It’s no secret that my favourite part of this hobby is screwing with locos of various stripes (I’m currently dorking over transition-era NYC passenger locos). The question I have is for those who model traction in its many shapes and forms.
Is it worth it?
Traction comprises some of the most oddball yet seductively interesting locos I’ve come across; GG1s, P-2s, E44s, the list goes on. But the extra work; catenaries, wires, towers and so on. Seems like a pile of extra work to me. Also, it seems a narrow focus given the few lines in US rail history that ran these puppies.
To me, yes, it is worth it. I didn’t get around to modeling the third rail, although I may some day.
I also run trolleys. I live outside of Boston, and I think the combination of subways and trolleys, which also venture below ground on my layout, provides a lot of opportunity. I do not model the catenary, though, another detail that I would re-think if I were to re-design my layout.
I’m working on a carfloat terminal right now. I’m using street-running girder rail from Proto87 to get the track-through-cobblestone-streets look that I want. In an ideal world, I’d replace the switch engines with an electric steeple cab.
LION models the New York City Subway. Most of the cars are all the same, but during their lifetimes they went through many different color transformations. The one I liked least on the Railroad is by far the nicest on my layout so go figure.
NYCT runs hundreds of unusual MOW cars some of which I will represent on my railroad, all will have to be kitbashed, and none will look like their real counterparts, but the variety of equipment will be displayed. I will, of course post pictures of these as they enter service over the next year or more. (LIONS can be mysterious when it comes to time.)
One problem in modeling traction is the possibility of poor power pickup. LION solves this by lashing all of his sets together with draw bars resulting in 48 wheel pickup, which is also a prerequisite of my automated control system.
What do most traction modelers do about operations? If one car = one train, does that provide more opportunity for multiple operators? Heavy electric commuter operations surely must be well suited for timetable and train orders.
I wonder if Model Railroader could be persuaded to write an operations column about traction modeling?
Back in the 70’s I had the opportunity to operate Basil Matagolin’s O Scale Trolley line. It was set up as looping around a busy downtown area. Most of the cars were PCC cars.
He had operating traffic signals at each intersection and white lights at the passenger pickup points. Both operated on timers on a variable schedule. You had to conform to all traffic rules and stop at all red traffic signals. If the passenger pickup light was lit you had to stop at the light and wait until it went off to proceed. If that light was at an intersection and the red traffic light was on you had to wait until the light turned green. If the white passenger pickup light came on while you were waiting then you had to wait until it went off again. This situation could have a mess with cars lining up behind the first car in line.
Basil as most Detroit area traction modelers used what was called the Detroit System to operate their trolleys. It was able to operate 4 cars at time without blocks or DCC over all trackage.
The GG1 and E44 are not what is commonly called “traction”. Those were Pennsy electric locomotives used in mainline freight and passenger service on one of the two US railroads to go electric in a big way. “Traction” usually means trolley cars. Granted, some traction lines did a little freight service using electric freight motors and ordinary box cars, but passenger service in trolley cars was the backbone of traction operations.
Only the Pennsy and the Milwaukee Road electrified their mainlines, so if you want to run electric locomotives on your mainline, you are limited to just those two roads, or a freelance road of your own devising.
Is putting up overhead wire worth it? That’s subjective, a fancy way of saying it’s up to you. If you look on doing wirework as an enjoyable pastime, and you get great satisfaction from seeing your electric models drawing current from a model catenary, go for it. Or, operate your electric models with imaginary overhead wire. Many do.
LION operates a subway layout. Trains are 6 cars (300’) long. Him has 6 of them running on the layout at the moment and two more in boxes waiting to join the layout.
Running a single subway train from 242nd Street to South Ferry and back takes 18 minutes (9 scale miles of tracks - 33 station stops) and yes it can be very very BORING!
This is why the LION automated the layout. Him runs the RAILROAD from the control tower (a full scale replica of a GRS Model-5 interlocking plant) and the trains get to do their own thing: starting and stopping for each of the stations. LION dispatches another train every 5 minutes from 242nd Street. When a returning train arrives at Dyckman Street a bell in the tower rings, and the LION must align switches and signals for it to return to the terminal at 242nd Street.
LIONS (as you may have been told) are cheap. This is Analog automation, not digital, there is no computer involved. The voltage is applied to the entire layout from a single power bus. There are gaps bridged with resistors embedded in the track to slow the train down, an open gap stops the train. A timer pulls a relay in and the train continues on its way, picking up speed as it crosses the exit resistors.
