Things I've been pondering.

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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I thought I would combine some of the things I’ve been pondering about the life of an MMR so that I don’t clutter the board with drivel.

  1. How do you keep cat’s off your layout?

  2. Has any one used a telephone block and cat 5 to wire their system? It seems that using these would greatly speed up and simplify wiring. You could use the punch down wiring system to organize say 50 turnouts with lights on a single block with no wire stripping, cutting excess, or soldering on the common.

  3. Why don’t passenger trains have a caboose or better yet why do freight trains?

  4. Where can I get one of those cool puffy striped hats?

  5. Has anyone modeled the pineapple trains in Hawaii?

  6. Johnny Cash once said, “All you need to write a Country and Western song is an old guitar, a broken heart, and a train.” What is the Country Western-train connection?

Don’t feel like you have to asnwer all of them. Just pick one or two.

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  1. Layout is 58" off the floor and the cat doen’t jump that high.[:D]
  2. Passenger train crew rides in the coach. Freight train crew got tired of riding in an old boxcar so they upgraded.[:)]
  3. Every train show seems to have someone sellling them.[:o)]

Enjoy
Paul

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  1. Shoot the cat and get a dog (older the better)

Ian

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Hmmmm…for the kitty I used to suggest sprinkling cayenne pepper around the layout but when I tried it on a planter out front last month, the dam cats started sniffing the spots like it was catnip, so I dont know what to tell you, keep a squirt gun handy to shot fluffy when he jumps up onto the layout, eventually he’ll get the message.

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  1. I don’t let the cats near the train layout. But a squirter works. Also a flyswatter - don’t hit the cat, just whap it on something nearby, scares my cat, anyway

  2. Simple, but the wire is not big enough to handle the load. Trains will slow down, and you will regret the poor performance. Wire like that is fine to run leads to signals, but not carrying track power or switch motors.

  3. Lots of C&W songs are about or involve trains somehow. Not to mention Bluegrass. Keeping with the Man in Black, even a song about a PRISON starts off with mentioning a train!

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I was afraid of that.

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[quote]
Originally posted by SpaceMouse

  1. Where can I get one of those cool puffy striped hats?
    [/quote

www.Historicrail.com may be one source but hard to find hat there.

Might also try the company stores for NS, BNSF, CSX, or UP.

http://www.bdasites.com/unionpacific/

The UP hat has a logo as shown on home page above.

Check Trains mag for ads.

There is another rail stuff ad company in Minn, that has neat RR stuff.

As far as country music and trains… once the lifeblood of every town was the railroad so there is a list of things outlined in the David Allen Coe song, “You Never Even Called Me By My Name” where the author of “City of New Orleans” , Steve Goodman wrote him a song, claiming it was the perfect country western song, and DAC said it doesn’t have anything about mama, trains, pickup trucks, prison, getting drunk and rain. The last verse Steve sent back went something like this:

I was drunk the day my mama got out of prison, I went to pick her up in the rain, but before I could get to the station in my pickup truck, she got run over by a danged ol’ train…"

Lots of lonesome train songs… maybe fewer airplane, ship, bus songs.

Freight trains no long have a caboose, that was the conductor’s office, a point for switching cars in/out of sidings, manual braking, signaling, smelling for hot boxes, break aways, some tasks seem like one is still needed. FRED replaced them. but to me a train without one is like not having a period at the end

Always seemed odd with just loco and cars - labor and union rules changed, crews cut after “featherbeding” firemen lost their jobs with diesels.

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1)Remove anything valuable or breakable from layout. Place about 50 set mousetraps on layout. Even the stupidest cat will only jump up there twice.
3) Because there is no place to house a conductor on a freight train.
4) What hats?
6) What makes you think there is a CW train connection? What you illiterated was a Johnny Cash - CW - train connection. Until I see Faith Hill on a train, there is no connection.

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  1. I heard of one guy got a motion detector and wired it to a siren, turned it on when away from the layout. I’ve also heard the water-pistol idea promoted.

  2. yes the wiring is too small over any disytance but might be worth looking at for a local installation. I use RJ11 and RJ12 with phone wire over about 6"-12" distances. rrinker’s post has me worried now - I’m gonna go back and measure some voltages - but I think it is working fine

  3. something I learnt just recently is that the guy in charge of the train is the conductor. he’s running the show, not the driver. and he needs an office for all the paperwork.

