SavaTheAggie

It all comes down to what "8-wide" means to you. To me it means 4 studs = 5 feet. --Tony

Yesterday Texas Brick Railroad set up a display at CreekCon 2015. We fielded a fully ballasted ME Models corner with R104s and R88s. After running all day we had several accidents, but we were running without stanchions so several of those accidents were kid-related. Trains that were run consisted of: Emerald Night (with additional coaches - not in the video) The Princess Train (light weight, one motor) TSRR #500 (rigid frame, medium load) Daylight #4449 (fast passenger train) Allegheny (ultra heavyweight train pulling huge load) The rails performed extremely well. After an entire day of constant use, the rails did not shift, budge, or break. We could notice no additional friction, loss of traction, or any issues with the transition between official rails (Ed said the transition felt no different than going through a switch or a rough connection between two pieces of track). The ME Models directly caused one accident with the #4449. We have to keep her from running at top speed because she'll derail through LEGO's turns. I typically run her right at the edge just before she's running too fast. Well, the ME Models rails weren't slowing her down like the standard LEGO curves do, so after existing a LEGO curve she began to accelerate sooner than expected, inside the ME Curve, so by the time she reached the next LEGO curve she flopped over quite spectacularly. All said the members of TBRR were thoroughly impressed. On a personal note I will begin completely phasing out the official LEGO curves in lieu of the ME Models curves. --Tony

Dark Brown ME Models Track by SavaTheAggie, on Flickr --Tony

"Problem" with switches? What problem? :) --Tony

Sadly my room is too small to set up any sort of loop of ME Models rails. The ballasted corner I've built, along with a section of double straight track, will be installed in a display this weekend. We plan to put the rails through their paces there. A heavy train pulled by my big Allegheny, a high speed passenger train pulled by my T1, the whole 9 yards. I plan to take plenty of pictures and videos. EDIT: From my experience so far I'm going to make a few predictions: -The straight track is going to perform flawlessly. The clutch power is quite impressive. -The curve track is going to perform well - the ballasted track will be sitting on well maintained, flat, level club tables with a full tile foundation. There will probably be one or two instances where the track itself breaks free in one spot or two, but won't cause any major disruption. -Anyone running the curved track unballasted and on unlevel or lumpy tables will experience issues with the track coming apart. --Tony

Thanks all, I appreciate the comments. It'll be seeing its first show this weekend. --Tony

I thought these two photos were quite illustrative as to why one might want to use the ME Models track. These photos are of the same train on Standard LEGO curves (270 degrees) and on the ME Models R104s (90 degrees): --Tony

Gallery Historic Tower 17, the last manned interlocker switch tower to be used in the State of Texas. Today it rests at the Rosenberg Railroad Museum as part of their collection. From the Rosenberg RR Museum's Website: www.rosenbergrrmuseum.org/tower-17/ --------------------------- Tower 17 was "authorized" by the Texas Railroad Commission on July 23, 1903. Tower 17 controlled the crossing of the Gulf Colorado & Santa Fe Railroad (Santa Fe) and the Galveston Harrisburg & San Antonio Railway Company (Southern Pacific). The tower's function was to house the electro-mechanical interlocker, and the men whose job it was to operate the interlocker, which was a machine that controlled the railroad signals and switches, setting the route for any train passing through Rosenberg. Only one route could be set up at any one time, which helped to prevent accidents by allowing only one train through the crossing at a time. The electromechanical interlocker was, essentially, a 19th century analog computer using mechanical switches instead of the 1s and 0s used by today's digital computers. The current exterior paint scheme is based on Southern Pacific Standards Book information and from paint scrapings gathered from Tower 17 itself. The colors closely match those used at the time this photo was taken. The towerman's job was to allow only one train at a time through the crossing, and the interlocking machine shown below facilitated this function. When the telegraph operators/clerks were transferred from the Rosenberg depot to Tower 17 in 1955, the building was enlarged to its current size. The tower was in service until February 10, 2004 and was dismantled and moved approximately 1/2 a mile to the Rosenberg Railroad Museum, where it has been restored. The towerman used a reference board which showed which levers had to be pulled in exact sequence to line up the route. To set up a different route, the towerman had to "take down" the existing route by pushing in the levers in the exact reverse order in which they had been pulled. This reset the interlocking machine and then the new route could be aligned. Although more advanced technology was connected to the interlocking machine, it basically functioned in the same manner for over 100 years! In 2004, the Tower 17 interlocker was one of the last to be replaced by a modern computer. Today, all such railroad intersections are controlled by computer. Today's computers are sealed in bright aluminum boxes to protect them from the weather. Because of this, the once common interlocker towers were no longer needed, nor were the towermen who worked in them. Tower 17 was kindly donated to the Rosenberg Railroad Museum, moved to the museum, and restored to its original glory. ----------------------------- I've never actually been inside Tower 17, but I've done the best I could with the pictures I could find online. The second floor contains a desk for the towermen as well as the interlocker device. The first floor on my model is unfurnished.

