I saw this phrase posted on one of the boards today. A little voice rang out, “Yeah! I’m not alone!”

“Multiple-Era Disorder” can turn the average prototype modeler into a train collector quicker than anything else I can think of. You know the type with more boxes on the shelf than finished models on the layout. Life is way too short to waste time on modeling everything. I can only hope I have enough modeling time to build all the models I want for my ONE modeling period.

Discipline will set you free…

We all have friends go on and on about their new steam locomotive they just bought that was retired by 1948. Yet we know full well, he also has a set of diesels that didn’t hit the rails until 1972.  Are you looking forward to seeing them run together?  That works for them, that’s great, it’s just not my thing.

I don’t mean to pick on any one person about this, I used to be tempted by the newest releases of models outside of my modeling period. I’ve got a whole For Sale page on this site where I’m still trying to get rid of my models outside of my current modeling focus. So, I’ve suffered from this also, I’ve felt the pain.

It’s one thing if your models are meant for a display shelf, I just don’t have enough time or money to model in all the different eras.

I never said I don’t like the different eras. I just don’t have time to model them all!

Back in the Wheel Standards post, I started to take a look at how wide some of the currently produced O scale wheels are. What followed was the page NMRA S-4.2 O Scale Wheels Standards where I started to document how far from standard our wheels are. What I found was very disappointing, almost none of the products that were available were within the NMRA standard for wheels.

That opens a big question mark for me. I believe in standards, they are what will make the railroad run smoothly. What I was seeing was nothing close to standard.

On the ride back from Chicago I was able to have a long conversation with Matt Forsyth who was really stuck in the Jeep listening to me. He had been prodding me for a couple of months to thin down my standards, go to .135 wheel widths only to find out that the NMRA already went to .145. Here is an example of one of Matt’s Intermountain trucks with the thinned down .135 wheelsets.

Well as the conversation turned, I asked “you’re only .020 off of P48 widths, why not go back to p48 standards?” That lead to a long conversation about what’s important to each of us as modelers and what wasn’t. At the end of the conversation we were looking at trying proto48 standards with a 5 foot gauge. We each had our reasons for not just saying yes to Proto48 again.

We ordered in some wheelsets from Protocraft, boy did they look great! Matt quickly modified a set of wheelsets with a spacer installed behind the wheels to adjust the guage. The concept could work nicely. But is this the right direction? I stayed back on the fence a little, still not sure I wanted to commit to the concept. All the while those wheelsets kept sitting on the workbench screaming at me.

The data about the lack of standards for O scale kept piling up this Spring, some manufacturers had different tolerances on different runs of the same products.

When I made the choice to stop modeling in Proto48 back around 2000, I was headed in a different direction. I was a member of a club that really did not want proto48 in it, I had an ever increasing Steam Locomotive stable and didn’t have any real machining skills and there were not many products available for Proto48.

What I now realize, if you want standards, everything is a project to convert no matter what the gauge. If I used the new NMRA standard almost everything needs to be converted, if I go to proto48 standards, everything needs to be converted. On some projects in the queue to be built, it is actually more work to use the NMRA Standards than the p48 standards, mostly because of the products produced by Protocraft.

In this photo is a San Juan P48 USRA Andrews truck with San Juan plastic wheelsets, a San Juan truck with Protocraft wheelsets, and on the car another San Juan truck with PSC wheelsets. There is a difference. Here is a close up of the San Juan USRA Andrews truck with a Protocraft wheelset on the left and a PSC wheelset on the right.

The more research you do to “file in the holes” of what you know, the more questions it brings up. I was able to fill in a bunch of holes the other day with a trip to Shamokin.

I finally found out what kind of bridge was at the Southern end of the yard. I’ve been looking for photos and have not found any to date. It is a ballasted through concrete trough with steel girders under it. The adbuptments were poured concrete on top of stone foundations. It looked like the bridge had a built date of either 1948 or 1949 the diamond on the adbuptment was a little damaged.

Here are some detail images of the bridge.

Notice the yard lead starts just after the bridge, you can still see it in the ballast.

David Crement’s EBT On3 layout was our fourth and final layout on this trip. The show’s Layout Tour Guide described the lay as: “Dave has added the #6 mine and the town of Woodvale. East Broad Top Railroad 2-8-2 Baldwin Narrow Gauge locomotives move freight, passenger, and COAL trains winding their way through the Pennsylvania mountain towns of Wood, Roberts, Cooks Rocky Ridge, Coles Valley and Kimmel siding.”

I’m not sure which were more entertaining Dave’s stories or his models. Both were outstanding. One of the more memorable was the story of the scout’s that built the company house shown in the below photos. Dave keeps images of the boys who built the models on the railroad mounted to the fascia.

I’m an EBT fan, I admit it. So, I was excited about going to see the railroad and it did not disappoint me one bit. I would have liked to see coal trains moving, they are my favorite freight cars, but what did move looked great and ran perfectly. The structure models on this railroad set it apart from others.

David has a great sense of humor and it shows in his models, I really like the view of the miners in the coal mine.

This layout started a conversation on the ride home the next day that is going to make for some changes in the future. No I’m not going to model the EBT, although it is very tempting, but the flanges that were running on the On3 equipment looked great and they go back to where I started in O scale, with Proto48. No I’m not going back to p48 but maybe their wheel standards.

Don Byrnes was our first stop on Saturday night. It was open on Friday night and was listed as having an operating session that night. The Tour Guide described Don’s railroad as:

“This is the second time Don’s layout has been open for viewing. Don’s 31×35 walk around design consists of a terminal district built for lots of switching and no mainline action. The track is hand-laid and uses a DCC system with radio throttles. The layout is heavy on structures but light on scenery.”

Since this space was close to what I have to use, I was very interested in seeing this layout and what Don did with his railroad. It is built on one level and is operated as a point to point switch district. Most but not all of the structures are built as flats. Don used some very creative transistions from one scene to the next, with trains going into building and between them. It made the scenes appear bigger.

Don was great host and also a pleasure to meet. Lets look at the railroad.

Don Byrnes was our first stop on Saturday night. It was open on Friday night and was listed as having an operating session that night. The Tour Guide described Don’s railroad as:

“This is the second time Don’s layout has been open for viewing. Don’s 31×35 walk around design consists of a terminal district built for lots of switching and no mainline action. The track is hand-laid and uses a DCC system with radio throttles. The layout is heavy on structures but light on scenery.”

Since this space was close to what I have to use, I was very interested in seeing this layout and what Don did with his railroad. It is built on one level and is operated as a point to point switch district. Most but not all of the structures are built as flats. Don used some very creative transistions from one scene to the next, with trains going into building and between them. It made the scenes appear bigger.

Don was great host and also a pleasure to meet. Lets look at the railroad.

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The Layout Tour Guide for the show describe George’s railroad with the following: “George’s railroad is called the Golden Twilight Lines, and successfully operates big steam, full scale passenger and freight equipment in a small space. His Chicago surface lines have been extended, detailing & building construction.”

When they said small space they were not kidding. Being one of only three layouts open on Friday night did not help that issue. It seemed like everyone viewing layouts that night were at this one layout. Seeing this layout could have been helped if some of the visitors had not taking root in their locations. One gentleman looked like he was going to pass out from the heat in the room’s center.

The layout was nice, a simple design of an outside loop with both city and rural scenes being modeled with a city scene being modeled in the center of the room had very nice detailing on the street scenes.