Don't Lie To Me Your Highness . . .

Eliot...are you considering converting the main layout to 2-rail???

 

Alan

Alan,

The layout will be completed in late 2014.

I am considering the donation of the layout to an appropriate venue.

 

 

 

 

Alan,

The layout will be completed in late 2014.

I am considering the donation of the layout to an appropriate venue.

 

Oh OH!.... Here we go again!

Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient 2 Rail religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen MTH engine designs, or given you enough clairvoyance to find Mike Reagan's hidden fortress...

 

Eliot, you don't have to keep calling me "Your Highness" just call me Don. 

OMG !!!

Nooooooooooooooooo !!!!

Not a hospital.

Nooooooooooooooooo !!!!

 

A train museum or history museum.

 

I just received your latest how-to article today, Scrappy!  Don't go disposing of that 3-rail pike until after at least a dozen or so additional articles are safely in my hands!  

I got out of two rail, as reliability was just too much of an issue. Three rail has allowed me to enjoy the hobby much more.

 

 

As a side note, two of the 2 rail layout owners from the O scale March meet tour list stated that "if they had to do it all over, they would have gone three rail instead of two rail".

 

 

To me that is a pretty powerful statement especially since the layout is on display for the generally two rail crowd.

 

Charlie

       
       


I understand the issue of much more equipment
available in 3-rail. but if 2-rail is the only track
in ho scale which is 75% (?) if the hobby, not to
mention on30 and s-scale, is 2-rail o scale any
more or less reliable than those scales?
the track sure is appealing.

jerrman

Sorry about the title, Jeff.

if I can give you some help, just e-mail.

 

Marty, I didn't see the Cab 1 in Darth's hands until now.

Sooooo cool !!

Scrappy

I am very proud of the third rail - I think it means my trains and layout are 50% better than two-rail.  

If I ever did model 2 rail, it'd be once the technology catches up and I can put a rechargeable battery in every freight car and daisy chain them through the air lines to run the trains R/C like the garden guys are doing.  (No more track cleaning!  Yay!)

Wowak,

in the latest issue of Model Railroader there is a DCC amplifier that sends a radio frequency signal to a battery powered loco With whatever DCC action you desire.

I can see that as a great step. No layout wiring. 

Well you'll still have to wire your signals and switches, but yeah.

eliot

If you want to go 2 rail real quick just put the word out that your middle rail is made of copper or gold and stand back and watch it disappear.  

A 2 rail narrow gauge layout set in Maine has intrigued me for some time. And last weekend, I did buy two back issues of Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette. That's all I'm saying on the matter.

This is a good discussion page and I love the humor, Scrapiron Scher and Marty E. To me, humor is the best way to voice concern over some trend or line of thought that is suspect. OGR is supposedly O gauge. Period. That should be big enough to entail anyone's pursuit of happiness, but some guys are simply too frickin' arrogant and maybe too well-heeled to think any opinion but theirs counts. Is this a people's forum, or is it the domain of the high-scalers? 

 

I switched from 3 rail to 2 rail 0 about 10 years ago after 20 years in 3 rail. It has been a great experience. Reliability on my layout has been equal to my 3 rail experience. Some of the wiring takes more time but it isn't difficult. For the railroad I model there are MORE accurate models available in 2 rail than in 3 rail.

 

I've never done H0 so I don't really know much about it for comparison but local 0 scalers say 0 is more reliable do to weight. And if an eighth inch gap opens up in H0 I guess you'd have trouble where in 0 the trains will just ride over it. I back 30-40 car trains through 5 yard switches routinely without a hitch at all and local H0ers comment about that from time to time.

 

There also is a guy in our local group who is doing what Scrapiron mentions with RC and batteries very nicely. 

In my theoretical eventual PA coal region layout, I'm heavily considering adding at least a smidge of On30 at a coal mine.

