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Jocko says, "If it's not broke, then you ain't tryin' very hard!"
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Layout Construction Update |
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Amazing Railway Facts World's Fastest Passenger Train
A Straight Shooter
World's Most Powerful Single-Engine Locomotive
World's Longest Passenger Train
World's Longest Freight Train
World's Slowest Express Train
World's Highest Railroad
The railroad, which is scheduled for completion in early 2007, may be the most difficult engineering feat ever attempted in human history - High altitudes, steep grades, frigid temperatures, and shifting soils that can rise or sink more than three feet in some seasons, are major problems engineers and construction workers are expected to face as they build the railroad. The new and as yet unnamed railroad will run from the Tibetan capital of Lhasa to the Qinghai province city of Golmud, near the Kunlun Pass. The high altitudes will require special locomotive engines designed to run on lesser amounts of oxygen, and pressurized passenger cars to keep passengers from suffering altitude sickness. World's Longest Railway Tunnel
The second-longest railway tunnel in the world (53.85 km / 33.38 miles) is the Sei-Kan Subsea Tunnel under Tsugaru Kaikyo in the Sea of Japan. By comparison, the longest railway tunnel in the U.S. is the New Cascade Tunnel (12,537m /7.76 miles), built by the Great Northern Railway in 1929. World's Largest and Busiest Rail System
The IR carries 13 million passengers daily (4.833 billion in 2000-01) on a rail network spread over 39,146 miles (63,140 km) with 7,068 passenger stations. Indian Railways operates on three different track gauges: Broad gauge (1.676 m), meter gauge (1.000 m) and narrow gauge (0.762 m). All of India's major rail passenger routes are served by broad gauge track. World's Shortest Railroad
What do AMTRAK trains and Roman war chariots have in common?
They both use the same wheel gauge. U.S. standard gauge railways are designed with an inside railhead-to-railhead distance of 4 ft 8-1/2-in. (1.44 m). That distance was actually an early English railway gauge used by horse-drawn rail trams. The first U.S. railroads were built by English railway engineers, who copied the original track specifications, and which just happened to be the same gauge used by European wagon makers. The wagon makers originally designed their wagon axles to match the center-to-center spacing of the age-old road ruts left behind by Imperial Roman war chariots. The Steam Locomotive The first steam locomotive, built by English inventor Richard Trevithick, made its maiden run on February, 21 1804. The contraption carried ten tons of pig iron, five wooden wagons and 70 terrified men a distance of 9 3/4 miles in 4 hours and 5 minutes; at an average speed of almost five m.p.h. Despite Trevithick's pioneering efforts, it took another 20 years before the steam locomotive became a practical working machine. The Indian steam locomotive 'Fairy Queen', built in 1855, is currently the oldest operating steam locomotive in the world that operates in regular service. The locomotive John Bull, built in 1831, is preserved in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, USA . The John Bull claims the title of oldest operable steam locomotive in the world. The all-time speed record for steam trains is held by the 'Mallard', a British Class A4 4-6-2 Pacific locomotive, which pulled seven coaches at a certified speed of 126 mph (203 km/h) on July 3, 1938.
Burning Question of the Month How many hobby magazine editors does it take to build a 4 x 8 layout? Answer: 7 (1 to build the layout, and 6 to pander shamelessly to advertisers by mentioning their company name no less than six times in the same article ) |
Metro City's new Union Station scene is nearing completion
Inaugural commuter run on March 5, 2007 -- AMTRAK 515 is shown here pulling a bi-level car carrying MVL officials and Metro City politicians to the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Westbound track level rail-cam view on the big TV monitor.
