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Model Railroader 1938 June
CONTENTS
PROTOTYPE VOTE RESULTS slow trend tosmaller gauges; odd sizes going out; pacific is popular loco
BOOMING IN HO THE HO NEW HAVEN RR PLANS STEAM, ELECTRIC, AND INTERURBAN DIVISIONS
PIONEERING IN NO. 1 GAUGE larger size allows more detail, including completely finished interiors.
PLANNING FOR SCENERY details of a layout which will have lopgically combined pike and effects.
MILQAUKEE ROAD PACIFIC
BUILDING AN ATLANTIC LOCO part 2 cylinders, motion work, motor mounting and reverse switch
TWO-MOTOR LOCOMOTIVE o gauge gg-1 entirely built up with sheet metal cab and sprung trucks
Free Lance Design
BETWEEN model railroading in this country and in England there are many differences, one of the most noticeable of them being the greater prevalence of free lancing in that country. We depend, as a general rule, upon craftsmanship alone for our enjoyment of model railroading. The British fan puts not only craftsmanship but much original thought and design into his hobby.
A common argument against free lance modeling is that a free lance design is not a true model since it is not any real piece of equipment reduced to miniature. This Is Modeling Too.
a higher state of accomplishment to design, according to A. A. R. standards, locomotives and cars to handle the traffic or to borrow designs from some existing railroad?
It's all a matter of point of view and what one likes best. Of course it's hard work to properly design free lance equipment, and that may well be where some of the criticism comes in. We have seen flagrant cases of free lance designing gone wrong, locomotives which couldn't turn a wheel if built full size. There's a lot more to locomotive proportioning than just looks. But many model
is no doubt true and the argument has weight. But we feel that a man with sufficient railroad background and designing ability can design and build free lance model railroad equipment which will not only represent his own ideas but follow all standard railroad practices and so be models of something which could exist and operate on American railroads. This is the final test by which we judge any free lance model: "If this same design were followed in full scale, would it meet the requirements of service on a line such as the free lance road represents?"
Suppose for our model road we decide to build a line between Junction and Ironton, the former a main line railroad point and the latter a mining town some 50 miles inland through rather rough country. We stake out in our imagination a railroad line between the points, having certain maximum grade and definite maximum curvature. We line up prospective traffic and figure out the trains necessary to haul it. From that point on does it represent
rails are engineers or professional men with a good educational background and the mental capacity for working out engineering problems of this type.
Studying up on railroad engineering, for one enough interested in railroads to model one, is not dry schoolbook stuff, but a lot of fun. Not only do we acquire new facts which add to our general understanding of one of the big industries of the country, but our thinking processes are improved by the exercise of solving such problems.
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