It's SWITCHER SATURDAY 2/8/25 Edition!!!

@MELGAR posted:

We model railroaders focus on steam locomotives that haven't been built in the United States for at least sixty-five years, many of which were built long before that. I do think it's remarkable that I recently bought a brand new model (with absolutely modern electronic and manufacturing technology) of New York Central ten wheeler #1244, a locomotive that was built in 1907 -  118 years ago. So, to a large extent, the hobby focuses on the past, including railroads that also are long gone. I certainly do agree with you about steam locomotives being fascinating machines.

MELGAR

Mel, I agree totally. I just preordered a custom run PRR Atlantic #7002 with the original build date of 1902. After 4 years of starting my layout, I’m fascinated by the looks and engineering of a steam engine.

Gene

@MELGAR posted:

Looking at the 0-6-0T switchers posted today reminds me of something I've been thinking about lately.

Our hobby is focused on steam locomotives that were built almost 100 years ago (or more). The real BEDT #15 was built in 1917 by the H.K. Porter, Inc and was sold to the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal in 1935. And, as I mentioned above, Model Railroader Cyclopedia – Volume 1 – Steam Locomotives, by Linn H. Westcott, has a drawing that indicates that locomotive design originated by 1910.

In most cases, anything that old might be considered irrelevant and out of date but we keep buying models of rather old technology. The fact is that the design of these ancient locomotives was sophisticated technology that required knowledge of mechanical design, stress analysis, dynamics, and thermodynamics...

Just a thought...

MELGAR

The romance of Steam.....

Nothing like it before or since. I think it's that you can see and feel all the effort it takes make these machines move.

And they are just plain cool!!!!! 😎😎😎

Wow, Switcher Saturdays, a fun to review topic is one of my favorites, so many unique switchers, diesels, and yes Steam switchers, all uniquely useful. You will see with your very own eyes that the B&O merged with the Pennsylvania RR for today, (laugh) Happy Switcher Saturday Everyone…

Not new, but new to me.  Auction bargain from last week.  Old Protosounds MTH SW8.  I need to pick up a BCR for it and see if it runs. 

Ok I hit the wrong thread!! Icken 0-8-0! Zoom in on the firebox wrapper!

Mel:  The comments that have appeared started me thinking.  Why am I still interested in steam and fascinated by a working steam engine.  Part of that I expect is that I did my initial studies in Mechanical Engineering in the 1960's.  There is no question that the emphasis, especially in undergraduate work, was on steam.  Our labs had several working steam engines that students learned to operate. We even had a steam turbine generator plant (I was told it came from a WWII Navy destroyer) that we had to bring up to speed, float on the grid, take over the power to the bldg and then get off again...two grades A (you didn't drop the load_ or F (You did).  Another thing that I think makes steam fascinating...its visible!  You can see it hiss and move the various linkages, etc.  With internal combustion everything takes place hidden inside. In a locomotive its all under the hood.  Much less visibly interesting.  Anyway that's some of my thoughts!

Best Wishes

Don

@Don McErlean posted:

Mel:  The comments that have appeared started me thinking.  Why am I still interested in steam and fascinated by a working steam engine.  Part of that I expect is that I did my initial studies in Mechanical Engineering in the 1960's.  There is no question that the emphasis, especially in undergraduate work, was on steam.  Our labs had several working steam engines that students learned to operate. We even had a steam turbine generator plant (I was told it came from a WWII Navy destroyer) that we had to bring up to speed, float on the grid, take over the power to the bldg and then get off again...two grades A (you didn't drop the load_ or F (You did).  Another thing that I think makes steam fascinating...its visible!  You can see it hiss and move the various linkages, etc.  With internal combustion everything takes place hidden inside. In a locomotive its all under the hood.  Much less visibly interesting.  Anyway that's some of my thoughts!

Best Wishes

Don

Don,

I don't want to get too far off the topic of switchers but after I resumed model railroading, I realized that the mechanical engineering curriculum as it was taught in the 1960s included everything you needed to know about steam locomotives. There was at least one course that taught a student how to design each different part of a steam locomotive.

MELGAR

@CAPPilot posted:

I tried to pull a couple of my track cleaning cars with my Weaver PRR C1 heavy shifter.  As I applied power the sound of grinding gears became louder and the engine did not move.  I am now looking for someone who can fix it.

Ron,

Give Alex M a call. He can fix anything with TMCC or Legacy.

JohnB

@JohnB posted:

Ron,

Give Alex M a call. He can fix anything with TMCC or Legacy.

JohnB

Alex has upgraded/repaired the electronics in many of my engines over the years, and currently has another one.  I am positive Alex can fix this, but I have been going to someone else for these type repairs.  However, that person now has had one of my engines for nearly two years so looking for someone new.  Hopefully I get my 3rd Rail H6 back from him while I can still enjoy it.  By the late 1940s the Pennsy used them as switchers.

@CAPPilot posted:

However, that person now has had one of my engines for nearly two years so looking for someone new.

I respectfully suggest you get in touch with that person ASAP and insist your engine be returned.

I suspect he's either burned out and it will never be fixed, or he's lost parts and is procrastinating telling you, etc. SOMETHING is not right.

I hope this works out for you.

Andre

Welcome to the ALCo 0-6-0 saddle tank by Lionel club, Patrick! I also really like your PW PRR fire-fighter! Be careful with that critter, though, as they tend to overheat more than the various 2-4-2 PW switchers based on the same chassis due to tighter confines in the shell.

