Happy New Year!

Yup, guess what? Now we can shed the old and bring in the new. New goals, new ideas, new plans, new friends, new money and more! This new year will be better than last year. The year 2019 was better than the year before. I can hardly wait. As omscaler writes this he is in the process of learning new things and also building the Murphysboro Passenger depot. So far, only the drawings have been worked on. Lots of detail and complexity. But, as readers know, omscaler is persistent. The results will be worth the work. Maybe a new motto for 2020! Also, more things planned as was mentioned before. I think I am excited! Again, Happy New Year and Prosperity to the readers of this blog and their family and friends. Celebrating, omscaler

Merry Christmas!

Yes! It’s that time of year again. What a great Holiday! We can celebrate the birth of The Messiah, Immanuel, Jesus Christ The Lord and other honorific titles we use to describe Jesus. Did you know that in the Old Testament, Jesus is Joshua. What has all this got to do with model trains? Well it is this. The great message of The Gospel is this, people can be forgiven their sins and people do not have to sin. This was the groundbreaking message of the Great Reformation, the two-pronged Gospel. In ancient times, pagan people were forever knocking on trees, throwing salt around the house, trying not to knock over the salt, all in order not ot offend a deity. They were also ruled by some kind of overlord in most cases. It was through The Gospel that people began to rise out of the mud. Because their minds were renewed, they began to invent and innovate. Some will point out that other groups not associated with Christianity also innovated. Not a problem as I can see. Progress is progress. Anyway, technology came to the fore. Then it became commonplace. Then most people had modern conveniences. Then I had a model railroad. A compact account I know. Currently we are enjoying the new freighthouse and have begun the historic Mobile and Ohio Railroad passenger station with the main headquarters located on the second floor. See the old building on google maps satellite view of Murphysboro, IL at Walnut and 17^th Streets. In the season, omscaler

“Summit Fever!”

Yes, your dear omscaler got “summit fever”. As some of you know, summit fever is what happens when mountain climbers get near the top of mountains like Annapurna and Mt. Everest and others. Sometimes this condition is fatal as the climbers are exhausted, low on oxygen, energy, water, and food. The climbers get giddy, ebulent and overly optimistic about their ability to complete the summit attempt. My case happened sometime after nine o’clock Sunday night. I was trying to wrap up the critical Murphysboro freight house project when suddenly it dawned on me that it was getting late. I looked at the clock. I looked at the project. I looked back at the clock. I looked back at the project. I thought to myself, “I’m gonna’ do it!”. So I went for the final push. When I got done, I looked at the clock again. The clock said ten o’ seven P.M. I was done! No altitude sickness, no frostbite. Now we have a temporary base of operations in Murphysboro. We can dispatch trains, organize repairs and ship freight. Soon, other facilities will take over some of this. Until that time, the freighthouse is where it’s at. Yours, planning more projects, omscaler

Hello from Murphysboro Illinois!

Well, not really. As I have mentioned before, the main Omega Scale Railway module is modeled after Murphysboro, Illinois, with a number of modifications. Specifically, the module is twenty-two percent of a mile long. This leaves less room than you would thing, even for The Omega Scale Railway with it’s great size of 1/384. Therefore, the freight house has been modified also. There are two reasons for this. First is that the original real freight house had pavement right up to the vehicle loading door side. As a matter of note, the passenger depot had the rear wall set at the pavement line as well. This possibly can be seen even today. The second reason is that the few photos that I could find were from only one perspective and your dear old omscaler had to interpolate the actual dimensions to work from. See, didn't I tell you that working on these projects was fun! Having fun as ususal, until next time, omscaler

What a difference a day makes redux

Yes, The Omega Scale Railway is a learning experience. It seems like within the hour after I finished the covered hopper, I came up with a better idea for the needed components. How ironic that it was after I finished the railcar that I got the idea. But, sometimes, that is how it is. Anyway, the new component is something I have wanted for a long time now. What it does is combine the coupler pin with both shoe retainer pins into one unit. This saves space, saves time, uses material that is both cheaper and easier to use, looks better, is easier to build. Am I leaving something out? Maybe not. However, this has caused me to put some cars into the backshop to refit the new component. Oh, well, we will get her done. Til next week, omscaler

A covered hopper?

