What about Devore couplers?
To John Sipple:
I note the omission from your “Larger View” articles on couplers in the March and April editions of MRN, of any reference to the Devore Coupler, and its imitator, the MDC coupler, both of which operated by lifting the pin, causing the knuckle to open. The Devore coupler deserves mention as the only operating coupler that worked like the prototype. There were several versions, the first of which was the best. It was a case of revisions that were not improvements
A.W. Wallace
Glendale, CA
When I was in high school during the late fifties, I was introduced to a gentleman who was converting his layout from Devores to X2F Horn-Hooks. According to him, the Devore and others like it required too much fiddling with each coupling and the couplers were prone to spontaneously opening as the train rolled along.
Having had similar problems with Bachmann’s Large Scale equivalent, I can relate. 1:1 scale knuckle couplers have a special piece of equipment which makes them work well, a device known as a “brakeman.” Efforts to scale down working brakemen to 1:87 have not been successful so far. The closest thing to it, in my opinion, is the Magne-Matic system from Kadee and Micro-Trains Line. Since you are still using Devores, we’d be interested in your experiences with them. — John
I got your April issue today, and saw the photo of the Cortland watchman’s shanty. Here’s what makes this hobby so great: About two weeks ago I received in the mail two photos of the shanty as well as a photo of the nearby station. All this from a stranger in Pennsylvania who sent someone he knew who lives near Cortland to hunt down the tower and take some photos, then hunt me down from a six month old magazine, and send me the photos.
You can’t make stuff like this up. I telephoned the guy to thank him, and tell him that he is the spirit of the fellowship and camaraderie of this wonderful hobby. I hope that I can do the same for someone some day. Thanks again.
George O’Hagan
East Greenbush, NY
Mr. Sipple:
I live in Florida and a ground level railroad requires endless ballast maintenance due to monsoon like rain showers. I elected to brace off my privacy fence at a safe distance of about 40 inches above the ground level. I am using styrofoam panels (outdoor latex textured paint) for road bed on 6 X 3/4 inch boards. The reverse loop (10' diameter) is supported by 4 X 4 inch vertical posts as is the passing siding. I know this isn’t the “purists” approach to “Garden Railroading.” However, if you could suggest a means for constructing a tunnel and ground to deck support for a feasible bridge (on the 10 foot diameter curve), I would be most grateful
Ted Kramer
Pinellas Park, FL
First of all, I think your solution is a very good one and is not that uncommon. There are lots of outdoor layouts set up above ground level for whatever reason. I’ve even considered it to solve some problems I have.
Since you’ve learned how to set 4 x 4 vertical posts, you have most of your own solution. First, you’ll have to extend your decking out where you want the tunnel, as far as you want the “mountain” to extend beyond the track. Second, you may have to take a page or two from the indoor, smaller scale guys when you build the actual mountain and tunnel. You will want to use a lightweight material which can be waterproofed and anchored to keep it from blowing away. It would also be good to have it so it can be removed easily for maintenance of the track inside.
Remember that the purpose of a tunnel is to play “peek-a-boo” with the watchers. You can also do this with plants, scale buildings, and structures too. I don’t know if your layout has a theme, but out West here, railroads ran trains through snow sheds which you could build off the side of your fence, sloping away from the fence and having horizontal side boards to obscure your trains as they run through. Check the Web and books for pictures of snowsheds. Personally, I think having snowsheds in Florida would be a hoot!
As to bridges, I have no idea what style you have in mind, but try using a bridge as a bridge. Plan a span! There are some very nice ready-made bridges on the market and no end of plans for others. Make it a real bridge and use your 4x4 posts at either end to make everything very stable. I suspect you’ll be setting in a bunch of posts, but hopefully you don’t have the rocky, clay soil we have in Southern Oregon. Good luck. — John
I would like to add a little bit more information on Sam Posey, who wrote the “R&T’s April Fool’s Joke,” covered in your April issue. Your author stated that Mr. Posey was a race car driver and sports commentator. More important to your readers should be the fact that he is an accomplished model railroader, having been featured a few times in Model Railroader magazine, including a feature cover story in the February 1995 issue.
