I don’t think of duck unders as either old school or new school. I have three only layout and they are a pain. One is to get inside the hidden staging loop. One is to reach an access hatch behind the roundhouse. The third is one I have rarely used. It goes across a center peninsula near its base and was intended to allow me to get to the other side without having to walk all the way around. The peninsula is about 20 feet long. It was a nice idea but a 6 foot long duck under is too much for these old bones. I have discovered something recently and that is if I use a stool for support, it is much easier to pass through all the duck unders. It’s like having a short walker. If I could find something with wheels it would be even better.
I’m new-school. Flex track. Peco switches, knuckle couplers, Digitrax DCC. I have several locomotives with sound and plan on adding sound decoders to others.
Old School, New School?? I rather think it’s a case of what best suits my requirements, (and bank balance).
Code 100 track.
DCC.
A bit of sound.
Some Athearn BB, and Model Power locomotives.
A lot of, as is, BB, Roundhouse, and lesser amounts of Lifelike, old Bachmann, Mehano, and AHM rolling stock. That means I don’t regard that metal wheelsets are a necessity.
Predominately Kadee # 5 couplers, some Bachman Easimate Mk2s.
To my surprise, I do like kit bashing and scratch building.
[2c]Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
My new layout will have a swing gate section to get into the room, and a lift out/duck under to get to my workshop area.
Once in the “layout”, wide aisles, 3’ minumum only in two short spots, most 4’ and wider, will allow easy travel around the room.
There will be a service aisle behind one section, covered with removeable scenery sections, several pop hatches, and under the layout staging yards in some areas.
One of the main staging yards will be 70% visable, in my workshp area. Another will be 50% visable in the “background” of the layout.
Scenery will
I don’t consider old school/new school. To me it’s function, appearance, and cost. My layout is modular that started out being modules in club shows. There were standards like Code 100, Peco insulfrog turnouts, and mainline spacing.
I have stuck with code 100 even on the home modules for a couple reasons.
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Cost. Code 100 usually runs 10 to thirty percent less expensive than 83.
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Once painted and ballasted it’s hard to tell the rail is .017 of an inch taller.
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The wide wheel tread looks better on larger rail. I handlaid a run down industrial siding with code 55 rail and the hopper car wheels look grossly oversized on it.
I run DCC and adding more sound decoders as hobby dollars allow. I like running trains. Not track. I keep the volumes low on the sound decoders. I love the sound of a double head big steamer train struggling on the hill. And the rumble of a large bore diesel working the yard.
I have KDs on 99.9 percent of locomotives and rolling stock. When the patents expired on the KDs there was a flood of cheap plastic lookalikes. I did experiment but quickly returned to KDs. If I was starting a new. I would probably look into the Sargent couplers. I have them on the pay train and like them. The pay train is a brass 2-6-0 with a converted B60 baggage car. Both are kept clean and shiny.
I also run metal wheels on everything.
That’s me. What’s great about this hobby is the individuality. There’s no right and wrong.
Pete.
I’m pretty much old school…when I started in HO it was Atlas code 100 brass track on fibre ties, and the turnouts were kits. I did have Kadee couplers right from my start in 1956, but they were the ones with mechanical uncoupling rather than magnetic.
I’ve been using code 83 nickel silver track for well over 30 years, but still run some rolling stock from the early-to-mid-'50s, and have at least one steam loco from the very late '40s or very early '50s.
While I’ve operated on the layouts of friends with DCC, I have absolutely no interest in it for myself…I have no need, nor desire, for running multiple trains at the same time, and absolutely no interest in sound, and no interest in lights in structures or in locos or cars, and definitely not for “night” operations. (I do, however, appreciate the talent of others who are into those things.)
I’ve modified pretty-well all of my locomotives and rolling stock, and have, I think, only a couple of factory-painted and lettered freight cars.
I’ve also scratchbuilt several cars, and the majority of on-layout structures are either scratchbuilt or highly modified kitbashes.
I have also done a couple of DCC loco installations for friends, but my knowledge of it otherwise is limited.
Wayne
I did not use traditional benchwork, but the pink insulation foam sheets are the table top upon which my layout is built (over basic wood framing). I stacked foam insulation pieces and covered them with lighweight plaster as needed to build scenery.
Since I absolutely despise ballasting (my dad and I did do it on our home layout when I was a kid, and it caused more problems than it was worth), I opted for all HO Kato unitrack with Kato #8 turnouts (for the few that I have). The layout is supposed to represent open rural spaces, so that I can railfan my own trains…
I have no blocks. The Kato turnouts are power routing. Sidings are double ended, and by placement of feeder wires the power flows through whichever tracks are aligned.
There is a DPDT toggle switch to toggle between plain dc and dcc power as needed. There were only 3 pairs of feeder wires, so the average run is about 27’ between power feeds (much longer than some people recommend for dcc operation, but it was built before dcc was common). It seems to be adequate for dcc operation with diesels. The trains work adequately well. I never have more than two units on a train and am able to run long trains above 50 cars whenever desired.
