After much debate on my part in previous posts, I have seen the light as to why this forum needs to be different from the 3R forum.

I keep wanting to mention in posts one of the following items:

"Yes, that is fine, but it is not scale!"

"Great discussion, but not really applicable to this forum."

"Could work, but it's not accurate to the prototype."

I don't claim to be an expert on much, but what is going on here?

Is this a sign?

Where have all the hardcore OS3R posters gone?

quote:

Is this a sign?

Yup. I know the feeling.

quote:

Where have all the hardcore OS3R posters gone?

Don't know but I certainly want to see this forum succeed.

quote:

Where have all the hardcore OS3R posters gone

Resting. Explaining this forum can be hard work. Sounds like you'll be pitching in, though.

RM

Rich,

I did some soul searching after my last post that stirred the pot a bit too much perhpas and I am in for the long haul. I have not done a fixed pilot conversion or scale couplers yet, but it is now my goal. I will be relying on the expertise of the contributors of this forum to reach that goal.

I'm rethinking my layout design that is 1/3 completed too for more prototypical operations. I do not know my diesels to the depth that you, Pete and Jerry do, but I can certainly contribute on the passenger car side and on scale electrics.

Having said that, I have recently come into the posesstion of three Atlas 0 diesels as well as some rolling stock and there is just no comparision so far.

I consider myself to be a 3RS want to be. I have 072 minimum curves and turnouts and my locos and freight rolling stock are O scale. My goal is to achieve more realism on certain passenger cars for instance, but within my economic and layout dimension limits. I appreciate those with the expertise explaning what is or is not prototypical. I think this part of the forum will succeed because of the knowledge that the contributors share. Cheers.

3RS means different things to different people. It's not your traditional O gauge and it's not P48. It is getting closer to 2-rail as you can given the 3 rail compromises. Given what's available on the market the key word is compromise. I'm not going to debate it, define it or defend it. I'm just going to do it. If you veiw what I'm doing on my Webshots albums, it's all 3RS, all scale although some somewhat exrtreme. Not always prototypically correct in every detail but I've found my niche. Find yours and be happy. It's a very diverse hobby.

B&O
Joe

I haven't posted much lately because I have been down working on the layout finishing up all my track on the second level after pulling some of it up to make it flow better. The good news is that last night I installed the last track section and I how to spend most of tomorrow hooking up all those track wire drops. It will be an exciting day to have trains running up there again. One thing I will say is this second level will keep several people busy running trains with all the switching that is available. I'll keep you posted.

quote:

Where have all the hardcore OS3R posters gone?

Been working on a little of this:










and a little of that.

I think I'm only Half 3RS - I can't seem to come out of the closet with the pilots. I have way too many locomotives & I don't want to do the fixed pilots.
I do however like to see scale fuel tanks & more details such as A/C on cabtops of diesels.

Jerry,

Nice module. Is this part of your Free-Mo system? Put a catenary in and you have great broad way.

The geep is nice too. I am assuming one of the Atlas conversions?

Spent the day working on some modules myself this morning. Considering it's still hovering in the high 90's out here it was a bit hot, but good work session nonetheless.

quote:

Is this part of your Free-Mo system?

No, these are part of the IHMD staging yard, which is shown in the middle of the layout below. Eight modules long, 2' wide, 4' ft. long each. Add on to this three modules with the yard throat and three caboose / yard goat storage tracks.



With the addition of the ground plane wires, it finally seemed like time to get some basic scenery down on these modules.

quote:

I am assuming one of the Atlas conversions?

Yup, these are the Atlas conversions. Finished the handrail and step edge painting on all three tonight, still need to add the train air and MU air hoses.

Regards,
Jerry Zeman

Jonathan

Oh no, the Borg have gotten to you! Not to fear, if Captain Picard can be saved from assimilation there is hope for us all. You don't have to spend the rest of your days crushing coil couplers, swinging pilots and 18" passenger cars with a robotic arm, unless you really want to. Just keep thinking "model railroading is fun" and you can resist the voices of the 3RP48 collective.

Jerry

Thanks for sharing the photos of NP 308. It is very close to the prototype delivery photos, only a couple of variances I can pick up on. Please share more on this project when you get the chance.

quote:

Originally posted by Kanasket:

Jerry

Thanks for sharing the photos of NP 308. It is very close to the prototype delivery photos, only a couple of variances I can pick up on. Please share more on this project when you get the chance.

Not much to share. The locos showed up from my mail order pusher as a typical three rail Atlas diseasel. Sent Atlas a check for $122.60 each, and paid the postal service a chunk of change to ship them back priority insured, and they came back with fixed pilots and Atlas Kadee-compatable couplers.

As stated in a post by Jerry Kimble when the conversion program was announced, the locomotives came back without the handrails painted. Picked up a bottle of Polly Scale Signal Yellow, and went to work. I've since painted the step edges yellow according to the "Styling and Painting" diagram I consulted.

You are correct, the paint scheme is accurate for as-delivered. The NP put reflective safety striping on the side sill under the walkways. I'm not sure how quickly after delivery this occurred, but it was definitely on there by 1955.

regards,
Jerry Zeman

Jerry

I believe the NP added the monads, "Radio Equipped" and the scotchlite before putting them in service. See page 168 of Schrenk & Frey's NP Diesel Era for and EMD photo of 308. Based on that photo it looks like atlas omitted lift rings and a rung from the short hood and moved the road name back on the long hood to avoid having to paint the N over louvers. Overall it is a very nice model of one of the GP9s that really did in steam on the NP.

