So I'm doing a sorta scratch.

I've had this Ken Kidder Porter Mogul forever.  I put a can motor in it and a decoder about ten years ago but never ran it much.  My railroad is an operational pike that uses Ship It for a switching system.

The original loco has a long pilot and no front coupler.  Not good for switching. 

So I decided to convert it to HOn3 and put a usable pilot on it at the same time. I'm making all new parts so that it could be put back to HO (however not easily).

These locos were scaled a bit small so the move to NG is going to be acceptable.

So here are the starting photos..... with the original loco.

see ya
Bob

Original loco


Progress

So I mentioned in another thread that I am working on a trolley module railroad with another modeler in downtown Idaho.

I'm doing the turnouts and trolley poles for him.

This railroad is a point to point display layout with a loop at each end, taken from a 1954 issue of Model Railroader.

The concept is that the trolley will go around a loop and return to the other end.  In a brainstorming session over a few beers I thought that it would be cool if the trolley reversed its direction each time it went through the loop.  I decided that this could be done with no electrical components or switch machines.  When a railroad is on display the owner/operator does not want to be bothered with constantly operating something.  It is to run by itself and have bullet proof operation.

Below are three photos of the first of two turnouts that are to be identical. As this railroad will run from the trolley overhead wires the track work is all one side of the circuit.  He will be using EasyDCC for the control system

I had made seven of these turnouts for my own trolley railroad about 8 years ago but they are all on switch machines as mine is a operational railroad and not a operating display.

Single point turnouts were common in street railroads through the demise of trolleys in the 1950's  They only tolerated light equipment and low speeds so they were never seen on commercial mainline railroads.  In some cities they did in fact run some freight but nothing like the majors.

All of this is built on .020" circuit board and the rail is soldered directly to the board.  All of the copper will be covered with Plastruct sheet plastic that is impressed with a brick pattern and then painted.

The single point is visible in the photo and what makes it work is the sliding point grabs the inside of the flange and pulls the truck over into the turnout.  Trolleys routinely went through a lot of wheels as the back side of the wheel was regularly being worked.

The turned position and the straight positions are shown in the two photos.

The last photo shows the operational mechanism that allows this to work.  The wheels push the point so the point will remain in the same location upon return of the trolley and thus go the other way around the loop.  The spring loads the point down but the locked washers are necessary so that the spring cannot offer any return pressure to the point due to the spring winding up.  The double nut is necessary to lock the very light tension of the spring.


see ya
Bob

So I am starting another locomotive.  This came out of a conversation with Hal Reynolds.  He put up a really fun locomotive earlier this week from the Wiscasset RR.. It was a little Vulcan locomotive that has been restored and operating in New England.

I had started on a Mason Breckenridge loco in HO scale some years ago and then set it aside about 8 years ago. I considered cutting the frame down to make the smaller Vulcan.  When I gathered up all the parts I had either made or found from various suppliers.... I decided to go on with the original plan.  A 2-6-6T as shown in the builder's photo below.



With that............... Below is a few photos of the frame and gathered parts.  I'm not doing this for judging or anything like that. Only to see if I can make it up and have it move on its own when done.

So here we go.......

see ya
Bob

Hey Bob.....Is there any place we can see more pictures of your layout? If not, how about adding a few in the Layout Tours here!       Gregory P. DeMayo

OK........................................  Greg made me do this.

I'll put up some photos of my BN&O.  This is a recreation, with a lot of imagination, of Boise Valley in south west Idaho in a period of 1906 to about 1913 when the line was taken over by the Union Pacific under the guise of Oregon Short Line.

There was steam service in the area as well as trolley and freight service connecting the smaller towns around the valley.  There was a logging division that connected to the standard gauge main line but there was never a rail connection to the mining regions.  That connection is my imaginary narrow gauge division that goes to the south west hills.

I'll start with larger area room shots and then focus in on particular scenes.

see ya
Bob

John Siekirk put me up to this so here we go.

I started on the notion of building a G scale locomotive late last fall while on an anti rejection drug after I received a blood stem cell transplant.  The drug gave me something that could only be described as the permanent coffee jitters.  So I had to give up HO for a time and move to something a little larger.

I had long been fascinated with this locomotive and considered building this in HO but there was no place to put a motor and even in G scale it's going to be tight.

The plans are from an Al Armitage article in the Mar/Apr 1988 issue of Narrow Gauge Gazette.

The only parts I have used from a commercial source are the wheels that I obtained from Allan Pollock at Missouri Locomotive Company.  Beyond that everything is bar stock from a local metal supply house here in Boise.

The scaling of the locomotive drawings from the prototype to something that could be built took about two months as simply scaling something down doesn't mean it can be modeled with enough durability to hold together while operating.

I made the decision early that I would make the valves operate in time with the main rods and cylinders and that the brakes, although out of the way for running the locomotive, could be engaged manually.

With that........... I begin.

Below is a photo of the main frame rails with nothing but the wheels loosely installed.


And then with the end beams on so as to set the spacing of the frame rails.  Everything relies on this calculation.


I also decided that the suspension would be sprung so I created a spring system as it showed in the drawings.




Also shown above is the retainer plates for the axles

I'll stop for now and add some more tomorrow.  All of these photos are resident on this site in the gallery.

Thanx
Bob