I hope this isn't out of line for this forum. I've posted a review of the ME Models Custom track over on RAILBRICKS: http://railbricks.com/ --Tony

I'm slowly posting photos as I play with my new toys: https://www.flickr.com/photos/savatheaggie/ --Tony

Perhaps I am mistaken, but I don't read this as saying an AFOL will be giving up his creation for an extended period of time. I read this as saying an AFOL will be giving up his creation, period. "The model will remain in the possession of the LBR Store, and the RLUG will receive a “reward” in return (please see store for details)." I think someone at LEGO doesn't like AFOLs in the LEGO stores. --Tony

I got pulled into a secret project during the summer, which I'm not at liberty to divulge, and I've run into an issue of financial limitations. I haven't abandoned this build, but I've not progressed, either. --Tony

Thanks all, I appreciate the comments. This building is in a real awkward place with very little parking. Very hard to snoop without looking terribly conspicuous. The construction doesn't have much SNOT, but that doubled double-half stud offset was a bit tricky. Fortunately white 2x2 jumpers were on my pick a brick wall. --Tony

The PF motor has been documented to be stronger than the 9v motor. Anyone who says 9v is stronger is factually incorrect. Add to that 9v motors are powered linearly, meaning the more power you send through the rails the faster/stronger the motor becomes. Conversely, the PF motor is powered by pulses, meaning it reveives a full 9v at any speed setting, just not at constantly until full speef. This, then, means the 9v motor can only come close to the same amount of power as the PF at any speed level, by having a full 9v sent through the rails (and that's assuming the rails are conducting a full 9v). And I haven't even mentioned the XL motor. --Tony

If you know the dimensions of your prototype (X wide and Y long), and you know how wide you plan on building your moc (Z studs), then its easy. (Z/X)*Y = length in studs. --Tony

I did, no sense in not using the old track. Though I am going to have to save some 9v tracks out for my son. I'm going to let him play with it, no sense in letting it collect dust. --Tony

In Webster, TX on Highway 3, just north of Nasa Road 1, between the road and the railroad tracks sits a shack. I don't know what it is or why its there, but it's there none the less. It belongs to the Union Pacific (their name's on it), but they didn't return any of my emails regarding what it is. Someone on Facebook called it a yard office - fair enough, I deem it a yard office. It's been at several displays now, but I didn't ever post photos specifically of it by itself. So here we go: Union Pacific Yard Office by SavaTheAggie, on Flickr And here it is at one of our layouts, being the track-side interest it was meant to be: BTTS2014_37 by SavaTheAggie, on Flickr Truth be told it was an excuse to use spare parts I didn't know what to do with otherwise, but for the little amount of time I spent on it I think it's very successful. --Tony

This is just awesome. Very well done, very inspiring. --Tony

I maybe 100 feet or more of 9v track, some 15-20 motors, and four regulators. I'm voluntarily migrating to PF and completely abandoning 9v. I find it that much better. Otherwise, dead horse. --Tony

