du-bousquetaire

Hi Bob: I was out of commission for a few month with a broken backbone (I should have known better than to go canyoning at my age) then they discovered I had a myeloma too so I spent 3 month in the hospital with chemio and the works, but then it was luck as otherwise I would have never known before it was too late.I am getting over it just now. As you know I don't do contemporary modeling, concentrating on the age of steam. But boy those superliners (which I rode to Arizona 4 years ago) are a real chef d'oeuvre! You are a master at making and designing molds, and as a set designer I even saw professional boat building industry mold makers do their work but you beat them all. It is very fine work and a labor of love. What I wanted to talk to you about is a word of warning about running Fine Art models engines: I got an opportunity to find a PRR M1a (in a Paris hobby shop too!) in passenger livery. I had considerable trouble with the power pick ups first, they could not stand up to sustained running with overheating (and resoldering the leads) so I replaced them with homemade phosphor bronze ones. Then it was the brake gear that would short out, needing very fine adjustment as it is solid brass. Then it developped a bind which I need to attend to shortly, by taking out all the drivers and checking the quartering, as this seems to create excessive wear of the main gear. I also gutted out all the electronic as it had been badly corroded from leaking batteries. Cleaned out all of this and the brass work in the tender as this loco had been stored in a humid place. I may remotor the engine completly, or convert it to live steam. However the loco is very sturdily built it apears that all the soldering was done in silver soldering and stands up to quite a lot of handling. By the way I have moved to southern France and am currently building a new layout with 6 meter 50 minimum radius curves. I will try to post photos soon if I can figure out how to do it. Best to all, Simon

I am a bit disapointed. After all these years of redecorations or rissues what do we have: A new ultra modern diesel which should make contemporary fans happy and a new baggage car. All else is re issue. What we need in gauge one desperatly are godolas, tank cars, stock cars, reefers with refer type doors, heavyweight passenger cars and we shall have to wait how many more years for these staples? Big disapointment.

Great Jerry, I always wondered what this Robert lines business was He used to make some intersesting trucks cast in aluminum I think. I also know of a friend who has some of his cast aluminum heavyweight coaches in or near 1/32 scale but very heavy and the rivets are huge... But nice for tinplate fans.

Looks good Jerry on thaty wide radius curve.

Beautiful line Bob; I really love the way its blended in to the local scenery, even the far away views into the valley floor and orchards! The backdrops are very efficiently painted and give a sens of space inside. The track flows realisticly, with fairly generous curves and scale rail. And of course the detailing of structures rolling stock and scenes is beautiful. As retired scene designerand long time modelrailroader and gauge one modeler in steam I offer my most highest praise. If I had known about it earlier I would have quoted your pike in my article on realistic track planning for live steam garden railroad operations in the G1MRA newsletter. Although it seems to be electric or battery operated. I have been trying with a few friends to convince more live steamers to plan their layout for realistic operation rather than just a test track type layout. Simon

When outdoors, proportions matter much more than rivet detail, so I personally prefer the correct dimensions of the Accucraft cars to the shortened MTH ones. I don't agree that the detailing is so much better: On LW cars the window pane is in the same plane as the side and in the MTH ones it is way inwards about two scale inches (the plastic thickness), they should have designed their windows flush with the sides. So all in all I find the Accucraft cars much better. I won't mention the USA cars as I model in 1/32 scale. But who opens doors when a live steam train is running? This opening door "market" makes the price soar for something one rarely needs, unless one wants to make a detailed platform shot of the train stopped at the station, but even then the built in springs won't make that possible. The added bonus is if you go to exhibitions or GTG at other members homes, a G1MRA practice I like a lot, The fact that these cars aren't too detailed, makes them great candidates for transport. You won't have to worry about loosing a tripple valve or a steam trap! Best, Simon

I am sure that well handled and with the right products and know how to mix it and work it it does give good results. I am just biassed from a resin kit of an HO french locomotive I bought and tried to make good in the late eighties, it warped a bit and could never be made into a good running loco, ever since I shied away from it. But having been a scene designer and having seen it handled by people who know how to handle it it does seem to have great advantages for the modeler. AZlso in gauge one one can use fiber glass to make it stronger.

