Rivarossi Loco's

Doctor G

Well-Known Member
Hey Bill I'm not sure on the lettering of the new Heisler already with the West Side Lumber Co. on it. I do have a 3 truck Bachman Spectrum Shay that I want to put the "Maple Valley Logging Co." on it. Here is a link I thought you & the Doc might enjoy. Make sure you view page 15 showing the #3 Heisler.
http://narrowgaugememories.com/v/aroundworld/northamerica/Westside+Lumber+Company.html

Hi Jim,

THat is a nice photo of the Westside three trucker. Love the greasy and dirty look of the truck on the tank.

Does your Heisler run as good as we hoped????

You will find it to be a loyal servant on your pike.

Doc Tom:thumb:
 

Sawdust

Member
Thanks Doc. I am very pleased with this Heisler, the only problem I have is I want about 2 more.:mrgreen: They are some more on ebay availiable for buy it now for $169. I have to slow the train spending down some going into winter. There is a local swap meet next weekend we are going to. My main items to seek right now are coal cars. I have about 12 of the C&O & some Virginia. I will post my Coal Mine project soon. Here is my new baby.
DSCF4821.jpg


DSCF4823.jpg


DSCF4825.jpg


After finding the West Side Lumber Co. is from out in California I am thinking more about removing the lettering with no offense to the Westerners but it just dosen't seem to be appropiate now for the South. Just a thought for now.
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
my two cents

My advise is to paint it! Sure it is lettered for an interesting outfit, but you need to focus on the Maple Valley, How does a Westside Lumber Company locomotive happen to be on you premises? Sure locomotives got bought and sold, as well as leased, but they were huge expenditures for these outfits, and they got usually lettered and numbered pretty quick, as a matter of corporate pride.


Then you add the other dimension. The West side lumber company was a 3 foot gauge outfit. While they did have a standard gauge Heisler as a mill switcher, it was a Small narrow gauge Heisler that was put on standard gauge trucks, and was tiny compared to Your unit which s oversize even for a standard gauge unit.


A well done model railroad , which you are well on the way to creating; is like a play, or a Novel. We want to look at these little models, and get some suspension of disbelief, and build a different time and place around them in our mind. Most every thing should fit neatly, and what doesn't should have a plausible story. That story should ideally work for both the uninformed viewer ( the kid down the block), and the visiting expert . According to My Grandfather Vandyke ; an expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.


Now some anachronisms and anomalies will work, as long as the whole structure of the illusion is strong enough to support it. Say for instance that heisler was a perfectly scaled model of #3 the Westside mill switcher, had a custom paint job, with exquisite lettering and weathering; and you couldn't bear to touch it. (as far as I know, such a thing does not exist commercially in HO). Then it would be worth making up a story to explain it.

Instead, you just have a mass produced model, that is lettered for a lumber company because it is famous , not because it is appropriate for the locomotive in question. If you letter it and number in in a similar fashion to the shay, you can make them look like thy belong together. I even change stacks to get that family look, and paint most of the cab roofs red ( that is easy and cheap). Locomotives are main focal points for your operation, all or most of them need to do their part to help establish corporate identity.


You don't have to re paint the whole locomotive either, you can dry brush black over the lettering, and blank out the letting very effectively. That is what I did with the USRA 0-6-0 I lettered for the J. E. Patterson Coal and Lumber Co. for our club.


Bill Nelson
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
After finding the West Side Lumber Co. is from out in California I am thinking more about removing the lettering with no offense to the Westerners but it just dosen't seem to be appropiate now for the South. Just a thought for now.


after seeing the pictures I must agree. West side #3 is a tiny little thing. My #9 is 20% oversize for #3 and the Riverossi is half again larger than it is.


Bill Nelson
 

toptrain1

Well-Known Member
0-4-0 Cab foward 002.jpg 0-4-0 Cab foward 001 (2).jpg Rivarossi Cab Foward

Here is that rare Rivarossi Cab forward.