Almost all motive power is now dcc with sound. One plain dc Genesis IT GP38-2 remains and will likely get a decoder installed.
John
Mostly old in approach, but not hard core. ME Code 70, 55, Atlas 100 in staging. Hand laid switches, mechanically thrown using dpdt sliders to hold points and polarize frogs. DC. (Tech 2!)
Motive power: BB (geared), Atlas austria & Japan, P2K, MDC, Roco, Rivarossi, Keystone (NWSL Innards) and some ancient brands of motive power. BB, P2K, AHM (ore cars), MDC, Bowser and other medium end freight cars, but not train set stuff. KD exclusively, and all metal wheelsets.
Structures mostly scratchbuilt, but a couple kit based ones. Aren’t yet, but plan to be lighted
Vehicles, a sub-hobby, are across the board, CMW, & Athearn mostly, a few WS, Leetown & other kits. Some nice newer plastic ones though. None lit. Many heavily 'bashed.
Scenery is old school glueshell with plaster rock castings, Home made trees using published techniques. Lotsa real dirt and sifted gravel from my yard & driveway. Static grass and Superleaves aren’t so old school though. There is some foam based scenery too.
Since it’s wired “twin cab” I reserve the possibility of adding DCC, while keeping some DC locos on the rails. Dan
I guess I’m a bit of both.
On the old school side:
- My track is still code 100 HO with a couple of 3-way code 83 turnouts.
- The engines are mostly all straight DC. (A couple that I was given are dual mode DCC.) Even when I go engine hunting they are all straight DC. I even have a few engines that are older than I am. (Three or four AHM U25Cs. If that’s not old school, I don’t know what is.)
- The wiring is all block wiring.
- Not mentioned but I still brush paint all my equipment. (I never purchased a fume hood for airbrushing and painting outside doesn’t work for about half the year in Montana.
- A vast majority of my equipment (both prototype and protolanced) has been relettered and/or completely repainted. I don’t do a lot of RTR cars although if an RTR car fits a need/want I will get it.
New school side:
- Any new equipment that is not knuckle equipped gets 140 series Kadee couplers. I have some that came with #5s and I keep a pack or two around for those cars as well.
- I don’t know if this is considered new school, but I have quite a few of Woodlans Senics’ JustPlug Lights.
Probably forgot a few other things on either side but that’s my take.
I am curious about the choice of HO track with codes smaller than 83. Does it improve appearance that much and is there any trade off with performance. I was never bothered by the appearance of code 100 until I started using 83 and now when I look at 100, it looks huge.
All my track is either flex track or commercial turnouts. The turnouts are various brands depending on availability of what was needed. When I started, my current layout, Atlas didn’t make a #8 so I went with Walthers/Shinora. I recently installed a couple Peco curved turnouts. Commercial track looks just fine to me especially if it is painted and weathered. I’ve never been tempted to even try to handlay track. When I look at a section of track with hundreds of ties, I’m not going to focus in on individual ties. That’s true of both model and prototype track. All the ties look the same to me.
I’m new school (code 83/DCC) using old school methods to install track (track nails and cork roadbed on wood).
Combination. For track, I’m old school code 100, mostly because of cost and accessibility. I have rolling stock of pretty much every make. My oldest locos (Japanese brass and Fleischmann) were built in the early 60’s, and have some recent locos built less than 5 years ago. Some have high flanges (see point about code 100!). A few kitbashed locos, like the one appearing in my avatar.
All my HO scale locos are DCC (RTR and hardwire upgrades), and I use my cell to operate my locos. I’m installing less sound than I used to, the price of sound decoders is getting too high for me.
I use Kadee couplers, but Rapido uncouplers. 99% of the paints I use are acrylics, I guess that’s new school.
For scenery, I’m mostly new school: mostly shelf construction, and I use ground foam, sculptamold, and will use cardboard and plaster rolls to shape my mountains.
I also have some O scale, two-rail, DC equipment. I have some HOn3 and HOn30. I would say that’s old school, although my HOn3 is DCC. Like I said, combination.
Simon
20211017_104745 on Flickr
I switched to HO in the winter of 1987-88, and used Walthers Code 83 from the start, so not sure that’s really ‘new school’.
Kadees have been the standard HO coupler for a half a century or more. The X2F “NMRA” coupler was a compromise that came out many years back, and could be made by any manufacturer without paying a licensing fee. That’s why equipment came with them ‘back in the day’; generally everyone except newbies immediately replaced them with Kadees.
Kadee refused to make discount bulk prices available to manufacturers who wanted to make their equipment come with Kadees. However, Kadee’s patent ran out about 20-25 years ago, and manufacturers could then make their own version without needing to pay any fees to Kadee. That’s when cars and engines started coming out with Kadee-compatible knuckle couplers.
