Running my O scale trains on Thanksgiving 2009

On Thanksgiving, as I always do, I spent a long time operating my O scale trains on my layout to kick off the Christmas season. Also, to simulate the railroad's huge passenger loads over the holiday, I operate mixed trains, with freight cars and passenger cars on the same train. This makes for some unusual consists and sometimes a freight locomotive will pull a passenger train, which is a lot of fun for a change. The video starts out with my Lionel Santa Fe FT pulling a freight train, and my RailKing Amtrak Genesis with a 3-car Amtrak train. Then the Amtrak train changes direction, and an extra car is added, along with one freight car tacked on the end, and my Lionel BNSF SD70ACe starts to pull a huge mixed train, with three Santa Fe passenger cars and seven O27 freight cars. Next the Polar Express is placed on the inner loop as my SD70ACe continues to operate around the outer oval, still with its three Santa Fe coaches, one O27 freight car and three scale freight cars. The video ends with my last "Thanksgiving Rush" train, a seven-car Marx train pulled by my Lionel 242 steam locomotive. Also at the same time I operate my Toy State "Nutcracker Express" train as the Polar Express sits in the yard with smoke rolling out of the Berkshire's smokestack.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Scale
• train
• trains
• Lionel
• MTH
• RailKing
• Toy
• State
• Amtrak
• passenger
• Genesis
• Santa
• Fe
• FT
• BNSF
• SD70ACe
• Polar
• Express
• 2-8-4
• Berkshire
• 242
• Nutcracker
• Thanksgiving
• 2009

[weekendrailroader]

How well does the Toy State train navigate the Lionel tracks (both the ballasted track with lots of ties and the old unballasted track with only three ties)? I just picked up a Toy State train, and want to make sure that it can navigate the track without derailing at switches and curves. Do the wheel flanges hit the ties at all?

Thanks. :)

[EverywhereWest]

@weekendrailroader It runs on them pretty well. I've run the train on Lionel O27 profile tubular track and FasTrack . The lead pilot sometimes jumps around and will occasionally derail, but it's no big deal. The only thing you have to watch is the curve diameter. O27 or O31 (basic curves that come in sets) probably won't work because they're too sharp. I've run my train on tubular track with wider O42 curves, and FasTrack with O36 and O48 curves and had no problems.

[weekendrailroader]

@EverywhereWest Thanks for the info! I guess I'll go for the wider curves then. :)

Maybe weighting the front wheels a bit would help a bit?

[EverywhereWest]

@weekendrailroader Yep that should fix that problem. It's mainly caused by the somewhat-jumpy motion of the driving wheels, so if the lead pilot wheels are weighted it wouldn't happen.

[colinroxanduknowit]

wats the size of the layout? not including the outer loop extension

[EverywhereWest]

It's about 7 1/2 by 10 feet.

[mpfischer75]

@EverywhereWest horrible

[venusflytrap99]

I love model trains they rock

[snowmangsx1100]

looks good,,i have tones and tons of Lionel trains but no nice layout,,maybe someday.

[grizzleybearz282004]

i love an engine that smokes like no tomorow

[utubin1988]

Looks like a really nice way to spend Thanksgiving. Very Cool and great set up.

[bryanbigart]

I have sante fe