Island Pond Railroad

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n3tjm

Papa Elf
Joined
Jan 21, 2009
Messages
8,396
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Location
Penns Creek, PA
Doug_on_Electric_Engine.jpg

During the spring, summer, and fall of 2003, you could see my father out in the woods working on his hobby... his own minature railroad. Just before the first snow fell... he completed his layout.

He is currently working on a steam locamotive, but for something to try out his tracks with, he built this electric switcher.

Today, with a temperature of 7.5 degrees F (Finally, it is warming up :rolleyes: ), my father asked if I would like to give his switcher a ride.

It is such a joy to ride :).

Island Pond Railroad
 
Hey Doug, I love live steam trains! There's a club about an hour from my house that we go to. My dad is in the process of building his own locomotive.:)
 
Two words, Doug: "rocket sled". :D
Start going counterclockwise on the route, at the west end, it'll accelerate through one turn and then down the straight. An extra pair of horizontal wheels could grip the inside of the rails to keep it on the track. YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO.

Either that, or if the train passes through a clearing, a mobile launcher for modrocs.
 
Inter-Obsesional-Modeling-Crossposting! That's just not fair:eek: Just when I've succesfuly repressed one hobby well enough to concentrate on another, you come along and post a railroad; in your backyard; not far from where I live; and running in the winter! Oh how cruel.:D

That's a nice looking pike he's got there. Keep us posted as to any sessions going on there, I'd love to see it Thanks
Bob
 
OK, Doug, I have kept the "I want to build a railroad" urges repressed for a long, long time. And now you do this...

I was at work all day yesterday with nothing to do but sit there. So I spent a lot of time on your dad's site. What a great place y'all have there!! I'm very impressed with the railroad!!

Give your dad my kudos. :D I'll talk about you and him in the long months of upcoming therapy... :p

bmhiii
 
Originally posted by REK
Inter-Obsesional-Modeling-Crossposting! That's just not fair:eek: Just when I've succesfuly repressed one hobby well enough to concentrate on another, you come along and post a railroad; in your backyard; not far from where I live; and running in the winter! Oh how cruel.:D

That's a nice looking pike he's got there. Keep us posted as to any sessions going on there, I'd love to see it Thanks
Bob

If you are ever in the area, you are welcome to stop by and check it out :). Just hope the electric engine has been charged, because the steam engine will not be finished anytime soon.

Just a couple weeks ago, someone visiting from FL came driving down the road... and said.. hey! That is the railroad from the website (obviously he has seen my dads site). He turned around and paid us a visit ;).
 
Wow...kudos to Doug's dad! That's impressive!

They have one of thease kind of trains at a local park. I would ride it all the time...then I got too big :( :( .

Remind me when I come up there for the final TDD launch to ride it, ok?

Jason
 
Originally posted by jetra2
Remind me when I come up there for the final TDD launch to ride it, ok?

Jason

With all of this cold weather we been having, I was trying to remember why I wanted to stay in New Hampshire... then I remembered. I am the laast stop for Tour De Deuce :D...

Seriously... you are more than welcome to check out the railroad when you fly up here to conclude your project :)

Eugenefl is also welcome to check it out!

By then... the steam engine should be finished :D
 
Man, that is too cool! Trains were my first love, before rockets. I always wanted a model railroad but always lacked either the space or the money, or both. Finally started to build a narrow gauge layout in my garage with hand-spiked rails and everything. Didn't get very far though before we needed to put on a room above the garage, and the whole thing had to be torn out for the remodel. About that same time I started getting into high power rockets and the rest is history.

I still have the framework and some of the basic roadbed of the model railroad stored along a wall in the garage, but now I doubt I'll ever do anything with it. Since the garage is also my workshop and paint area, it's just way too dusty and cluttered to ever be suitable for a decent scenic layout. Plus my eyesight's not what it used to be.

BTW, there are some very nice large scale garden railroads up in Oregon. My dad and I toured some of them when I was visiting a while back.

Also, if you ever get a chance to come to Nevada, check out the Nevada Northern Railroad museum in Ely, NV. Real railroad stuff, not models. They have some beautiful old steam engines and wooden coaches, lots of old time equipment, coal tower, the whole works.

San Diego has a nice railroad museum too, in Campo out in the east county. Several years ago my wife and I rode the "dinner train" there -- great fun! You board the train about 6pm, and have a gourmet meal while the train rolls through the country side.
 
When I was a little lad, early 1980's, I was an Arizona child. My dad would take us on road trips to different states like New Mexico and Colorado to ride on the different Senic railroads. I rode on that one in CO that goes along the side of the mountains before I was born. I rode on the railroad used in the Willie Nelson movie "Where the Hells that Gold" when I was three. We went to Flagstaff a lot to see the trains there.... We had a nice G or O scale railroad (the one with the three rails...)in our bedroom...

first_layout.jpg


Yes... Dad, George (my twin) and I were big train nuts. My dad still has the bug, George still likes em. I still have some love for trains... I enjoy riding Senic railroads. I remember in PA, East Broad Top Railroad, they also did Trollys. It was time to move the trolly the other direction, so they have to move the boom around 180 degrees. They let me do that... moving the boom from 600 vt wire, and placing it back on the overhead wire on the other side of the car...
 
