Talking About Trains...

[Captain Caveman]

Thanks for the likes.

 

[Captain Caveman]

 

[Angular Chap]

Thanks for the likes.

Thanks for the pictures!

 

[Captain Caveman]

 

[Captain Caveman]

Track on my partly built layout.

 

[Glennwood Road Ent 21]

As a young Christian man who diagnosed with Autism living in Latin America and The Caribbean Region, in USA, rode Miami International Airport people Mover and from the airport to Rental Car Center in Miami many times since 2012, in December 2016, rode the orange airport mover train in ATL and the White Train at Detroit International Airport respectively (first time visiting Georgia and Michigan states respectively before I went to Erie, Pennsylvania for my sister's graduation and I spotted freight trains in the snowy weather.

And in September 2024 for my 10th year anniversary of being ordinated as a Transit Fan by now defunct Hanks Truck Pictures website in The Commonwealth of The Bahamas by God in Junior High School in 2014, I've went international to Canada for the first time and I Spotted many Antique Trains around Toronto Roundhouse Park Near CN Tower, rode the Toronto Pearson International Airport Trains from one terminal to another before I Boarded Government of Ontario UP Express Train from the Airport straight to Union Station in Downtown Toronto.

In September 2025, I'm going to Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Area, California respectively to check out the train museum etc. This year for 11th anniversary of being a Transit fan and I'm on the Autism Spectrum. I just got my driver's license and I'm hoping to rent a car in California for the trip.

Stay tuned for more updates to come guys. GOODNIGHT
10-4 AND OVER AND OUT.

 

[Gerontius]

Track on my partly built layout.

Your tracklaying skills are an inspiration. Handlaid track? Even if you can get tracks cheaply at a model shop it just looks so much better for a narrow-gauge line to lay one's own tracks. What are the sleepers made of again?

Already mentioned the small stash of vintage American Flyer here but it's annoying how little S Scale gear is out there for cheap--but --

Anyway--Found an online group that is 3d-printing chassis and such for S gauge trains! While it won't work for fixing these steam locomotives they DO HAVE the plans & files to build diesel-electric locomotives, and I suppose one could use the files for the motor bogies to build some electric freight motors, some trolleys or interurban cars, or anything nice like that.

The S Gauge stuff is sold by "Dragon Railroad" which -- here's the files. I do not have a 3d printer yet, nor do I have $56 for plastic train directions, but I'm really curious about making some of these little guys and detailing them. You can probably get the American Flyer trucks from Lionel now that have rotating bearing caps, and of course detailing parts are available from a lot of places, so that'll be interesting to see just how good they could look.

Dragon Railway V2 - Complete set

 

[Judge]

Me with my classic Aurora Postage Stamp Trains and tracks, 1968. I sooooo loved N-Gauge.

Such nostalgia!

 

[Captain Caveman]

Used to have a Maplin store in the town I was living near, and they sold these sheets of printed circuit board (PCB). I then cut off strips from the board and used them as sleepers. The track is experimental and I have learned a lot now of what works and what to avoid. Not sure where to buy PCB today but I have one or two small sheets spare that I bought before Maplin closed.
I used code 100 rail that is what 00 and H0 trainsets use. Is the type of rail height that allows me to run deeper flanged wheels if I want to. The gauge is the same as H0 as it is easier to make or buy chassis.
I love what 3D printers can do. Once set up and one has a nice program with enough resin to complete the work, it is exciting to watch ones model parts form!
But I much prefer the hands on approach to making things myself, so I have not gone down the 3D printed route.
I do actually have two 3D printed loco body kits, one of which I have started to convert it to look the way I want it to look, but I have to say that working on 3D printed resin in this way feels a struggle as the material feels dead and tries to work against you rather than for you. Try manual resin casting (Or buy a resin cast kit cast the manual way), and the material works with you and is a pleasure to work! [Yes, I have heard that there are now other resins for 3D printers to use so hopefully things have improved!]
3D printing really comes into its own when one can take a program that other talented modellers have made, download it and set ones printer to print, and one has oneself a lovely 3D printed model (All going to plan), and this is honestly amazing that one can do this!
But for me, to go back to CAD CAM again that I did in the 1980's just feels "Yuck", as I am a "Hands on" guy!
So when I make a waggon or something else, I have thought about the idea, and how to make it, and what materials I will use. I normally experiment a bit before I am happy, and then I use the successful designs and make more.
Now I REALLY ENJOY the process. I can spend a year or two thinking up designs and testing them in my head.
Somehow, downloading a program and printing it feels like buying and owning an electric car. It does everything one wants it to do. But somehow, for those who love piston engines, it does not feel the same! One feels like one will hang on to ones lovely old piston engined car for years after everyone else has changed just because it feels like an old friend one will never want to part with, and watching an old car be taken away for scrap is really heartbreaking. Electric cars one does not feel like this.

