7mm US model dabblings

Overseer

Western Thunderer
I was waiting for a P:48 mention... :rolleyes::))
I know of at least one member of this forum who's investigating that particular path at the moment. I understand that it's the trackwork that's causing the biggest headaches currently.
I'll pass on the details of the truck conversion to him; thanks for posting the link, Jim, it looks useful to me.

Cheers,

Steph
Not sure why P48 track would be a problem. Protocraft even sell flex track made for them by Microscale and lots of detail components. I haven't seen the flex track but the cast turnout parts are very nice.
Wheel comptrack.jpg
Suitable flat bottom rail is available in the UK from Karlgarin. I have both Karlgarin and Right-O-Way rail (codes 83, 100 and 125) and wouldn't be surprised if they were made using the same dies.

On wheels for diesels, the easiest fix for lost plating would be the Protocraft P48 wheels. They have the correct shape front and back and can be installed at whichever gauge you wish.
Wheel compdiesel.jpg

I recently ordered some wheels from Protocraft. I have no immediate use for 33" wheels but wanted to see what the sintered ribbed back wheels looked like. Very nice I think. Sintering is one of the industrial processes which seems to be quite commonly used in the States but not much elsewhere. The sintered wheels are in the left of this photo, with 36" turned Protocraft wheels next. The others are my spoked wheels and Slaters split spoke wagon wheels on the end.
Wheel comp4.jpg

P48 standard gauge is quite a lot narrower than O gauge, at about 29.9mm instead of 31.75mm. I model 5'3" gauge in 1:48 i.e. 33.34mm with a 31.75mm back to back, so will probably not be able to use the very nice tapered axles. The US wheels are 5 1/2" wide instead of 5" used for wagons here but the difference is not obvious. All these wheels work fine, when set to gauge, with scale flangeways. RP25 Code 110 wheels also work but the thicker flanges mean there is less clearance.
Wheel comp1.jpg
Wheel comp2.jpg

Didn't intend to sound like an ad for Protoscale but they do sell quality products. I have no connection other than being an occasional customer.
 

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
I did enjoy opening the boxes:p, I might get the wife to pack them all up later so I can open them all again...
Brilliant :thumbs:, just what Jordan and I were getting at last year with the gentle prod / poke at the idea over there .
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Brilliant :thumbs:, just what Jordan and I were getting at last year with the gentle prod / poke at the idea over there .
Yeah I get your drift (kinda) but, whoosh, over my head, never did fully get/fathom any of that you mention, I must get out more often I suppose ;)
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Not sure why P48 track would be a problem. Protocraft even sell flex track made for them by Microscale and lots of detail components. I haven't seen the flex track but the cast turnout parts are very nice.
View attachment 45817
Suitable flat bottom rail is available in the UK from Karlgarin. I have both Karlgarin and Right-O-Way rail (codes 83, 100 and 125) and wouldn't be surprised if they were made using the same dies.

On wheels for diesels, the easiest fix for lost plating would be the Protocraft P48 wheels. They have the correct shape front and back and can be installed at whichever gauge you wish.
View attachment 45818

I recently ordered some wheels from Protocraft. I have no immediate use for 33" wheels but wanted to see what the sintered ribbed back wheels looked like. Very nice I think. Sintering is one of the industrial processes which seems to be quite commonly used in the States but not much elsewhere. The sintered wheels are in the left of this photo, with 36" turned Protocraft wheels next. The others are my spoked wheels and Slaters split spoke wagon wheels on the end.
View attachment 45821

P48 standard gauge is quite a lot narrower than O gauge, at about 29.9mm instead of 31.75mm. I model 5'3" gauge in 1:48 i.e. 33.34mm with a 31.75mm back to back, so will probably not be able to use the very nice tapered axles. The US wheels are 5 1/2" wide instead of 5" used for wagons here but the difference is not obvious. All these wheels work fine, when set to gauge, with scale flangeways. RP25 Code 110 wheels also work but the thicker flanges mean there is less clearance.
View attachment 45819
View attachment 45820

Didn't intend to sound like an ad for Protoscale but they do sell quality products. I have no connection other than being an occasional customer.
See, it's post like these that keep me coming back, concise, pictorial, un-assuming, factual and down right informative :thumbs:

Thank you for all that information, it answers so many questions and many I never even knew I needed to ask :cool:

Personally, P48 isn't conceptually the stumbling block, it's the extra (perceived?) workload required, on top of all my S7 workload. The US modelling was supposed to be plug and play or shake the box with a few added details, maybe some scratch built switches etc, but, if I am not careful will fall down the S7 mental approach rabbit hole and that is most certainly not what I want, planned or envisaged. What I want is an incredibly narrow path between P48 and OOTB and probably impossible in the long run.