You also mention "Safety First" in your post and, I don't know how you knew it, but that is exactly what I had planned for my SWSAT Sunday Supplement post. Here is K-Line's Safety Award set given to CSAO employees in 2000 plus an E. H. Harriman Memorial Medal Bronze Award K-Line boxcar from 1976 headed up by the scale K-Line CR "Pulling for Safety" SW1500:

Stay safe everyone and have a happy SWSAT week!

Here is an older photo of my Navy switcher moving dodx flatcars.

My New Haven 0-6-0 consigned to excursions through mountain/ ski areas   Coaches donated from several local railroads.  My Father was a medic in wwII. He would have loved that Army medical transport.

@Bill Swatos posted:

Welcome to the ALCo 0-6-0 saddle tank by Lionel club, Patrick! I also really like your PW PRR fire-fighter! Be careful with that critter, though, as they tend to overheat more than the various 2-4-2 PW switchers based on the same chassis due to tighter confines in the shell.

You also mention "Safety First" in your post and, I don't know how you knew it, but that is exactly what I had planned for my SWSAT Sunday Supplement post. Here is K-Line's Safety Award set given to CSAO employees in 2000 plus an E. H. Harriman Memorial Medal Bronze Award K-Line boxcar from 1976 headed up by the scale K-Line CR "Pulling for Safety" SW1500:

Stay safe everyone and have a happy SWSAT week!

Bill thanks for your welcome to the Lionel 0-6-0 T club!  I assure you that  I'm totally enjoying my membership!  Thanks too for the heads up regarding the firefighting unit.  The last thing I need is for the firefighting car to go up in flames ... LOL!  Seriously though I will limit its' running time whenever I do run it .. thanks to your tip!  

Your Safety Train looks great!  Got to love that beautiful CR "Pulling for Safety" SW1500!!

Btw - I'm not clairvoyant .. LOL!!  I had no supernatural knowledge of what  you were planning to post this week.

Switcher Saturday's Sunday edition rolls on. First it seems as if the star of this edition of Switcher Saturday is Lionel's 0-6-0T.  I've got one, the North Pole Central No. 25, previously posted.  Here's a short video.

@Arnold D. Cribari and @charles mcdaniel brought up VO1000s, Arnold has a MTH and Charles has a Weaver.  Like Charles I have a Weaver.  Mine is a black Great Northern with "Rocky" on the hood equipped with TMCC.  It's been ages since I've run mine and I have never used the TMCC.  Sorry no pictures.

That brings me to my take on Mel's observation about our infatuation with steam.  Like many have said we can see these massive machines doing the work and how they do it.  All things mechanical especially when one can see it working seem to attract humans but I think for those in this hobby it goes beyond that.  Before we were engineers, mechanical, civil or otherwise, before we were modelers before most of us had even seen a live steam engine of any sort we were kids with toy trains.  The toy steam engines some of us had displayed moving rods that we could make travel at dizzying speeds, smoke units to emulate steam exhaust coming from the "smoke stack" and a melodious air whistle with it's low moan.  Some of my friends had diesels, F units in bright paint schemes, brutish looking GPs, some had sleek curving electrics, GG1s and EP5s.  There were no moving parts to grab the attention of a child, no smoke to puff out the stack and no moaning air whistle just a buzz or a bleat from an electric buzzer.  Even today with the incredible electronic sound systems the puffs in time with the revolutions are more attention grabbing then the sound of most of the diesels, Alcos  and maybe FMs aside,  Yes the start up and shutdown sounds and the acceleration, if you have a layout where you can gradually build speed, may be interesting but once up to speed the sound of EMD and GE engines doesn't excite like the chuff of the steam engine.  As we got older we became interested in mechanical things but I believe the infatuation with steam engines in this hobby goes back to those toy trains.

Now bringing this edition of SWSAT back to the last edition of SWSAT, there was the discussion of slowing down WBB 44 and 70 tonners by wiring in series instead of in parallel as they come from the factory, along with @Don McErlean and @Bill Swatos, i felt that I could operate my 70 tonner sufficiently slow just using the transformer handle in conventional mode.  Here's what I came up with.

Not as slow as some of @Tom Densel's moves but slow enough for my tastes.

@coach joe posted:

Now bringing this edition of SWSAT back to the last edition of SWSAT, there was the discussion of slowing down WBB 44 and 70 tonners by wiring in series instead of in parallel as they come from the factory, along with @Don McErlean and @Bill Swatos, i felt that I could operate my 70 tonner sufficiently slow just using the transformer handle in conventional mode.  Here's what I came up with.

Not as slow as some of @Tom Densel's moves but slow enough for my tastes.

Joe, what voltage does your transformer start with? And is it an older "full-wave" AC unit? You're getting much better low speed operation of your 70-tonner than I do with mine on my Z-1000 which opens at 2.5V and produces "chopped-wave" AC. I'm thinking of adding a low-resistance wire-wound resistor in the "hot" line from the track under the hood to produce lower starting voltage to the boards.

@Bill Swatos posted:

Joe, what voltage does your transformer start with? And is it an older "full-wave" AC unit? You're getting much better low speed operation of your 70-tonner than I do with mine on my Z-1000 which opens at 2.5V and produces "chopped-wave" AC. I'm thinking of adding a low-resistance wire-wound resistor in the "hot" line from the track under the hood to produce lower starting voltage to the boards.

Bill, I'm using a Lionel GW-180 on that track.  There is no resistance when moving the throttle handle on my controller so getting a slow start is sometime difficult but if it jackrabbits I can definitely get it slowed down as you can see.  I haven't put a voltmeter on the rails with the 70 tonner, if I get a chance I'll to do it I'll let you know.