Is how best I can describe the closeness I have to the things I make using the tools and skills I have gained. (And I am no where near as talented as others, but I really appreciate that I can make things).

What I have learned though, is that often we over-complicate our designs which is why things sometimes don't work.

Your tracklaying skills are an inspiration. Handlaid track? Even if you can get tracks cheaply at a model shop it just looks so much better for a narrow-gauge line to lay one's own tracks. What are the sleepers made of again?

Already mentioned the small stash of vintage American Flyer here but it's annoying how little S Scale gear is out there for cheap--but --

Anyway--Found an online group that is 3d-printing chassis and such for S gauge trains! While it won't work for fixing these steam locomotives they DO HAVE the plans & files to build diesel-electric locomotives, and I suppose one could use the files for the motor bogies to build some electric freight motors, some trolleys or interurban cars, or anything nice like that.

The S Gauge stuff is sold by "Dragon Railroad" which -- here's the files. I do not have a 3d printer yet, nor do I have $56 for plastic train directions, but I'm really curious about making some of these little guys and detailing them. You can probably get the American Flyer trucks from Lionel now that have rotating bearing caps, and of course detailing parts are available from a lot of places, so that'll be interesting to see just how good they could look.

Dragon Railway V2 - Complete set

Sleepers are made from cutting strips of printed circuit board. (PCB). Rails are ordinary code 100 rails. Gauge is 16.5mm.

3D printing... Great idea.

I prefer scratchbuilding the manual way though, but it is good to hear you have3D printing plans!

 

[Captain Caveman]

Me with my classic Aurora Postage Stamp Trains and tracks, 1968. I sooooo loved N-Gauge.

View attachment 142485

Such nostalgia!

Lovely! A bit small for me as I have tried it. I do have an N gauge loco.

 

[Captain Caveman]

Here is one where the body is made from rusty tin and the chassis came from an old Triang bogie. Wooden bufferbeams were glued on and new wheels were slid onto the Triang axles.

 

[Captain Caveman]

Another photo...

 

[Nines9]

I don't have any model trains, but what takes my fancy are model steam engines which go hand in hand. Those things are so cool

 

[Captain Caveman]

I don't have any model trains, but what takes my fancy are model steam engines which go hand in hand. Those things are so cool

What I do these days is budget modelling as prices have gone so high. I fond ways to make things without spending too much.
Part of the charm is to make attractive things, which is why I love 7mm scale narrow gauge.

 

[Nines9]

What I do these days is budget modelling as prices have gone so high. I fond ways to make things without spending too much.
Part of the charm is to make attractive things, which is why I love 7mm scale narrow gauge.

Have you ever constructed models from scratch? Like literally out of bare materials?

 

[Captain Caveman]

Have you ever constructed models from scratch? Like literally out of bare materials?

About a third or half are scratchbuilt (Usually waggons) and others are kit built. I have recently bought a collection from someone who did what I do who has changed scale. Because they are similar style they go well with my creations. But all I have in this scale and gauge are either scratchbuilt or kitbuilt. I try to keep to easy to make kits if they are kit built.

 

[Captain Caveman]

Scratchbuilding waggons or anything, is easier than one may think "If" one takes a different approach to ones modelling.

The normal approach is to replicate in miniature a realistic locomotive and whatever it pulls based on a real railway scene. In other words recreating an actual scene or at the very least, an actual miniature form of what would run on a scene even if it wasn't an actual scene.

