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P

PRR 561 0-8-0

New Member
Hey All,

After the holidays I am planning to start a layout that will include a Penn Rail and a New York Central. Just got the Penn and my wife has a pre 1954 NY. What kind of layout would everyone recommend. I am now saving to get fasttrack for the NY. We want to keep it simple but also want to have something we can enjoy when not on the motorcycle. Always had model trains just not of the Quality of Lionel. Also how much rooling stock can a 0-8-0 haul without alot of wear and tear. Thank you for the help..
 
Hello, there!

What scale would we be considering? Makes quite a difference in what we can discuss because different engines in different scales by different manufacturers will have different capabilities and problems.

Generally, a 0-8-0 is a switcher engine that would only ever work shunting in yards or on industrial spurs. It would not be found running for any length of time, or speed, on the mains. The reason is that they had no leading, or pilot, "truck" with one or more axles. A Consolidation is the same engine, but with a single axled truck, making it a 2-8-0. The lead truck allowed the engine to hunt into curves at higher speeds, and increased stability. 2-8-0's were good up to 60 mph in most cases.

Also, if you are into O gauge, since you mention Lionel, engines in that gauge can haul more than an engine in the smaller scale as sort of a general rule due to physics. They have more mass per unit volume in scale, so they have more tractive effort at the towbar since their factors of adhesion on the steel rails is better....they have more grip.

If you are working your engines with long strings of properly weighted cars, say 15-20, and towing them up grades steeper than about 2%, you are going to wear out the mechanism much more quickly than if you keep the grades lower and the numbers of cars towed reduced to about 12 and under. Again, though, it depends. If you find that your driving wheels scrub and are noisy because they're spinning just a bit, you are clearly working your engine to the max. Expect a shorter life-span.
 
Welcome back to the hobby. I would recommend a layout the size of a commercial aircraft hanger. :) Well, shucks, since you probably don't have that much room, how much room do you have? It's awfully hard to start giving layout advice without knowing that. Same issue with the 0-8-0 question. Is the layout going to be all flat or will it have grades? If it has grades, how steep? What kind of rolling stock are we talking about, 40 foot boxcars or 89 foot autoracks? Alas, one of the problems with model railroading is that there are hardly ever cast in stone answers to simple questions.
 


Sorry I am going to do a O scale layout. I have a 10 x 15 room to work with just have to build a platform with shelving underneath to work with what needs to be stored. Not sure on grades may not have any to start still thinking,planning,wishing.. I just can't figure how to incorporate two lines into a eastern scene with not putting my next year Harley budget into the layout. Can I add a set of axles to the steamer to make it look more realistic?
 
Please don't feel the need to apologize. It's all we really do on the forum is give and take, and that is what you have initiated. We'll gladly help as and when we can.

You could, if highly skilled, modify a steamer to take another axle. Even the prototype railroads often took large, unsuccessful designs and made smaller engines out of them. In the case of the Mikado 2-8-2, they stretched some of the Consolidation 2-8-0's, the idea being to make a bigger firebox for more steam production...more horsepower. A bigger firebox meant an imbalanced weight distribution, so they had to add a single axle truck to support the heavier cab and firebox assembly. If you were to modify your 0-8-0 ("eight coupled" is what they were often called) by adding a free-swinging single axle pilot truck ahead of the front pair of drivers, you should be okay. Otherwise, just get a new engine.

For the space you have, if you are in high rail, or three rail O gauge, you can get away with fairly tight curves in such instances and could have a grand and fun layout. The thing to remember, first off, is that a simple track plan gets you running trains. That is sometimes highly desirable. It is also soon a dust collector because playing with trains in a simple way soon loses its appeal for most adults. We need to do more. So, my message is to continue to do some reading, consulting, and work towards a track plan that offers some interest and variety in what the engine would be doing. They were meant to generate revenue, and that meant "working"....moving things around, and then pulling them from where they were to somewhere else where their contents could be forwarded or used. In other words, you will want some industrial complexes where switching out cars, picking up loads, delivering and dropping off empties has to be done by the engine (you).

Running a train for the umpteenth time around even a convoluted loop gets old real fast. :(

-Crandell
 
Thanks for the help. We were at the local hobby shop today and WOW did not understand the scale of detail and the amount of fun that we have just started. Now the fun part begins...
 
A good place to start might be my "Beginner's Guide" clickable below. Perhaps what might prove interesting with what you have would be an interchange track between the two railroads.
 


Yes I have thought or it was suggested by my wife to do a exchange track section my only question is control power how would that work and what would be needed to power 2 lines on one track or would both lines need to be switched at the same time?
 
PRR, you're in luck. The newest, and best thing to ever happen to this hobby is DCC, or Digital Command Control. This allows to run as many trains as your control station has power to run with just two wires. Well, maybe more than two with a larger layout but it's dead easy compared to DC with blocks, toggle switches, and control panels. Read up at http://www.wiringfordcc.com/intro2dcc.htm for some basic information about DCC. I would never build another layout that didn't have DCC.
 
Ditto! Step out of the darkness and into the light. Or if the metaphor leaves you generally unenthused, how about, "Come over to the Dark Side?" :D
 
Lionel, if you stay with that brand, has a system very similar to DCC, IIRC its called TMCC. Don't just limit youself to lionel, though, check out Atlas's three rail line, here at , http://www.atlaso.com/index.htm much of which comes equipped with TMCC. Just click on the O.
 
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