I have dabbled in ride on scale, it is very expensive to get started and very heavy. Called by many the Hernia Gauge for good reason. I sold my gas/hydrostatic diesel and track, but kept my Miniature Train Co crossing signal. I hope to get one of the G12 trains and portable track in a couple years and convert it to battery electric. The noise kept me from enjoying it much due to my free time being later in the evening/night time. Nobody wants to hear a small gas engine at 11pm at night. I do enjoy live steam operation in G scale and I am planning a new raised line with wider radius curves to replace the really small line I have now with tight radius curves. Here is my crossing signal for your enjoyment. Mike
I bought a steam engine a few years back. I was a member of the illinois live steamers for a while. Was too far away to make the time to go. The engine is in my garage waiting for the time.
Steve
I wanted to get into live steam. When I realized I needed over 10 grand or more on a steam locomotive plus the added 100 man hours. To make a pre-post steamliner NYC 4-6-4 Hudson with a few freight cars and caboose.
By watching a few videos, I knew that I couldn’t make/manufacturer pieces and parts with a blow torch and etc. Since I don’t have the tools, experience and know how to build one from scratch.
You say that YOU have been told no one has made a ‘good’ F Unit nose? –Pardon me?
Why do you unquestioningly believe this (rubbish) to be true? And without further primary research on your part? All I can do to respond to that is start with a …sigh!
There actually is an indisputably “good” F Unit nose, and it was done in H0 scale over 20 years ago. Kindly Google: “Highlinersonline.com” please.
Click on the above (and then again!) for some (ahem) enlarging and then do compare with prototype images. Kindly remember, these models are true H0 Scale (Half-“0”, as in half-zero) and are only 6 inches long overall.
These models are (were) so good, there now are six or seven Chinese-made “knock-offs” of the contours. Go ahead and try file a copyright lawsuit with that as the reality of the situation!
Now to the matter at hand, the problem with this “Big Stuff” is manifold. Counter intuitive as it may s
Well I’d say the OP’s question has gone sideways enough to officially be classified as derailed
Moutaineer… Your pictures do not show up. There is a sticky thread that lays out the way to post a photo in the forum.
All I see is a box that gives me a 404 error when I click on it.
Anyhow… this thread is over a year old, and I could not figure out if you were responding to Ed (GMPullman) or Isaac (SPSOT Fan).
I have two Highliner A units and a B unit, and while the kits have the wonderful ability to build into any F unit, I’ll be darned if I can see any differences in the nose from my Stewart/Kato units… good enough for me.
Maybe I am just blissfully ignorant.
-Kevin (SeeYou190)
I sold them, caveat emptor. I never gave the nose contour any thought. They looked just fine to me.
These were my other options:
Warbonnet by Edmund, on Flickr
F_nose by Edmund, on Flickr
I believe I chose wisely.
Thank you for your critique, though.
Cheers, Ed
16 years ago, my son and I often attended outdoor garden/live steam events.
They loved my son, because he was so fascinated, he’d get right up close to the live steam engines, but never touch them.
Bottom line: the outdoor railroad we had was expensive, my son didn’t play with it much, the narrow gauge live steam engines of course were REALLY expensive, and so by his age 4 or 5 we had transitioned back to HO model railroading.
The grass is growing up through the last remnants of real limestone ballast in my backyard. We have our very own ghost railroad path in the yard.
The guys who were into it then got old and decided they could no longer maintain the outdoor layouts, and some of them too went back to HO.
They were beautiful summer Saturdays, that I will always remember fondly–real WWII vintage fighters: F4U Corsairs and P-51 Mustangs, flying overhead near Bel Air, Maryland at Roger Cutter’s house–while we ran the trains.
John Mock
I’d love to have something big enough to ride on. But I don’t have enough room to run any sort of track. There is a nearby group that has both of the smaller ride on scales as well as 18" gauge. And the Pennsylvania Live Steamers isn;t that far from me. I’d probably go with a gas/hydraulic drive diesel (or maybe use a small diesel - they DO make such engines for things).
