Climbing the Erie Branch helix with steam helper.
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- Опубліковано 6 чер 2023
- Long train of iron ore jennies climbing the 2% grade and 24" radius 'tight' helix from my sub-deck to main deck. 2-10-4 and 2-8-0 both by BLI, both upgraded to TCS Wow Sound.
Good thing for stokers. Those poor firemen would be passed out from all that shoveling to get up that grade. Very nice layout. :)
You have got to be so stoked to have this helper take this train over that grade w no problems. I just congratulate u on such an insane railroad. Everyone watching, I'm sure are just drooling over this.
Shaking my head in amazement.
Thank you, Ray.
Thank you for sharing. Very much enjoyed.👍
Glad you enjoyed it!
Outstanding! Watching you build this great layout is an inspiration to me. Thanks for sharing.
Happy to share.
Nice video and the helper locomotive certainly did the trick. The train operated well up the long 2% grade. I enjoy watching the progress of your B&LE layout. Thanks! Mike
Thank you! Your layout was such a huge inspiration to me!
thank you for great video as great watching
from Australia
Happy to have you aboard!
Cool looking layout, like that steamer
Thank you! Hoping to finish benchwork and mainline this year.
If you email me your address I will mail you my channel sticker,I am starting a new layout very soon
Awesome you are braver than I to attempt to build a helix
Thanks. That's the baby, have you seen the main helix? Not nearly as scary as I thought!
I would do this at my old club with my Digitrax controller but I would not consist. It gave me the freedom of controlling the helpers speed to push while letting the lead engine do most of the work.
Nice work! Bet laying the Helix track in that tight space wasn't easy!
It was trying! The saving grace was using 24" radius sectional track, but it was a few evenings of very uncomfortable work.
Nice!
Double check the couplers.....if one breaks or let's go.......it will get real really fast.
Not to much to worry about here sandwiched between locos, but I have let cars go at N.A. tower just to see how bad a run away would be. Things roll at a good clip and come to rest about where the pusher coupled on, but I've yet to have one leave the rails. On my main helix up to the second deck, the grade is less severe and only my most free rolling cars will pick up any real speed. I did have this train fail a coupler (this is one of the few trains that are still in the plastic wanna-be kadees) at the top of the hill and roll all the way back down. No derailment, but I was sure glad it had clear track the whole way back! This train will get the kadee overhaul eventually.
That was really cool, like the helper service and district. It adds a lot to operations. The sound on those locos is incredible. Is there a separate speaker besides what is in the loco?
I've loved watching your updates. Great work and very inspiring!
I am modeling the Union and I can't quite pin down when the ore cars went into service. I have seen a few build dates in pictures of 7-52. Were any of them built before that date?
Hello Union RR! Brother, you and me both. The jennies and when they appeared and disappeared is a great question, like you, I've struggled to find a solid answer. In my 1952-ish layout, I'm only having the one train of those new-fangled cars. I will share that in my research on this, ore jennies are short because of the density of ore, yes, but they also mimic the standard hatch spacing of lake freighters, letting them drop directly into the ships. The cars, the docks, the chutes, the ships all designed to work together. With the B&LE not dropping into ships, one of the big advantages of the Jenny design goes away. I suspect they all unceremoniously went to the DM&IR, and not well documented.
Scroll through my vids to see my Union 0-10-2 #304, and keep me posted on your progress!
There is hardly any model railroader I know who can add a pusher to his/her model train without experiencing a catastrophic derailment. So how did you keep this from happening? Merely creating a new consist will never do the trick...unless the pusher has been properly "conditioned." So what is this conditioning you used? Did your TCS controller do it for you? Or did you do some fine-tuned speed matching with a carefully constructed speed table for the pusher? Explain please.
The short answer is carefully constructed speed tables. The longer answer is, I speed match everything to 1speed step = 1/2 smph using the accutrak speedometer. I find if you can get things within +/- 2 smph at speed step 40 and 80 (20 and 40 smph) you're good enough. Furthermore, I set momentum to all the same value, and in tcs, both switching and yard momentum to be the same to prevent accidentally flipping one engine to the wrong mode. Lastly, there's a setting to turn off back emf at given speed step, for me, I set as speed step 20. This gives you all the back emf goodness at low speed, but let's the engines load share better like the old DC days. I need to do a video on my loci set ups soon. But the end goal, I can consist anything with anything and it runs just fine
Really enjoyed! Purely a question but in the USA does the 'banker' have to be in front of the caboose or can it push from behind so it drops off without the train having to reverse?