Lower passenger loading concourse at Union Station
New station platforms at Union Station
New Layout Tour (Under Construction)
FThe Cheapskate's Corner Here is a short and random list of items that may be helpful to those hobbyists who don't have a lot of disposable income to deposit with their local hobby shop: Floral Clay comes in 1/2 lb. bricks under the band name Fibre-Craft, ($.93 each) in the Wal-Mart Fake Flower Dept. Good for making small scenery elements, and especially good for making highway grade crossings. Be careful to keep the clay slightly below and away from the wheels of your rolling stock and locos when used on the inside of rails. Paint the clay the desired finish color with latex paint. Plaster of Paris (Generic) comes in a hefty 25 lb. bag for $6.99 at Home Depot. It can substitute for a name brand hobby store product such as Hydro-Cal. Spackling Paste (1 qt. $2.99 at Home Depot) is another reasonable substitute for Hydro-Cal. Although not as cheap, it's not as messy and hard to clean up as Plaster of Paris. Natural Cork - You can save about 40-50% on cork roadbed by purchasing 12 x 12-inch squares of natural cork, and then use a hobby knife to cut individual roadbed pieces yourself. A brand that works great for me is called 'Quartet', by ACCO Brands Corp. It's identical in thickness to standard milled cork roadbed you buy at hobby stores, and comes packaged four square feet per package ($5.25). Yup! You can get it at Wal-Mart in the Stationary Dept. Foam Board - (3/16" X 20 x 30-inches), $2.69 in Wal-Mart Stationary Dept.) can substitute nicely for rock forms and rubber molds/plaster you would use to build vertical retaining walls, etc. Not good for making structures that will be placed in humid areas, such as a basement. The foam absorbs moisture and tends to warp over time. Stop back soon and I might have a short tutorial ready on exactly how to make rock culverts using foam board. Forest Supersaver: With a bit of practice you can make your own evergreen shade trees using twisted wire coat hangers, yanked apart (but thoroughly used) scouring pads, watered down white glue, ground foam, and green acrylic paint -- for about 1/10 the cost of hobby store shade trees. Scenery Paints - High-quality acrylic scenery paints (Brand: Apple Barrel Colors) at Wal-Mart go for less than half of what you might them for in craft or hobby stores.Paint Brushes - Crafter's Select Variety Brush Pack ($7.95) at Wal-Mart. These are excellent artist paint brushes that last a long time. Also, a high quality artist's Wash Brush ($2.95) will last almost indefinitely if you clean it after each use. Good for painting large areas using latex paint. Fireplace Matches - Duraflame brand wooden fireplace matches ($2 at supermarkets). These are 12-inch long, 1/8 inch square (approximately 1 HO-scale foot) and come packaged 75 matches to a round container. Strike them, or cut off and properly dispose of the live matchheads first. You'll then have enough wooden pieces to trim out a whole layout. Toothpicks (Flat) - Diamond brand flat toothpicks (750 to a box, $.99 at supermarkets) are 1/2-inches long and 1/16 square and make great fencing, or HO-scale lumber Hardwood Dowels (Round) - 36-inch long hardwood dowels of all diameter sizes from 1/32 to 1-inch are available in most craft and Wal-Mart Superstores.Hardwood Dowels (Square) - 'Forester' brand square hardwood dowel variety pack. Each dowel is 12-inches long; in various sizes from 1/8 to 5/8 inches square. $1.34 per pack of 10 at most Wal-Mart stores. Chipboard - What is it? The sheets are about the same size as a standard 8.5" x 11" cardboard tablet back, only thicker (about 1/16"). This stuff is fantastic for scratch-building just about anything. I found a huge package of 12 sheets for only .$99 at a local junk store. Try Michaels, or A. C. Moore craft stores, or go online and use Google to find some for yourself. Cardstock - (Georgia-Pacific 120 Lb weight ($.4.50) is available in a generous 150-sheet 8.5 x 11-inch pack at almost any department or stationary store. Laminates easily with white glue, so you can make the finished scenery product the desired thickness. Great for making sidewalks and roads. Junk Cardboard - Save them empty cereal boxes. They're great for making almost any scenery element you can think of. Blister Packs - Almost everything you buy these days at retail stores comes in one of these frustrating and almost impossible to-open-without-cursing devices. Before you pitch it in disgust, cut out the flat areas and save them to make window glazing for your scratch-built structures. Strapping - 1" x 3" x 3/4" wood strapping ($.10 per linear ft.) is a reasonable substitute for 1"x 4" x 3/4" select #2 pine ($1.00 per linear ft.). Don't be bashful. Dig through the whole lumber pile until you come up with all straight ones. This inexpensive stuff makes a good layout base structure for a fraction of the cost of fancy select lumber.Plywood - Planning a big layout? Then you can save moderately big bucks here. Specify grade "D" plywood when you order it from a home center or building materials store. This grade comes with many indented knots that actually make great little scenic elements, such as puddles and ponds. Most of it gets covered over anyway. Grade D plywood costs about 1/3 the price of standard grade (A or B) plywood. I can get a 4 x 8 ft. x 15/32 sheet locally for about $13.00. Such a deal! Hardboard - A 4 x 8 ft. sheet of 1/4 -inch hardboard ($6.99 at Home Depot) goes a long way. You can use it to make scenery trim, tunnel portals, and tons of other things. Luan Paneling - A 4 x 8 ft. sheet of 3/32-inch Luan paneling ($7.99 at home centers) is probably enough to build the walls of 18-20 large structures. It's also great for trim work, but tends to be splintery. Small Nails - #19 - 1/2-inch flange head picture nails ($.99 at most home centers in the picture hanging dept.) are a perfect substitute for hobby store HO track spikes. Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) is better than plywood for most bench work applications, and a bit cheaper (i.e. 4' x 8' - 3/4", $24 at Home Depot). MDF has no grain to split, sands and drills like a dream, and takes track spikes without fuss. The only drawback is the ultra-fine gray dust it creates all over everything when you cut it. Caution: When you cut MDF you should wear a respirator mask rated for Hazardous Dust (not the cheap ones) if you value your lungs. Lights - Substitute clear 2 1/2-volt Christmas tree mini-light sets (discount and dollar stores carry them around the holidays) for the lights normally placed inside structures. Mini-light sets generally come 100 lights to a string - configured in two 50-light series-parallel circuits - Cut the set apart into smaller 7 or 8-light series circuits, and they'll work fine when you attach the smaller strings individually (in parallel to each other) to the 16-20 AC (or DC) terminals of a hobby power pack.Hookup Wire - The most common type of electrical hookup wire for railroad hobbyists is single-conductor 14 gauge stranded wire. Buy it by the linear foot in 500 ft. rolls at Home Depot for less than half the cost of what hobby shops ask for the same thing. click here to pin my 'Guest Map', or to leave a short comment about this website.