$122.60 is mighty steep but it sure looks like you got the quality of work that should come with that price. Lets hope the interest you and others have in going to fixed pilots early helps make this a more competitively priced factory option soon.

Yet, the Borg must have excelent electrical systems. Resistance is futile!

Yes, some of those models have a gravity of its own. Black hole style.

Interesting. What are those Wires on the sides of the track used for? TMCC signal enhancement? HOw do they hook up underneath? What guage are they? Are the wires totally bare of insulation? I too am building some modules and never seen this before. Can you beter explain this wire? Thanks in advance.

quote:

Interesting. What are those Wires on the sides of the track used for? TMCC signal enhancement? HOw do they hook up underneath? What guage are they? Are the wires totally bare of insulation? I too am building some modules and never seen this before. Can you beter explain this wire? Thanks in advance.

The wires are ground plane wires. They tie back to the ground plug on a three prong plug, or, if that isn't a true ground, then can be connected to a water pipe or ground rod that is truly connected to "earth".

Underneath the layout, we are utilizing pin 6 of the Hirailers Unlimited standard to carry the ground plane.

My understanding of this ground is it keeps the TMCC signal from overlapping each other when there are multiple parallel tracks. I have personally seen the addition of the ground wire work when I tried this experiment at our setup at Trainfest last year. I learned about this as a potential solution from TAS, Bob Bartizek's TMCC article a couple of years ago on OGR, and on the OGR TMCC forum.

We have done this modification to over 100 modules.

regards,
Jerry Zeman

quote:

Originally posted by GG-1 4877:
Help! I am being assimilated into the 0S3R movement!

Resistance is futile!

Posters to this site will now be officially be given borg designation 1 of 48.

I still have to do that first Kadee conversion, but I went through my collection over the weekend and pulled everything (that I could reach) that was not to scale out for sale at some point shortly.

At least it's a start ...

Um, Jonathan

Shouldn't Pete be 1 of 48 and the rest numbered from there as they are assimilated? Or should Pete be Locitia?

Before you go too far surplussing equipment or replacing couplers, you might want to read this Kadee thread.
It is making me think again about the value of Kadees, or at least body mounting them. Why would I want to put time and money into making my equipment work less reliably on O-72? I want to make my operations more protypical, and that means reverse moves and cars of different lengths running together.

As Dave said, the only problems on O-72 are on 21" passenger cars which take a little ingenuity.

As far as the coupling of different length cars (another problem mentioned), for all practical purposes most coupling will be in the 40 - 60 ft range. No problem on O-72 for these, pushing or pulling.

Despite the cheating I've done on tighter curves, the bottom line is that you will not have any problems on O-72 for normal situations.

With Kadees, I've had much better operation and fewer coupler related problems. In some cases, I've had engines take tighter curves after conversion to Kadees, for example the old Weaver RS-3 and MTH NYC P-2 boxcab electric. The 3 rail couplers have many coupler swing problems when mating different brand equipment that are eliminated by Kadees.

Jim

Jim

Thanks for the reassurance! Kadees worked well for me with 40-50 foot freight cars on 18 inch radius and above in HO so they SHOULD work at least as well on O-72. Unfortunately, some recent info here on problematic locomotive and car conversions had me concerned about Kadees and O-72, particularly with reverse moves.

Perhaps at some point we will need to develop something for Kadee conversions akin to Barry B's guidelines for DCS installation. That way I can avoid repeating others mistakes and only may my own original goofs.

The HO comparison is a good one. I think you will be very happy with Kadees on freight cars on O-72. I haven't converted passenger cars yet, and I'm not sure I will since I don't do much switching in the passenger yard.

I think the key to easy conversions is to stick with cars that already have mounting pads. Also keep a few "hybrid" cars handy with a Kadee on one end and a 3 rail coupler on the other. They are good to have when you want to run a friend's engine or one of your own which you do not wish to convert.

The one thing you often hear is how a Kadee will couple to a 3 rail coupler. I have found this not to be the case. Filing a vertical groove on the inside of the movable knuckle of the 3 rail coupler helps keep them together, but some would not want to do this alteration.

It's worth all the effort though for the improved operation with Kadees!

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by pennsynut:
I consider myself to be a 3RS want to be. I have 072 minimum curves and turnouts and my locos and freight rolling stock are O scale. My goal is to achieve more realism on certain passenger cars for instance, but within my economic and layout dimension limits. I appreciate those with the expertise explaning what is or is not prototypical. I think this part of the forum will succeed because of the knowledge that the contributors share. Cheers.

I agree. I'm an all O Scaler and am a stickler for realism and scale. This forum will never disappear. There is too much good info to offer for anyone that wants to have fixed pilots, Kadee couplers and beautiful realism and scale. Having said that... it seems like sometimes we become "holier than thou" 3RS lawyers.

boin106: To expand on my pervious post, one bit of advice that I did find on this forum and confirmed was how a 20 inch passenger car would look on 072 curves. I have several curves on portions of my layout because of the geometry but also because I wanted to break up the straight lines and add more visual interest. I have more than a little middle overhang on 072 curves with 18 inch passenger cars. I would love to get those PRR GGD heavy weights but at 20 inches they would look pretty