The Little River Rail Road in Doc Tom's Back Yard

[Bill Nelson]

tom,

Hunting through the current Walthers catalog on a unrelated mission, I found that Ram Track offers a rail car sound system, powered by a 9v battery for $39.95 sku 616-180


Bill

 

[Doctor G]

tom,

Hunting through the current Walthers catalog on a unrelated mission, I found that Ram Track offers a rail car sound system, powered by a 9v battery for $39.95 sku 616-180


Bill

Hi Bill,

That is a good lead. I will check it out. A very reasonable price too.

The picture below shows an early rail car (motor car) radiator system I am thinking about hanging on the front of the beast. Any ideas on how to model it???

Tom

 

[Doctor G]

The Motor Car is out of the paint shops.

Mr Townsend stopped by to take a look at his newest addition to the Little River Rail Road Motor Car Number One as it emerged from the paint shops. Done up in the enigmatic black and white monochromatic style famous in the 1910-1920 era the car will help capture the increasing numbers of passengers riding the Little River RR to enjoy the beauty of the Smoky Mountains.


The lettering was done by blowing up the prototype photo of Motor Car #1 to 1:20.3 scale size and printing it on paper. The lettering was then cut out and the paper backing sanded flat. The homemade "decal" was then affixed to the model using the prototype photo for guidance.

Glazing is being cut to make up the windows.

Doc Tom

 

[Doctor G]

Rock Work on the Little River East Prong

Rock Work on the Little River East Prong

Tennessee has had a heck of a lot of rain. The Smoky Mountains were not spared this deluge. Bridge #2 on an unnamed rivulet feeding the Eastern Prong of the Little River suffered considerable damage to the rock fill maintaining the wooden abutments.

A logging train coming downgrade noticed the almost wash out.

Boss Grump inspired the boys to get to work on the repairs before the Memorial Day weekend began in the mountains. Everybody pitched in with 2147 bringing a load of rock and the boys riding in style to the work site on the LRRR's new Number 1 motor car. Jimmy Smith caught some mountain trout for a fry and Col. Townsend bought a case of beer for the men.

The work was done in record time and the boys headed off to Knoxville for some well earned carousing time.

Doc Tom

P.S. Just for fun I threw in Bill Nelson's wonderful wooden through truss bridge just beginning to span the Littler River. Thanks Bill!!!

 

[Bill Nelson]

Tom, in the bed of my farm truck, under the huge stack of firewood from the storms, I have some rocks I have been picked up while off in the woods cutting firewood this last winter. the strange weather has me well behind on yard work, since my tractor is in the shop. I have yet to hear from them. I recon it will be a repair/ replace decision. I Imagine you will be needing rocks soon. Bill

 

[Doctor G]

Tom, in the bed of my farm truck, under the huge stack of firewood from the storms, I have some rocks I have been picked up while off in the woods cutting firewood this last winter. the strange weather has me well behind on yard work, since my tractor is in the shop. I have yet to hear from them. I recon it will be a repair/ replace decision. I Imagine you will be needing rocks soon. Bill

Hi Bill,
Good to hear from you.
As you can see from the picture of the bridge over the Little River I am acutely in need of rocks for the abutment for the bridge on the southern bank. I certainly could use all them rocks in your truck when you have time to bring them by. Are you free this weekend or on Mon PM after Choo Choo club???

Just finished the 1920 style radiator for Motor Car #1 and I am now working on leather seats for the motormen using a neat material called "sculpey". Pics to follow.

Thanks as always for your interest and help.

Doc Tom:thumb:

 

[Doctor G]

Motor Car 1 gets a radiator and the motormen get to sit down.

After studying the prototype gasoline powered inspection car from the1920's, I decided to try and scratch build a model of the interesting low slung radiator.

I built it up from pieces of dowel and styrene strip and used an "n scale" wheel for the radiator cap .

My motormen needed to sit down on the job riding the rails in the Smoky Mountains. So I fashioned two seats out of scrap wood and made the leather cushions out of sculpey ( a very interesting clay material).

My guys are pretty excited to be able to sit around for a while out of the view of boss Crumb.

Timmie, of course, still wants to mug for the camera. Even industrial photos of motor car radiators.

Doc Tom

 

[Doctor G]

The LRRR gets a new bridge at "The Sinks" of the Little River Gorge

Atticus was hired on by his Brother in Law ,Col. Townsend ,to work in the Accounting Department of The Little River Rail Road. While he could crunch the numbers he did not have a lick of Rail Road sense.

So when he read the timetable that LRRR #2147 would be at the new bridge at The Sinks at 10:45 AM he either did not understand it or just didn't believe it and he decided he would venture out on the new bridge and enjoy the spectacular gorge below.

At 10:44 AM he had become a believer in the accuracy of trains running on schedule.

All Boss Crumb could say was "Hrumpf". He continues to wonder about the merits of nepotism.


The new bridge was built by my good RR buddy Bill Nelson and is about 5 feet long
In the background in picture #4 is the slowly progressing curved trestle at Nelson's Gap that will eventually cross this line a little south of The Sinks.

