Wonder how his reward offer

Wonder how his reward offer for the return  of his stolen loco during an open house ended.  Sick perpetrator.

Marc Fournier, quebec

Reward?

When did that happen? Either I haven't gotten to that part yet or I don't remember it if I did. Howard sure presents alot of stuff in the book.

I also got Allen Keller's Great Modle Railroads #58 with the book. That is the third ibstallment he's done on Zane's model railroad and it is just great. Make's me wish I could see it live, but I haven't got an excuse to go to Columbia, Maryland to see it.

Irv

I would love to see this guy get caught.

Irv

I have been fortunate enough to know Howard for a few years now and have visited his home several times and have gotten to know him on a personal level. He has been a great help and given me valuable information first hand on the contraction of my new layout. To say he's a regular down to earth sort of guy would be a great understatement.

The unfortunate incident happened last year, one evening an unexpected and uninvited group stopped by to see the layout. They were in another part of the basement for about 15 minutes before anyone knew they were even there. All wearing coats breaking one of Howard’s cardinal rules, which are clearly posted before you, enter his layout room. Well some low life pocketed one of his brass engines and a few other items and had the audacity to taunt him with an email full of racial slurs and claims that he sold the engine on ebay the following day. A crock of lies if you ask me, it's probably sitting on a shelf in his house a fools trophy to remind his worthless self how he outsmarted the Great Howard Zane. In realty he's nothing more then a common thief. I say unfortunate incident because of what happened he no longer has open houses so the general public can see a true model-railroading masterpiece. I can't say I blame him I had something stolen right off my desk by a so called friend's son and I know how livid I was for months, if it were something like his locomotive would be homicidal. Howard has two websites that I think you mihgt enoy, seeing or even purchaisng some of his handy work and nice video's of his layout.

http://www.zanestrains.com/

http://www.zanestructures.com/

I remember that...

I remember hearing about that incident at the time.  The individual seemed obviously messed up emotionally etc.  judging by the hate mail Howard received.  It was a sad affair indeed.  Hope the persons responsible get theirs some day.

stolen trains

I hope gets some satisfaction of revenge from that guy as well. It's shows a lot of chutzpah (not to mention a lack of respect or good upbringing) to steal something from a guy's home. I've had that done to me and it certainly isn't good thing. Some people just have no idea of courtesy or even of what is right these days.

I've taken a brief look at the two sites and they are interesting to say the least. I'll go back later when I have more time. Thanks for them.

Irv

Howard Zane

Irv:

I agree with you about Howard Zane's "My Life with Model Trains". Off the wall and at times LOL funny, it is not your typical model railroad book.

By the way, I visited Howard in April and he told me that he was planning to expand the layout again. This would be Section 4.

Despite problems he has had in the past he does still have open houses. He was open for the NMRA MER Convention this past fall and was also open in the fall of 2007.

Each fall layout owners in the South Jersey, Southeast PA, DE and MD area have open houses. Those interested should check this web site: http://www.modelrropenhouse.com/ around September or October. Perhaps Howard will be open again. Plus there are plenty of other great layouts to see.

Scott Dunlap

I think I'm...

I think I'm starting to cross that slippery slope. I was on his page and looking at purchasing a car from him (I know it's over priced, but it would be nice to have a piece of his just to have, without using the five fingered discount) but take a look at the trackwork just infront of the left truck.

What a bump! 

All joking aside, this gives me, a crude beginner a  much better feeling about my rough work!

Time for the hammer ...

Time for the hammer!

Seriously, I'd be real inclined to get a piece of 2x4 and a hammer, and give this section of track some stiff taps/hits to push it down.

If that doesn't work, my next step would be to replace this section with a fresh piece. I've found trying to correct bad trackwork often just makes it worse - and then I'm constantly dealing with derailments and related headaches forever.

Replacing a section of bad trackwork is never fun, but it's often the right choice. The replacement often works much better - and then I wonder why-the-heck I waited so long!

Bump

There was a bump like this in Beaverton on the P&W tracks (not mainline) where they changed rail sizes. It's prototypical!

Charlie

Howard Zane

I have been communicating with Howard by email. He is a great guy as well as great model railroader. I got a personaly invite to tour his layout when I am in his area. I would love to take him up on it but I don'y know when I am going to be down his way.

Irv

Time for hammer?

Howard says that he likes to see his cars sway because real track is never perfect. He models 1952 so he is correct in that 1952 was probably long before welded continuous rail came on the scene.

Of course if you've ever been on the NYC subway that rail is anything but smooth.

Irv

That was the way track was...

