Erie Railroad Mahoning division HCD

[Philip H]

If ever there was a time to invoke Rule #1 this is it.   

[OldEastRR]

Another thing off about that station is the front wall where the cinder block addition joins the wooden frame main structure. For some reason they made a two foot wide "filler" space between block and wooden building, while in back its cinder block right to the frame building. I sliced and sanded off the front "wood" detail and scribed the plastic lightly to look like cinder block.
Another thing that bugged me was the rear door scaled to NBA player height.
How do you think the guys who design these things do it -- make a kit mostly halfway decent then throw in  some weirdass details or goofs? On purpose? Tired? Fed up with the project? Meeting deadlines? Please don't tell me they don't know because they don't have gas stations or cinder block structures in China.

[Chris333]

OK the team track ramp/dock is glued up and drying now. 

Thinking about the line poles. A few pages back I showed a photo with 7 arm poles, but this is the road I live on:


and this is just back about a 1/2 mile:


In the last photo, this is one of those poles:

Someone cut them down to steal the copper.
So studying these and other photos I see in busier areas there are more arms on the poles, less in rural areas. So I whipped up some 5 arm poles by splicing Atlas poles.

Down across the river and round the bend I might do 3 arm poles. And on the other busy side of the layout I'll do 6 or 7 arm poles.

Also picked 9" spacing of the poles and set pins around the layout to make sure I didn't run into an area where a pole just wouldn't fit. So far it worked out.

[mcjaco]

Love the trackwork in that shot.   

[davefoxx]

Agreed on the high quality of Chris' handlaid trackwork, but someone might want to pick up the tornado damage blocking the tracks.   

[mcjaco]

Agreed on the high quality of Chris' handlaid trackwork, but someone might want to pick up the tornado damage blocking the tracks.   

Or the drunk that's passed out on the depot platform.   

[Blazeman]

Or the drunk that's passed out on the depot platform.   

Passenger waiting for a ride, or a rail fan without a scanner?

[Sokramiketes]

OK the team track ramp/dock is glued up and drying now. 

Thinking about the line poles. A few pages back I showed a photo with 7 arm poles, but this is the road I live on:

Down across the river and round the bend I might do 3 arm poles. And on the other busy side of the layout I'll do 6 or 7 arm poles.

Also picked 9" spacing of the poles and set pins around the layout to make sure I didn't run into an area where a pole just wouldn't fit. So far it worked out.

I think what you're recognizing as more arms in "busy" areas is the need for more code lines running from CTC sites.  So near your tower, for example, there would be every code line needing to run from the tower, and as you reach signals/controlpoints/etc away from the tower, the number of wires needed tails off, and therefore the number of arms decreases. 

Also note that the code lines are running on one side of the main, with telegraph/phone and power lines running on the other (fewer arms and often a short arm at the top for power).

I wouldn't go much more than 80' between poles, or ~6" in N.  I couple two boxcars together and roll them around to set the distance.

[Chris333]

In the top photo the poles on the other side of the track belong to the B&O. Their tracks off to the left.

[Chris333]

 

[Cajonpassfan]

I wouldn't go much more than 80' between poles, or ~6" in N.  I couple two boxcars together and roll them around to set the distance.

Forty poles per mile used to be a very common standard, and steam era engineers were trained to gauge speed by counting poles. Speedometers were nonexistent or extremely rare, but they all had accurate watches.
(Ten poles in 30 seconds = 30mph, etc.) That would translate to 132' between poles, or not quite 10" in N scale.

So much for the prototype. On layouts, where we tend to shrink many things, shortening the dimension a bit makes sense to create an illusion of greater distance, and to accommodate tight curves. But this becomes a matter of personal preference given a particular setting. My gut tells me that 6" is too close, but that's me, and this is about opinions. I generally use 8" on my mainline, but Chris' 9" spacing looks fine to me, as does the rest of the layout.
Otto K.

[crrcoal]

Jaw dropping. Great scene!!!

So studying these and other photos I see in busier areas there are more arms on the poles, less in rural areas. So I whipped up some 5 arm poles by splicing Atlas poles.

[Sokramiketes]

Forty poles per mile used to be a very common standard, and steam era engineers were trained to gauge speed by counting poles. Speedometers were nonexistent or extremely rare, but they all had accurate watches.
(Ten poles in 30 seconds = 30mph, etc.) That would translate to 132' between poles, or not quite 10" in N scale.

So much for the prototype. On layouts, where we tend to shrink many things, shortening the dimension a bit makes sense to create an illusion of greater distance, and to accommodate tight curves. But this becomes a matter of personal preference given a particular setting. My gut tells me that 6" is too close, but that's me, and this is about opinions. I generally use 8" on my mainline, but Chris' 9" spacing looks fine to me, as does the rest of the layout.
Otto K.

You've got it exactly right. With the tighter radius and shorter distances, the pole spacing needs to compress. Here's a prototype example:

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We reproduced this scene on a wide radius (50"r) Modutrak module and still needed to shorten the pole distance to 80' to get the look right.

[Sokramiketes]

This isn't the best photo but gives an idea of the model scene.

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[Kisatchie]

This isn't the best photo but gives an idea of the model scene.

(Attachment Link)

Hmm... do you live in
Australia...?