Well....To be perfectly honest....if I had not been so vested in the collector mentality and had so many 3-rail locomotives, I would have gone 2-rail.  Way back in the late 70's and early 80's a 2-rail locomotive usually was made of brass, unpainted, and no sound, etc.  Many of then had to be re-motored because the stock motors didn't run well.  It could cost thousands of dollars to have a nice, painted 2-rail locomotive when for the same amount I could have ten 3-rail units...even if they weren't "to scale".  As a "collector" that meant more..... and more was the "word" in collecting!!  As it turns out, it took several decades for me to realize that "more" didn't mean as much as "less"....how does the saying go..??  "Less is more"...  Yep, now I know that for the money I spent on hundreds of 3-rail locomotives, I could have had more than I would ever use in 2-rail scale. 

 

In the future, I see radio control in 2-rail playing a major role and will essentially do away with wiring in the conventional sense.  We have friends that have outdoor railroads and for years now have done away with wiring for the most part and also done away with track cleaning, special wiring, etc. through the use of radio control.  The bad side of this is that the large scale trains that we bought to run on our friend's garden railroad are still dependent on track power so we don't get invited to run trains anymore....they just don't enjoy dealing with track power issues (dirty track) which go away with radio control.

 

So....my goal over time is to have a 3-rail layout that is as close to "scale" as possible EXCEPT for the 3rd rail.  Why???....because I am having a lot of fun right now involving the detailing and model building aspects of the layout as much if not more than the trains....so I accept the 3rd rail....for now...

 

Alan

Two rail scale is just another Jedi mind trick to turn you to the dark side.

I ran O as a kid, then HO when I was an early teenager and then G scale with a modular group and friends backyards and now back to O and 0n30...dirty track is dirty track no matter what the gauge.

Garden RC is a nice way to go when there was just brass rail for outside use - and still is the hot ticket now.

I guess I'm missing the issue with 2 rail dependablility...is it dirty track...switch issues...? 

Ahw, my CAB-1 antenna doesn't glow like that...can I get that in red?

These are not the trains your looking for....move along.

"Unhappy if you go - you will be"

...alright, where's the star wars CDs...I'm gonna need more ammo...and surround sound!

Kadees! Detail! The scale side are they! Once you go down that path, forever will it control your destiny!

Going to 2-rail, Eliot, will cause:  decrease of testosterone, increase of bad cholesterol, decrease of on-head hair follicles, increase in prostrate problems, decrease in bank account, and an increase in bad breath.  

 

Not a good move, I say.  

 

Good one Matt!

Eliot, I would never lie to you. 

 

But I will warn you that you are in danger of being seduced by the dark side if you don't take heed of the difficulties that you may face.

 

In 3-rail modeling, the Force is kept in perfect balance by the two outer rails equally balancing its power, and keeping everything simple, in perfect peace and harmony.

But with 2-rail, the Force is unrestrained and flips from side to side as it negotiates the extra wiring complications. This can lead to enough frustration to cause anger to swell to the surface, and feed the urges of the dark side. 

Eliot - you need to stay as far away from two rails as possible.  You might try some gauntlet track - I figure I have extra anti-dark side mojo on my layout because I have five-rail track on part of it out.  So I am way, way over on the good side of the Farce . . . uhh, Force.

 

 

I always thought this old Lionel GE Dash-9 Demonstrator reminded me of the Dark Lord a bit:

 

 

"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed.  The ability to have properly sized couplers and the right number of rails is insignificant next to the power of the third rail!"

 

-Dave

Elliot: What's in there?

2 Rails: Only what you take with you

Go head!

AG.

3 rail modelers are well grounded.

 

Resistance (to ground) is futile!

Meesa wunders ifn heesa missa da forced rail!?! Maybees Heesa commin back!?!

Last train to Alderaan. Literally last train to Alderaan. Last train to ... Nevermind Tatoioine now boarding.

Kid, I've flown from one train show to another, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe that there's one all-powerful "Real Scale" controlling everything.

 

No mystical 2-Rail energy field controls my layout.  It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense. 

 

Hokey religions and fancy scenery are no match for that dependable third rail down the middle, kid...