But why give oneself such an impossible task? Even if one had the space and the funding, most model locomotives can't pull anything like scale length trains and their couplers rarely hold out if one tries. Even if one has DCC sound to add to the realism, rarely does the sound correspond to the movement of ones model. (Believe me, after ages of DCC programming in the days when I was using DCC, I never was able to get the sound quite matched up). But this exposes the problems with our modelling. The more realistic we try to make our models, the harder it becomes to get ones imagination flow as one notices the smaller inaccuracies.

At the other end of the scene I remember when I was a child of about five or six when I was ill so I was home from school, and my Dad was in work and my Mum had to go to the doctor or the chemist in the next village a few miles away (So was a long walk), and I was not well enough to go, so a lady we called an aunt, but was actually my Dad's cousins wife, spent a few hours looking after me, and during that time she tried to cheer me up and got a long Lego brick and said it was a train (She knew I liked trains). I looked at her daft as it was clear even to me as a child, that that wasn't a train, and as she cupped her hand to make what she claimed was a tunnel, I just looked at her daft! "Doesn't she know it is not a train?" was going through my head!
Looking back, what was wrong with the single Lego brick? Why couldn't it be a train? Because it did not capture the character of a train! Had she added wheels, and a few other parts to represent a cab, a dome and a chimney, it would resemble a train in my mind. But a single long Lego brick? Erm!

So we do need an element of realism, but what we do not need are impossible goalposts that we can set up for ourselves, which require unrealistically high expectations involving great financial costings and a lot of space.
Yes we can scale things down a bit and chose a smaller scale, but I found the smaller the scale the more work there is keeping track and wheels clean and the tiny mechanisms working.

So what is the answer to easy modelling that satisfies from more than one angle? Reduces cost. Reduces the need for a large space. Increases the fun.

I asked myself this in the past during a time when I had burnout where I had quit another job so I had no income. It was at a time when the two leading manufacturers decided to double their prices quoting that the price of scrap metal had doubled as an excuse. (One of the most stupid excuses I had ever heard). But I asked myself what was the answer? How could "I" continue?

The answer was staring me in my face, as it was right in front of me!!! As I sat on the bedroom floor of a house I once had, I was staring forward and in front of me was a Smallbrook Studio "Clio" kit in its bag which I had bought because I liked it. I loved the look of it, it was nice! I saw it in the advert and instantly fell in love! It wasn't even the right scale to the rest of my models at the time!
I saw this loco kit and I remembered I had a loco in my spares box with an ideal working chassis, so I already had all I need! Great!

Tears streamed down my face as I started to build it. This was personal!...

Fast forward and the loco was built though not quite 100% finished, but just about... so for me, it was ready. I went to look in my spares box for old wagon chassis I could use to make something in this scale for it to pull as the track gauge was the same as 00 and H0.... And the rest is history!

Now looking back, what is it that this 7mm narrow gauge loco kit had that none of my other 00 gauge models had? It wasn't even based on a real loco from what I can gather! But somehow it looked real and had a character of its own!

So what was it that appealed?

1. "I" had made it. It felt personal. There is something about it that one can't compare.

2. It was at the time reasonably priced. (Even after buying the kit and if one buys a donor loco at today's prices it is less than £100, and there is an even cheaper way, as one can buy a suitable loco secondhand and scale it up oneself without paying for a kit which is MUCH cheaper (Around £25 to £35 as I write. One may be lucky and get one even cheaper as I have seen these locos to convert (Little Hornby 4 wheel locos) selling for as low as £10 on occasions. (Usually £15 and up if in poor condition). They are easy to fix and work on and are pretty reliable)).

3. One can model in a small space in this scale, as I can fit a loco and five 4 wheel coaches in the same track space as three typical bogie coaches in 00 or H0. Yet it is in 7mm scale which is the same as 0. (0-16.5).
The loco and the stock I build I make to turn on a 2ft wide layout board. I have since bought someone else's collection which has the odd item which may not turn within this space, but in general nearly all I have can turn within this space.

