7mm US model dabblings

Scale7JB

Western Thunderer
I need some 33” p48 wheels Jason, so don’t go narrowing them just yet..

Could you remind me what they fit. I have some already courtesy of @Brian T bit from recollection they don’t fit in Atlas trucks. They’re in storage at the moment so can’t get to them at the moment.

JB.
 

JasonD

Western Thunderer
Ok Jonathan, I'll take some measurement - axle length, etc. There are at least 3 Atlas truck designs to look at: the original made by Roco with the depressing twixt scale and 3-rail fileable, plastic wheels, then the first made in China with the surprisingly long axles and most recently the reworked China-build. I have a nice, recent steel coil car version with these ... where are you Princess ... time to lose one of your trucks.

So, no urgency then, wheels are safe, today's task is to recover my poor old Seat, I'm told power-steering cutting out and dashboard lights on are an indication that the battery is suddenly(!) on its last legs. Anyway, it's safe :rolleyes: in local Lidl's car park .
Jason
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
It has been a busy weekend, Friday had a fair few trains and the last in the daylight proved the most interesting.

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I had been driving around town exploring the various lines that you can't see from the railway park, on the way back, I just missed a Norfolk SOuthern manifest freight heading north to Macon (rhymes with bacon), as is was blocking my path I pulled over to watch it go by.
Once it had passed I just waited a while and saw the signal turn to yellow, shortly after the above train arrived running with the Dash 9 44CW long hood leading, and yes that is a digger just plonked on to of the 3rd gondola.

Here's the video of it running past, heading north



It went out of sight and about 20 minutes later returned propelling the gondolas over the crossing but on the opposite line, it then went and parked up, which was where the photo was taken. There is a small track maintenance depot there in what used to be a triangle of lines, all three side are still there but the third one only carries on for about 10 feet so you can't turn anything on it.


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You can see how steeply the line drops into the depot.
This was still parked there late on Saturday afternoon.
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
The good weather continued on Saturday, it was sunny but cold, about 3 degrees first thing in the morning, but warmed up to about 15 degrees in the afternoon.
Just as I arrived back at the park a rail grinding machine was passing through in full operation, it was followed by a pickup truck and then by another rail grinder type machine, I managed to get a video of the second one and a few stills of the first.

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There were a few other rail fans at the park, two of whom told me that they had been up all night watching the trains go through and had seen a military train carrying tanks, he had a short video on his phone to prove it. Of course they were both a lot younger than me and had an big RV to rest in between trains. Everyone else knew that another military train was expected at 1pm and that it had left Manchester on time at 9am and was headed by a pair of BNSF locos. Apparently this is all on Facebook !

There were a steady stream of trains passing through during the morning north and southbound on the CSX route. On the NS route there was only 1 train stack train all morning and nothing else, I was too busy trying to get a decent photo of it to notice the GP60 tucked in at the back of the consist, until it was too late, this is what I managed.

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richard carr

Western Thunderer
There was a steady movement of trains through the morning, we even had a pair of light engines pass through.


The one everyone else was waiting for was the military train, so we all headed about 10 minutes out of town, along a dirt road to a level crossing, by a small freight yard. When we got there this was just departing.

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It was heading to the small freight yard in the town that is used for the interchange with the HOG.

This is the freight yard by the crossing

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The military train arrived as expected, hauling humvee style vehicles a few artillery pieces and some containers presumably of ammunition.

Here it is going by.


Once that had gone past I returned to the rail park to find the SD40, it was already in the yard and the crew were just locking it up and leaving it.

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It had already dropped off its freight cars and picked up these 2 tanks.

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JasonD

Western Thunderer
Thank you Richard - no, really thank you ... I dimly remember those days long before the internet having to learn the difference between F7s and F9s and then GP38ACs and GP38-2s and now you expect me to relax with that brief BNSF military train video of an ES44DC and ES44C4 leading humvees.

Forget supper Jason, something much more visually rewarding to digest ...!!
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
After I got back to the rail park a stone train came through

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But after that the Saturday afternoon lull in traffic commenced and not a lot happened for a couple of hours.

For Sunday I had decide to go to Waycross, this is about 115 miles south east of Cordele, on the same north south CSX route as cordele but with a branch off to Brunswick and one to Savannah. To the south the route goes to Jacksonville about 100 miles further south so all the CSX Florida traffic passes through here. There is also a local branch to a small town called Pearson to the north west. It was a nice easy drive on I75 to state road 82 and empty dual carriage way that went all the way to Waycross.
There is also a large marshalling yard, but the railfans on Saturday said that you couldn't see much and that entry was strictly forbidden, they were certainly right that you couldn't see much from the road.

