Social interaction within the hobby: A Rant.


DakotaLove39

DakotaLove39

Always Improvising
I'm sorry guys, I just have to get this off my chest.

As I get more involved with model railroading in HO scale I find myself having more occurrences of other folk being a bit too hard-headed in their way of doing things. This latest one is the perfect example.

I joined an Athearn Blue Box collector's group on Facebook, just because I am a huge Blue Box collector myself at this point. 75% of my rolling stock are Athearn Blue Box or Roundhouse kit cars. I also have three second-hand locomotives which were Blue Box kits.

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I am in the middle of a complete rebuild of this Milwaukee F45. I bought it with no motor and no drive axles, so she is the perfect candidate for a modern motor and drive, as well as DCC. Now, I learned a long time ago on this forum that sintered iron wheels are extremely tractive but also very good at grabbing dirt off the track. As I exclusively run on a club layout that sees heavy traffic and light cleaning I want to replace these wheels outright with nickel steel ones. I have also been advised that the old metal sideframes can potentially be a risk for shorting, especially with DCC installed.

So I asked in the Facebook group if anyone would be willing to sell me a pair of Flexicoil trucks for this locomotive, and I even offered to trade my trucks to someone for newer ones if they wanted.

Cue the replies.

"Why can’t you use the metal ones with dcc??? I have several SD9s with the metal side frames and dcc and have never had any issues."
"At my club I've converted many with the metal side frames with no issue or problems "

And so on. One guy suggested I should not worry about it and instead just apply RailZap to the track. When I explained why I can't do this, I got a huffy response about how this man's club has okayed it. That's fine for you, sir, but I don't see that going over well with my club's steep gradient helix.

Basically I got a slew of replies of non-applicable information. Am I being hardheaded myself? Probably, but if you're going to the trouble to reply to my post asking for help, shouldn't you at least provide some kind of help? Replacing the running gear is not unheard of and I don't think I should be chastised or thought less of for doing so, but it seems the armchair or purist types would rather get on me for that than be quiet or offer to sell me what I am actually looking for.

If I were asking for help with the impossible, that's one thing. Something like this job, upgrading a nice model with modern parts is not impossible, and even if you wouldn't do it to your own stuff there is no reason to try to beat down another guy who wants a Blue Box loco to run like a Genesis.
 
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I can understand your rant. I would just ignore the comments because you are doing what you want to to. I wouldn't pay any attention tpo their comments.

Over 30 years ago when I switched from N scale to HO scale, the Atheran blue box locomotives were probably the best bang for the buck. I replaced all of the sintered iron wheels with Northwest Short Line nickle silver wheels, Bushing were installed on the worm gears and everything was lubricated. The amperage draw was dropped from almost three quarters of an amp to about a tenth. The trucks were hard wired to the motor and eventually the motors were replaced with can motors because on the grades I have on my layout, the old Athearn motor would surge going down grade and would really lug down pulling a train up grade.

When Atlas brought out their line of Alco RS units with the Kato drive, I thought I would give one a try. I was so impressed that I now have over a dozen of them. The blue box locomotives after all of the work described above run almost as good a the Atlas units and after over 30 years they are still running like new. Saved a lot of work and $$$ upgrading the blue box units.

There's nothing wrong at all with upgrading your locomotives. Do what make you happy.

I still operate DC at home but do have some DCC locomotives that I run at my club. I an disappointed at how wimpy the DCC locomotives are on the grades at the club which are about two and a half percent, just like what I have at home. My Atlas RS-1 with DCC can only handle arounf d a 9 or 10 car train whereas the old DC RS-1's I have and easily handle around 15. I recently had a Stewart (now Bowser) F-9 converted to DCC. With the large weight inside, it was a tight squeeze to get the decoder and speaker to fit, but Iit could handle 20 cars on the grades, more than a pair of 4 axle units could pull.

I don't know what the difference is from plastic to metal side frames may be for DCC operation. We have a number of folks on the forum who are really good with DCC and they may be able to answer your question. I am a DCC dummy.
 
There are many problems that could explain what you have experienced, and truth to tell that I have had some of them in my time of forums, including this one. I mean that I have been either defective or deficient, or negligent, as a responder. I don't like to admit it, but I yam who I yam.

People get in a rush and don't read carefully. Or, they are poor readers generally with low comprehension or literacy. Or, they're just ignorant on the topic but think they have a good handle on it. Those with strong characters at the least admit to themselves that they want improvement and then seek to improve their performance or knowledge base.

