A question for the old timers.

[zstripe]

RR_Mel wrote the following post an hour ago: I can take us back a bit further to 1945 with my first train which was Lionel O27 three rail.

Mel,

LOL,LOL…I hated 027 Lionel and My parents new it. The only thing I liked was the uncoupling feature. My 1947 Christmas gift was a Gilbert American Flyer S- scale, with a 4-6-2 with smoke. I just don’t talk much about My flyer days. Got the HO bug in 1950, with a Varney Train set for Christmas and was hooked…where the hell did the time go? Bye!

Take Care! [:D]

Frank

[RR_Mel]

RR_Mel
RR_Mel wrote the following post an hour ago: I can take us back a bit further to 1945 with my first train which was Lionel O27 three rail.

Mel,

LOL,LOL…I hated 027 Lionel and My parents new it. The only thing I liked was the uncoupling feature. My 1947 Christmas gift was a Gilbert American Flyer S- scale, with a 4-6-2 with smoke. I just don’t talk much about My flyer days. Got the HO bug in 1950, with a Varney Train set for Christmas and was hooked…where the hell did the time go? Bye!

Take Care!

Frank

My Dad wasn’t a train guy but he wanted me to be one. To him Lionel was the ultimate and when I bought my first HO engine he hit the ceiling. Every time we got into it his final statement was “that little crap will never stay on the track!” He had taught me well by hand laying my O27 track so with the Atlas HO tie strip it was a piece of cake. His teaching me to solder was a bonus for HO and using the tie strip I cut it up and made my own turnouts for years. I never had a problem keeping “that little crap on the track!” I’m sure the way over scale wheel flanges back then didn’t do me any harm keeping the littl

[zstripe]

mobilman44

Yup, Atlas fibre tie strips… One major problem, they absorbed humidity like a sponge, and any use of glue/water mix for ballast adhesion was often a problem.

Maybe the humidity/tie strips is the reason I remember having a lot more connection problems and derailments back then. Our trains were in the basement.

South Penn

I didn’t have that problem with the ties or much derailments for that matter. My parents basement was finished with Heat/AC, the layout was in the furnace/laundry room which was also temp. controlled.

Found another pic’ I had of part of the layout…not the greatest, but better than the other…camera was not that great then. You can see in the fore-ground the Shinohara brass turn out and brass track. Also it is pretty blurry, but that Ulrich tractor trailer on the hill, has two Athearn infamous rubber band drive motors in the trailer…LOL.

Take Care! [:D]

Frank

[rrebell]

They were fiber ties, with holes pinched out for spikes, they were also cut every fourth tie on both sides staggered so You could bend them in a curve. They came in 25ft rolls from Atlas. They were made to go with Atlas code 100 brass track, that were sold in 99ft bundles. Spent many an evening hand spiking track on cork roadbed and in curves, I used Tru-Scale plain milled wood roadbed…spikes would go in without splitting the wood, without pre-drilling, thank God…LOL.

Had a fairly large three level layout built with all hand layed track. Started on it in 1955…I was 13 yrs. old…My Dad was not into trains… I learned on My own.

Take Care!

Frank

Had the oppertunity once to talk to the original maker of Tru-scale, very interesting, he still had demand for his premade turnouts even though he stopped making very long ago, he called them crap and wondered why anyone would want them! I personally thought his stuff was well made for the time, guess he was refering to a comparison with todays premade.

[BRAKIE]

I didn’t have that problem with the ties or much derailments for that matter.

Frank I agree…I pushed myself back in the 60s to have derailment free operation and operation nights on the Columbus HO club’s layout proved I could easily attain that goal even with correctly mounted X2F couplers and the newer plastic trucks with RP25 wheels by Athearn. I must have spent $70-80.00 replacing old trucks on various brands of freight cars.

Even with brass track,locomotives with brass wheels one could have smooth and trouble free operation…

I would use that old fiber tie flex track today if it was still readily available…

[Autonerd]

I find it very interesting to learn how things were done ‘back in the day’.

Dave, if by some chance you make it to Los Angeles, CA on a Sunday or a Tuesday in the next few months, come by the Pasadena Model Railroad Club and check out our soon-to-be-replaced analog control system. Ten cabs, block control with lockout, pre-set routing patches at the ends of the railroad, and it’s all done with relays. The only computer that I know of is in storage under the layout. One of the components we rely on was designed for a B-17 bomber. We’re going to convert to DCC after our Fall open house in November. It’ll be good to modernize, we’re long overdue, but the old system is pretty darn cool to see in action (although a bear to fix when it goes wrong).

Aaron

[ACY_Tom]

rrebell:

Interesting that the TruScale man would denigrate his own products. If the rail wasn’t brass Code 100, I’d love to have some of his old switches. I liked the closed frogs. They didn’t operate exactly the same way that a prototype closed-frog turnout works, but they worked well and were as close as you could get to the type of turnout used on a lot of major lines.

Tom