Having arrived there it took a little while to find my way around as the tracks are quite spread out in the town, I had been waiting by the Savannah/Brunswick line but nothing was happening for half an hour so moved over to the north/south line, where I found this parked up.

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An empty coal train waiting for a crew, as it turned out it waited all day and still never got one.

Of course while I was here another train went past just where I had come from !

Fortunately I didn't have too long to wait before this turned up heading south to Jacksonville.

 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
Fortunately it is only a 2 minute drive from where I was on Walters street between Brunel Street and Gilmore Street to Screven Avenue by the side of the Brunswick/Savannah Line. The trains heading that way leave the yard at a pretty slow pace so can see them leave and drive round and catch them.
This one was headed by a pair of SD40-3s


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This is it leaving


As this was going to Brunswick you can then follow it along memorial drive, the Wendy's carpark has a view of it going over a small wooden trestle and further down the road there is larger trestle, you can park in America Lube Fast.

I spent a bit too long taking the first video and wasn't totally sure where I was going so got there a little bit late, but it here it is pulling away.


I also spotted these 2 SP box cars in the train.

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A train then came in from Savannah, it was another mad dash drive to catch it but there wasn't much traffic around on a Sunday.

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This train went on forever, it probably 3 miles long, yet it only had the 2 locos hauling it.

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Then it was back to Brunel Street to see some North/South traffic on Sunday afternoon.
 

JasonD

Western Thunderer
Jason

Who's 36 inch wheels are they and will they fit Atlas trucks ?

Thanks

Richard
Answer coming - honest.... Most recently I've used Peartree wheels for Ow5:

2'8" in 1:43.5 scale is close enough for me to use for 36" in 1:48. For a quantity (eg: 100 wheelsets), they have offered to do a special order at a reasonable price and I nearly got one, but couldn't raise enough Ow5 interest, partly because many/most? O-scalers over here are resigned to using Peco O-scale track. But ... P48 ....

I have a couple of P48 wheel, steel turning tools brought back from the US by my late pal Mike Calvert which Peartree didn't snort at when I mentioned them.
Jason
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
The first train along was IO25 an intermodal service from Chicago to Jacksonville Florida.
I shot this video on the canon camera, for some reason it won't play on my computer but it has uploaded to YouTube so here it is heading south through Waycross, and yes it has a boxcar and car transporters on the front.


This was then followed by a manifest freight

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I seem to recognise the transformer ont he first wagon from a train passing through Cordele on Friday evening.

Here's the DPU



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Here's that coal train again, now in some nice sunshine, a taxi had turned up and crew got out, then we heard on the radio that they were going to take this crew down to another train parked about 2 miles south and bring that up and join both of them together.

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Then the north bound intermodal IO26 arrived, it's not supposed to stop but another crew change took place.

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It was soon underway again so here it is departing


The second loco was dead but there was a DPU in the middle and those 2 locos soon had this moving at 30 miles an hour.

The next thing we heard on the radio was that the crew that originally went to the coal train had now been called back to the yard. I was told that since the pandemic the railways are suffering from crew shortages as they put too many on furlough and not enough of them have returned.

So we decided to go visit the other train as the time was getting on and it would be dark within an hour. It was hidden away along a dirt road, thank goodness for the "locals" .

The train had a real variety of liveries, CP leading KCS second and NS third.

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After this nothing much was happening so it was time for the 2 hour drive back to Cordele.
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
I wasn't flying to Chicago until 1:30, so I did have a couple hours in Cordele on the Monday morning.
Typically as I was driving to the rail park a train was passing through, but it was soon followed by a stack train heading north so the sun is the wrong position for a good shot.

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Then finally at about 9:15 the HOG turned up. It appears to run Monday to Thursday. The train parked by the platform for the SAM passenger train (Savannah, Americus and Montgomery), it runs most Saturday's but the first run this year was Saturday 11th Feb ! It runs to Americus and then Plains and back and takes all day.
Again it was in a poor position to get a good photo



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It is a GP38-2, it had about 20 freight cars in tow. The driver got out and went over to the HOG office on the other side of the road.



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By now it was 9:45 and time for me to leave so I didn't get to see it cross all the other lines, but can watch it on virtual railfan about 10am local time it typically passes through.

It had been a fun weekend and far warmer than the minus 10 degrees it had been in Chicago on Friday and Saturday.