We had trains when we were kits (Lionel) and I could scream when I think back to trains we had from the 50's and 60's that my mom sold in a garage sale (whole box of trains, cars, track and buildings) for 5 bucks....

oh man...

Have always enjoyed trains but never had the chance to really get into it with all my other interests. Anybody ever check out Z-scale? great if you have very small work space (but *expensive*!)
 
n3tjm, where in Az did you grow up? I was born in Tucson, and we lived there till I was 11. We went up McNary, Az a lot and rode the White Mountain Scenic RR. My Dad painted the engines and caboose for them one summer. We always had a great time there. We also rode the Durango & Silverton and the Cumbres & Toltec when I was a kid. I've been back to The D&S several times since then. I'm a huge Colorado NG fan.

Just check out my web site and go to the Trainz link to see what I've been up to in my Trainz hobby. Not enough money and space to do HOn3 like I want too. So I do it virtually. :D

Regards,
Todd
 
OK, Doug, this is your fault!

Youve all seen pics of my workbench...here is what it looks like if I turn around.

sandman
 
Originally posted by jflis

Have always enjoyed trains but never had the chance to really get into it with all my other interests. Anybody ever check out Z-scale? great if you have very small work space (but *expensive*!)

Here a couple of pics of my NTrak club's layout. N is 1:160, not as small as Z at 1:220. N is cheaper than Z (more or less) but more expensive than HO. I want to try HOn3 next.
 
Here are some close ups of the run down elevator on our layout. Built by another memer, I can't do work like this yet!
 
I won't waste a lot of the forum space with this.

It is a "period" pike named the "Lexington and Utica Railway". This was a real "paper railroad" that they tried to start here in my hometown back in 1882. I have som documents from the original start-up.

It is "hand layed" track individually spiked! All the turnouts are hand soldered (in a jig I made)
All the structures are wood not plastic!
All steam...no diesels!
HO and HOn3 scale

Biggest problem i have is a monster called "CATZILLA" that comes in at night and destroys everything.

Here is a close-up of a work train ready for some BIG snow!

sandman
 
Nice layout Sandman! It looks like you started construction fairly recently... and it looks like you are building that Engine House the way they really build them! Very nice job. So what are you going to do to make the hills? Use Plaster or Fiberglass. We have done both methods.

Here is where my twin brother wrote about all our layouts we had in the past.
 
Last one, overview of the layout at a recent show..
 
Originally posted by seo
Here a couple of pics of my NTrak club's layout. N is 1:160, not as small as Z at 1:220. N is cheaper than Z (more or less) but more expensive than HO. I want to try HOn3 next.

Wow!!! I love the detail of that layout! I always enjoyed building the buildings. That was my favorite part of making layouts :D.

This almost makes me want to build another HO scale train layout... I can smell the o-zone now :).
 
It looks like you started construction fairly recently...

Actually the layout is about 26 years old...worked on it on/off.

Scenery is next...maybe this winter...don't know. "It'll be hardshell" with plaster texturing and probably oil stains...they really stink up the house though!

I gotta get rid of the cat first!

sandman
 
Originally posted by sandman

All the structures are wood not plastic!
All steam...no diesels!
HO and HOn3 scale

Nice... I want to try HOn3 next.

Rockets are much quicker!!! Takes a long time for a layout!
 
Originally posted by n3tjm
So what are you going to do to make the hills? Use Plaster or Fiberglass. We have done both methods.

My club tends to use insulation foam from Home Depot/ Lowe's. Glue it together then carve it and cut it with hot-wire knife. Cover with Sculptamold. Lightweight and pretty durable.
 
Originally posted by seo
My club tends to use insulation foam from Home Depot/ Lowe's. Glue it together then carve it and cut it with hot-wire knife. Cover with Sculptamold. Lightweight and pretty durable.

Just before we moved from PA to NH, George and I posted a classified add to sell our N gage layout.

nscale_cr.jpg


The person that bought it, sold kits to make foam details for layouts and other hobbies. I remember looking in Train Modeling magazines... and seeing the cheap Bachman houses and Engines in their adds. I can not recall the companies name though...
 
Originally posted by sandman
Biggest problem i have is a monster called "CATZILLA" that comes in at night and destroys everything.

Back when I was a kid, a friend of mine (or his Dad, really) had a huge HO layout in their basement. The way that they dealt with the family feline was to invest in about $20 worth of mouse traps (a considerable quantity, back then). They would set the trap springs and leave the bare traps scattered all over the place, and the cat quickly learned not to jump up there. Maybe that would work for you?
 
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