12" working railroad

Discuss park gauge trains and large scale miniature railways having track gauges from 8" to 24" gauge and designed at scales of 2" to the foot or greater - whether modeled for personal use, or purpose built for amusement park operation or private railroading.

Moderators: Glenn Brooks, Harold_V

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Topics may include: antique park gauge train restoration, preservation, and history; building new grand scale equipment from scratch; large scale miniature railway construction, maintenance, and safe operation; fallen flags; track, gauge, and equipment standards; grand scale vendor offerings; and, compiling an on-line motive power roster.
Glenn Brooks
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Location: Woodinville, Washington

Re: 12" working railr

Post by Glenn Brooks »

Probably could use 6” PVC pipe. Weld an end cap and thead the other end.

A local live steamer, who passed away a year ago or so, made up a pressure cooker with a low pressure vessel and a small propane fire boiler. Then soaked his ties in cresote and held them under pressure for some length of time- overnight maybe? Maybe a few hours. The steam pressure saturated the end grain and he had a very long lasting bed.

Might be plastic ties are ultimately the answer - for longevity and total cost of ownership.
Moderator - Grand Scale Forum

Motive power : 1902 A.S.Campbell 4-4-0 American - 12 5/8" gauge, 1955 Ottaway 4-4-0 American 12" gauge

Ahaha, Retirement: the good life - drifting endlessly on a Sea of projects....
rkcarguy
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Location: Wa State

Re: 12" working railroad

Post by rkcarguy »

Creosote isn't legal anymore, and being I'm adjacent to "wetlands" I'm likely going to be under the microscope so I think the tinted BLO is going to be my best option unfortunately. I was thinking I could do a cold soak with some low air pressure that would help deepen the stain. I was looking at some of the pipe remnants kicking around and could probably grab a chunk of 10-12" scrap that would fit 4-5 ties, submerge them and give them 10-15 PSI for 5-10 minutes? It's a bit of a conundrum because we have a pole plant in town that could soak them in that greenish stuff they do now, but it's copper based and then the higher conductivity is going to mess with the signal system.

My uncle is a plastics engineer and his motto is "plastic is to sell not to buy" :roll: . I hope things have changed and all these ties people are using last at least as long as wood. I think the key is going to be getting a decent coat of stain *into* my wood ties and not having the ties in contact with any dirt. They need to be on a base of CLEAR gravel so they are supported yet minimal moisture is kept against the tie.
Glenn Brooks
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Re: 12" working railroad

Post by Glenn Brooks »

Yep, probably right. Any pressure injection will certainly help penetration.

BTW, I suspect the guys pressure cooker system is still available. You could use any preservative with it.

Everybody who uses plastic ties swears by them, as far as I know. However the initial cost is outrageous - around 2x as expensive as wood. Maybe cost efficiencies have brought that down in the past year. If you could get 3x the life out of plastic, it might make sense for a long term approach - say 30year life span. But the upfront cost is still expensive in today’s dollars. The other thing is, plastic ties are usually made for screwing rail down to the surface. I don’t know how long lasting they would be if you cut them half way thru for groovy rail?

Last year I priced out 4x4 cedar ties, in lieu of treated fir. Hoped to achieve rot resistance with cedar. Isaquah Cedar said they would be old growth- so tight grain and rot resistant. However, Ended up buying a stack of cedar 4x4 seconds -mill rejects, from an after market lumber dealer up in Vancouver BC. The load was cheap, but at least half the stack soon split into two or more pieces over winter and many, 50% maybe, got eaten end to end by bugs. Partially my fault as I didn’t stack them with cleats for air circulation. So ended up only being able to use about half the stack. The rest all went into firewood, and the better pieces became a retaining wall, around one curve. They are second growth, so no idea how durable they will be. Like popcorn for The little carpenter ants colonies, apparently. Such is railroading in the modern age....
Moderator - Grand Scale Forum

Motive power : 1902 A.S.Campbell 4-4-0 American - 12 5/8" gauge, 1955 Ottaway 4-4-0 American 12" gauge

Ahaha, Retirement: the good life - drifting endlessly on a Sea of projects....
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NP317
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Location: Northern Oregon, USA

Re: 12" working railroad

Post by NP317 »

Glenn:
I believe the (a?) supplier of molded plastic ties offers ones designed for Groovy Track!
Perhaps the best of both worlds?
~RN
0351
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Re: 12" working railroad

Post by 0351 »

http://www.eprailsystem.com/project/gro ... road-ties/

This company offers mostly plastic ties for 7.5” gauge groovy track. They also offer switch ties 16”-30” in length.

I guess one could call and ask regarding bigger ties for larger scale railroads.
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rkcarguy
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Location: Wa State

Re: 12" working railroad

Post by rkcarguy »

I have a router fixture for grooving my ties and it goes very quick. I'm not worried about that part all I would need is the plastic bar. That said I've got enough ties to go the first ~225' from the road to the house done and probably another 100+ that are cut but need to be grooved. These are made from DF, so I'm going to treat them with my "soak" as well as play with the recipe a bit and see what happens. I'm in my early 40's and understand maintenance will be part of my large scale model RR so replacing some ties as the years go by isn't the end of the world.
rkcarguy
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Re: 12" working railroad

Post by rkcarguy »

S12frame+trucks.jpg
I mounted the bearing brackets to the bolsters and dropped the trucks onto the frame (upside down obviously). They fit well and move super smooth.
They articulate ALOT...I'll probably need to add something to limit travel as I think I could mount ATV tires on this and go rock crawl with it :D

Tomorrow I'm going to get my dad to help me put the frame up on the bench and sit the body on top of it so it's all upright and easier to work on.
rkcarguy
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Joined: Tue Aug 22, 2017 10:33 am
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Re: 12" working railroad

Post by rkcarguy »

We got the frame up on the workbench and sat the body on it, everything lines up great!
This thing is huge, I sat a full size spray can on the walkway for scale. 86" overall minus the couplers.
S12side.jpg
S12front.jpg
ERIE S-1 BERKSHIRES
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Location: Barberton Ohio

Re: 12" working railroad

Post by ERIE S-1 BERKSHIRES »

It's really starting to look good!! always thought about building one in 15 inch gauge
Glenn Brooks
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Location: Woodinville, Washington

Re: 12" working railroad

Post by Glenn Brooks »

Well, tack weld that thing together and bring it down to Woodinville for a test drive!

Gpb
Moderator - Grand Scale Forum

Motive power : 1902 A.S.Campbell 4-4-0 American - 12 5/8" gauge, 1955 Ottaway 4-4-0 American 12" gauge

Ahaha, Retirement: the good life - drifting endlessly on a Sea of projects....
rkcarguy
Posts: 1730
Joined: Tue Aug 22, 2017 10:33 am
Location: Wa State

Re: 12" working railroad

Post by rkcarguy »

I wish it was that easy, but there is a lot of lathe work stacking up and plenty more to do:

-Install hydraulic motor mount plates in each truck
-Fabricate muffler and exhaust system
-Fabricate air tanks
-Motor mount plate, actually thinking about using a pair of heavy bars and bolting them across that open space inside the cab. Less weld less warping.
-Wire harness and controls/gages (will mount in riding car)
-Brake drums and shoes
-Install hydraulic system
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NP317
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Location: Northern Oregon, USA

Re: 12" working railroad

Post by NP317 »

No lists, no progress
Keep building.
~RN
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