Last evening the boys of the Friday Night Brigade descended upon Peter Cunningham's home for an entertaining evening of videos, slides and some train running. Peter has two layouts on the go in his basement, a British O scale model railroad and a North American HO scale sectional railroad...both in the developmental phases. Judging by his modelling skills, these two layouts will be "show-stoppers!"
My favourite scene on Peter's British layout is the one where he incorporated his earlier experiences of "long ago" living on an English canal boat. Peter, your work there is fantastic!
Hamer, with a broken toe (thanks to a guitar amplifier with an attitude) was unable to run trains so, while some visitors "played trains" Mike and a few of the other boys watched a brilliant DVD on English steam and diesel. We were all amazed with the devotion the Brits have in regards to restoration of not only their locomotives and rolling stock, but of their ability to run fully restored trains along the rails of Great Britain
Later in the evening when all the lads made it back upstairs, we were entertained by Wally Weart' slide presentation of images taken in various places in the "US" of "A" including his life as a locomotive engineer for the Great Western Railway in Colorado...a shortline railroad that ran over some eighty miles of trackage. (One of the pics I've included below shows that, yes, Wally indeed ran "motors" near the Rocky Mountains!)
I've posted some links to images, not from last evening..but relevant to the topics of discussion.
To see a bucolic scene of a canal boat in its natural setting go to
www.milnrow-village.freeserve.co.uk/graphics/rochcanal6.jpg
http://www.armin-grewe.com/holiday/wiltshire/kennet-avon-canal.htm
To see some of the different diesels and lettering schemes of the Great Western Railway in Colorado, check out
www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=4024
www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=65709
www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=92533
www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=100593
www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=73995
To gain an appreciation of the Great Western "across the pond" go to
www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=100683
www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=107294
www.greatwestern.org.uk/pix/preservea.jpg
Have a great week all!
Cheers, Mike
1 comment:
Since Mike was suffering from his recent foot ingury and was unable to stand an operate Peter's layout I will offer some observations..... :)
Peter's layout represents a small, semi rural station and nearby industrial trackage. There is the station track with passing siding, as well as a 'Bay Track' or team track with platforms, there is also a freight shed with a couple of associated service tracks, and a brewery with a coal track and a receiving/shipping track. The rest of the world is represented by open staging around the corner.
Peter's time frame is about 1910, small locomotives, small four wheel cars, and most importantly to us running the trains, prototypical three link couplings. For those who have never run into these beasts they are the epitomy of simplicity, each car has a hook on each end and from each hook hangs a permanently attached chain, three links long. The idea is that the chain on one car is picked up and the last link is hooked over the hook on the other car. All pull motion and force is transmitted through the links, all push motion and force is applied to the two buffers on each ane of the car.
As in the prototype, the links must be manually manipluated on and off the hook, and a tool with a bat like handle and a curled 'pig tail' pointer is used to accomplish this. In the model world, Peter handed us this 5 in. piece of brass wire with twist in the end, 'just use it like the real thing', then he walked away......
No wonder there are 'mad englishmen'. Manipulating a 3/16 link of chain onto a hook that just fits and the chain has almost enough slack to reach, on a good day is real fun... later Pete says 'Oh ya, they done work well on curves.' or ' a few buffers may be a bit long.' The is good news, taking it off is often just a difficult.....
All said and done it was fun switching the layout and with practice (and a pair of pliers!) hooking up and disengaging would go better, and it does force you to pre-think moves so you don't have to reach to far etc.
Till later
Stan
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