4. Even if one has paid out more than one may have wanted for a loco, one is very much saving if one makes ones own rolling stock for ones loco to pull.

5. Consistency brings a far more realistic layout than one can imagine. If one makes (Or at least paints) everything oneself, one has a consistent scene. I bought a couple of little coach kits and two of these at the time were ready painted kits. I painted over them when I built them so I had a consistent approach. They look great! Had I not painted them, the immaculate factory paint finish would have exposed my standard of painting on my loco and other items. Even if ones own efforts are poor, consistency works, as it is like looking at paintings on a wall in a gallery. Some artists paint with amazing finescale detail! Others one has to step back to view the scene. Either way the paintings look great because they are consistent. One painting I saw on display looked awful. What was wrong with it? It took me ages to find out. The artist had spent ages painting every small detail on buildings and they really looked amazing! BUT the cars the artist painted in the streets near the buildings they did not even put in much effort. Had the artist painted the whole picture without much effort it would have been ok, or had they continued the amazing detail on the whole picture it would have been amazing! But these contrasts within the same painting spoiled the scene! It is why with ones models, if one has ones own scratchbuilt buildings, and one runs a highly detailed immaculate loco and stock past them, nothing looks right. BUT, if one has painted everything, or better still made everything, then everything looks right! (I am NOT saying one should paint over ones very expensive models. I am just explaining consistency and how it works).

6. Do NOT over-detail, but instead provide enough to make ones models or scenery look realistic.

7. Try and make as much as one can oneself. When I make waggons, I usually scratchbuild. When I do, I make my own buffers and couplings.

8. Narrow gauge in real life is usually remembered less than its more impressive larger standard gauge prototypes. Therefore, by modelling narrow gauge, one can get away with more inaccuracies without anyone noticing. Hardly anything I scratchbuild is anything like the prototype, and I only looked at prototypes to get a rough idea of how they work and what they roughly look like! Yet I have had far more success with this approach than the many years I spent trying to copy the real thing! It is a whole lot easier to capture the character rather than modelling an exact replica of a prototype, and when we walk away from a real scene, it is the character of what we see that we come away with!
Picture this. One stands by the track and watches an express train come thundering by. One is taken in by the speed and the experience! Now if one is modelling an express, and one scales it down to an ultra realistic scale speed, there is no way it will look right as it is not thundering past. Now run the model at top speed (If it does go fast) and watch realism come to life!

9. Smaller narrow gauge railways normally have smaller locos and run shorter trains. They too were used to reduce costs and fit in smaller spaces. (Small 2 ton waggons were preferred in the slate industry as they could be hand pushed into slate workshops by a single person, and it was a similar situation in other industries where smaller waggons were more useful down mines and in quarries etc).

10. Enjoy! If one is taking ones modelling too seriously, step back and have fun instead! Make something silly instead! A model of Toyland in the Noddy books, or a railway on Mars with imaginary little aliens riding trains! What ever it is that brings you joy and pulls you out of seriousness. After all, this hobby is meant to be FUN! And what one makes isn't real. Is ones own little world! So enjoy it!

 

[JayCee]

View attachment 142356

gotta Love those Gnomies Locos......TY for posting Capt C

 

[JayCee]

You can make them? Is about trial and error to see which ways work when making them. My railway waggons took a fair amount of trying out different ideas before I was happy on final designs.
What is required it to develop a basic design to make tractors that can be easily altered to make different types of tractor if that makes sense? Resin casting is useful for wheels and things like that. Is not so good for model railway wheels (I tried it) as flanges need to be very thin but strong. Possibly I could add fine metal filings to add strength but for tractor wheels it would be good. Tyres can either be painted or one can actually buy rubber stuff which is mouldable, though I can't remember where I saw it or if it is still available.
But it can be fun making things from tin, or resin or wood etc., though you may find a larger scale is easier.
Something that works for me is to avoid fine details but instead have a good overall consistent impression in ones build as it is easier to achieve successful results.
Keeping designs nice and simple and having a consistent approach.

View attachment 142303

(Some more waggons as seen before on other threads).

Tank cars and Wagons ,,, oh my ,,! Gnomie scale....lolz