You are browsing archives for
Jon is a well-known narrow-gauge modeler and you won’t want to miss his presentation live this Saturday morning February 11 at 10:00am PST. As usual the Zoom-only meeting will open at 9:30 and his presentation will start at 10:00. Here is the Zoom info to join the meeting:
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87210657142?pwd=ZHhIWnZGMUU0YnAwNVUvMENheEZSUT09
Meeting ID: 872 1065 7142
Passcode: 805577
Article and Photos by Rich Thom
Clinic Chair Rich Blake welcomed a jovial crowd of 32 to our annual holiday Wassail at the Summerhill facility in Oak Harbor. The large room there (pirated last month by another group) was rightfully ours once again and definitely needed to accommodate the dozens of groaning platters of snacks and sweets: It was not a Weight Watchers meeting! Rich also welcomed newcomer Mike Bernethy and we hope he becomes another regular.
The evening’s diversion, while attendees dug into the goodies on their paper plates, was a slideshow by your reporter titled “No Problem, Sahib” presenting photographic excerpts from his four trips to India between 1982 and 2005. “No problem, Sahib” was something the traveler didn’t want to hear from the train’s conductor, the hired car driver, or the hotel clerk. Because that reassurance actually meant: you had a really big problem! Your train would be hours late or terminated short of its destination; the road ahead was closed and the detour was 140 miles; or despite your reservation, you really had no room at the hotel and it was full. Rail travel seemed chaotic—because it was. Stations were overflowing, as were the trains; even the tracks at busy junctions and stations were used as footpaths home.
In the early 80’s steam still dominated, although dieselization and electrification had made inroads,and the remaining steam on India’s broad (5’6”) and meter gauges comprised mostly standard post-war classes. But itwas still possible to cross the subcontinent entirely behind steam, as your presenter did. The narrow gauge was another draw: hundreds of miles of mostly 2’6” gauge still remained 100-percent steam. Perhaps the most interesting of all was the world-renowned Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, the 2-foot gauge mountain-climbing gem in India’s far northeast, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Maybe more than anything, the rail enthusiast in India was simply overwhelmed by the crush of humanity; the cities and even small villages which seemed to burst with people; the poverty; the incessant toil of the country’s citizens. A handful of photos from the program may give a flavor of Indian train travel during the years your writer traveled there.
Editor: This was a fascinating presentation by Rich and Linda Thom that provided a colorful glimpse into the widely (and dare I say “narrowly”) variable types of railroad subjects in India, a country still very much dependent on railroads for travel, commuting and commerce. All had a great time and again thanks to the Thoms for sharing their travel adventures.
Heading up the grade, halfway to Fraser.
Early in the morning on May 27, 2015, my wife and I arrived at Skagway, Alaska to ride the 3-foot gauge White Pass & Yukon Railroad. We had arrived on the cruise ship Norwegian Jewel out of Seattle for a round trip to Skagway and stops in between. For me, the White Pass was the highlight of the trip for the activities ashore.
Editors note: This is the second article of a new series on narrow gauge by Syd Schofield. The previous article is available by clicking here, or by filtering with the category “Narrow Gauge”. Syd welcomes discussions and feedback, which can be made by clicking on the comment link at the bottom of the post.
Narrow gauge railroad track isn’t much different than the “standard” four feet eight and one half inch gauge track on a lesser, “junior varsity” short line or a somewhat neglected spur. The main consideration is the weight of the heaviest wheel set to be supported. This results in a balance of rail strength and tie (or sleeper if you’re not from around here) spacing. So a K-37 would require heavier rail and closer ties, maybe even with tie plates to further spreads the weight over a larger foot print (bearing area) on the tie than needed by an 0-4-0.
In the early days (the Civil War and on) the materials involved were wrought iron with high strength alloy steel used later on. The rail deteriorates in elastic fatigue as a beam loaded between the ties as well as surface region fatigue due to the dual flexing (also elastic) of the contact area of the wheels, wheel on rail, with the rail top. Large rail grinding machines are used today to make an “insurance cut” of the affected rail top region. As rail was replaced due to fatigue and insufficient capacity, rails were often upgraded in size and material and the locally available, minimally prepared ties were upgraded with ties milled for tie plates and spike pilot holes off-site. Notably, spikes are made with a chisel point across the grain of the tie so as to break the fibers but remain supportive in the lengthwise direction as opposed to splitting the fibers opening an unsupported gap in the lengthwise direction.
What all this leads to is a hand driven single spike on each side of the rail in every tie for the earlier years / low budget / low capacity remote business or the store-bought closely spaced ties with tie plates and four spikes per plate for more modern or high capacity / well-financed business. With a little preparation of the Peco / Micro-Engineering / Shinohara nickel silver flex track and turnouts, to name a few, with an X-Acto knife and Dremel tool plus coloring and ballasting practices, the tie can look a little neglected and more representative of the frugal / back woods / mine supply / agricultural on a short life plan railroad. The actual time spent between the two methods is reportedly similar when appropriate skills and experience levels are achieved.
In addition to the Washington common carrier narrow gauge railroads previously mentioned we include the Alaska portion of the Pacific Northwest Region Forth Division: Golovin Bay Railroad, Seward Peninsula Railroad, Tanana Valley Railroad, and the still active and very popular White Pass and Yukon Railroad. And, as in Washington, there were numerous privately owned company railroads for support of logging, mining and other enterprises.
Editors note: Please welcome Syd Schofield, who will be writing posts in the Grab Iron blog on narrow gauge topics. He welcomes discussions and feedback, which can be made by clicking on the comment link at the bottom of each post.
Model trains, usually smaller than the real life things, generally fit our interests, space, time and budgets. The generally accepted, for various physical, business and political reasons, “standard” gauge (acceptance occurring from the Reconstruction period to well into the 20th century) for most US and Canadian common carriers was four feet 8 and ½ inches between wrought iron and steel rails. Smaller gauges of three feet and two feet also survived among the many other industrial, light transit and amusement purposes as did larger distances for specialized industrial purposes, however common sizes provided for economies of scale in production, operations and exchanges between railroads.
The HOn3 model size designates the “HO” (roughly the half “O” scale) of 1 to 87 parts, the “n” for narrower distance between rails than the standard gauge and the “3” is the actual full size distance in feet (a “30” or similar means 30 inches, versus feet). The general purposes of the full size railroad in this gauge was for smaller, less expensive equipment as well as the lower cost and more agile route preparation. These features made the three foot gauge attractive to any or all of rough terrain, lower capacity, lower capitol investment and short term business situations.
Washington State had at least three three foot gauge common carriers as well as many privately owned and operated by logging and mining interests. There were many three foot railroads and some even had dual gauge operations throughout the Western US, Alaska and other parts of Canada. Some were absorbed by larger standard gauge railroads while others succumbed to the truck, bus and automobile business successes or became historical amusements.
It is this period, simultaneous to the acceptance of the “standard gauge,” that many modelers choose to reproduce from “real” railroads based on historical situation or the merely technically correct for the chosen period creation of what might have been – in HOn3 (or other modeling narrow gauge scales). We would like to explore the activities of modelers in the PNR 4th Division, or anyone else with constructive intent pertinent to the three foot gauge railroads in brief and regular Grab Iron expositions. That is heavy on the “we” as pertains to anyone who would like to offer appropriate comments.