Rolf Schneider
Berkshire Hills Hobby
Canaan, CT
I read with great consternation the editorial about a misguided and misinformed [NY Times article] on model railroaders. If [author]Terry Pristen needs anything to change her mind about whether or not the hobby of model railroading is dying, she needs to visit my basement when I have my 3 year old (4 in April) grandson over to visit me. This boy is genuinely interested (eaten up) with railroading. He enjoys both the prototype and my models (Papa’s trains) with great enthusiasm. He does get some encouragement from me but a lot of it comes from within him. He’s already ridden his first train ride at our Spencer Shops museum. He chooses for himself which video cassette he wants to watch and 99 out of 100 times he will chose a railroad video. Sometimes it’s Thomas [the Tank Engine] but many more times it’s a prototype tape.
I’ve told people that I don’t know how much longer it’s going to last, but I will do everything in my power to continue encouraging it. I wish Ms. Pristen could see the enthusiasm in my grandson’s eyes when he looks down the track on my layout for the next train. Thanks for the good editorial.
Ed Locklin
Charlotte, NC
The fascination which children have for trains is both natural and healthy. Rest assured, your grandson is very much the better for his opportunities with trains. And as I’ve found with my own grandchildren, it’s a great joy to share in that learning process! — Ed.
I don’t wish to start a running war of words here, but you still seem to be missing the point here. Yes, we all know what things used to cost, that a Chevy now sells for what a house used to. We also know what certain other leisure time items now cost. However, when today’s parents are reviewing the list of potential expenditures, model trains often wind up in the category of not enough bang for the buck.
Yes, video games and their add-ons can run into the thousands of dollars, but parents will rationalize that at least the kids will use the item(s) purchased long enough to warrant the cash outlay.
Now in so far as buying model railroad kits are concerned, in order to save money, well, John Q Public these days seems to have a lot less patience for putting even the simplest kits together. I often find that the customers I encounter at the shows I exhibit at — particularly the younger parents — don’t want to be bothered with putting together anything more complicated than a Bachmann ‘Plasticville’ building kit. They will cringe at the thought of building any boxcar kit — even an Athearn kit — and give me horrified looks if I even suggest a locomotive kit. The casual buyers these days are suffering ‘sticker shock,’ and when they are reviewing their disposable income purchases, in terms of how much use they think their offspring will get out of a specific purchase, model trains often lose out in the end.
Although complex ‘Sound Systems,’ high levels of detail, precision drive mechanisms, various forms of ‘Remote Control,’ and sophisticated lighting, will appeal to those of us who are died in the wool hobbyists, the folks just testing the waters aren’t prepared to shell out the money for those kinds of things. The problems are especially acute in the ‘O’ gauge 3-rail market, where ‘Starter Sets’ and matching equipment are somewhat scarce commodities, while the higher end product dominates most product lines.
As I said before, I don’t expect the hobby of model railroading to die out, but it is evolving ever more into a hobby for a limited audience of greater means, not a hobby geared toward the ‘middle class’ folks, who increasingly are not willing, or able to invest in it.
Passing along the hobby to the younger folks, by the older hobbyists, will help keep model railroading alive in some way, but as long as the product offerings increase in complexity, detail, and cost, the market will, in the near future, narrow. The result could be a loss of products, due to a simple loss of a sufficient customer base to support many of those now producing model trains.
Again, I say, yes the hobby will survive, but it may well be a case of becoming a niche hobby, with a limited number of companies, offering a limited variety of products, or no products in the low to middle price ranges, needed to allow the hobby to grow.
Ben Deutschman
R & D Lines Model Train Repairs
T.C.A. Member #76-9248
Authorized ‘Lionel Service Station’ #44
Authorized ‘Williams Electric Trains’ Dealer
Ott Machine Services Dealer
QSI Installer
Dallee Electronics Installer
11 Redfield Village, A-1
Metuchen, N.J. 08840-3033
http://bencar.freeyellow.com/index.html
Editor’s Note: This letter, as originally submitted, contained over 2,000 words, all of them interesting and worthy, but we just don’t have the space to run it all. Unfortunately, I had to cut over half of it out, but I think what is left here represents this gentleman’s point very well...
I agree 100% with Mr. Ben Deutschman’s assessment [Letters April 2003]. The price of model railroading is way too high. I do not agree with the editor’s response to his letter, as the editor’s response represents ‘apple and oranges.’ Jet Skis have little bearing on model railroading. We have several computers and ‘game machines’ at our home. In addition, we have several games (as well as a lot of non-game software) for the game machines (Nintendo - regular, Super and 64, Sony Playstation 1 & 2). All these games and software are complete and require little, if any additional software to play. The game machines are complete and only need extra controllers or memory cards. The accessories for a computer are numerous, but are not needed for most operations.