Edit added;10-23-2016
This hard worker has gone away. Shipped to a Austrian Modeler named Erick. It now is providing its services to another HO modeler far away.
frank
 
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Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
Here is that rare Rivarossi Cab foward.
frank

That is a hulking minster compared to the cab forward that the North Pacific Coast built. A 3 foot gauge line, they rebuilt an American type into a cab forward, that was a very interesting experiment.

Bill Nelson
 

Doctor G

Well-Known Member
More on the Rivarossi Heisler

My advise is to paint it! Locomotives are main focal points for your operation, all or most of them need to do their part to help establish corporate identity.


You don't have to re paint the whole locomotive either, you can dry brush black over the lettering, and blank out the letting very effectively.
Bill Nelson

Have to agree with Bill. Here is what the same two trucker Rivarossi Heisler ended up looking like after dry brushing only, opening the cab windows (it is hot down south), building a wooden door, and applying logging junk. This beast got a lot of good use on the old C&S RR.
Doc TOM:mrgreen:
 

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Sawdust

Member
Yes I agree, about re lettering the Heisler. I really haven't had much time lately to check out the plastic & lettering paint. I normally remove lettering with brake fluid after first testing it on an area not noticible. I bought about 22 Athern Coal Cars yesterday at our local train show with different road names but the cars are all the same so I will plan on doing most of this at the same time.
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
I'm thinking the old Riverossi locomotive we need for the club is the N & W Y6B.


When I was a kid , one of the Guys @ the Club in Glendale Ohio had two of those monsters, I got to play with them some as after I had weathered my Shay # 15, This guy paid me to weather his Y6Bs. Man they were some big locomotives.


Bill Nelson
 

S class

Member
windows on a logging locomotive?

jeez you yanks are fancy with your tin pots - you would never find such things on an /a/ussie bush line
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
windows on a logging locomotive?

jeez you yanks are fancy with your tin pots - you would never find such things on an /a/ussie bush line

Except on locomotives that was imported new or used from the states. of course the first time they got off the rails and wallowed in the mud, that may be the end of the factory cab, and they would get a shop built cab. Now when that happened in the states, windows , although crude ones, would be used in areas where you had serious winter. so locomotive windows are a climate related issue.


Bill Nelson
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
Aaaaaaaaand your point is what?[/quote



I think he is trying to tell us that their logging locomotives are raggeder, and or more primitive than ours.


Here is my On3 logging locomotive. hard to get much more primitive than this! It is a Weisman Model Services CN 60 Shay. it is on a section of track cobbled up to test an 18 in radius for this locomotive. the conclusion, it needs a 19 in radius when the universals are on the inside. Behind it is one of my scratchbuilt R/C model ship project the combine is s shortened Bachman on30 combine on On3 trucks.


Bill Nelson
 

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S class

Member
more like the owners of the line would never have paid for such things, snow in Australia isn't an issue for 99.9% of our railways so you were hard pressed to find an enclosed cab even on mainline loco's to my knowledge. In winter it was assumed that the heat from the boiler would keep them warm, but more importantly was the requirement for ventilation in summer. Did you think I was questioning the manliyness of american loggers were you?????????????????? lol so touchy!

Most bush logging lines did import their logging power from the states and mixed and matched with local built diesels - mostly tractors with rail wheels and rain covering over the driver - but I'm hard pressed to rememebr in my reading any hieslers, mostly shays and climaxes (the ones with the cylinders @ 45 degrees on both sides, I forget what class they are).