As you read this, a covered hopper is already installed on The Omega Scale Railway. Again, we are very proud to have another common car type on the layout. This actually gives us a variety of rolling stock. Omscaler loves variety. Variety is the spice of life. Back to the covered hopper. Covered hoppers were used to haul commodities that would be damaged if it were to become wet. Cement powder comes to mind. Perhaps you, the reader can do omscaler a favor and use the comment section to inform us what other commodities were transported using a covered hopper. Also, all readers are invited to comment, good or bad, on the blog. Hoping to hear from You. until next time, omscaler

Another day, another railcar

It’s finally here. The 50 ton, thirty-four foot hopper. Complete with reporting marks. The hopper is owned by the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad. The car number is 32018. The color is solid black. We are very proud to have this example of a common type railcar on the property. We plan to build many more, relatively speaking. So, where to now? As omscaler has stated before, a number of needs for the OSR are always competing for priority. But since we are on a roll with railcars, the next car project wil be...(drum roll), dah, tah, dah, dah, a covered hopper. Truthfully, I hope to have parallel projects working. Having done the hopper, omscaler thinks he can do this. Wish me luck! again, optimistic, omscaler

Back on track

Yes, we are back on track after the major debacle. And yes we are posting from home. Many of you probably were not aware that I have using the public library to get online. I am happy to report that now things have improved so that I can get online at home. Oh happy day! Speaking of a happy report. Let me give you a little report on a train show I attended recently. The show seemed better that last year. Turnout was favorable. I was glad to see old friends and meet new ones. I even took my youngest grandson. I took a number of pics. A good time was had by all. If you have the opportunity, go to a show in your area. I am now working on the planned hopper. Going slowly, that’s s l o w l y. Too slowly for me, but slow down I must. Yours, slowing down, omscaler

Holy cow, another disaster!

Yep, we got bit. Fortunately, it was one of those times when I decided to post ahead. Last week’s post was already posted and scheduled before disaster struck. I posted early due my plan to attend a local model railroad show. Boy was I glad I did so. The only thing was, I had placed the newest railcars on the layout without reporting marks. If you recall, I mentioned this last post. After the disaster occurred, I realized I still needed to do this. I tried not to remonstrate myself too much and worked on the problem as best I could. The problem, in fact was the failure of my personal computer. No booting, no nothing. I took it to a local vendor of electronics. They were nice enough to get an initial prognosis. Same thing. No booting, no nothing. There was power and the screen kept coming back to the “choose last good configuration setting”. That was all it did. Dead in the water I was. Well, the upshot was, it was time to buy a new processor. Oh what fun! The thing came with a new key board and mouse. Our friendly manufacturers always change the connecting hardware it seems. So, no use of old peripheral with the exception of the monitor. (But give this time as well. }:>) The bright spot in all this was that I had a major backup of all files. The only exception to this was that I had to grab the last two blog posts off of my “carry” jump drive. If I had not done this, I would have probably voluntarily committed my self to Belleview*.  Anyway, I worked and worked and got almost everything sorted out, with one exception. (Enough exceptions, already.) My camera transfer software had to be downloaded from the web. No web at my home. This may be changing soon. I did get to transfer pics with the new processor. Another win for the omscaler. Planning to win some more, omscaler

*Historic New York hospital for the insane :)

Getting good marks

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that the gondolas were on the property, i.e. on the layout. I also mentioned that they were without reporting marks. No, the gondolas were not attending school. How would they raise their hands to respond to the teacher anyway? No, reporting marks as I have probably already mentioned, have the initials of the owning railroad as well as the individual car number, or equipment number if a locomotive or other vehicle on rails. These marks are mandated by Federal law. Sometimes the car will have the initials or roadname in large letters on the side of the equipment if there is enough room and the owners chooses to do so. How many of you readers know of an actual example of what I am referring to? Please post your response in the comment section. I will get us started. The SOO railroad comes to my mind. Looking forward to some fun examples being posted, omscaler

What about the terminal? 