Richard
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
A couple of weeks ago S7 JB sent me a photo of a Norfolk Southern GP40 taken in Chicago from 18th street about 20 years ago. It was in what looked like a paper mill and was there with plenty of boxcars. I'm back in Chicago this week, so today I decided to pop out at lunchtime and go and see what is available today, there is still a lot of tracks in the area. I did check first with my colleagues that I wasn't heading into the wild west, never to be seen again, but no it's China Town and you can take the Red Line L there, you could even walk from our office although its probably 45 minutes to an hour.
The China Town L station is at Cermak Street, 18th Street is 2 blocks further north, this is the view from the station looking North East, part of the Chicago Down Town skyline, although they appear fairly small in this photo you can see the Trump and Hancock Towers close tot he platform, running by them is blue line train on the flyover. The tracks to the right I think are Metra lines into La Salle Street station which I think was formerly the Rock Island station.



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I headed west along Cermak Street for about 4 blocks, it is all very busy and clearly safe.
Cermak then goes underneath one set of lines then there is a second set about a block further along and it goes under those too, these are the ones that lead into union station. There was access upto the tracks so I grabbed a few photos all with my phone.

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I'm looking north towards Chicago city centre here, the towers are some kind of lifting bridge over the river.


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Here in the photo above, I'm looking south

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Back to looking north and you see how the other lines coming from the south cross these and head for the bridge as well.

The flyover in this shot is the blue line L

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I headed back along Cermak and then cut up towards the tracks heading to the right in the above photo, you walk through some modern housing and eventually you come to a park accessed by a level crossing. I could hear lots of whistles but couldn't see anything, then this appeared.

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This is an Amtrak loco and is heading south, he didn't go too far as a few minutes later I saw him reversing north over the lifting bridge, this accesses the Amtrack carriage sidings to the south of Union station.

I left the park and returned to following the road, which a few minutes later lead to West 18th Street, this street crosses all the tracks on a large bridge, with footpaths on both sides, I started walking over and as I got close to the railway line you could clearly hear a freight train coming.


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It is actually an empty ethanol train

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I then headed back to the L to get the train back to the city, I had been there for nearly an hour.
There is certainly plenty more to explore there another time.


Richard
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
Friday morning I finished work early and picked up a rental car at the airport and headed for Champaign Illinois.
Champaign is on the former Illinois Central mainline south to the gulf of mexico. There is a large yard to the north of the town centre and the mainline is crossed by the norfolk southern mansfield branch according to the open railway map, this then has a spur in the reverse direction called the Seymour spur which runs a few miles out of town.


I arrived in Champaign about 2pm, I had had a good look at the map and saw that there is a large Heinz factory that is rail served on the Seymour spur. So I headed out hoping to find the railway and see if anything was going on. I did eventually find it but not before finding myself heading Decataur on I72, but the turn back took me along IL10 which runs parallel to the Seymour spur, nothing has been along the last 3 or 4 mile of it for years by the looks of the rust of the rails.

When I did get near the factory I found this.

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A pair of GP38-2s shunting the Heinz factory, these are all taken at 400mm as I was a fair distance away. There was quite a bit of toing and froing before it eventaully disappeared into the factory and I was able to drive to another street that was a bit nearer.


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Once I did get closer I was able to start taking some video footage, but more of that later.
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
Hi Dave

Yes, I have used them a bit over the years, but unfortunately the blue is the one I use the most as it runs to O'Hare airport, but it runs underground through the city centre. So does the red line that I went to China town on. You also need to be careful with safety, the green line runs directly west to the United centre (Ice hockey and Basket ball) but you wouldn't get off in between as it's just not safe, the same goes for continuing west until you get to Oak Park. I was at friends at Oak Park for dinner and they wouldn't let me get the green line back at 10pm, they said I wouln't make it home. It is fun to just go round the loop at lunchtime.

Richard
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
I have finished the video now, I bought a piece of video editing software so I could put all the clips together into one video. Here's the link


You can actually get very clos to where the action was, and they were there shunting for at least another hour. At one point they disappeared ntot he factory site for about 30 minutes with a number freight cars and left them all there.

Then they appeared to couple up to the hoppers in one siding, but then came out without them. Then reversed back and put the caboose behind the second loco, then they went back and got the hoppers.

This is the train disappearing into the factory site.



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Now they have picked up the caboose and are coupling up to the hoppers and reefers.

I Now headed back to where I had originally found the train, to video it coming over the crossing.

Once I had done that I followed the train through the rush hour traffic along Vine street, I eventually caught it waiting to rejoin the branch at Randolph street

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I headed further down Randolph then right onto Bradley Avenue, this leads to a crossing of the mainline, I found the train there waiting to join.

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It then pulled up over the crossing, before it disappeared propelling the freight cars south past the yellow signal in the photo above.

I then got stuck in traffic trying to find it and didn't see it again.

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Yesterday I did go for a drive past the yard up oak street, the locos were parked up there with another load of hoppers.
 
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