Doc Tom

 

[Bill Nelson]

Good job.

I like the braces you added to the end of the trusses. They were needed, as durring the last ten years, while it was screwed to the thick plywood of my Dad's #1 gauge tinplate layout the trusses had developed a lean towards the middle.


I had thought about adding some beams like you did, but had concerns about clearance. , which seems to have been well founded. the tapered block get it done, and look good doing it, Good Job.


Bill Nelson

 

[Bill Nelson]

Goose #2

Tom,

Your motor car has inspired me to get to work on resurrecting Goose #2

This is a project I started fifteen to twenty years to make a gift for my Dad. I wanted to make a goose for him. I started work from a postcard and some photos of goose #2, as I couldn't find scale drawings.


For the auto body I got a kit for a Buggatti limo, made by Italiari. I had to cut down the hood, make a new radiator, and do a lot of kitbashing to the body, but I was happy with everything but an annoying splice line where the back wheel hole was filled in. Then I got a book on the geese, which showed that the original had that same splice line in almost exactly the same place. The book also had a scale drawing, and overall I had less than 6 inches of error.

I used two NWSL magic carpets to power the unit, built a brass frame cow catcher, and snow plow. I was on a roll, and then my Dad called me and told me he had torn up his outdoor RR and was building inside for his #1 gauge tinplate collection. the Patrly finished goose went into a box for many long years, but it is out now!


Studying the drive I found that one of the gears was damaged on one of the NWSL magic carpet drives. I cut up that drive, and removed the motor ( which went in to my Ho RR's #1 ). I was going to get another magic carpet drive, but was concerned that a current model might not run well with a 18 year old unit. at micromasrk you can get miniature chain and sprokets, the prototuype goose had the first axle powered fron the driveshaft through the differential, and powered the second axle off of the first via a chain drive, so that is what I'm going to do on this one.

I have unhooked the wire leads to the wheels in anticipating using battery power, and will be hauling the whole thing to the RC hobby shop soon to study RC possibilities.

unfortunately I only lettered one side, I have the dry transfers to do the other side, but some times they don't work well when they get old (just like me). If I can't match the dry transfers the whole shebang will get repainted from RGS to State line RR.

what fun!

 

[Doctor G]

Tom,

Your motor car has inspired me to get to work on resurrecting Goose #2

This is a project I started fifteen to twenty years to make a gift for my Dad. I wanted to make a goose for him. I started work from a postcard and some photos of goose #2, as I couldn't find scale drawings.


For the auto body I got a kit for a Buggatti limo, made by Italiari. I had to cut down the hood, make a new radiator, and do a lot of kitbashing to the body, but I was happy with everything but an annoying splice line where the back wheel hole was filled in. Then I got a book on the geese, which showed that the original had that same splice line in almost exactly the same place. The book also had a scale drawing, and overall I had less than 6 inches of error.

I used two NWSL magic carpets to power the unit, built a brass frame cow catcher, and snow plow. I was on a roll, and then my Dad called me and told me he had torn up his outdoor RR and was building inside for his #1 gauge tinplate collection. the Patrly finished goose went into a box for many long years, but it is out now!


Studying the drive I found that one of the gears was damaged on one of the NWSL magic carpet drives. I cut up that drive, and removed the motor ( which went in to my Ho RR's #1 ). I was going to get another magic carpet drive, but was concerned that a current model might not run well with a 18 year old unit. at micromasrk you can get miniature chain and sprokets, the prototuype goose had the first axle powered fron the driveshaft through the differential, and powered the second axle off of the first via a chain drive, so that is what I'm going to do on this one.

I have unhooked the wire leads to the wheels in anticipating using battery power, and will be hauling the whole thing to the RC hobby shop soon to study RC possibilities.

unfortunately I only lettered one side, I have the dry transfers to do the other side, but some times they don't work well when they get old (just like me). If I can't match the dry transfers the whole shebang will get repainted from RGS to State line RR.

what fun!

Hi Bill,

Large scale is a lot of fun and easy on the ole eyeballs.

Glad you are leaning toward making the Goose a battery powered bird. It will be right at home on the LRRR.

G scale graphics is pretty good site with lots of info on battery and RC control for large scale trains. Here is their site

http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/DelTapparo/

They also use RC airplane control for their receivers in the locomotive/motor car.

Kit and I are in Florida at a family reunion and went to the "Heart of Dixie" RR museum.

I will post some photos when I figure out how to get them on this lap top.

Doc Tom

 

[Bill Nelson]

My goose has it's own thread, don't want to pollute the Eastern Tn theme with western Colorado stuff

http://www.zealot.com/forum/showthread.php?p=925404#post925404



Bill

 

[Doctor G]

Been to Mecca

Been to Mecca.

I just got back from one of my favorite places in Tennessee......Townsend. Townsend was the headquarters, lumber mill and engine shops for the very interesting Little River Rail Road. I spent enjoyable hours exploring all three "prongs (branches)" of the Little River in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It was a very nice 70 degrees up in those mountains. It was up these three prongs that the LRRR built its roadbed to get out the timber for the mill.

