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Scale Models, Arts, &
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Welcome to the first issue of the SMARTT Newsletter. Every month we'll try to bring you a little bit of our world, with articles on the history, building, and planning of Model Railroad projects. We look forward to your input. If you're not already a subscriber, please join our mailing list and become a member of the SMARTT family.
Enjoy. |
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SMARTT's Picture of the Month |
Here's a medium sized town on the European layout featured below on the SMARTT news section. A combination of finely weathered structures, georgeous scenery, and a beautiful custom backdrop make this
1920's Bavarian scene a tough one to beat. |
DATELINE SMARTT...DATELINE SMARTT...DATELINE SMARTT
Bridges . . . Bridges . . . Bridges . . .
As custom builders, one of our favorite challenges is designing and building bridges of all sorts for all scales. Many of these are hybrids where we kit-bash manufacturer's offerings, and many are either completely scratch-built, or a combination of scratch-building and kit-bashing.
So, in many of our upcoming newsletter editions, we will often feature new articles on various prototype bridges and some of the custom model bridges we have done.
CENTER LIFT BRIDGES
One of my favorite types of bridges is the vertical lift span or the center lift bridge. A vertical lift bridge is built with two towers that guide the center span either up or down. The center span workings consist of steel cables which are attached to counter weights and a winch or hoist motor. There are also ample wheels and pulleys that the cables pass through, this makes for a very impressive bridge structure. The lifting of the center span allows for the passage of watercraft.
Here is the Steel Bridge in Portland Or. The center span is double decked, on the top deck motor vehicles, MAX light rail and streetcars pass, the bottom deck caries the railroad tracks and sidewalks. Photo from http://pdxmacs.com/gallery/bridgetown.
These bridges come in various sizes and are located throughout the country. Many different railroads used them to span navigable waterways. Therefore, no matter what railroad you model, if you need to span a navigable waterway, you can add one of these eye-catching bridges to your layout.
To my knowledge, there are a couple of generic lift bridge models available in HO and one in O scale. Not sure about N scale. Nevertheless, with so many structural steel thru truss bridges on the market in almost every scale, there is ample opportunity to tackle a lift bridge model as a kit-bash/scratch-building project for those of you who are so inclined. A nice example of this approach is an HO lift bridge we recently completed.
Or, for those of you in O scale, the most notable model (if you can find one) is Lionel's operating lift bridge. Weathered up, this bridge looks nice, but if your demands are for prototypical accuracy, this offering will require a lot of modification.
Hoist mechanism for a vertical lift span" Joseph Elliott
Cape Cod Railroad's center lift bridge at Buzzards Bay Mass. This was the longest center lift bridge in the world at one time. Photo from http://hubpages.com/slide/Cape-Cod-Canal-Railroad-Bridge/1123817 |
Baseball and Trains - as Americana as it gets!
ALTOONA CURVE
No, I do not mean Horseshoe Curve; the city of Altoona Pa. has an AA baseball team called the Altoona Curve. They are an affiliate of the Pittsburg Pirates and they play in the Eastern league. However the team's logo is a series of baseballs going around railroad tracks. Their mascots' names are Steamer, who wears number K-4 and whose head is shaped like a locomotive stack, and Diesel Dawg - his number is K-9.
That is not all; there is an AAA team that is called the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, an affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies. I could not fine a mascot for them; maybe it should be a person that (for you steel buffs) looks like a Bessemer converter!
Minor league baseball has always taken on a hometown flavor unique in sports. Just watch the movie "Bull Durham" and you will see what I am talking about. Here are a few "what-if" names that would fit in with railroad towns and minor league baseball.
Danville Old 97's Danville Va.
Rock Island Lines Rock Island Il.
Pocatello Humps Pocatello Id.
Paducah Geeps Paducah Kt.
Roanoke J A Y's Roanoke Va.
Santa Barbara Daylights Santa Barbara Ca.
San Bernardino War Bonnets San Bernardino Ca.
Ok, this was for fun, but not outside the realm of possibilities. It would be great to see the Roanoke Jays to honor all those home town famous J steam locomotives (#611) that were built in the Norfolk and Western Roanoke shops. Maybe they could be a farm team of the Toronto Blue Jays! Now it's your turn to come up with some names.
BrassTraxx
For you brass enthusiasts, be sure to look for look for informative stories on brass models past and present. We will feature these short stories in several upcoming editions of our Newsletter.
BIG EMMAs in BRASS
The L&N 2-8-4 "Big Emma's" are one of the most sought after brass models ever imported. Gem was the first to bring these models into the US back in 1961 and Westside models imported them back in 1971-1972. Both were built by Katsumi in Japan. However there was one major flaw in these models; both runs were of Lima locomotives but Katsumi chose to use the Baldwin tenders on them. In O scale, US Hobbies repeated the mistake. However that did little to deter L&N modelers from picking them up whenever one would become available. Division Point recently imported the models from Korea and they got it right. |
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Choosing the Train Room
by Raymond G. Potter
Many of us have been designing our dream layout in our minds for decades, carefully placing each building and tree just so, but when it comes down to turning your dream over to us to build it as a tangible reality, there are certain details that must be thought through. We'll explore some of these considerations in depth in this column as we follow the process of choosing each relevant pathway in the decision process.