I admit I will almost certainly end up with P48 and the baggage of the S7 philosophy and if I do will be disappointed at my lack of will power in falling into the exact scenario I set out to avoid. I'm a big fan of the smart dumb/balance theory and the lesser known complex/simple ethos.

Put another way, I enjoy small run real ales, when ever I visit other parts of the country will always have a pint of the local ale, but, sometimes I just kick back and down simple mass produced draft largers, sometimes BigMac and fries is what you need to really hit the spot ;)
I don't expect anyone else to 'get' this but it makes my world go by a little easier :cool:

I will look into the diesel wheels and explore if they fit the Atlas axle and the workload required and I did fish around Slaters and thought the 2'-8½" Lowmak solid wheels might be a simple and quick swap out option.

All the best

Michael
 

Jordan

Mid-Western Thunderer
The "problem" with P48 is the cost, as well as the extra work for what, to my eyes, produces something of negligable benefit (ducks for cover).
Right-O-way isn't on the Internet (the guy is about 90+) but Norm at Protocraft acted as intermediatory for me. As usual Shipping, VAT & Royal Mail's charge bump up already expensive prices. I'd never heard of Karlgarin; got my Code125 from Marcway.
Mickoo, I suggest you adopt my new scale/gauge combination of "7-S". It stands for "7-Something" & produces dodgy track that is a joy for the untidy mind to behold.... :)
 

Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
Jordan,

That's an interesting point (groan; sorry), the only P48 I've seen looked immaculate in terms of the precision of its track. I'm not certain P48 would run well with the sort of prototypically 'scenic' track you worked so hard to accomplish on your layout.

Steph
 

Jordan

Mid-Western Thunderer
Only very slightly OT, the Box-opening Thread was here:- http://www.westernthunder.co.uk/ind...g-instant-gratification-it-works-for-me.3972/

.... although I did a bit of editing out of my posts in the interests of reducing my Banal Dross content (no significant reduction, there, then....)

The P48 gauge is 29.9mm I think, so about 2.1mm narrower than standard O. It does make me laugh that with all the British "true scale" options in any scale the gauge has to be widened; US trains are so big the true scale gauge has to be narrowed :p
I believe the actual gauge is the least important bit of model track. When you look across it from a low angle the actual gauge is hard to guess - it's the track fittings and suchlike that determine how realistic it looks. See Heyside of this Parish for a "best of British" example. On the other hand I saw an S7 layout at Wolverhampton one year; no doubt the owner/builder sweated blood over the track, but for me it was all futile once the JLTRT Class 25 on it wobbled most unrealistically as it negotiated it.....
 

Jordan

Mid-Western Thunderer
This is a superb record of wayside trackwork, I like the slope away to the left and to the right of the through route.

More like this please.
Standard US practice; partly so that possible runaway cars in the spurs are less likely to roll uphill and foul the Main. ;)
 

Big Train James

Western Thunderer
I wanted to update my previous post about the various Railbox cars. I stumbled onto some additional information expanding on the number of manufacturers for both the FBOX and TBOX cars. The MTH car is still a fantasy car as all FBOX cars apparently have the horizontal ribs. However, the Gunderson car made by MTH could be amended to include the horizontal ribs and be fairly close to prototype. I know just enough about things to be dangerous.:oops:

FBOX car photos with builder info

TBOX car photos with builder info

And now a rather famous example of less than ruling grades in the states. The BNSF Witchita Falls sub in Texas. There are shots of this stretch that really exaggerate the humps due to the compression from shooting a really long telephoto lens. The first one here is clearly compressed as all those ripples in the rail ahead of the loco would never be discernible with the naked eye (not withstanding Jordan's preferences:p). I'm not sure about the second photo. But at any rate the difference in height isn't distorted. It's just the distance between the humps that gets compressed.
2701.1205416800.jpg
8315.1190160000.jpg


The gradual ups and downs accommodating slight grade changes is something that I seldom see modeled. Of course, it's hard to get a long enough run to accomplish such a perspective. But it remains one of the items on my list of things that I will do differently than the norm - when I get around to a layout anyway.:oops: Nothing like this of course, but something subtle to be revealed when occupied by a passing train.