I'm glad you liked it. I don't much care for flex track at all, so I try to never use it, though I am saving it up for a permanent display shelf to keep my trains from moving. If memory serves a flex track + straight setup would be a smaller radius than this, but that was done in blue brick so I don't know for sure. The articulated engine is powered by two PF XL motors in the tender, providing 1:1 power to all the tender's wheels. Our record is 32 cars, and we didn't go higher because the cars began falling over in LEGO's tight curves. If we had a layout that was nothing but these large Grand Curves I'm confident we could have gone to 50. (We do use rare-earth magnets though, 32 is impossible without them). Sorry, I don't have instructions for that one. In my Flickr gallery there is a set of instructions for making a "Winter Tree". That is the basic design for half of my trees. I use an aluminum tube the same size as LEGO flex tubing to make the trees stronger. I used to use the flex tubing, and that worked, but after a few shows the trees began to bend, flex, and droop. It'd be fine for a personal layout, but the aluminum tubing, while not purist, is much better for multiple shows. --Tony

This show was small enough stanchions weren't necessary, we could monitor the whole layout at once from the outside. We had a few kids touch a few things bit not accidents. --Tony

Thank you all for the kind words, we had a lot of fun putting this one together. To answer the questions about the large/sweeping/smooth curves - my club calls them "Grand Curves", because Steve thought "Large" just didn't capture their immense size and grace. They are built very similarly to the "Smooth Curves" found in RAILBRICKS Issue #1. They are 8 baseplates long by 8 baseplates deep, or 256 studs by 256 studs (without the corners, of course). They're 100% standard LEGO. It's a terrible video, but I made this explaining how I built them: --Tony

Thanks guys. Steve - on layouts with only sweeping/"Grand" curves, we can run our trains at full throttle, but to save batteries we usually limit them a bit. With R40s involved we typically have to limit the trains further, most of our trains can't take R40s at full throttle. Only my Allegheny (slow to begin with) and my T1 are capable of taking an R40 at speed. Still, we only run our trains at the maximum safe speed for the slowest curve on the layout (as opposed to actively controlling speed), and then we can walk away a bit. But to answer your question - yes, we can leave them be. The bridge lifts out, and works great. The Allegheny is slow enough that only the other train has to be stopped in order to walk through. The only real finicky bit is putting it back - you have to make sure the track gets pushed down all the way. --Tony

Last weekend the Texas Brick Railroad set up a display for the 2014 Houston Fall Tour Train Show in Orange, TX, hosted by the Southeast Texas Model Railroad Club. For those interested, here are some photos from the event: Full Gallery FallTourShow_2014-08 by SavaTheAggie, on Flickr FallTourShow_2014-10 by SavaTheAggie, on Flickr FallTourShow_2014-19 by SavaTheAggie, on Flickr FallTourShow_2014-22 by SavaTheAggie, on Flickr FallTourShow_2014-31 by SavaTheAggie, on Flickr This was our 4th time attending, 3rd consecutive, this particular event. Public attendance was up quite a bit from year's past, and very impressive for such a small show. This show was also notable for setup time - we set the entire display up in 3 hours exactly - tables, track, buildings, trees, people, details, and running trains. Add 30 minutes if you include unloading the vehicles. It usually takes between 5 to 6 hours to set up comparable layouts (7 tables) in displays past, and setting up in 12 hours for a larger display (10 tables) is not unheard of. Additionally, it only took 1 hour 40 minutes to tear down AND pack back up into the vehicles. --Tony

A good use of the motor as the pony truck. She's very recognizable as well. Well done. Several steam engines in the US use double tenders as well. I can't speak for the folks across the pond, but here in the US at least the double tenders are used for extra water. Rail facilities for steam engines are few and far between now, so they carry second "canteen" tenders for water (and in the case of oil-fired locomotives, fuel as well). Reading and Northern #425 is one example of a double-tendered steam engine I can name off the top of my head. The UP Challenger (I forget the number) also carries one. --Tony