Today let's talk about the empty room that your layout will one day fill. How much space do you have to build a layout in? Some enterprising rail buffs have turned everything from coffee tables to Murphy Beds into layout space to pursue their hobby. Most people who get as far as building a dedicated layout that exists full time, not in pieces in a closet, will have a room or part of a room dedicated to this venture. We've built effective and fun to operate layouts in garages, attics, basements, warehouses, and more, according to the clients' available space. In the smaller scales, like HO and N, even a two car garage can yield a small empire. Thanks to a variety of available operating equipment designed to run on tight radii, even O and G Scale can occupy a medium sized space and still have many operational possibilities (just don't expect to run your Big Boy or auto carrier car on a small curve). With larger spaces, O scale trains can enjoy realistic sweeping curves that retain the look of reality and allow the operation of all the available rolling stock.
Don't forget that in addition to the space taken up by the layout, you have to figure out how much space you will need to get around your layout, either by aisles around peninsulas in an "around-the-room" type configuration, or an open perimeter for an "island" style layout. We stress that aisles should be a minimum of at least 28" wide though as a general rule, we highly recommend aisle widths of 30"-36" minimums. The wider aisle space provides unrestricted movement throughout your empire for you and your guest.
Suppose you need to cross the tracks to get into the center portion of your walking space. How will you accomplish that? In years past, ducking under the tracks, crawling on the floor, or lifting a heavy panel were the only solutions. SMARTT has a more comfortable alternative. We developed a high precision Dutch door style gate we call the "Swing Bridge." Tracks run across the swing bridge, and when the gate is closed the trains will run over it seamlessly. When it's time to go in and out, the precision aligned gate swings open on heavy duty hinges to let you in or out, then a slide latch locks it back into pre-aligned position. No ducking under and crawling on all fours and nothing heavy to lift.
I suppose you're now worrying about what happens if the gate is left open and a train comes barreling along. No worries! The system cuts power to all tracks in the area of the gate when it is not latched in place.
The gate can be easily disguised as a functional part of the layout. It could be covered in scenery, a stone viaduct, even a complex bridge. One of the most interesting ones we've built was a gate that opened in the middle of a 10' long, double-decker six track steel bridge. When the gate was closed, it was pretty much undetectable as a separate element.
With your room chosen and the amount of space in it that you're going to want to use allocated, think about the other considerations. Is the room weather-tight? Water can ruin any layout. Do you have adequate lighting? The best displays have plenty of light that can be turned down or dimmed to a comfortable level. It's best to have the lighting installed before the layout is finished so that you have easy access to put a ladder anywhere you may need. If you are having a professional electrician install the lighting (always a good idea), make sure that you have adequate AC electrical outlets around the walls and that they all work well. The circuit breakers should be able to handle as much as 20 Amps for larger scale trains with lots of accessories. Finally, there is climate control to consider. A good air handling system will not only make your train room comfortable to be in, but will protect your investment from damage by extremes of temperature and humidity.
As you can see, there is a lot of planning that comes into play before you lay your first piece of track. Whether you plan on doing it yourself, or hiring us, the professionals, a little forethought can save you a little time and money and a lot of headaches.
The Revell Superior Bakery & Non-descript Apparatus
by Ray Del Papa
Way back in 1961 Revell Models introduced an HO kit of a bakery, the Superior Bakery. This was the first plastic industrial model to be brought out in HO scale. It was one of three new kits (Operating Engine House, Weekly Herald and the Superior Bakery) they released using the same basic walls and roof on all three. To make the three kits different, they modified the end walls and added separate details specific to each kit.
These were the first plastic kits to be released that enabled modelers to create larger and more intricate industrial buildings by kitbashing them together. Most notable was the work done by Art Curren and featured in his book, Kitbashing HO Model Railroad Structures.
Over the years I have used these kits for various kit bashings, including power plants, small and large manufacturing buildings, and, of course, a bakery or two. However the thing that would always cause me to pick up another Superior Bakery kit was the cyclone vent that protruded from the side of the building. This part (there are actually 7 pieces to the vent) would go on to become dozens of what Art Curren would refer to as "non-descript apparatus". I have turned it sideways for use on a roof, upside down and right side up, doubled and tripled them together, and cut them in every form imaginable. I don't think there is another detail part that I have used more; it is the detail part of choice when it comes to industrial models.
Ultimately, it got to the point here at SMARTT that instead of having us purchase dozens of full kits, we cast our own modified vent parts. We now have an endless supply of those vents, which enables us to come up with even more variations of those non-descript industrial apparatus.
Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the kit's release; I don't think there is anyone producing the kit at this time, however they do become available on eBay from time to time, as well as at model train shows and at some hobby shops. Also, if you have never built a Superior Bakery do so. It is a great little structure to build "as-is". It is industrial, but can fit into most spaces, and it does not need to be near a railroad siding, it was released without a RR loading platform. Hopefully someone will pick up this neat little kit and make it easily available once again! |
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Thanks for reading the SMARTT Newsletter. If you received this email from a fellow train enthusiast, you can sign up for your very own copy on the link at left.
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Sincerely,
Raymond G. Potter
Director of Creative Services
Scale Models, Arts, & Technologies, Inc. |
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