Hello well I was running some trains last night and thought I need something different to run. I pull mostly frate and some passenger trains. I know most of us run prototype trains but is there one you run once in a while that does not fit in. Maybe oversized loads. Or something you would see on a real RR from time to time. Thanks Frank
I think a “FRATE” train alone is rather unusual.[:D]
I run some “strange” consists. I used to have SP locomotives exclusively on my layout. Since the UP buyout of the SP and trying to keep up with modern times, some of my consists are strange. For instance, one of my consists has a UP SD70 MAC, an SP SD50 that was part of the equipment when SP purchased the DRG&W then painted in Speed lettering which now flys the “UP patch” which UP put on most of the old SP units, and my sound locomotive is an SD45-2 in which SP never owned one. (They opted for the SD45-T2 instead) So I painted it primer gray and slapped a HCLX (Helm transportation company) decal on the side and run it as a “lease unit” seen everywhere on UP trackage now-a-days that the Helm company picked up from the CXS. It looks funny, but makes the 1.5% grade on the layout everytime…chuck
You can run a work extra with a crane, a few old boxcars and gondolas, and such. You could also have a train with a self-propelled crane followed by a couple of flatcars or gondolas, and a caboose. Or else specialized tracklaying equipment.
Caboose hops, with an engine or two pulling a caboose or two to get power and or cabooses to a terminal that is short of one or both.
I am told that in steam days the C&NW would run a refueled switcher and a caboose out to crews working industrial areas and such. The local crew would take the fresh engine and continue to work the industries, and the relief crew would take the nearly depleted engine back to a terminal to be refueled and made ready for the next time.
Detail a private observation car with red, white, and blue bunting, loudspeakers, and run it as a campaign special. (Get a model of the “Ferdinand Magellan”, and have the POTUS visit your layout.)
Get a bunch of cheap junk steam engines, weather them, remove their mechanisms, and run them as a “funeral train” of retired engines on to the scrapyard.
Get a dynamometer car and a few passenger cars, and have them run tests with your locomotives.
Get a doodlebug lettered for Sperry Rail Service, and have them inspect your track.
Get some “Old Time” equipment and position a film crew at trackside. Or else have the equipment run an excursion commemorating a town’s centennial, or “Railroad Days”, or something.
And then there’s always the circus train.
How about a PA2 lashed up with an SD40-2? Strange enough?
I’ve got plenty of books with photos of real-world mixed trains that I swear if I saw on somebody’s layout I would have cried foul. Now I know better!
Most of these mixed trains tend to be on small regional roads or branchlines in places like Labrador or other less populated areas.
What’s strange about a Schnabel car?
Aside from the facts that:
- They have to be split in the middle to accept a load, which then becomes part of the car.
- They distribute humongous weight over about a gazillion wheels.
- They have movable pivots that can be jacked sideways to ease their loads around restricted-clearance curves.
- they weigh more EMPTY than any 4-axle car does LOADED.
IMHO, every (other) modeler should have one.
An easier one would be a loco, a rider car, a six-axle flatcar with a rather small cylinder chained down amidships and another rider car. Uniformed soldiers with automatic weapons on the rider car platforms optional. Don’t forget the trefoil decals on the load.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with none of the above.
I don’t have the 2008 roster yet but the 2007 UP roster shows SD70ACe’s and SD70M’s but no SD70 MAC’s. I think BNSF got’em all. [(-D]
Tilden
I once hooked up an AC4400CW with a Bachmann Dewitt Clinton, my son’s Thomas the Tank Engine and a Marklin (German) steam engine. It didn’t run very well… especially the little Dewitt Clinton sandwiched between the bigger power.
An F7, 3 bilevel coaches, and Thomas the Tank Engine in front of the cab car.
A string of European beer reefers, with an American caboose at the end.
A Christmas Freight consisting of
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A boxcar assigned to Santa Claus placarded “Assigned to Santa Claus for Good Boys and Girls”.
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A hopper assigned to Santa Claus placarded “Assigned to Santa Claus for Bad Boys and Girls”.
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A cement mixer on a flatcar with a sign “Ready-Mix Fruitcake - Delivered to Your Door”.
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A nativity scene on a flatcar.
Here’s one that you might not see every day:
Wayne
A club member that is always picking up all sorts of oddities, has one of the Schnable cars with a huge transformer. Quite a unique piece of equipment. Even on our large layout, there is only one mainline track that it can run and have adaquate clearance. Of coarse it won’t clear opposing traffic even on a 42" radius. He would like to have Paul3 include it as a special run during one of our operations. That would actualy be cool, but all other operators better heed any restrictions or it could be quite a mess.
Since the many mergers, leases, and power pooling, you could run almost anything with a UP loco in front!! They have even had their 844, Challenger, and a DDA40X pulling freights over the last few years!![:O][:D]
Being a rubber gauger (more accurately rubber scalar) can be a lot of fun. HO track is just so versatile. You can run Gn15, On30, Sn42, British OO, and HO all on the same track. Most of it will even couple together for a really strange train (and gets you really strange looks from the prototype modelers). I just make sure none are around when I get in my silly “toy train” moods.
Want even more? Add some N gauge track for combined N, On18, and HOn30 fun. Who says being a member of the “boys with the toys” isn’t fun?
yours in rubber gauging
Fred W
here’s an oddity: I’ve coupled Kadees to Horn Hooks, and to the Eurpoean Hook/loop. And any number of guys have had heart attacks of what I’ve done (no harm actually) to a #5.
As for the string of pics, what’s odder, the loads, or the distinctively small engine
On a 1900-era layout, a 50-ft boxcar sticks out like a sore thumb - especially if it is outside-braced.
A dinner train - PA1 pulling a heavyweight parlor car, streamlined diner, Vista-Dome coach, and MILW window-end car (forget the name; somebody will tell me). No paint schemes need match.
Due to owner arguement, EVERY car from xxx RR is being removed from the property. Tonight.
‘derelict train’ - a bunch of old-fashioned, end-of-useful-service-life cars going to the chop shop.
Penn Central ghost train - a bunch of cars with no waybills, being sent someplace else so somebody else can figure out what is in them and where it should go. All loaded with some customer’s valuable freight.
Ghost train - highlighted in fluorescent paints, under a blacklight, in the dark. A Halloween special?
Back to the Future - if your pike is set in some particular time period, run a train of equipment from some other time frame.
doctorwayne -
Of course we won’t see that every day; unless I miss my guess, that train was sitting on your layout!
(I noticed that the big building in back is curved.)
That’s true, but then you could apply that rationale to any photo taken on anybody’s layout. [swg]
That’s correct: the rear of the foreground building is curved, as is the facing wall of its counterpart across the tracks on the grade separation.
From some angles, it’s not very noticeable:
And from others, a bit moreso:
Wayne