November 2008
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November 2008 |
Third Custom Traxx HO scale traction resin kit due this month! *** After many iterations of the resin shell and the aluminum floor, the TS-17 Canadian Light Rail Vehicle (CLRV) kit is scheduled to become available during this month. This is a model of the 196 CLRVs currently operated in Toronto, three of which are shown below:
The TS-17 CLRV model is available in both basic and powered versions. The basic TS-17 kit consists of a one-piece resin car body shell, trolley pole shroud, roof details plus front and rear windshield formed clear resin castings. The basic kit retails for $69.95. The powered TS-17P kit consists of the basic TS-17 kit plus a #125163 aluminum floor with a complete Bowser traction drive, one Miniatures by Eric HT-P2 trolley pole with SCTC-1 trolley pole base pivot, one brass trolley catcher casting, a wire formed trolley pole hook, four resin truck sideframes and four pewter Bowser 1341 sideframe mounts. The powered kit is available at $149.95. A complete set of instructions is enclosed with each kit. As of November 13th, the kits are available and ready for shipping! See the Custom Traxx web site for details and shipping charge. Note: The TS-17 kits, just as is the case with the TS-18 Milan Peter Witts and the TS-19 Kansas City PCCs, are intended to be very small runs of unique kits for the modeler who wants something different on his model railroad empire. If you have interest, do not delay or supplies may be exhausted. Southern California Traction Club Appears at South Coast Botanic Garden! Just like returning home for the holidays, the Southern California Traction Club (SCTC) displayed their modules at the South Coast Botanic Garden (SCBG) in Rancho Palos Verdes on October 25-26, 2008.
Founded in 1995, the HO scale traction club made their very first public display at the SCBG in April 1997 and has subsequently appeared at this location in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. This was the 73rd public appearance of the club and it would be another club milestone before the show ended. The annual show was started by Gale Irwin with Mary Barstow's assistance in 1989 and was usually held in the spring. But the NMRA National Convention was held in Anaheim this past July and all effort was devoted to that. A major feature of this show is always the large scale railroad exhibit placed in and around the desert type foliage. As Gale got older. Mary took over more of the show responsibilities. Gale passed on in 2004 and since that time the show has been totally Mary's responsibility. What a great job Mary does each year. Mary is shown in the next photo next to the SCTC sign.
Mary invited the SCTC to attend the show in 1997 with a five-module display, only one of which is still active. For many years the club displayed in a room reserved for traction displays. A few years ago, the SCTC grew too large for that room and now must display in the main hall. The current display is 16' by 26' and consists of 24 modules. The club continues to expand its use of DCC in the operation of the display. With no plans to use DCC on the main two lines, the club embraced DCC for the operation of the subway line two years ago and expanded the use to the new downtown streetcar line. The club has over thirty vehicles in which they have installed decoders, mostly Train Control Systems units, operating with Digitrax and NCE hardware. The club also has many Walthers R-17 & R-21 Subway Cars and Bachmann Peter Witts operating in the DCC mode. During October the club began using Decoder Pro to read and write Configuration Variables (CVs) in the decoders. The club currently has one Windows PC and one Mac Book configured to do this. Before the show opened, our photographer caught two DCC operated cars with operating headlights on the downtown loop portion of the new city streetcar line.
Both models are of vehicles currently operated in Philadelphia. The 2004 PCC-II, 2322, is at left and the 1981 Kawasaki Light Rail Vehicle, 9011, is at right. Both models are Bowser powered with A-line flywheels and Train Control Systems M1 and MC4 decoders, respectively.
Fine tuning DCC equipped models is both a challenge, a learning experience and a lot fun. The club obtained a resin body shell casting of Philadelphia's current PCC-II, equipped it with a Bowser mechanism along with a A-line flywheel, added about two ounces of weight, tuned up the unit and the resulting prototypical slow speed operation was recognized by all who saw it. PCC-II 2322 and "Milano" Brill Suburban #93 ran both days without any hesitations on both the downtown loop and the suburban loop using DCC power from a Digitrax Zephyr with a DT400 used for extra car control. DCC operation from overhead wire with trolley poles is no longer a mystery. The reliability is now no less than straight D.C. operation. The club milestone was reached when the SCTC commenced operation on the new city streetcar line, which now connects both the downtown and suburban loops. It encompasses four modules and a 21' long run. Each car takes one full minute to negotiate the entire line. Early Sunday morning, October 26, 2008 at 0815AM, John Mc Whirter's car 93 pulled out of the suburban loop for the first revenue trip downtown. Three cars, all Bowser powered, would make runs on the new city streetcar line on this day, the other two being PCC-II 2332 and Kawasaki LRV 9011. The club was very relieved to finally get the 9011 operational after over a year of activity. [See SCTC, Column 2] Milano 1807 Being Prepared to Re-Enter Service! Milano 1807 was involved in an accident on August 5, 2008. The car is shown on October 26, 2007 at Geneva prior to the accident. Sister revenue car 1811 and training car 1834 are shown in the background.