Code 100 was the de facto standard in HO until late in the 1980s and has since been displaced by Code 83. That’s why I say it is new school as opposed to old school. As the responses have shown, many are still using the old standard. If you have Rivarossi steamers from the 1980s, and I still do, you are limited to running on Code 100 because of the oversized flanges. I think when Code 83 became popular, Rivarossi reduced the size of their flanges.
As for couplers, the horn hooks are what equipment came with until the patent expired on KDs and many people did not replace them. I don’t know what the percentage was among modelers, but not everybody was replacing them with KDs. I remember buying a collection at an estate sale in the early 1980s and it all had horn hooks. I continued to use horn hooks on my Rivarossi passenger cars on my old layout because I didn’t do any switching with my passenger trains. As another modeler has said he did, I had a baggage car with a horn hook on one end and KD on the other. The KD would hook to the loco while the rest of the consist ran with horn hooks. I still have some of those Rivarossi passnenger cars boxed up with the horn hooks on them. Maybe some day I will upgrade them.
No, it’s true that in the 1980s not everyone was using Kadees, but probably 85-90% of people were using them. By then they’d been around for several decades and were well established as the standard, so wouldn’t really count as “new school” in the 1990s.
The easiest way to convert the old AHM/Rivarossi passenger cars is to use the McHenry couplers. They make ones that just snap in place in the existing connection. Of course, Kadees would be the choice if you’re going to body mount them, but the McHenry ones make for a quick/easy conversion.
I got back into the hobby about year 2000, so the stuff I bought would be described as new school.
Modern shortline, post year 2000. Since the model manufacturers finally started producing GP7Us and GP15s with front and rear LED ditchlights and finally decent sound coupled with good motor control about 2015, I don’t have many locos left that were made before that.
Started accumulating rolling stock about 2000.
About as new school as you can get when it comes to equipment.
DCC control, mainly because onboard sound needs it.
Code 83. That’s what I started buying.
Couplers are a mix. As long as they are knuckles and not horn hook. Never had a problem coupling or uncoupling a mix of brands.
I use plywood, foam roadbed, cork roadbed, homosote, caulk, white glue, or nails…since track laying materials aren’t that important. They all seem to work for me just fine.
Which would be appropriate for the Transition Era that you apparently model, as cast iron wheels were the ones with the ribbed backs.
“As of January 1st, 1958 cast iron wheels were banned from new and rebuilt cars, From January 1st, 1964 no new cast iron wheels were allowed on existing cars, and from January 1st, 1968 all cast iron wheels were banned from interchange.”
I model the same era, but to me its such a small, hard to see detail, I don’t bother
Here’s a qustion for the audience. I belong to a club, whose oldest segments go back to the 1970’s - wired for DC and using code 100 rail. The question is what to do. In particular, the electric system is obsolete. Ripping out all the DC wiring and re-wiring for DCC (and then you have the problem of picking which DCC system) and relaying all the track seems unthinkable. We’re probably talking years of effort - and how do you keep member interest from flagging without an operational layout? We do have a connecting shortline and interurban so there has been the idea of redoing them first and then tackling the Class I line - but that limits the type of equipment (no Big Boys or Cab Forwards on tight radius curves or under wire in the middle of the street) and the number of operators at one time. We can’t be the only folks who’ve faced this problem and I’d be intrerested in your experience. Thanks
PS: Your opinion on say, code 70, for the shortline and interurban. Also, there is a proposed line for the narrow minded - Colorado Gauge (3 foot), not Maine Gauge (2 foot) - use code 70? Hand laid code 55 (normally N scale)? I like the idea of also having a 2 foot industrial line serving a tie and bridge timber treating plant.
Railroad tie treatment plants (trainorders.com)
Fortunately nobody is suggesting Cape Gauge (42 inch) or Russian Gauge (5 feet), let alone Erie (6 foot) or Great Western (7 feet 1/4 inch) or a monorail
Yet
List of track gauges - Wikipedia
PPS: Anybody know if Russian model rails operate on HO standard gauge or true to scale HOw5? Enquiring minds want to know…
I started outfitting my rolling stock early on with metal ribbed wheelsets when I was assemblying kits. So I just kept up with doing that as I accumulated kits over the years.
I do have a few RTR pieces that came with flatback wheelsets. You’re right that it’s a detail that most likely others will never notice but I’ll know. However, I have no plans to swap them out; nor am I going to get bent out of shape over it.
Tom
I’m going to ask some questions which you and the club members need to answer, and shock horror, need to agree on!!!
Is the existing track plan still valid for interesting running and or operations?
Is the Code 100 track still allowing reliable running?
How obsolete is the wiring? I ask this from the perspective from someone who lives in an active geothermal area, and standard practice, which may sound like overkill elsewhere, is that every piece of track has a feed from the main bus. Unless it’s a dangerous mess, I’d be looking at a series of judicious cuts and reconnections to a new main bus.
[2c] Cheers, the Bear. [:)]