Welcome to the Southern Pacific Burbank Branch in HO Scale. This layout is small and portable because I currently rent but it’s also designed to be expanded at each end. The prototype operated in the San Fernando Valley until the mid 90s, running along Chandler Blvd to the north end. Growing up, I remember watching the trains roll slowly by and waving to the crews.
If there are any questions please don’t hesitate to ask and much more can be found on my youtube and Flickr pages.
Please enjoy the latest videos of the Burbank Branch!
Thanks for watching railandsail! Funny thing about those kits…not hard to build, assembly takes all of 5 minutes, but cutting the parts out and trimming the flash…an hour [sigh]
Acually heavy cars on small layouts makes sense to me if you are only pulling say 6 cars with Geep as the SIW does for example thevweight helps them track well I would think.
Joe323, absolutely agree, although I did put great effort into the trackwork. I wanted the layout as smoothly running as possible. So far, no problems at all to report, literally never had a derail. With a layout this small, no excuses for any lack of attention of detail.
And when I do get a chance to expand this layout at all 3 track ends so I can run 15-20 car trains, I plan on doing what any railroad would do…tack on another geep.
Thank you too. Being an apartment modeler myself I know some of the pitfalls. So as I plan The third Staten Island West (Sooner or later the current SIW will need to be torn down to move it downstairs) I incorporate what I have learned over time.
Trackwork has not really been a problem for me most derailments are caused by operator error. That is failure to align switche.
Thank you too. Being an apartment modeler myself I know some of the pitfalls. So as I plan The third Staten Island West (Sooner or later the current SIW will need to be torn down to move it downstairs) I incorporate what I have learned over time.
Trackwork has not really been a problem for me most derailments are caused by operator error. That is failure to align switches.
Trevor, thank you for your patience, had a busy weekend here.
I find the biggest advantage to heavy cars is in coupling and starting the train. You’ll notice in some of my videos that when cars are coupled, they tend to just stop immediately, especially if you’re running at a prototypical coupling speed (US is 4mph I believe). DCC systems allow you to program this speed as Speed Step 1, but since I run my small layout DC, I’ve notched the controller with colored tape.
When starting a train you’ll immediately notice that you must throttle up a bit higher to get going, especially when the slack starts to run out. Again, since I use DC, I’ll have to feather the throttle a bit higher as the slack runs out so the train doesn’t stall. Once rolling, you can then level off the speed to what ever speed you run, which on the prototype I model is a Maximum 15 mph. There is also some added momentum from this weight too, so I imagine longer, heavier trains, will need to be more “actively controlled”, especially when dealing with unprotected grade crossing or other prototype aspects.
Now contrast this with cars that when coupled can roll away instead of connecting, and trains that start and stop on a dime. Even with DCC programming these types of unprototypical things exist, because only the locos display the effects. Adding weight to the cars can greatly enhance the “freight” aspect, and when operating a small layout.
In the US, the least expensive way to do this is with pennies, 11 US pennies is roughly 1 US Ounce, so I add about 75 pennies or so to each car. I also walked down to the local tire shop where I was able to get used wheel weights, free!