Not so, the New Haven had extensive electric operations, and their EP3 was the real forerunner of the GG-1 not anything the Pennsy came up with as their O-1’s, P-5’s amd R-1’s were not really suited to high speed passenger service and most ended up in freight service.
Also the Boston & Maine, Great Northern and Virginian railroads had limited areas of heavy mainline electric service, and the DT&I under Henry Ford dabbled in electrifying their mainline and the concrete wire structures are still standing on the old DT&I mainline.
Virtually every city of moderate size or larger had streetcar lines at one time. Keep in mind some of these lines handled freight too. Minnesota isn’t thought of as being electric railroad country, but there were quite a few here, from streetcars to iron ore railroads.
As far as heavy rail…since you like New York Central (as well you should), their lines from Manhattan up the east bank of the Hudson used outside third rail, not overhead wire. That would be easier to install (unless you want to go retro and use working outside third rail, like early model railroaders did.)
Whatever type of model railroading “gets under your skin” to make you want “to do it so bad” – Makes it worth it – Especially the challenges that actually become a part of the hobby’s fun.
Traction entails a bit more scratchbuilding such as street trackage and overhead wire than Ready-To-Run model railroading with a sectional “easy-track” R-T-R approach.
For example, overhead wire may be catenary (such as for mainline Pennsy GG1s) or single wire for city PCCs & Brills. In fact, an interurban traction layout should be single wire overhead running in both country and city settings. Traction layout wiring can be either DC or DCC.
Overhead wire may be live wire with engine-electrical modifications, or the wire can be strung without power (for singing-wire effect) using standard two-rail electric power – Plus you don’t even have to string any wire like the Japanese N Scale traction layouts with their “virtual overhead.” What you need in either case, are good wooden templates for pole spacing & location, and construction & soldering of overhead wire.
Box Motors can be used “as engines” for hauling train consists, with or without integration, with diesel and /or steam engines. As for CR&T, circa 1956, allows great flexibility in motive power.
One positive aspect of “live wire” is the capacity to build single point turnouts and other complex trackage without need for special wiring also there is no need for DCC or block control, It need not be mundane as well, don’t overlook steam/diesel freight operations under wire, PE installed poles atop the cabs of several leased SP 0-6-0’s to activate lineside signals and grade crossing circuits, after dieselization this practice continued on some EMD & Baldwin products. Gotta have some passenger operations? PE did a tremendous business during horse racing season, moving blocks of standard passenger equiptment and horse cars behind freight motors & box motors to the Santa Anita Racetrack, similar movements occured as miltary charters.
My master plan encompasses everything from side-of-the-road country traction (one car with a D-pole shuttling back and forth) through light (??? The line has bridges that would support Big Boys, even though it’s only 760mm/2’ 6" gauge!) electric to heavy mainline catenary with 12 and 16-driver motors and heavy rail EMUs. With the exception of that one-car wonder, all my electrics run under virtual wire. The support structures, tensioners, substation and so forth are present, but there’s no web of wire to interfere with access to the puzzle palace of multiple double slips at the down end of Tomikawa. This also saves me the trouble of stringing overhead wire in the netherworld of hidden thoroughfare and staging trackage where the sun don’t shine.
This is right in line with the normal practices of our Japanese model railroading brethren. Almost all of them model some electric operation. Very few actually hang wire.
So, why will that one route have real wire when the others don’t? Because I can’t reverse the D-pole without it! Everything else runs under pantographs.
Not all traction operations were passenger-only, and certainly weren’t all “one car=one train.” Especially in the western United States, interurbans commonly carried freight, and interchanged with steam railroads. In fact, the freight operations typically outlasted the passenger lines, and many still survive (in much-reduced form) as diesel-powered short lines. Part of the appeal for the modeler is that the short consists and sharp curves that are a necessary feature of “geographically challenged” model railroads are prototype practice on many electric lines! You don’t have to choose between a two-foot shelf layout and a loop when your HO scale Baldwin-Westinghouse freight motors can handle a 10" minimum radius curve with ease!
Oakland had a variety of passenger and freight . Key System is one. Southern Pacific too.
Ferries were used to complete service to San Francisco, before the bridge.
California has multiple possibilities. Sacramento Northern is a fine example. Pacific Electric is another. In fact, California had some lines converted for diesel service, and those tracks can have tight curves.
Seattle and Utah of all places, had interesting trolley action.
St. Louis and southern Illinois is another area.
Seeing is believing. The old films can turn even hardcore class one fans, to pause and look.
Vintage model railroaders can benefit from time machine like views of old city scenes.
If I had a larger space, a trolley would run right thru the downtown!!