It is very fortunate Bob that you got hold of these in more ways than one: For one Kern valley which apparently began advertising these resin built cars a few years ago (around 2009) in Garden Railway magazine; then apparently stopped producing them shortly after (for what reason I do not know) It may be that the price asked for was too high, or it may be that modelers in 1/32 scale wanted metal cars instead of resin, For two, It seems from what I have been able to research that these folks at Kern Valley had purchased the molds from a master builder called (of all the names you will agree...) Ralph Brown! So its all in the familly of sorts... Who had passed away. I have been able to locate one of his old sites on internet and it is mind blowing here is a link: http://www.galtran.com/ASCC.htm It is Also fortunate Bob because: For three, you are an accomplished modeler with resin and molding techniques. So that makes three points on which this is fortunate. I beleive these are very nice cars indeed, at least on a detail level. As for their sturdiness , I can't say, I myself find resin too brittle and fragile all the while being as heavy as metal. Garden railroading is a tough test bed for equipment and only time will tell. At the time I had just started modeling Pennsy in gauge one and was looking for a B 60 baggage car which kern Valley advertised for a while. Then I built my own with aluminum. I am really glad that you got them as you surely deserve these. I had the luck of being offered a set of J&M by its manufacturer John Waggot a few years ago at a bargain price. I guess Lady Luck finds the ones who deserve good things in life! Best to all

Hi there steam fans: I find this engine a real awesome machine. I like streamlined engines and modern steam developments. I have read a few times that this incredible locomotive did not fulfill what had been expected of it; which is why the C&O RR streamlined a few hudsons in a hurry to replace them in hauling streamlined passenger limiteds, for which they had been designed. Does any one know where there is a good account of their tests to read? I would be very interested to read it. I have found accounts of N&W's John Henry, of the PRR T1 and S1 and this I have never been able to trace anything about it. In any case thanks Ray for posting these fantastic photos. On another subject linked to this locomotive there are some add work done for the PRR which show a design (By Raymond Loewy likely) of an advanced engine which the PRR was working on in the late thirties very similar to this C&O turbine. Could it be that the C&O would have borrowed the plans of the PRR? This was common practice over here in France, even between private companies, but doesn't seem to have been in the US. Here is a better view of the locomotive project which won't infringe copyright laws.

Hi Larry: And best wishes for the new year. Very nice job you did on this 50' modern box car. Although my modeling period stops at 1957 when PRR was 100% dieselised, I am still admirative of the work you did. I did a similar job on a couple of MDC - Piko reefers lowering the body lengthening it and shortening the height of the door to make a couple of Fruit Gropwers Express reefers and remember how much work it was to do it. But I didn't go all the way and left the cast on grab irons which is a mistake. The first photo shows where I cut and spliced as I used a Merchants dipatch white reefer sacrificed for the splices you can see very well where it was done and the last photo is the finished cars with a bit of dirty weathering mist over the lower body. The problem is that it should be narrower also... But that can't be seen when it's in a train. So I doubt if I will make more myself. Perhaps a couple of MDC boxcars to use up the leftovers of the sacrificed car. I wanted some FGE reefers as there are none and PRR was member of that. And I had found some decals also... I shall be moving south in the next few months so don't be surprised if I don't answer for a while.

About grades: Advice from an old boy in the hobby- Back in my HO days I had an around the room oval with a branch going down under from one side in double track to an underground fiddle yard (Do not copy this, it's a bad solution! As John Armstrong said) and came out the other end as a single track branch. For space reasons the grades were pretty stiff and as I prefer this I had most of my engines without traction tires. At that time there was very little steam era French freight cars on the market, so I used a lot of Zamak cast freight cars, very heavy! Well it soon became apparent that anything above 2% grade was hopeless and that it was a good idea to keep the gradient under 1.8 %. Now this I learned from experience. That is also what I used much later on my gauge one garden pike for the branch leading to the indoor terminal and which crosses under the main oval. This has turned out quite good operating wise over time. More recently I learned from reading PRR history that PRR master engeneer Thomson who engeneered the horse shoe curve solution for the Pennsy, that he kept to that limit on the westbound grade (the eastbound which was expected to haul much more traffic was kept to 1%). I also model in HOe with a Saxon narrow gauge theme in the winter when its too cold and wet for outdoor operation, Now the Saxon system often used 3% on branches leading into the hills. I did likewise and thank god those consists are limited to 10 or 11 cars and those saxon 2-10-2 tanks are quite good beasties because otherwise not much could operate on those kinds of gradients. As I had known Edaville very well as a kid, I bought a Car Works SR&RL N° 23 prairie (the biggest it had almost) it couldn't handle a car and a brass caboose on that grade! It was quickly sold. So my advice is stay away from anything over that 1,8% and keep those curves as wide as you can, curves really take up as much tractive effort as grades. I am moving south to hopefully enjoy my garden railroad more months per year and to be able to use bigger curves then 10' radius I use today.

