When Big Boy 4014 was being moved across the LA County Fair parking lot, sectional track, (panel track) was used, similar to Atlas Snap Track, to create the rail path for 4014 out to the national rail network, which was the local commuter train tracks. An HO scale Big Boy was raffled off, there, during this move. I talked with Ed Dickens, who is the Union Pacific Steam Crew Manager from Wyoming. He said he used an HO model Big Boy, with sectional track like Atlas Snap track, to plan the moves, angles, curvature etc., of the REAL Big Boy across the parking lot. So you see, there is a thin line between real trains and model trains.
A VERY thin line, ANd/but:
And, There REALLY IS a “prototype for everything”.
But, if you don’t know how to do it in the prototype, use models to figure it out! That, too, is a prototypical move…only they usually have to make the models to use.
Better’n doing the hard way and having a failure!
[8-|]
true
I’d think the connection between model and prototype to be pretty tenuous. All of the model Big Boys of which I’m aware have both driver sets hinged to accommodate our less than prototypical curves and the radii available in Atlas Snap-Track must be quite a bit tighter than the minimum operating radius of a real Big Boy. That latter dimension would be readily available to U.P. personnel, as would be that of the space available for laying panel track.
Wayne
There are many that are not, especially the brass ones.
I think you are reading too much into this. No one said he used the “curved” pieces of snap-track. I’m guessing a normal 9" straight was cut down to 39 scale feet and laid out exactly as athe pieces of real track shown in the photo’s.
Pre-modeling a 1:1 scale locomotive dates back to some time before the Civil War. After all, it wouldn’t have been practical for the contemporary locomotive salesmen to take a full scale Baldwin or Stephenson product along…
Likewise, using a scale model of the terrain when planning a thoroughfare, whether for a railroad or a Roman legion, isn’t exactly new. (Do the words, “Sand table,” sound familiar?)
Back about half a century ago, MR showed a ‘model of a model,’ a 1:12 three-dimensional build-out of somebody’s planned layout. More recently there was the similar-scale model of the N-scale New Haven RR layout, complete with plastic people to test access and aisle width…
As for the ‘snap track,’ a judicious use of diagonal cutters on the webs of plastic under the rails will leave a straight section at least as flexible as Tenshodo’s product, which is bendable but not very flexible.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
They bent the panel track sections with a fork lift or the loader, and to a very tight radius.
In fact, before the SP 1996 pulled 4014 out of the parking lot, the mainline of the commuter rail was sawed off the mainline and then “Bent” over to the panel track which had a tight radius connecting to the mainline. Ed Dickens was concerned about the tight radius when they pulled it out, but the Big Boy made it OK.
I got the chance to build panels back in the mid 1980s when we had a pretty messy derailment. We built one panel on top of another up to about five panels high. First we had about four guys set out the ties and two guys laying the plates down. Then the guys laid the rails, gauged them, and tacked them together with a few spikes. Then all the rest of the spikes were driven with an air hammer. The next ties would be laid right behind the guys with the air hammer. We ended up building about 20 panels for that wreck. Once everything was in place, the welders came in and fusion welded the rails.
-Stan
Since theidea of "Grown Men Running Toy Trains? was in the title of this topic, I assume it is something many have struggled with. IMO, that whole notion a result of people being vulnerable to peer pressure and that who thing. If folks can get over their fear of what other people think, and get to the point where they are past caring, then that whole grown men playing with toy trains idea will evaporate for them. It can be quite liberating!
I agree completely!
It is funny (now that I am Retired and don’t have to try and prove anything any more - or could care less about it) in that those that have no idea what Model railroading is about and they give YOU the LOOK when you state you are a Model Railroader!
What happens is when they say something with the Smart A** tone - I just say - YES - I DO! with the biggest smile on my face and I then watch the Look of a big LET DOWN as they can’t get my Goat!
I love it! 
BOB H - Clarion, PA
My 3 year old grandson says it best when he come to my house - “I play trains”.
Yep and that’s what I do too.
Enjoy
Paul
Danged straight! I’ve held for many years that that’s what we do and if you can’t stand the heat, you need to vacate the kitchen. And yes, there’s more to it than that, just as there’s more to any hobby, from stamp collecting to photography, to skiing, to antique collecting, to… but to anyone who so rudely belittles our hobby, an explanation would be wasted. And I LIKE playing with trains! Growing old does not make you stop playing - stopping playing makes you grow old.
OOOhhhh thats a good quote!
Ya know, as most of us have had, I too have had friends and aquaintences and just shake their heads. I too felt the dismay of this very topic. Though always to walk away knowing they were just jealous that they werent part of the worlds greatest hobby. It was they who didn’t have the fulfilling hobby as I did. Though Ive never gotten more than a strange look or a light razzing.
However, lets talk about something a little closer to home. Family and the ever present ‘significant other’. When young, mom and dad saw fit to use trains as a punishment - if i was bad… no trains! Now that im old, NO ONE better touch my trains! So after many decades theyve realized that trains are part of this family whether they want it or not. And is my life.
As for yee old ball n chain, well, after 40 years of ‘playing with trains’ I still have this problem. She doesnt mind the hobby except the fact she sees the time involved and is 773H bent that she will be forgotten. I sure am gonna miss her!
Still, I am at a loss as to how to handle this situation. She sees it as a wedge between us. I see it as the only thing that will keep my sanity intact during my ‘Depends’ years. Not to mention, Ive waited for a retirement of model railroading all my life.
Be curious to know what others of a like situation are doing to handle it? The topic is of being of age and still playing with trains. But how does it work when its at the closest of levels, family-wise?
[quote user=“PM Railfan”]
gmcrail
Growing old does not make you stop playing - stopping playing makes you grow old.
OOOhhhh thats a good quote!
Ya know, as most of us have had, I too have had friends and aquaintences and just shake their heads. I too felt the dismay of this very topic. Though always to walk away knowing they were just jealous that they werent part of the worlds greatest hobby. It was they who didn’t have the fulfilling hobby as I did. Though Ive never gotten more than a strange look or a light razzing.
However, lets talk about something a little closer to home. Family and the ever present ‘significant other’. When young, mom and dad saw fit to use trains as a punishment - if i was bad… no trains! Now that im old, NO ONE better touch my trains! So after many decades theyve realized that trains are part of this family whether they want it or not. And is my life.
As for yee old ball n chain, well, after 40 years of ‘playing with trains’ I still have this problem. She doesnt mind the hobby except the fact she sees the time involved and is 773H bent that she will be forgotten. I sure am gonna miss her!
Still, I am at a loss as to how to handle this situation. She sees it as a wedge between us. I see it as the only thing that will keep my sanity intact during my ‘Depends’ years. Not to mention, Ive waited for a retirement of model railroading all my life.
Be curious to know what others of a like situation are doing to handle it? The topic is of being of age and still playing with trains. But how does it work when its at the closest of levels, family-wise?