I spent considerable time at the Little River RR museum in Townsend (www.littleriverrailroad.org/ ) and learned a whole lot more that will help with the model out in the back yard. For instance, despite being a mountain RR ,NO tunnels were ever blasted on the ascents into the mountains. If black powder couldn't cut through rocks in the gorge then a bridge was made to the other side of the Little River. So I will remove tunnel construction from the plans for the Garden RR.

Also a while back I started thinking about constructing an AH&D log loader in 1:20.3 scale. The museum just happens to have that very loader. I had complete access to it. Here are a few shots to help my future modeling project.

If you all are ever in the Smokies or East Tennessee consider a visit to the Little River RR museum in little ole Townsend Tennessee.

Doc Tom

 

[Doctor G]

More Little River foolishness

Been traveling these past 4 weeks (see post above) and did spend a lot of time playing with my 19 month old grandson ZACH at a NC beach house. He left some of his toys. So I did up some photos on the Little River RR with Pink Piggy and Mr Tree and sent him an email saying not to worry the toys were doing fine and meeting new friends in the Tennessee Mountains.

Doc Tom

 

[Doctor G]

Bear Country

Bear country.

The racket and the pounding of the Little River RR crews building the cribbing at the wash out has upset momma bear. She decided to see just what the fuss is all about.

The hard working crew is taken aback by this snorting and fast moving behemoth. They wonder where the heck the Shay went that could get them out of this jam. Things are not always quiet and still deep in the Smoky Mountains.

Doc Tom

 

[Bill Nelson]

As soon as you went home with your rocks I went digging looking for the LGB 0-4-0


this is what I got. It looks kike the mechanism is mostly in the frame, and if that is the case we are 1/2 way to a 2-4-4-2 body parts from theB achman ten wheelers, have the Baldwin look Do you have two Bachman ten wheeler shells? if so we could cut and paste to make one longer boiler, the taper would be wrong. if that is too noticeable we will have to study PVC pipe.




what does your LGB 0-4-0 look like if it looks like this, bring it to the club with the 4-6-0 parts.


Note the plug my dad had this converted to R/c with a battery and the contoller in a gongola behind the locomotive.


Bill

 

[Doctor G]

As soon as you went home with your rocks I went digging looking for the LGB 0-4-0


this is what I got. It looks kike the mechanism is mostly in the frame, and if that is the case we are 1/2 way to a 2-4-4-2 body parts from theB achman ten wheelers, have the Baldwin look Do you have two Bachman ten wheeler shells? if so we could cut and paste to make one longer boiler, the taper would be wrong. if that is too noticeable we will have to study PVC pipe.




what does your LGB 0-4-0 look like if it looks like this, bring it to the club with the 4-6-0 parts.


Note the plug my dad had this converted to R/c with a battery and the contoller in a gongola behind the locomotive.


Bill

Hi Bill

Thanks for the rocks they are in place on the western approaches to the big bridge over the Little River as I type this. Pictures to follow.

Yes I actually have three of the 10 wheeler bodies. Here is the picture of the LGB steamer I have. I believe most of the motor blocks on LGB are very similar. Tom

 

[Doctor G]

Train to Elkmont

Here are a couple of shots of the log train heading up to Elkmont. The empties will soon be filled with more cut timber for the mill in Townsend.

Hope you like the shots.

Tom

 

[Bill Nelson]

looking good

It is looking good Tom.


With the cooler weather that has rolled in I have fired up the chain saw to start chipping away on all of my storm downed trees, and make some progress on the wood pile at the same time. Get me some measure ments for the log loads you will need, I have some trees in an area of woods that I want to thin for aesthetic puropses that have long straight trunks, good bark detail, and suitable diameters, so get me some statictics for log length in inches, and I can whip up some logs in the next few weeks.


I have a lot of storm downed trees in they yard, so it will be a while before I start getting out into the woods. This year, with my Tractor operational, I can open up trails enough to get my farm truck into places that it couldn't get to the last two years.


I will try to get a trail made to one of my rock outcrops this winter, and we can get in there with picks and shovels, a tamping iron, and implements of destruction, and perhaps harvest rock faster (although with more work, than I have been doing, just picking up loose rock as I find it hunting firewood.

Bill

 

[Doctor G]

Tom, in the bed of my farm truck, under the huge stack of firewood from the storms, I have some rocks I have been picked up while off in the woods cutting firewood this last winter. the strange weather has me well behind on yard work, since my tractor is in the shop. I have yet to hear from them. I recon it will be a repair/ replace decision. I Imagine you will be needing rocks soon. Bill

Hi Bill,

Thanks again for all the help. A 9 inch log is 15 scale feet in 1:20.3. A 18" log is 30 scale feet in 1:20.3. My flats are about 30 scale feet long.

In the pictures the LRRR flats have two stacks on them about 15 or 16 feet long.

Thanks again. Love to get some rocks too. Always needing them.

Tom