As an interesting side note where I used to live was a logging line owned by the forrestry commission in 30" which interchanged with the 30" Vicxtorian railways line (one of the lines built like that of Puffing Billy) these guys took delivery of harrimans first and only attempt to build a logging locomotive, it was big and with a massive water tank under the boiler it was too heavy to run on the mostly wooden track and when added with its habbit of breaking down it earned the moniker "that Bloody Harriman!" and was sent back with 18 months with a polite request for a refund to be replaced by a climax, the harriman finished life as a stationary boiler at their plant in melbourne, if memory serves correct
 

amtrk91

New Member
Track Porblems

Could anyone advise on this: I have 4x8 Bachman Ez track set up. can't
get any track power My Loco's just sit there. What Iam I doing wrong? This
is not fun.

Brad
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
track power problems

I'm not familiar with the EZ track system, unless that is the stuff that came with the bachman train sets, in which case I have some pieces from my Dad's ON30 stuff, and my youngest son's Thomas stuff.

Not that I have used the stuff, I hand lay my stuff, and mess with some flex at the club, but I'm guessing you have a power problem and not a track problem.


what you need is a 12 volt test light, (you can make your own with a 12 volt light some wire and some alligator clips; or may may be able to purchase one at an auto parts store.)

A multimeter may be helpful too, but there are lots of settings, and they can fool you.


If you have power at the rails you can touch the aligator clips to the rails with the power on and the light should light. If it doesn't you can try the output terminals on the transformer.

with a test light the first step is to test your test light. you can use the terminals of your car battery to do that. If you car starts, you know it is good


is this one of those two part transformers with a wall wart that plugs in to the outlet, and that powers the controller with 12 V dc? if so the wall wart could be dead. those all have input and output specifications on them, and it may be possible to find or buy one which will work.
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
controllers

The Bachman controllers I have, I have just used on a test track. they have fine control compared to train sets of yore, but in the years before I switched to walkaround throttles I used MRC power packs, and never had a problem with one. Nowa days they are still in use, providing power to my walsaround systems.


alternately there could be a problem with the way the wire hooks to the track. I seem to think they plug in some how, there could be a problem with the plug or with the track it plugs into.

one really needs to have more than one contoler, if for no other reason to have one on the workbench for a test track.



Bill Nelson
 

abutt

Member
Sawdust...The only problem with the Rivarossis that you bought are the large flanges on the drivers. This would cause trouble on code 83 rail or anything less. Does not seem to apply to the Heislers.
 

Bill Nelson

Well-Known Member
the very first hieslers had the pizza cutter flanges. I have reduced the flanges on some old European equipment by running the locomotives upside down on the workbench with a plastic sheet over the mechanism. a little razor slit in the plastic lets the oversize flange stick through, where I use a grinding wheel on the spinning driver to slowly and carefully reduce the flange enough to operate well on code 70, and struggle through code 55 track.


on the tender leading and trailing truck I carefully put the grinding wheel to the flange ad let that spin the wheel.

here are some photos of an AHM Genoa. I haven't taken the flanges all the way down to the level they need to be for code 55. this locomotive's assignment isn't known. if it becomes a DG CC & W RR locomotive (where I don't have a lot of use for it, I already have two Americans on my Valley division, and they don't get a ;ot of use. However , I don't have a Genoa on the roster and for most of my railroads 40 year history there has been at least one Genoa on the roster.

The other option is the club, where flanges like this will work fine, if this becomes a locomotive for the J.E. Patterson Coal and lumber Co. I'll have to test it there and see if it is stout enough to run the whole J. E. Patterson passenger train, a string of Mantua 1880 passenger cars, surpluss from the DG, CC, & W RR, which date back to my second train set, and painted up very nicely.

Bill Nelson
 

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Sawdust

Member
Sawdust...The only problem with the Rivarossis that you bought are the large flanges on the drivers. This would cause trouble on code 83 rail or anything less. Does not seem to apply to the Heislers.

Thanks Abutt. That's the reason I have ran code 100 for so many years & won't convert to 83 or smaller. I have a lot of track,turnouts etc. & especially I am very fond of old engines & new. For me personally after the track is weathered, ballasted, & scenery added being a little out of scale dosen't bother me.
 
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