Varied by railroad. I'd say 'most' would be in front of the caboose, but certainly not all. The N&W pushed from behind the caboose, the conductor would 'pull the pin' so the helpers could cut off on the fly.
Good rule of thumb, if the frame is wood, cut in ahead of the caboose, if it's steel you can tie on behind it.
add a little bit of bullfrog snot on one of the wheels and you're good.
I thought all your locos in the USA had mechanical stokers on locos this size?
At the 2-10-4 size, absolutely. Doesn't mean a fireman wouldn't still throw in a scoop here and there to even out the fire. In the book 'set up running' O.P. also talks about stokers not being the best way to fire when the engine wasn't working hard. So, even with a stoker, still plenty of reasons to pick up the shovel from time to time.
In the days before radios, how did the crew of the lead loco converse with the guy on the caboose when reversing?
Whistle & hand signals!
@@bessemerlakeerieinhoscale6061 So did they have guys positioned all down the train to relay the hand signals from the conductor on the caboose when reversing back on to it?
@Andy Knott if you didn't have line of sight, you'd accomplish this with whistle signals. However, there is black and white steam era vid of the bessemer showing guys standing on coal on top of hoppers re-laying hand signals - but I think this was in yard ops.
I'd recommend the book 'set up running' - one of the things O.P. Orr talks About its watching for the air pressure Guage to "flutter" and that was his indication that air had been cut into the caboose and they were ready.
Nice update Ray. Is Betty alright? Third straight video she has not made an appearance.
Actually she's been hurting pretty bad. Joints are really getting her and I've been reluctant to take her downstairs if she was resting. I've started giving her doggy aspirin and that seems to be helping A LOT. look forward to her in future vids.
@@bessemerlakeerieinhoscale6061 Sorry to hear that. Glad that the doggy aspirin is helping.
How about adding a diesel chassis in the tender?
It'd be a way to boost power. For sure. However, that tender is packed with large speakers, and in reality, this is much more train than will ever run up this branch. I did this more of seeing what was possible / how a long train would react in that tiny helix. The same engine climbs the large helix with that train to the 2nd deck no issue.
Who was the mfr for your ore jennies? And, excellent modeling & train handling......
Thank you! The set in the video are all athearn roundhouse. I have another train that is all the older model die cast roundhouse. The old mdc kits are a little work to assemble, but you almost can't tell them apart side by side with the athearn.
@@bessemerlakeerieinhoscale6061 I started buying the MDC "Tapered Side" ore car kits back in the early 60s from Simpson's Hobby Shop next to Douglas Freeman Hi School in Richmond VA....kits were $1.39 then..... cast metal floor-underframe, cast metal sprung trucks, metal horn-hook couplers, plastic wheels on steel axles...... yup, those were the days............ still have close to 50 of those ore cars.
Did you ever build any of the Varney plastic flat-side ore car kits? Those were only 99 cents retail back in 1959-60.......
@Robert Hultman I love the mdc kits, I have literally 100's of them between hoppers and jennies and ps-2 covered hoppers. I put metal wheels and kadees in them and they're as good as anything new. I have never built a Varney. I do have several MARX models on the layout - updated with kadees and metal wheels. Pretty much my entire family worked at MARX and I did my tool making apprenticeship in the former building. All that to say, I've got a soft spot for the classics. I have a couple die cast HO MARX Hudsons... one of these days I'm going to re-motor one, dcc, sound, fire flicker.... but otherwise leave it classic toy looking.....cause it'd be cool.
All it needed was just a little push
😂 indeed!
You're fibbing here, a consisted end of train loco is not the same as a helper. That would require independent control of each locomotive which is far more challenging to operate. Nevertheless it looked and sounded very nice...
Thanks, I'm pretty proud of my sound installs. Consisted or not, the in train forces and slack action are real. I painstakingly speed match all my locos to 1 speed/step = 1/2smph as well as start delays and momentum. Back emf turns off at speed step 20. I get to run manned helpers on op sessions at others layouts.... just watching the slack seems way easier than making very different engines and gear ratios perform exactly the same.
@Bessemer & Lake Erie in HO scale You've certainly got wildly differing locomotives well matched, which is the only way to get away with consisting them like this. Many of your videos show similarly excellent mu operations. I'd be interested in a video of how you do this to such an effective degree.
Nice set of ore Jennie’s. All different numbers? Enjoyed the video Ray!
Definitely a lot of duplicates in the hopper and Jenny fleet. I have no plan to renumber any. As I get toward ops, I won't be running as specific as individual car cards for bulk loads.