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

Dateline: Murphysboro, Illinois

Wednesday, August, 21, at approximately 11:13 A.M., the first of possibly many flatcars was successfully brought onto the Gulf Mobile & Ohio Railroad property. This was followed by a great sigh of relief by yours truly, omscaler. We did bring it on without graphics due to my high state of excitement. As readers know, omscaler is easy to excite when it comes to the Very Small Railroad, also known as the OSR. Anyway, we will have graphics is short order and flatcar number two likewise. Working along, omscaler