Model railroading, on the other hand, requires way more than just a locomotive or piece of rolling stock. Each item costs many times what it should for what it does. One of the ‘cheapest costing’ items in model railroad, based on what it can do, is a DCC (digital command control) system. Locomotives cost between $100-$500 (decent plastic/metal items, not the brass ones). These can only do one thing — drive around your layout. Most have directional lighting (big deal, with the technology of today, that’s nothing).
Yes, you can get cheap garbage items for $29-$39, but these seldom operate very well and are more of a deterrent to the hobby than anything else. You can shop ebay and purchase many great locomotives for a fraction of the cost, making the hobby much more affordable. But, this cuts out the local hobby stores and can hurt the hobby somewhat in the long run.
Rollingstock is another over-priced item. A typical boxcar (of good quality; Atlas, Intermountain, Genesis, etc.) costs $15-$30. For what? A basically square piece of plastic (mass produced and injection molded) with some detail (no where near the details included on a model car kit costing $15 in the hobby store). Most come with their own ‘generic’ couplers or the cheaper version of McHenery couplers that the customer must change to the more reliable Kadee couplers (at an additional cost).
But, if the cost of locomotives and rolling stock doesn’t seem alarming, let us look at the cost of some of the other important items needed for any good looking layout. These items would be scale people, buildings, and vehicles. A typical figurine costs about $1 (HO) unpainted and upwards to $6 each for pre-painted (these are not hand painted, they are ‘machine assembly line’ painted, hundreds at a time). A typical vehicle, that you might want on your layout, costs between $6-$13 (a truck and trailer will run upwards to $40). Though many of these vehicles look nice, they have nowhere near the details (they are HO scale and you would not notice them if they had the details) validating these costs. Many of the new (unfortunately for HO folks) 1/64th scale cars and trucks have at least the same (if not more) details than most of the HO contemporaries, but at a fraction of the cost. And buildings — $40 and up! They may look great, but are way over-priced.
I belong to a model railroad club and have visited several others. The common theme? A bunch of older folks (not trying to be negative here as I’m about 50) and very few (if any) younger folks, except for direct family members (and those are few). I’ve personally seen where the costs have [discouraged] potential new enthusiasts.
Most of the people I’ve met in the hobby are very friendly and knowledgeable. At our club, it is not uncommon to allow visitors to ‘drive’ our trains. We utilize a DCC system, which really interests the visitors (especially the younger teen-age group). Our trains are not controlled by complicated blocks and power switches, but can be ‘driven’ very easily anywhere on the layout.
The DCC system and the cost associated with it doesn’t scare them away, it is the cost of a typical two-locomotive train with about 14 cars (about $340-$450, which doesn’t include the cost of the decoders in the locomotives at about $25 each). The layout cost about $3,000 (about $5000-$6000 plus at today’s cost) when it was built about 20 years ago and the buildings to house the layout costs about $200 per month (that’s a good deal).
With mass production methods of today, there is no reason that most (if not all) model train equipment couldn’t be produced and sold for much less. The electric motors utilized in most of the good locomotives are nothing special. Most are not even balanced and utilize rudimentary bushings (basically they are $5 motors being sold for up to $30). Most stuff is made overseas.
I do not have all the answers, but it seems it would be better for the hobby, in the long run, if more model railroad equipment could be purchased for the same price as it currently costs to buy lesser amounts. If you could have 200,000 customers instead of 100,000 customers (just picking numbers at random), it would be a lot better.
I find that model railroading is more fun when you are enjoying it with other enthusiasts. The more ‘players’ the better. DCC has brought many new folks (those interested in technology, computers and electronics) into the hobby as it allows folks to actually ‘drive’ their trains, providing more realism.
Mike Burghardt
Oakdale, CA
I’d like to thank both you and Ben for pouring out your hearts and minds on this subject; obviously, there’s a lot to think about here. If anyone else has something to add to this discussion, we’d love to hear it, preferably in the form of polite discourse as these two gentlemen have demonstrated and limited to around 500 words per writer. — Ed.
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