Driver wheels slipping on axles

[t. alexander]

Bill, to tell truth I can't tell from just pictures i've seen how the stub type work. Can you explain how?

My layout depicts a small road in the southeast.

Thats basically what i've been doing - bench type work. it's been awhile and i'm having to get re-familiarized with everything.

I don't plan on building the Ho layout in the caboose (if it ever gets finished that is) But i might run an old O scale i have in a simple loop in either the A or B end. hopfully i'll have the new roof on the caboose by this winter.

There was an MR artical i read about a 4-4-0 built around 1880 that was overhauled and "modernized" in the middle 1920's, (scrapped in the thirties) this is what mine is based on. Naturally it will pull my passenger train.

t.

 

[Gary Pfeil]

Bill, sounds like one of the Hill lines, either NP or GN!

Gary

 

[60103]

stub turnouts

t:
Think of stub turnouts as being switches with the points cut off, so you come a few (real) inches past the frog. Then lay a piece of flex track up to the cut ends. Swing the flex so it lines up with one route then the other. That's how I made my first switch -- i coudn't see filing down the points (I'd already made the frog and all I had was a nailfile!) (I was young at the time.)
Prototype stub switches are a bit fancier, with all sorts of hardware in them. They also don't swing the ties. I think some of the railroads used them for a long time in heavy snow areas because they didn't jam.
Disadvantage is that if you run through the wrong way, you go right off the rails instead of breaking the switch.

 

[Bill Stone]

David did a good job of explaining the stub.

They were the common turnout through the 1890's, and many were still in place until about 1920. After that they were probably only found on a few branch lines, logging roads, narrow gauges, etc. Certainly not class 1 roads.

I haven't actually built any yet, but think I have it planned out well. I think they'll be easier to build than point turnouts, but more difficult to control, as the alignment at both ends of the movement is critical, and you haven't the advantage of pushing points right up against rail for alignment. Once they are installed and working perfectly I suspect they'll to be less troublesome than point type turnouts. (No flanges picking the points, etc.)

Gary: No.... Further south than the NP and UP. In my imaginary scenario, the J&O connects with the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley, which was absorbed by the C&NW around 1890. The FEMV ran from Omaha, into the Black Hills of So Dakota, and on into Wyoming. All that actual stuff was a little later than my time period, so I'm fudging that by ten years or so.

Bill S

 

[Gary Pfeil]

Bill, I've done a fair amount of reading on railroads but have to admit I've never heard of the FEMV. I do tend to concentrate on the northeast tho. Your time period with handlaid stub switches sounds like an opportunity to really build a unique layout. I look forward to the day when you are able to post some pictures. Was the FEMV built for the purpose of getting federal land grants like the Central Pacific and Union Pacific or was it built like the Hill lines, without a penny of federal money? One of the most devasting blows to capitalism was when the feds decided they needed a transcontinental railroad. Since no private capitalist wanted to build one (no traffic to offset the cost) the government decided to offer land as an incentive. This proved disasterous tho many blame the railroads not the government. the resulting railroad was able to charge arbitrary rates, adjusting them to whatever the farmers could afford, farmers who mostly lived on land owned by the railroads. When people became outraged by the treatment afforded them by the railroad, it was not government policy which took the blame, but the concept of capitalism. so government controls were needed to protect the people from the greedy capitalists. No one acknowledges that the terrible acts perpetrated by these railroads were made possible only by govenment interference into the economy. Pardon me for this diversion from the topic at hand, this subject has always been one of interest to me. We now return to our originally posted topic.

Gary

 

[Bill Stone]

Gary,

Oh well. We're a few miles off the subject of this thread anyway. "t" must think we're a wierd bunch, for his original quiery to have gotten so lost in all this.

I first ran across the FEMV in Model Railroader. It must have been in the sixties --- a proto drawing for a box car. In '98 I found a neat thing on the web, a "reprint" of an article from the 5 June 1887 "Nebraska State Journal". (I just checked and the web site I found it on is no longer there.) I'll quote a couple of snippets from it. Too lazy to retype it. It's three pages single-spaced. If you (or anyone else) want to read it all, email me your snailmail address, and I'll send you a photocopy.

(Remember this is 1887) "What today constitutes the Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley railroad commenced some fifteen or sixteen year [sic] ago....."

"The company never having asked, nor received a land grant, were building the line with their own private funds, and this left the country adjacent to it open to settlement by homesteading and pre-emption at the will of any citizen....." (Sounds like a RR after your own heart!)

By 1887, the line seems to have been completed from Omaha, to Elkhorn, Fremont, West Point, and Norfolk, all in Nebraska, and on to Douglas, Wyoming, with a branch to Rapid City, South Dakota. I read somewhere that subsequently it was extended from Douglas on to Lander, Wyoming, just east of the continental divide. That may have been after the C&NW took it over.

I deviate from actual history by having my Jefferson & Overland get across the divide somehow, and connect with the FEMV at Lander..... before 1880.

Bill S

 

[billk]

I just did a google search for "Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley " and came up with 200+ matches - there's got to be something of interest in them!

 

[t. alexander]

BOY! By all means continue guys, 'Course i got lost at the first switch back there but thats ok, i'm enjoying the read.

BTW, thanks for the stub switch info.

t.

 

[Gary Pfeil]

Bill, I know that for the last ten years or so there has been a greater and greater following of faithfulness to the prototype, and I'm not knocking it, I have a great deal of respect for those who spend all the time necassary to research their chosen road. I started to do so about 5 years ago witht the NYC in the Hudson valley circa 1950. I read all I could find, asked questions on NYC forums, etc. I was able to see what's left of it today. But I soon discovered I didn't like all the research and that there seemed there would always be something I would do wrong, so I have gotten to the point where I decided to be happy with a fairly accurate depection and couple it with my previous freelanced line. Your deviation (o.k., this is where all this ties in to your last post!) is small compared to mine! I have added a whole fictional town so the NYC could interchange with my JGL. And traffic patterns to allow interchange. But I wouldn't have it any other way, because I have found I like using my imagination to create my own realistic road, running from Philly to Boston. I hope you'll be able to start your road soon and that you get your computer to talk to your camera. I am having problems in that area myself. Oh, and yes, the FEMV does sound like my kind of road!

Gary