Model Railroad Podcast

  





hosted by: Ryan Andersen & Will Ayerst
Model Rail Cast #17
Mon, Jun 16, 2008
Posted by: Ryan Andersen

 

First MRC unplugged. Show # 17.

Some Topic links from the show.

http://www.nmra.org/convention/

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/default.aspx

http://www.musicmixradio.com/yardoffice/Tour.htm

 

Download the enhance audio version for iPods and iPhones: Show 17 - Unplugged (ACC)
comments(15) • agreeboasted(4) • no waytoasted(1) • Listen
 
 
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Posted by: Jay Smith on Mon, Jun 16 2008     neclayout.webs.com
Another outstanding show! Was a lot of fun talking trains on 3 different continents! Could hardly tell we recorded this between 2-4 in the morning for me.
Posted by: Will on Mon, Jun 16 2008     www.modelrailcast.com
I think the speed at this was/is released is a testament to how much work Ryan puts into producing the 'normal' shows - for that, I must say thank-you! :)
Posted by: dbrent on Mon, Jun 16 2008    
I'm listening to your discussion on remote operations as I'm typing this and I'm thinking how cool would it be to have the engineers operate via onboard cameras showing a cab view.
Don
Posted by: dbrent on Mon, Jun 16 2008    
OK, just finished listening to the entire show and I have to say I really like the unplugged format. Listening to the three of you "talk trains" really added to the concept of this being a sort of serogate club for some of us.
Don
Posted by: Jay Smith on Mon, Jun 16 2008     neclayout.webs.com
My wife thought it was funny, 3 grown men talking about Thomas engines!
Posted by: jimsmodeltrains on Mon, Jun 16 2008     www.stanfordhosting.net/jimsjunction
Cool show. Interesting to listen to the natural dynamics between you 3.

Found the part about kids and model railroads particularly interesting. My 3 year old daughter loves coming out to the train room and running a 'train' while I switch the yard. A train, for her, is basically 2 locos MU'd together. And I have to time my switch jobs between her 'trains'. Great fun! She also loves Thomas the Tank too.
Posted by: Ironsiderodger on Mon, Jun 16 2008    
What a great follow up to Sweet 16- it let us all sit back, take a break and chat about trains. It was casual, but not ametuer. Great idea to have Jay on board it worked really well.

Just a follow up, when you mentioned my mention of the hp stats of the T-1 and the Q-2, I noticed that quite naturally the Big Boy came up- generally when we think biggest and strongest, the Big Boy comes up. While in many singular categories, be it HP, TE, Boiler size, etc there is a locomotive that may exceed it (in a singular way- i.e. the Q-2 boasted 7,987 hp to its 6,200 hp, the Y6b boasted greater TE, the H-8 had a bigger boiler) overall I think it is not without justification that the Big Boys seem to be the King of Steam if you will. It can be argued that the Big Boys enjoyed the greatest overall success- they showed a great balance of design, performance, and durability; any one deficient area would quickly be compensated for by another. They might not have the stump pulling power of the H-8 Alllegheny, but the H-8 isn't going to hold a curve at 70mph (if the H-8 gets that fast) like a Big Boy. It is a testament to the Big Boy that they were among the last mainline steamers- and even after their general retirement in '59, the UP kept several ready for the call in the Cheyanne Shops into the 60's.

Great show guys, can't wait 'til #17!
Posted by: RobHinkle on Mon, Jun 16 2008     rdglebanonvalley.wordpress.com
Another great show guys, I wasn't sure about the format to begin with but I think it turned out well in the end.

On the Model Railroad 4x8 issue, I believe that the January issue of Model Railroader (which is in the stores in December) is their number one selling issue each year. You have all of the people coming out during the holiday season to get trains for their layouts and Model Railroader attempts to draw them in with the small layout that everyone can build.

With the NMRA Convention that Ryan mentioned in the show, it may be a while before the big National Convention might come to your area but there's always other NMRA events around. The NMRA convention is made up of various Regions across the US, Canada, Great Britain and Australia and most of the regions are made up of smaller divisions. I am a member of the Philadelphia Division which is a part of the Mid Eastern Division of the NMRA. This years Mid Eastern Division's Convention will be held near DC in October and back in March of this year the Philadelphia Division sponsored a RPM meet which was great to attend as well. Sometimes you might find more benefit with starting locally and going from there, one of the benefits with the local RPM meet is that I got to meet some people who are really local and visit a number of their layouts after the meet.

Ryan is located in the Cincinnati Division of the Mid-Central Region and it looks like the Cincinnati Division has a great monthly meeting schedule of speakers and layout visits, plus the 2009 MCR Convention is schedule for Columbus Ohio which isn't that far way.

On Will's side of the pond is the British Region which does hold a regional convention yearly, it has been a while since the NMRA National one made it over there (1971) but there's always a chance in the future.

And for anyone else wondering where in the NMRA they are located, a map can be found at http://www.nmra.org/regions/region_map.jpg
Posted by: sajay on Tue, Jun 17 2008     bs-and-t.com
Great show!

