City Blocks

I once wanted to build an aircraft carrier in 1/4 scale until I found out it would take up 20 feet or so.  If I had the room I would have tried to do it.  But, unfortunately...trains get priority.

Rick

1/4 scale?  That can't be right as I've yet to see an 80 foot aircraft carrier.  Did you mean 1/48?

Thanks MichMikeM,  yes I did mean 1/48 scale.  LOL  I'd like to see 1/4 scale too.  LOL  Wish I had room for that bad boy.

Rick

Everything on our layouts has to be selectively compressed and that includes the size of our towns. All you want to do is give the impression of a town. So I guess we're "Impressionists". N-Scale guys can approximate scale-sized scenes, and the HO guys come close in the bigger layouts, but O'scale just can't do it unless you in a stadium-sized place. Just look what a steel plant takes up.

I've worked at chemical plants that were more than a mile long. That's 110 feet in O'scale. The Henkel Main Plant where I worked in Germany had 40 kilometers of track just inside the plant property.

I was really happy to find out that once around my outer loop plus another 18 feet of the new layout is a scale mile. We can then get pretty good timing in mph. My 8-year old grandson and I figured it out on Saturday when he was over. He's a whiz kid and had no trouble understanding the concept or the math. Incidentally, I'm building the town over top of the part of the layout so I'll have more space for buildings and streets. In one direction this gives me over 8 linear feet for the main street, which is almost two city blocks.

of course you mean 1/4" scale...  i used to work for the Navy and for their shipboard antenna placement, they actually test 1:48 scale equipment on brass ship models.

http://www.spawar.navy.mil/san...nna_model_range.html

most are not very detailed except when the ship type becomes retired.  at that point they sometimes took the ship back into the model shop and fully decked out the model for use in some conference room display.  i saw a few of the smaller frigates and destroyers that were finished off.  super models, but yes, ... BIG!

cheers...gary

Sorry for the confusion. I accidentally posted today's update from my railroad build blog to this site. My roller mouse is having problems where the back button is activated randomly. It gets very confusing and I lost a post I was doing. I redid the post, but didn't realize that it also jumped me back to this thread.

That being said, the finest 1:48 models of ships that I've even seen are the Gibbs and Cox Naval models built for the Navy. Gibbs and Cox is a marine engineering firm that did the engineering on many capital ships for the USN. They are still in business. Their Missouri in this scale is 19 feet long and is housed in the US Navy Museum in Annapolis. It used to be in the Smithsonian. Every gun, chock, cable reel, etc. is a perfect model in its own right. I used pictures of this model extensively in building my Missouri rendition in 1:350. I like 1:48 because you can really do some wonderful detail work, and there's a heft to the models that isn't available in smaller scales, but not immovable as it is when building in Gauge 1.

I've got enough room to do some nice things with a 38 X 15 foot layout.

Those who have the chance to visit the Smithsonian's Air/Space Museum in D.C. should view Steven Henniger's massive 1/100-scale model of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, complete with its contingent of aircraft.  It's an incredible model, worthy of its honored place in the museum.

But as massive as it is, it's only less than half the size of what one would have to do in 1/48.  To which I'd say, 'Good Luck!', and "Bon Voyage!' on a lifetime of work!

Of course, I still shake my head in awe and amazement when I see a live steam 4-8-8-4 built to 7" gauge rumble by at a steam-up.  Good grief, Charlie Brown!!

And I Truly want one of those, but the cost , Oh Goodness !!!

I'll be lucky to ever afford a 4-8-0 in 7.25".

search out a live steam track in your area.  believe me, they are always glad to get help with construction and maintenance (especially in the NorthEast with their weather).  and most of these guys will be more than willing to share their experience and perhaps give you some insight on how to get into the hobby on a shoestring.  in the meantime, helping out will sometimes be greeted with offers of running a locomotive from time to time by one of the grateful owners.  some groups even have club owned equipment that you can get qualified to run.

For most of my adult life I wanted to build a live steam engine. I came close in the early 70s when my students and I constructed a vertical stationary steam engine from scratch. I was a metal shop teacher and this was the crowning achievement of that phase of my life before I exited public education shop teaching and went to work as an industrial trainer in industry. The kids made the casting patterns in wood shop. We cast parts using aluminum from melted down small engine pistons. It worked and it was very, very cool.

I could never find the $$ or space to put in a machine shop worthy of building a locomotive. I have a small Taig lathe, but it's too small for this kind of work.

When my son was about 10, I took him to the late Dan Culp's house to see his shop and his engines. Dan is well-known in Live Steam circles having built a 1/4" to the foot, 4-6-6-4 UP Challenger. The engine weighed over 2,000 pounds, engine and tender are 10 feet long. Dan was a tool and die maker at Leeds and Northrup, a famous industrial instrument maker in the Philly area, and created everything on the engine except for the boiler—a piece of seamless stainless steel tubing—and the drivers, which he cast in New York. It had roller bearings on all axles (like the real one) and was magnificent. 

What made it more exceptional was the house Dan lived in. It was a typical Philadelphia style row house in Willow Grove, PA which was about 20 feet wide. To get the engine out of the basement into the van he owned, he cut a hole through the foundation and had tracks running up to the hole at the exact same elevation as the tracks laid in the truck's bed. He just rolled the engine through the hole into the truck. Dan built other engines in his building career and they were all masterpieces.

Is that not a thing of absolute beauty? That's Dan driving it. Engines of this size must be inspected by boiler inspectors since it has enough explosive capacity to be dangerous if it weren't designed, built or operated poorly.

I am now of an age where I don't have the resources or inclination to get into another aspect of our hobby. And the fact that I've dropped almost 4 grand on my railroad's rebuild doesn't help either. 4 grand could equip a nice machine shop, but unlike Dan Culp, I wouldn't have any way of getting it out of the basement once it's done. I'm at an age where I will probably be too old or worse to ever see the end of the project since it can take years to build one of these things. There are many "Live Steam Widows" out there trying to unload their dead husband's half-finished locomotives.

I used to take the kids on rides at the Pennsylvania Live Steamers track in Rahns, PA. We all had a great time...even me!

That's too bad. It was a real nice place to take kids.

it's usually a combination of things that drive clubs away from public ride days.  i do see that the PA Live Steamers offer an Associate Membership for $30/year, however.