Cheers, I hope everybody has a good weekend!
Jim
 

Jordan

Mid-Western Thunderer
One of the reasons we don't have such dramatic grades in the UK is of course that much of our network dates back to the early Railway days, when locos were small and relatively underpowered; great effort was put into making the lines as level as possible.
 

Big Train James

Western Thunderer
This....
Inspired this....a-truck-rev.jpg
rb-100t-040-s.jpg
rb-100t-043-s.jpg
rb-100t-031-s.jpg rb-100t-048-s.jpg
rb-100t-049-s.jpg

This is all modeled in Autocad 2015. The 3d print is at 1:10 scale of the prototype. All the brake rigging was modeled after the truck was printed the first time. Also there were many revisions to the truck members themselves. A new copy of everything has been printed, but that all occurred after the end of last semester. I've yet to get into school and see the new version or get pictures.
 

Big Train James

Western Thunderer
Agree, I have seen some quite realistic renderings. One the freight cars above, I think they have the couplers in upside down! Normally the shelf on a single shelf coupler would be to the bottom, and the chain connecting to the cut lever would come out the top. Plus the coupler knuckle is on the wrong side. It's funny how much more keen I am to all the little details then I used to be.

Beyond some of the details though, the cars look pretty accurate. So where does the data come from? I've spent far too many hours drilling down through layers and layers and pages and pages of search results trying to find accurate technical line drawings. That's even how I ended up on this forum in the first place, finding this thread between Jordan and Michael discussing the EMD htc-1 trucks. But I often come up empty. I'm firmly in the half of the spectrum tending toward OCD when it comes to detail and accuracy (not all the way to the extreme) and so approximations usually leave me feeling disappointed and uncomfortable.

Jim
 

Jordan

Mid-Western Thunderer
What amazes me is that the axle bearings do not appear to be retained like they are virtually everywhere else in the world, they rely solely on the weight of the vehicle to keep the axle in place?
T'ain't nuttin....
They also just rest the whole car on the trucks; there's no equivalent of the retaining screw we use on our models to hold them on.
This has probably been posted before, but here's what happens when things go Tango Uniform...
(watch from 3:45 for the good bit!!)

Alledgedly the thinking behind the lack of retainer for truck to car is to prevent more damage to the individual components.
 

Big Train James

Western Thunderer
What amazes me is that the axle bearings do not appear to be retained like they are virtually everywhere else in the world, they rely solely on the weight of the vehicle to keep the axle in place?
LOL....you've zeroed in on one of the few things I forgot/didn't get around to modeling. There is a retainer called a sideframe key missing from my model. You can just see it inside the red box at the bottom left of the bearing end cap. The key passes through that leg inside the bearing and is bolted from underneath.
sideframe-key.jpg

100_6559.jpg

Now I don't have the impression that this retainer does much of anything under normal circumstances. I don't think it even makes contact with the bearing. And frankly it doesn't even appear robust enough to do support a wheelset if the truck did get lifted or turned upside down.

I agree it is odd that the entire system seems to be held together by gravity only. Trucks are not mechanically attached to the cars either. Look at a photo of a derailed car on its side and the trucks are always separated.
 

Big Train James

Western Thunderer
Mick, I could use some advice. I'm trying to take the window inserts out of the mp15dc cab so I can strip the paint, and cannot for the life of me see a straightforward way to accomplish this. The front and rear inserts move freely, but are blocked by the side glass. The side glass seems firmly and resolutely attached. As frustration mounts, the use of brute force sounds ever more enticing. How did you get that "glass" out on the one you stripped.

Thanks,
Jim
 
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