I just wanted to pass along a tip about removing track and turnouts from a layout with very little damage. If you used white glue to secure the track and ballast, just spray a 50/50 mix of rubbing alcohol and water to soak the ballast. Let it sit for a couple minutes and everything will pull up very easily. There will still be some ballast stuck between the ties but you can clean it off (takes time). The unfortunate thing is that recycled flex track may not be as flexible anymore.

Scott
Posted by: jfugate on Tue, Jun 17 2008     http://siskiyou-railfan.net
Ryan, greatly enjoyed the 3 hour talk we had! I wasn't expecting you to mention it on your next show and I was surprised to hear that you did mention it!

You remembered the details pretty good!

The other fun thing I'm going to do at the NMRA Show is video the train show and post it on the web for all the model railroaders who couldn't make it ... I'll have to include a plug for the show in that video as well.

I'm happy to get the word out about your podcast -- you're doing an amazing job and it just keeps getting better and better!
Posted by: Engine72 on Tue, Jun 17 2008    
Great show, liked the open forum.
You get nervous cutting into a brand new well earned engine. I remember when I sliced and diced my Bachmann 4-6-0 G Gauge. I must have talked to fellow modelers and went online looking at articles for advice months before I cracked the first screw on the engine. First I ripped all the wiring from the motor to the track pickups. Then I wired a junction box up below the cab so I could run the wiring from the Train Engineer that sits in a gutted tender. I then had to move the sound system around to fit 14 volts of battery packs and the Reciever. It took about 2 seconds to destroy and about 5 hours of putting it all back together. Now since my layout has no power running to it or I have to worry about cleaning the track it is so much easier. The hard part was making the first cut, after that its all down hill from there.

Great show once again, looking forward to the ALCO engine classification.

Todd Siddle
Posted by: barbalet on Wed, Jun 18 2008     www.nobleape.com/tom/
Another great show,

I liked Will's compare and contrast with the UK and the US, in particular the reference to Games Workshop (which in contrast seems to be embracing third party podcasts). The UK train mags are for a previous generation, if not two generations ago. I have a UK mag I kept to remind myself of how disconnected they were with basic electronic graphic design. They might as well have been photocopying black and white photos next to type-written text.

One thing I will say for GW versus all the train mags (US and UK) is the volume of readable information versus uninteresting advertising. I cut the articles out of Model Railroader and find each issue contains less than 16 full pages of information versus mostly ads. With the volume of wasted paper and the amount the advertisers are paying, why isn't the magazine free?! They did offer an online subscription a couple of years ago that was nearly free.

I guess it is up to new media to show the quality of content based purely on enjoyment of the hobby versus advertising revenue.

Tom Barbalet (now of the US, formerly of the UK).
Posted by: zonie on Thu, Jun 19 2008     Unplugged ? Unscripted !
It was pretty crazy to listen to, but very enjoyable.

Regarding Model Railroader...I have stopped even looking at a issue on the magazine rack at Barnes & Noble due to their "shake the box" mentality. For over ten years, I was a diehard On30 modeler, MR refers to it as On2 1/2. It confused many would-have-been On30 modelers, when they went to look for On2 1/2, and not find anything.

I am sorry to see Finescale Railroader go, it was a great magazine.

My primary model railroad publication is Narrow Gauge & Short Line Gazette, it is a modeler's magazine. You wouldn't like it if you into Class 1 exclusively.

Will, my favorite British railway publication is, (deep breath) Narrow Gauge & Industrial Railway Modelling Review (whew!!). Roy C. Link does a great job with it.

Like the idea of planning ahead for another Unplugged with date and time for anyone who would like to join in, could.

Regarding running a railroad together from locations all over the world, wouldn't it best easier if everyone has access to the same file server, in real time ? Or am I missing the point ?

As always, looking forward toward the next podcast.

Wayde
Posted by: jfugate on Thu, Jun 19 2008     http://siskiyou-railfan.net
Regarding MR, their focus is layouts, not individual model building. They reason layout builders buy more stuff, which helps their advertisers. Terry Thompson verified this is their approach.

Because the focus is more on layouts rather than models, they devote less space to individual model detailing -- which makes a certain kind of sense.

Being the builder of a larger layout myself, I do find you need to take more of a broad brush approach to your modeling and not get too anal about super-detailing or get into a massive scratch building program because it just gets too big if I do that for everything.

So today's MR is actually a more realistic layout-builder's magazine. But the casualty is the in-depth modeling articles, which makes the magazine feel like the material's been dumbed down.

I happen to believe there's a whole area of in-depth content that could be done that MR isn't doing, and I've got a project in the works that's attempting to address this hole.

I know Ryan's mentioned maybe having me on a future show, this could be an interesting discussion topic ...
Posted by: Catskill_Kid on Sat, Jun 21 2008    
Guys I really like your normal show with the structure. The unplugged was different but not one I will keep for reference. I'm one of those strange On30 train guys. I do appreciate the discussions on JMRI a few shows ago. I've just got my USB interface today from Tony's Trains so will be getting my engines all in a data base. The next step will be to try and run some trains on the layout with an old MAC Book Pro G4. Will keep you informed as to the progress.
 
 
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