Last post I wrote about the sandhouse and how sand was handled. This got me thinking, “What about the terminal?” I wasn't thinking about the passenger depot or the freight house. I was thinking about the railway shops. Many posts ago I wrote about Murphysboro being the headquarters for the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. As stated the main shops were located here. The facility had a roundhouse, car shops as well as the coaling tower and sand and water and other buildings as well. Seems like I need to think about filling out my little railroad. Hopefully the future schedule will allow me to get busy with all these things. Thinking out loud, omscaler

They are finally complete 

Yes, the much vaunted gondolas are now complete. Well, almost. They still need reporting marks. I am debating about brake wheels and brake stands as well. Maybe I should have a contest about which reporting marks? Perhaps not. These things can get a little heated if not handled correctly. Now with the  gondolas at work, we can haul sand, gravel and more. We can get sand to the forthcoming sandhouse. You may be wondering, “What is a sandhouse?”. Well, dear readers, sand is used to give locomotives traction when the wheels slip. Ice, snow, rain, bugs (yes, locusts can be so numerous they cause problems with slippery rails). The air system blows sand from the sand dome or sand container in the case of diesels to just where it is needed at the wheels. So the locomotives get their sand from a container elevated above the locomotives height. The container gets sand piped to it by air. The sandhouse gets sand from a large bin on the ground. The bin looks like a pen with wooden fences. A load of sand is brought in and emptied into the bin. This sand is called “green” sand. It may be wet or damp. A worker moves the sand into the sandhouse where it is dried with heat and then piped to the above track container. Betch'a didn't know all this about sand, did you? Well, anyway, see you next time, sandy and gritty, omscaler

We were back at the shop 

Yes, sometimes what the omscaler does has to be redone or more correctly repaired. Recently I experienced a couple of retainers coming off the railcar. Close examination revealed components that were somewhat over sized on the lower “shoe” or plate. It may have been that I thought I had modified this equipment but apparently I did not remove enough material or possibly skipped these cars in my mad rush to enjoy my model trains. Anyway, the suspects were apprehended and modified and returned to duty. It is incidents like these that sometimes delay current efforts. But this is all part of a smooth running model railroad. We are still moving forward. As a side note, I recently had the opportunity to attend a festival. The name of the festival was “Whistle Stop”. The location of the festival was located at a shopping area in west Leeds, Alabama. The Whistle Stop restaurant is located in Irondale, Alabama. It was prominent in a book and movie, “Fried Green Tomatoes”. When I first learned of this, I thought “What gives?”. I finally learned that some politics and finances had levered the festival away from its original location. Oh well, the only constant is change. See you next post, omscaler

Hoppin' hoppers! 

Last post, we talked about gondolas. This time we'll look at hoppers. They were often used to carry the same types of material, but were larger. The first hoppers back in the days of early railroading, looked a lot like gondolas but with one significant difference. The bottom of the hopper had latched swing-open doors for rapid discharge of the load. Over time the door mechanism improved and the hopper became much larger. In the modern era, we now have rapid discharge hoppers with one long nearly car length doors as opposed to the four door configuration that was the standard over many years. On the OSR, we will use the historic four bottom door design. Typically a fifty ton capacity railcar. We'll be hoppin' on the hoppers soon. See you next post, omscaler

Gondolas! Ah, Venice. 

Well not really. Omscaler is working on gondolas, but not the floating kind. As readers may know, a gondola is a railcar with low sides and an open top. Sort of a flat car with high sides. This ubiquitous car hauled anything that could be loaded and hauled out in the elements. Pipes, steel, sand, coal, gravel, wood. You name it. Sometimes, if hoppers were short, you would see more “gons” than hopper cars in the train. Once when I was riding in a car many years ago, the car was traveling alongside the railway. A couple of L&N gondolas had turned over and dumped many cubic yards of coal right beside the road. Why they had done this was a mystery to me. Both the road and railway were in a perfectly flat area. As a side note, sometimes gondolas come with bottom doors or side opening doors to dump the load. Normally the load is taken out the top. 'til next time, O sole' mio!, omscaler

A few more thoughts and ideas 

As you readers know, omscaler has acquired an electronic die cutting machine. To give you an update, the critical first trial of a hopper car side was not good. I was in fact expecting this. As you know omscaler deals in micro-engineering so I knew tolerances would be tight. Still I am not discouraged as I will be testing the device on large radius curve cutting and building sides and roofs as well. If these go well, it will be a big help. I suspect this is where, hopefully, the machine will come into its own. Still a-buildin', omscaler

More on flatcars

Since I now have one flatcar working and another almost complete, I thought I would clue in the readers on what we will be doing. The initial loads will be ties and rails. The cars were built originally built to a forty foot length. This accommodates thirty-nine foot rails. So now M&O 11013 or M&O 11025 can carry material to the railhead to further extend the line. We will be working south toward Union City Tennessee. Still busy, omscaler