I did see a beautiful set of SD40-2s at Timonium once. They even had MU connections of a sort - the second unit had hydraulic motors on the axles, but no engine and pump, it slaved on to the first unit. They were fpr sale, for a very attractive price, but I didn;t have my truck or a trailer to load them on - and it was still far more money than I was willing to spend at one shot on a hobby.
The place near me does have poublic open houses a couple times a year (not this year, unfortunately) so I’ve gotten to ride on various trains. Not sure how they are managing when other groups have completely discontinued any public open houses mainly for insurance reasons. In addition to the outdoors stuff, they also have an indoor O scale (2 rail) layout that is literally a museum of the history of O scale - they have things made in the 30’s all the way up to the latest Atlas and MTH 2 rail O.
–Randy
For a ride-on-trains hobby, I am seriously considering a Fairmont Speeder and formally abandoning my 7 1/2" gauge 2-8-2.
There is a beautifully restored speeder for sale in Bonita Springs right now for $5,000.00.
I have ridden along on a couple of speeder events in the Scale Rails of Southwest Florida speeder back in the day. It was a lot of fun.
-Kevin
Had my share of speeder fun, too. Brought it home and the cat took over.
IMG_3144 by Edmund, on Flickr
Once the cat claimed it I couldn’t get it back [:-^]
Edison by Edmund, on Flickr
Regards, Ed
Thanks, Rich [Y]
That was Mr. Edison. He was a cat of few words and he was friendly and a loyal companion. Another rescue from the GE plant where I worked.
Regards, Ed
Ed, since you are speaking in the past tense, I assume that he is no longer with us. If so, sorry for your loss.
Rich
My biggest hurdle to the speeder purchase is that my little Colorado really cannot pull it. The one in Bonita Springs also does not include a trailer.
I would need to rent a truck every time I went somewhere, and it I travel out-of-state, which I want to do, that would get expensive.
I really do not want to buy another vehicle.
I am sure this speeder ambition will pass soon. Just having a nice one so close by at a reasonable price is sparking desire.
-Kevin
Kevin,
I am sorry but I feel your innability to readily descern those rather obvious differences between the Kato F Unit nose and the Highliners F Unit nose is unfortunate.
From the Highliners website kindly view the now uploaded nose images in my first blog post in this thread. Note too, it is the only “Thin Wall” F Unit cab (in plastic) and the singular F Unit with true, flush-fitting glass.
For too long this hobby has had to live with the unfortunate stigma that goes along with the term; “Toy Trains”.
I believe this stigma too be the actual impetus for a great many towards fine-scale modelling. Otherwise, “make-believe” is the rule, and all the many negative connotaions that go with that term.
Sncerely, the 1987-introduced Kato nose was never hailed as “accurate”. I suppose it is O.K., but it is proportionately too narrow, the windows are positioned considerably (by several scale inches) too high and inset too deeply. The pilot is much too wide below the quarter round, there is no requisite centerline vertical crease, the parting line is just awful… I can go on.
From my experience, sculptors see these variations both immediately and as glaring differences. Thank you.
–M405
A lot more than “10 Grand”, or “100 hours” are required to acquire such “things”. Trust me, on that.
The above 1/8 scale, N.Y.C. J3a Hudson miniature live steam Locomotive (at 12 feet long, it really is too big to be a “model”) first appeared in print and for sale, within the pages of the July 1968 issue of Model Railroader, where I saw it --just as school ended for the summer.
That summer was terrible. All I did was obssess over the thing.
But the Universe moves in strange and curious ways, and some 37 years later a friend asked me if:
“You’d (I’d) like to take a look at a live steam ‘Central J3a’ in inchandahalf”.
Issac, firstly you do mean “none (F Unit noses) are perfect” don’t you? And you are wrong in that regard as the Highliner’s F Unit nose is demonstrably, objectively perfect.
–M405
