Recent content by dave1905


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    Knowing what's in your yard and exactly where

    I have a physical layout and use car cards and waybills, so I can tell what cars are in in what tracks and what order they are in. I have a pocket for each track and the CCWB for each car is in the corresponding pocket in the order the cars are standing in the tracks. I don't worry about...
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    Source for HO hazardous material decals

    Those colorful hazmat placards are good for post 1977. Pre 1977 they were much plainer, "Dangerous" covered most of them.
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    Reversing Loops and DCC a question

    You are making this way too hard. Reversing loops have nothing really to do with DCC. The problem with reversing loops is the polarity of the current on the tracks, it has nothing to do with the DCC signal. If you have a pure DC layout you would have EXACTLY the same shorting problem. If you...
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    What is the HO scale measurement of this passenger car?

    If you want your measurement in feet, divide by 12 to get the length of the car in ft, then multiply that by 87. One other detail, is that if you wanted to look up the size of that car in some prototype data, it might not be a 65 ft car, it could be a 56-59 ft car because many times passenger...
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    Rails sprayed with WD40 - any risk of fire?

    I wipe the rails with odorless mineral spirits. I put some on a rag (piece of old t-shirt) and wrap it around a scrap of 1x2 and rub the tops of the rails. I would never want to spray WD-40 or anything like that all over the track and layout.
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    What locomotives did the B&O use on short locals in the 70s - 90s

    4 axle engines. GP7, GP9, GP30, GP35, GP38, GP40.
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    Blue Flags? Are they in use on your railroad?

    The actual blue flag rules only apply in two cases, when railroad mechanical department employees are working on, under or around equipment or when a tank car of hazmat is connected to load or unload. Those are the only times BY RULE that blue flags are required to be used. However, since...
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    Ballast questions

    Big, modern ballast is in the 3-4" range, earlier ballast is smaller, cinders are in the 1/2 to 1" range. For O-scale, 3" ballast would about 1/16" in size, 1" ballast would be in the .020 inch range, roughly 1/64". As was said before, O scale ballast or stuff about 1/16" of an inch should be...
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    If you were to work for a railroad, which one would it be and what position?

    Having worked for a real railroad for 37 years, I can assure you the best position to hold is retired railroader.
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    HO lay out Design. Please give feed back

    Plan 5b has more just plain running opportunities with two loops. If you replaced the yard you have drawn on the left side with several longer double ended tracks that would facilitate storing several "ready to go" trains so you could just run. If you even added half of the spurs on the rest...
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    Anybody using a 'Fast Clock" in their railroading activities?

    It's also a hobby that a group can enjoy operating model trains. For those people a fast clock is a handy tool. If you don't care about how long anything takes or just want run a train around your layout, great. There are people who enjoy going to a driving range and just hitting golf balls...
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    Anybody using a 'Fast Clock" in their railroading activities?

    Most of the layout owners in my area use a 3:1 clock (as do I) and operate an 8 hour shift in 2'40", one uses a 2:1 clock and operates 6 hrs in 3. The key to using a fast lock is to realize how much a layout can do in a given period of real time. If a yard can only switch 100 cars in a real 3...
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    trying to decide on If I should switch to On30

    One of my modeling friends model Gn18 (1/24th scale, 18" gauge, HO track with 1/2" scale). It is a tram line using very small diesels and 0-4-0's and very short cars. He uses window sash chain as couplers (basically link and pin). It's a lot of fun to operate. He uses larger radii because he...
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    reducing rolling stocks

    Depends on your focus. If you are following a prototype then seeing what the prototype its different that if you are not following a prototype. You can get rid of the "foobies" (unprototypical cars), all the cars that are out of era, all the cars with bad paint jobs or bad numbers. You can...
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    trying to decide on If I should switch to On30

    One thing to consider is that going with On30 and 15" radius, that tight in HO, it would be REALLY tight in O (roughly equivalent to 7-8" radius in HO). Back to the previous post and Dan's point. On30 cars are wider than HO (even narrow gauge) so going around tight curves can create clearance...



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