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  1. As others have replied, the caboose was where the conductor and brakeman hung out, when freight trains had a four-man crew. Good book on the history of the caboose on U.S. railroads is Caboose (Enthusiast Color Series) , by Mike Schafer. You can find it on Amazon for under $12.

  2. CW has roots in traditional folk music, and trains were a popular folk music subject in the late 19th and early 20th century, e.g., the ballad of Casey Jones.

–Dave [2c]

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SHORT distances it’s probably OK. You can’t exactly solder #12 wire directly to the rail, that’d be a challenge even in G scale. And you can bet if I build one of those tiny briefcase Z scale layouts to carry around I wouldn’t use #12 wire for the power bus, probably WOULD use phone wire.
The factors that affect how much voltage drop there is, besides the size of the wire, are how long the run is, and how much current you pull through it. A 10ma load is only going to have 1/100 the voltage drop of a 1 amp load through the same wire.

–Randy

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  1. Did you know that if you play a country record backwards, you’ll get your pickup, dog and wife back? Works everytime! [:D]

Bob Boudreau

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  1. One suggestion regarding cats that will never work unless you have a very old, a very fat cat, or a very old fat cat.
    No matter how high the layout, most cats will be able to jump onto them if they want to. Cats have extremely strong hind legs. I couldn’t keep my cats off my old layout because it was located in the basement where their litter boxes were. My new layout will be built in a totally separated garage that will also be, hopefully, squireel and snakeproof, also
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The hat If you have a Harbor Freight tools near you they have them about 4 bucks but , just adult sizes. My local Hobby shop has a few of them on hand for the kids . I even found a pink and white hat for my daughter at one of the shows.

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[:D] Dave

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then we covered the whole layout with one thickness of newspaper, found out that the cat had a strong heart.

I don’t know - now were talking about a CAT.

Bob

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You guys with cat trouble,stop using catnip for ground cover.Altough the way may dog likes to beg potato chips can also be a nuisance .

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  1. Layout in the garage, cats in the house. I’m still pondering how I’m going to keep them off the trolley layout I want to put in the living room–I’m thinking Lexan panel.

  2. Freight trains have a caboose so the conductor and brakemen have a place to stay. Braking used to be done by hand, requiring several brakemen to run the length of the train turning brakewheels. Brakemen also uncouple cars, flag engines, throw switches and do all the stuff that requires running around on the ground near the train. On modern trains, the crew rides in the cab or on the walkways. On passenger trains, the conductor and crew are in the passenger cars–the conductor collects tickets, and the brakemen didn’t have to run on top of the cars because the brakes are at car-floor level.

  3. Yes–there are a few resin kits out there to build narrow-gauge locomotives and cars of the Hawaiian type, for pineapple or sugar cane industry service, but it’s definitely kind of an obscure thing.

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That’s doesn’t always work. Friends of ours have a very old cat (about 18) and he can jump, FROM THE FLOOR, to the top of their refrigerator, and does so quiet regularly.
Considering the huge number of squirrels in our yard and trees, none have ever been found in the garage. Chipmunks, on the other hand… beats the moles in the garage at our old house. Didja know they REALLY don’t like light? haha I trapped one in a Havaheart trap, thought it was a mouse. Shined a flashlight in…SQEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK. Yikes, a LOT of sound from something so small. The other one I trapped, wouldn’t leave the trap when I took it to the field and left it loose. Guess it likes the peanut butter an oatmeal.
Glad my layout is in the basement, I don’t know too many burrowing critters that could eat through the poured concrete, and the only window is sealed up tight.

–Randy

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Cats…start training them as kittens. put two leashes on its coller…string one thru your tunnel…briskley pull the fur ball through the opposite portal, if this is done properley its fur is now sticking straight out make a better tunnel and track cleaner,…repeat untill wife comes running into train room to see what all the screaching and squaling is about. let her remove collor…neither will talk to you for about three days. You now have secured a few days of uninterupted work in your train room…with no hunny doooos. However the down side is sleeping in the train room and no hot meals.

My cat somehow hates my shop vac…located by the train room door…when she gets in I just have to click the switch (without being pluged in) The cat makes a high speed run to the far end of the house. My wife thinks I sucked her tail in the hose, have never addmitted that…got to go its time for dinner…