Then, there are those who have an opinion on EVERYTHING. You can't argue with them because...well...see the last sentence.

I advise people in the hobby to carve their own paths, find as early as possible what keeps you passionate and evolving (both at the same time, please), and to shrug off those who criticize or diminish what you find appealing about it. Be courteous to those who respond to your threads that contain questions or requests for advice, and thank them for whatever they offer. There is no law saying you must jump all over the first or second recommendation and do what they say to do in the way they say it must be done.

To me, metal truck frames should not be a problem if they are insulated or split so that insulated axles let the same axle's tires pick up power from the two opposite rails at the same time. What you don't want, I believe, could be mistaken, is for the metal truck parts to touch metal frame elements or somehow contact with electrical feed that should be of opposite phase. Some steamers, especially those that have articulated front engines that are all metal, will cause shorts if the pivot wears and the truck begins to touch the frame. At least, this is what a user on another forum reported he had to figure out and then how to cure it because he really loved that locomotive and used it a lot.
 
What you don't want, I believe, could be mistaken, is for the metal truck parts to touch metal frame elements or somehow contact with electrical feed that should be of opposite phase.
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Exactly. I would be fine with keeping these trucks as they are except for the fact that the sideframes are part of the electrical system. The wheels grab power and pass it to the frames, the frames pass it up the truck to the motor.

On DC I wouldn't care. On DCC it would be far too easy for these frames to touch something they should not.
 
I don't partake in Facebook; however, my wife does. I didn't know that there where face book places dealing with model railroading! The fact there is, still doesn't entice me to partake! Here on this forum, asking a specific question about how to do things; or, that you're looking for parts, you will find that maybe 25% of the responses pertain to your actual question(s). It can be frustrating! You just have to sort the good from the bad.

Possibly, Facebook is not the right place to pose questions on Model Railroading.
 
bnsf971 said:
Possibly Facebook is not the right place to ask questions about anything.
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Having just only in the last week or two, got on to some of those FB groups, I would say I've been doing more answering than getting questions answered and most of what I know has come from here and what I've researched elsewhere (e.g. Google). Thought I'd give it a try.
 
Sad to say, I concur wholeheartedly with some of the preceding comments.

Across several model RR forums over the years, I've seen a shockingly high rate of poor reading, writing and comprehension of basic English. Typos aside (edit thyself!), I think we all can do better. Some respondents may just be lazy and don't read a post closely (or often) enough to even try to understand a given question or problem, but reply nonetheless, sometimes asking for information that was provided in the original post.

The majority (I'd say - yikes! - 90%) of replies to specific questions (usually technical in nature) are either fundamentally irrelevant or unfocused guesses, based on what I can only describe as a driving desire to say, "Here's what I did," no matter that it doesn't even begin to answer the question that was asked. Posters, I'm sure, ask specific questions to get specific answers to specific problems. And so, if one doesn't know the answer, why reply? Granted, there may be more than one way to attack or solve a particular problem. But I give posters credit for knowing best what they need and are asking.

This is not unlike experiences I've had visiting local clubs and public layout displays, where the hosts want mainly to talk about themselves, while showing little or no interest in visitors or trying to engage them in conversation and speak to the fun of the hobby. It's the "social" media version of "Look at me." Sad indeed.
 
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You'll find people like that in all walks of life, including the forums. They insist that you do things the way they do them, no matter what. Even if you don't like it, ya better do it their way even though they will never come to your house to see the results.
 
D&J RailRoad said:
A curmudgeon! Sounds like something you would have with a spot of tea, right?
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Nay! A cupa of strong coffee with a warmed muffin. :cool: By the way, on another forum I just read a specific, focused reply to a technical call for help with a specific wiring issue. It was the only such reply ouf of eighteen.
 
My question is does everything or everybody have to have dcc? When you state you are not dcc, why is it that you receive that odd look from your mr club or friend then receive a harsh reply.

BCK RR Aka Tom
 
BCK RR said:
My question is does everything or everybody have to have dcc? When you state you are not dcc, why is it that you receive that odd look from your mr club or friend then receive a harsh reply.

BCK RR Aka Tom
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I do tend to put on my missionary's hat then, I admit. Ask Chet
 
BCK RR said:
My question is does everything or everybody have to have dcc? When you state you are not dcc, why is it that you receive that odd look from your mr club or friend then receive a harsh reply.

BCK RR Aka Tom
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No, you don't have to have DCC, period!
 
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