Links to Other Places The Black Horse Gazette - Humor and Storytelling My other website, where you can go to have a few laughs... or not
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Transrapid
International , a consortium of German engineering
firms, has successfully developed and initially tested a prototype
magnetic suspension (maglev) passenger train to be used on Chinese
railways as early as April 2004. Held to a specially designed track by
powerful opposing magnets, the train, which floats on a cushion of air a
scant half-inch (8-10 mm) above the track, is capable of traveling at
over 250 mph (400 km/h). On a recent initial test run in China, the
$1.3-billion train traversed a 19-mile (30.5 km) test track in an
unspectacular eight minutes. Of course, maglev technology is not
new. Anyone who's been to Walt Disney World in the past 30-years has
probably taken a ride on Disney's maglev Train of Tomorrow. The
difference, of course, is that tomorrow is now today.
The world's longest stretch of straight
railroad tracks are located on Australia's treeless Nullarbor Plain,
where (Sydney to Perth) Indian Pacific passenger trains traverse 296
miles (478 km) of arrow-straight railway tracks on a twice-weekly 2698
mile (4352 km) transcontinental journey.
Designed
and built by GE Transportation Systems for CSX Transportation,
the AC6000 is a high-adhesion, six-axle locomotive equipped with an
alternating current (AC) traction system rated at over 6000 horsepower.
The GE 7HDL™, a 16-cylinder, twin turbocharged, electronically
fuel-injected engine develops a whopping 6,250 ghp. At a cost of over $2
million per unit, AC6000's offer the highest traction rating ever
produced in a single-engine freight locomotive - 166,000 pounds of
continuous pulling power. Tim Allen (Home Improvement) would probably
love to plaster a big Binford sign on the side of this bad boy!
Amtrak's
Auto Train carries a quarter-million passengers (and their
vehicles) each year between Lorton, Virginia and Sanford, Florida,
covering the 855 miles with only one stop (for refueling). Typically
consisted with 20-22 hi-level sleeping coaches, and another 20-22
specially-designed enclosed auto carrier cars, AMTRAK trains #52 and 53
are officially the world's longest passenger trains. One train runs in
each direction each day, both starting at exactly 4 p.m. (1600 hrs) from
their respective northern (Lorton) and southern (Sanford ) terminus.
Amtrak started with a three-times-a-week service in 1984, and added
specially designed lounge cars in 1997.
In
the North African country of Mauritania an iron ore train runs from the
ore fields at Zouerate, to the Atlantic coastal port of Nouadhibou. This
train is most likely the world's longest regularly scheduled freight
train. Typically, the ore train's length (including locomotives)
exceeds 3 km (1.86 miles). Because it's the only transportation in
that part of the country, the ore train also doubles as a passenger
train. The fare for the 700 km (434 mile) 12-hour journey is a steal at
only $5. That's the good news. The bad news is that passengers must make
the entire journey sitting on top of loaded iron ore cars. Ouch!
The
Glacier Express, one of Switzerland's most famous train
excursions, averages only 22 mph (36 km/h) during a 7½-hour trip
between Zermatt and St. Moritz., Switzerland. Along the 169 miles
(272 km) of narrow-gauge track are 291 bridges, and 91 tunnels. The
consist, a mixture of old and new passenger cars, sometimes includes a
domed observation car. The Glacier Express operates year-round.
Kunlun
Pass, China is 14,316 feet above sea level, where the air is so
thin that most people require an oxygen mask to breathe. The soaring
altitude presents a huge problem for an army of railroad builders which
have been assigned the task of constructing the world's highest
railroad. The new 700-mile stretch of rails are designed to link the
country of Tibet to the Chinese interior. 
In 2011, the new Alp Transversale will
slice through the Swiss Alps to become the world's longest railway
tunnel.. The length of the western tube of the existing longest tunnel: Galleria
del Base del San Gotthard Tunnel is 35.272 miles (56.9 km). The new
tunnel bore will extend the existing tunnel to 46.5 miles (75 km).
Indian
Railways
than
a third-mile long. The inclined (funicular) railroad
carries passenger (fare $0.25) up a steep hill
from the Pershing Square Red-Line commuter station to California
Plaza. 
