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Hello forum! I'm new. I'm 21 and getting back into model trains. Though I haven't a place to run them I do have a desk & room for empty cigar boxes so I have lots of room to build & collect the smaller scales like HO, N, & Z.
One thing I loved growing up was memories of playing on Argent Lumber Company No. 7, an ancient narrow-gauge Consolidation that sat in a shed in Hardeeville, SC as a famous roadside landmark in the park. It was very significant to that town and I got to play on it enough to get a feel for the age of wooden trains and iron men. It was so primitive that it didn't even have gauges for the water level.
I also loved playing Bachmann HO trains on the floor at home, with a very elaborate layout for a kid: porcelain buildings, any Matchbox car older than the 1980s, houses made of cardboard, and a model of Southern #722 that ran great.
My HO models are gone but the memories remain. And so does Old No. 7 in the park at Hardeeville.
Sorry this is getting long...but anyway I've been getting a powerful desire to have some models of Argent Lumber Co. rolling stock and maybe an engine or two--specifically #7 but perhaps some of the other beautiful old locomotives they used to have: the ill-fated #5, the tiny #4, etc.
SCALE.
I like HO track. So I decided to try 55n3, Harold Minky's scale that he did some interesting conversions in.
BASIS.
The idea for a logging locomotive is powerful, slow, low-speed operation. So I decided whatever was out there, wouldn't have a motor big enough.
I bought a 1970s TYCO "Chattanooga" 2-8-0 today for $20, a junker, and parted it out. The tender will probably become an HO diesel (it's tender drive) and the boiler might be an HOn30 "Mallet" if I can get some N-scale 0-6-0 or 0-4-0 mechanisms to go under it and some styrene to make a frame and a new cab! And if anyone needs a TYCO smoke unit...
But back to our Consolidations. Stripped of its smoke unit and toylike pretensions there are eight drivers and a cheap pilot truck. I'm going to mount a motor in the boiler like a good loco should have.
The plan is, double-shaft motor. I want to get a spur gear on one of the axles and a worm on the motor, then put a heavy flywheel on the other end of the axle. The frame is going to be filled with birdshot where I can put it.
BOILER SHELL:
No. 7 has a tubular boiler of a comically small diameter, an onion-shaped smokestack of the "balloon" style, a big wooden cab, link pin couplers, and a huge gap between frame and boiler.
No commercial model steamer I know of will look like that. So it will all have to be handcrafted and the motor hidden in the firebox.
TENDER:
Should be simple after I get the loco part started!
Anyway, if this sounds dumb, say so! I'm thick-skinned about this sort of thing. If it sounds fun, then you can say that too. if you like dumb and fun--we would probably be really good friends.
One thing I loved growing up was memories of playing on Argent Lumber Company No. 7, an ancient narrow-gauge Consolidation that sat in a shed in Hardeeville, SC as a famous roadside landmark in the park. It was very significant to that town and I got to play on it enough to get a feel for the age of wooden trains and iron men. It was so primitive that it didn't even have gauges for the water level.
I also loved playing Bachmann HO trains on the floor at home, with a very elaborate layout for a kid: porcelain buildings, any Matchbox car older than the 1980s, houses made of cardboard, and a model of Southern #722 that ran great.
My HO models are gone but the memories remain. And so does Old No. 7 in the park at Hardeeville.
Sorry this is getting long...but anyway I've been getting a powerful desire to have some models of Argent Lumber Co. rolling stock and maybe an engine or two--specifically #7 but perhaps some of the other beautiful old locomotives they used to have: the ill-fated #5, the tiny #4, etc.
SCALE.
I like HO track. So I decided to try 55n3, Harold Minky's scale that he did some interesting conversions in.
BASIS.
The idea for a logging locomotive is powerful, slow, low-speed operation. So I decided whatever was out there, wouldn't have a motor big enough.
I bought a 1970s TYCO "Chattanooga" 2-8-0 today for $20, a junker, and parted it out. The tender will probably become an HO diesel (it's tender drive) and the boiler might be an HOn30 "Mallet" if I can get some N-scale 0-6-0 or 0-4-0 mechanisms to go under it and some styrene to make a frame and a new cab! And if anyone needs a TYCO smoke unit...
But back to our Consolidations. Stripped of its smoke unit and toylike pretensions there are eight drivers and a cheap pilot truck. I'm going to mount a motor in the boiler like a good loco should have.
The plan is, double-shaft motor. I want to get a spur gear on one of the axles and a worm on the motor, then put a heavy flywheel on the other end of the axle. The frame is going to be filled with birdshot where I can put it.
BOILER SHELL:
No. 7 has a tubular boiler of a comically small diameter, an onion-shaped smokestack of the "balloon" style, a big wooden cab, link pin couplers, and a huge gap between frame and boiler.
No commercial model steamer I know of will look like that. So it will all have to be handcrafted and the motor hidden in the firebox.
TENDER:
Should be simple after I get the loco part started!
Anyway, if this sounds dumb, say so! I'm thick-skinned about this sort of thing. If it sounds fun, then you can say that too. if you like dumb and fun--we would probably be really good friends.