Earlier reports of the repairs being completed were in error and the Times apologizes for the error. |
Southern California Traction Club releases appearance schedule! With the holiday (...and the model train show...) season approaching, the Southern California Traction Club announced their aggressive appearance schedule for the next six months: December 6-7, 2008 - Ventura County Fairgrounds, December 13-14, 2008 January 3-4, 2009 January 17-18, 2009 March 21-22, 2009 So if you like operating traction, please come out and visit with the club at these shows. They love to see and talk with you! Working Together to Promote Traction Modeling! Recent events in the U.S. economy have focused attention on the apparent greed or "one-ups-man-ship" of a few individuals. We will never know their true motivations. But we do know that their behavior was not at all professional and definitely not in the best interests of the financial segment and we also have seen the devastating effect that their behavior has had on the rest of the world. A recent event in the traction modeling field was recently brought to our attention. At a model train show last month, two traction vendors were overheard having a discussion about a stupid situation that continues to occur in the model train industry. It appears that one very respected long time traction vendor announced some time ago the import of a brass model of a specific light rail vehicle. They had expended considerable resources to get the model to market and expected the model prior to the end of the year. While there is a definite lack of models of light rail vehicles (LRVs) currently on the market, and so many different prototype vehicles to choose from, it can hardly be considered accidental when another vendor announced his decision to produce a resin cast model of the exact same vehicle in the same scale. In the long run this will do none of us any good and could be considered "mean-spirited". The financial situation is so volatile now that such actions could threaten the success of the project and maybe the financial well-being of the hobby vendor. Losing another supplier will do nothing for the traction hobby in general or the individual hobbyist in particular. Sadly, an opportunity to place another needed LRV model in the marketplace to attract new modelers is missed. Bowser and Con-Cor are both working on HO scale PCC car models to be released shortly but both professionally run companies had preliminary discussions to avoid duplicate products. The traction modeling industry does not need to repeat the recent F-7, GG-1, and Challenger fiascos of the main line model railroad industry. We should learn from their mistakes and show a little professional respect for one another, can't we? [SCTC, from Column 1] When acquiring the Kawasaki LRV kit in 2007, it was noted that the car was a Philadelphia prototype, developed by a suburban Philadelphia firm with membership in the East Penn Traction Club for over 10 years, so it as expected that the car would take small radius city curves such as those found on the East Penn Traction Club modules. But getting this car to negotiate the 6.5" radius right turns on the new city streetcar line turned out to be quite a challenge. All normal methods used to permit Bowser-powered cars to negotiate small radius city curves had been completed without success when the purchasing SCTC club member turned it over to another club member for examination. Soon it was discovered that Imperial Hobby Productions, the developer and producer of the car body, had placed a chassis mount pillar between the front door and the first window exactly in the position where the Bowser power truck rotating to the right would strike it and limit the turning radius. In all fairness, the pillar should have probably should have removed last year since it had been rendered useless after all the changes that had to be made to the floor provided with the car body to get the wheels in the correct position relative to the car body. Once we did this, the car would even negotiate the 5.75" radius left turn in the middle of the new city streetcar line. The total review of the Kawasaki LRT was originally printed in the October 2007 issue of the Trolleyville Times. So after considerable effort, the club has a great model for their new city streetcar line. The new line featured another new module containing the Walthers "Arnold's Drive-In" with its "neon" type sign. Shown in the next two photos are models of three of the San Francisco ex-Milan Peter Witt cars in front of the Arnold's Drive-In, located along the new city streetcar line. Models of cars 1807 (orange), 1811 (yellow/white) and 1818 (green) are shown as currently operating in San Francisco. These cars use resin car bodies cast by Eric Courtney and marketed by Custom Traxx. Each model employs a different drive mounted on a Bowser aluminum floor. 1807 has a Hollywood Foundry Bull-Ant in-line; 1818 has a Bowser drive and 1811 uses a spring belt drive from a Model Tramway streetcar.
Slowly but surely, more traction models keep appearing on main line model railroads. The award-winning 20s & 30s Modular Model Railroad has traction, although either non-operable or without overhead wire on several of its modules and one member, Richard Stern, just decorated a Bowser PCC, shown in the next photo, with a very professional application of Custom Traxx CN-3100 and CT-995 decals shown below. It operates only on two-rail but this is a great beginning:
A very well painted brass model of a Pacific Electric interurban was displayed on another module of the 20s & 30s Modular Model Railroad. The module was owned by Charles Hepperle, the founder of the club. The model, shown in the next photo, is a Suydam "San Berdoo" 1200 series interurban which ran on the Pacific Electric until 1950.
This show has evolved to be the 'fun' show for model train enthusiasts. The participants are treated to coffee and doughnuts each on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. Mary does a "deli run" each mid-day and brings back sandwiches to all the willing participants. There are no vendors so everyone concentrates on running their trains, working on their modules and just enjoying their hobby. The public gets to see all this. The Southern California Traction Club and the 20s & 30s Modular Model Railroad club were not the only miniature railroads on display. They were joined by the Orange County "O" Scalers, the Santa Fe Southern (HO scale), Friedfeld's "N" Scale, Southern California Garden Railway Society (Large Scale), Orange County Modular (HO scale), The Southern California "S" Gaugers and live steam enthusiasts. Can't wait for the next one! |
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