if the electricians can give you any left over cut offs. If you have to buy Romex, it is sold by the foot and probably 12 feet would be plenty to wire your entire project. You can get it in the electrical section of any home center or hardware store. The other advantage of Romex is that the wires are easily pulled out of the sheathing, and it is color coded with a black wire, a white wire, and a bare copper wire. You can asign black for "+" and white for "-" and keep your wiring from having shorts. Run two wires down the center of your board, and then solder drops to the rails and install them with suitcase connectors. You could try soldering a drop to every rail joiner; but as you have discovered, rail joiners will get loose and cause problems. It is better to solder to either the outside of the rail or the bottom of the rail. If you have a track that is more than 6 inches away from the main buss, wrap & solder a pair of branch wires in effect mimicking your layout plan on the bottom of the bench work. Make you drops 8 inches long, and you can cut them close to the buss wires to reposition the tracks if they are soldered to the buss, or undo the suitcase connectors to move the tracks. Suitcase connectors are also cheap, so I would not reuse them. Buy a box of 100 and throw away used ones if you need to move your drop wires around.
Re: Liberty Industrial Spur - Justinmiller171 - 12-14-2011
Well.... The time has come for me to once again dismantle the layout, this one was much better because I finally got it to run reliably, but it was still too big of a project for me to work on.
I thought this time before planning a layout I would give a list of "G's and D's" :
Givens and Druthers
Southern Pacific
Scale: HO
Gauge: Standard
Prototype: Freelanced Southern Pacific industrial spur
Era: Semi-Modern (1970-1990)
Region: West Coast (Northern California or Oregon)
Railroad: Southern Pacific
Space: 12x4 feet (I have room for more but decided to limit myself)
Governing Rolling Stock: 60" Bulkhead Flat
Relative Emphasis: (move the V)
|______________________V_______________________|
Track/Operation .................................................. ..Scenic realism
|___________________________________V__________|
Mainline Running .................................................. ........ Switching
Notes:
I will be taking down old benchwork, 2 feet wide HCDs were just too much work to fill with scenery, etc...
I would prefer as few turnouts as possible, and easy track arrangement
Preferred industries: Metal company, food distributor, team track.
Track is Peco code 100 Large radius turnouts and Atlas code 100 flex-track
Re: Liberty Industrial Spur - FCIN - 12-14-2011
Of course a slightly longer version of the Palmetto Spur would be the answer. Only three (3) turnouts and plenty of operating potential. The two main industries and the long team track would certainly fit your theme. You can always rearrange the track some if you like and of course make the two industrial spurs a bit longer. Use the extra space to have non-rail served structures on either side of the switching lead and to hide the staging area some what. You know where you can find some great inspiration for such a plan, right here: http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=4317
Re: Liberty Industrial Spur - Mike Kieran - 12-14-2011
Justin, what do you mean by a metal company? Do you mean a fabricator or a manufacturing company?
Re: Liberty Industrial Spur - steinjr - 12-14-2011
I'd suggest that you just do one of Mike's track plans - e.g. on an 80" ( 6 2/3rd foot) x 18" hollow core door
Shave off 4 on the left on this one:
![[Image: 6302685041_9b9e25dd0a_b.jpg]](http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6226/6302685041_9b9e25dd0a_b.jpg)
Or add 8" on the left to this one:
![[Image: 6305622847_677f4094bd_b.jpg]](http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6047/6305622847_677f4094bd_b.jpg)
Simple track plan, two or three turnouts, easy construction, easy wiring - essentially you feed the top one at far right, bottom one at far left, and use power routing turnouts, room for little scenery, some buildings, a few roads. Can easily enough be cut into two small sections for easy transport.
Smile,
Stein