I use the Bridgewerks 15 ampsSR and it is fine for me and was when I was still using DCS like Raymond advices, it sure made a whole lot of difference.

If you don't mind my commenting on that Raymond, because I surely do not have the electrical expertise that you have, but this I think is important in relation to this question: For some reason that I cannot understand American manufacturers and their Japanese, Korean or today Chinese suppliers use traction motors on their models that use up a great deal of current: 3 amps and 24 volts is not uncommon in the US garden railway world. Not so in Europe most Marklin models run on 12 v Dc with less than 1 amp and most imports for the European market (Fulgurex, Kiss, KM1, Lemaco to name a few) use coreless motors for their high performance with low amperage. This I have experimented with in HO for years and have incorporated on two of my scratchbuilt locomotives: The fact is boys, that with low current motors you practically never need to clean the rails or the wheels. They spark much less I presume and in turn this keeps the rail head and the tires clean, at least it does indoors. Outdoors there is polen and in my case jet fuel (we are near an airport) that creates a good deal of corosion even in good weather on the rails, gunk forms and so on. This is furthermore quite odd because American practices uses double heading more often than European (or lash ups), also the trains are much longer. Perhaps this is the reason this is so, they can withstand overheating better, I cannot say not being expert on the subject. I enclose two photos of my two scratch built engines: The first is all brass model of the SNCF 2D2 9100, sort of our equivalent to the GG1; it has four nose suspended Maxon motors with module 5 gearing in 3 mm. thick brass framing with ball bearings. Each one of those motors is used by one of the best French craftsmen to power a mountain type in O gauge. It is extremly powerful and uses direct gears so as to coast across any interuption in the current supply. The renault ABJ 1 railcar is an experiment I made with styrene construction it is entirely made of styrene sheets and profiles. It uses an HO scale Portescap RG4 motor and reductor on one axle and can actually move if I just roll the 2D2 on the same track by hand (from the current generated by the beastie) yet it can haul a Märklin six wheeler coach as a trailer and up my 1,8% grade. By the way this railcar was cousin to the ABJ 3 (whith the radiator on the roof) whose front is nearly identical to that of the Burlington's Pioneer Zephyr. But as the Renault's archives were bombed out during ww 2 we shall never know, who copied who??? Both are near contemporaries. my ABJ1 is in PLM blue and grey as they were before the late forties; when they were rebuilt with buffer beams to haul trailers which disfigured their lovely streamlined look, then they were painted vermilion and cream. I use one of the big Buhler Fleishman transformers as a test transformer in the shop (i think it is identical to the LGB one which is red when the Fleishman one is green, both made by Buhler) when testing MTH engines they run at about half track speed on it.

Hi Yves: I hadn't noted your French name. There is one for sale at the present at this link for around £5900 here is the link: http://steamlocomotivescale.com/2018/07/26/accucraft-132-scale-gauge-1-live-steam-ac-11-cab-forward-4-8-8-4-sp-loco-4274/ I have a budy who owns one also and he ran it at my steam up in Valmondois near Paris a few years ago it ran swell. It is a very nice model. Of course live steam cannot enjoy the high level of detail (like a scale back head) that an electric model does but then its the real Mckoy! Added bonus you don't have to clean the rails before a run! Best Simon

If you are a newby to "large scale" consider the real scale for gauge one track which is 1/32 scale. Most garden modelers have aquired considerable stuff in "G scale" usually 1/29th scale which is not accurate for the gauge and often even mix in Narrow gauge rolling stock of 1/20, 1/22 and 1/24th scale, which is not accurate of course, and therefore stick with 1/29th scale. I personnally started to model US prototypes in 2010 and stuck to the correct scale -gauge ratio ever since. In 1/32 scale you can likely find the Accucraft Cab Forward which was offered in live steam and I beleive electric. Besides Accucraft has done a tremendous effort for SP fans as a good many of their locomotives are available: Daylight, F4 and F5 2_10-2, O6O,mogule and now pacific, cabooses and coaches.