The Home Machinist!

Well, that is an intriguing photo. By the looks of it, the locomotives are electric powered judging by the simple controller and what may be the hand brake wheel on the side. Perhaps a third rail or battery power. Looks to be two sets, one behind the other. Going by the pant legs of the guys, all th...

The idea proposed here was to expand the the market for 3/4” scale into perhaps the garden railroading arena. Could it be done? The answer is certainly yes. Some like the idea, some don’t. For me, I prefer running small full sized steam locomotives, say the 7 ton to 50 ton range, 3’ gauge is where I...

You do find odd things on Craigslist. In this case we had a 8-1/2” gauge mogul show up as being for sale in southern New Jersey over the past couple of weeks. It had been for sale back in the 2008 time frame and I looked at it at that time. Seemed at that time and even today, to be an odd gauge and ...

Its really an old wives tale that laps seams are completely illegal in the US. While certainly not allowed in many states, here in NJ if under a certain diameter (of hand I think its 30”) they are legal with a couple of caveats one of which is that the lap seam itself can not be repaired if a proble...

A new code boiler, built to look like a proper Herschell boiler, is being built by the Strasburg RR. Its one of many projects at Strasburg so not moving on a fast track which is just as well as the chassis is not yet ready for it. If the chassis is done before the new boiler, with some careful use o...

With a nudge from Glenn, I thought I would provide an update on my 15” gauge locomotive project, a Herschell-Spillman 4-4-0 built in 1907 that ran at Cedar Point in Ohio. First though a bit of history, which in all honesty has an element of conjecture to it. By all accounts, this is a 1907 Herschell...

Still have these drivers for sale here. The small scale drivers have been sold. Looking at $25 each for the 9-1/4” drivers or best offer. I have two complete sets for a Pacific (12 total), either with thick spokes or with narrow spokes. Believe it to be a CNJ prototype, G3 or a G4. Or, I would be wi...

Thinning the herd a little here. Have 5 sections of Lawntracks 7-1/4" gauge track that need a new home. Panels are very heavy duty and connect together with included joint bars. The panels are 80" long. The rails are 3/8" X 1" hot rolled stock connected together with ties of 1/8" X 1" stock, they ar...

An interesting topic, one that has intrigued me since I first saw an article maybe 30+ years ago about a Gauge 1 live diesel electric, although it was a model airplane motor that was used as the prime mover. The concept seems rather popular in Gauge 1, actually. With the growing popularity of intern...

John:
Can you post some photos of the Cagney?
Thanks!
J.R.

I owned a Coffman for a short period of time and posted on Chaski looking for some help in finding out where it may have run up in New England. The topic can be found at: http://www.chaski.org/homemachinist/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=92282&p=236886&hilit=coffman#p236886 It was a nice locomotive, but I alre...

You can find specs for full size rail on line, but roughly speaking 100 -150 pound rail as found on standard gauge mainlines is about 6" to 8" tall, so 1/2" scale would then be about 1/4" or maybe 3/8" or so. LGB track and such looks to be at least that tall. Kind of depends on what kind of engine y...