Howard Zane's philosphy of track laying is not have it smooth because it wasn't back in the 1940s and early 1950s. Everything back then was done by hand even back then because this was before the era of power equipment that created smooth road bed and welded rail. Thimgs have sure changed alot in the last 60 - 70 years.

There is another factor involved here. Many model railroaders do not realize that train sppeds were often less than 30 mph and sometimes much less than that. You really have to read the book where he explains all this.

Irv

It certainly looks intentional

Well it certainly looks intentional - after all there is clearly a smooth rail joint just a few inches to the right, and clearly a file has been taken to the bump.

I'm not criticizing Mr. Zane, but I do find it fascinating how different people focus on making certain aspects as  real as possible, but can clearly accept other allowances elsewhere. What's most interesting to me are the choices made, as generally a lot of allowances seem to be normally made in favor of smooth and reliable operations.

In this case he's the first I've seen or heard of whom eschews smooth track work as being unrealistic.  I'd have to wonder though, that mainlines must have been pretty smooth in order for passanger equipment to see the 70+ mile speeds that were not uncommon in that era.

Based on his idea, I wonder if anyone has done an entire layout using nothing but short, scale lengths of rail  (and not just using snap track) to encourage the kinking that would lead to the rolling stock wobble.

I'd hazard a guess that ITRW, the massive weight of even an empty freight car helps keep it sure footed on bad track, do you know if Mr. Zane's rolling stock carry extra weight to assist their travel?

There is a difference bewteen freight and passenger service

Mr. Zane models the Virginia area that was a source of coal for various industries. Trains on these tracks did not really go faster than 20 mph if thatost of the time. Speed wasn't of the utmost importance for this type of load.

Zane uses felx track for his trackwork and he purposely makes the trackwork less than perfect to show that the track wasn't well maintained in places due to weight and the frequency of the trains on jis layout. You should .also realize that he doesn't have a specific prototype in mind hee because he likes all of the ones that ran in Virginia in 1952. His layout is beautiful and the scenery is very believable even though it does not depict a specific place in Virginia.

He does run some passenger service but I don't know at what speeds since he never really talks about it in the book.

Allen Keller has now made 3 different videos of Howard Zane's layout. These are numbers 12, 44 and 58 of his Great Model Railroads series. I haven't seen 12 or 44 but I do own and have watched #58. If you have it, you'll see a great layout along with demos on making waterfalls, roads and some other stuff. I got it along with an autographed copy of the book from one of Howard Zane's two web sites. It's well worth the money even if you don't model in HO (like me) because many of the things you see apply in all scales.

If you have questions about Howard's stuff or layout, ask him. I am sure he'll graciously answer them.

Irv

tracks have ratings

The condition of track is dependant on its class.  Mr. Zane is evidently modelling class 1 track where that kink is located.  On the prototype they would call that a pull-apart since the fishplates have obviously snapped, and it would have to be repaired soon. 

Even in the steam era track would have to be maintained almost glassy smooth if it were for high speed mainline passenger service.  Track foremen would take great pride in being able to detect even the smallest undulation in their section of mainline and would be looking for anything like that on their daily inspections of the line.  Finding a bad spot would result in an immediate slow order being placed on the section and a track gang being dispatched to correct it as soon as practical.

Now yards are a different matter, since the speed limit in yards is usually about 20 mph or so.  You can have some pretty rough track if that was as fast as you intended to go.  Repairs would be done when they got around to it, or sooner if things started derailing or you couldn't use the track (broken switchstand, etc.)

Here's a site I found showing the requirements for various classes of trackage:

http://tacnet.missouri.org/history/railroads/fra.html

On the Sudbury Division we try to represent various classes of track.  The mainlines are always built as smooth as possible, but passing sidings and yard tracks are allowed to be rougher.  We've only gone to the touble of representing really decrepit track in one place:  there's a short siding near the Sudbury station called the Garden Track which normally only sees Budd RDC's waiting to depart for White River; this track is laid with code 55 rail and deliberately kinked every 39 feet so that it sags where the joints would be.  Cars heave side to side a little going down this track.

Here's a more typical example from our gallery:

This shows the train on a 40 mph mainline (the Canadian equivalent of class 3 track) with a class 2 siding beside it (or maybe class 1, now that I look at it more closely ).  The roadbed for the main was planed carefully to make it nicely superelevated and smooth, while considerably less effort went into the siding.  Trains nevertheless operate smoothly and reliably on the siding just as they do on the main, which is more a function of correct gauge and clean track joints.

This sort of thing is easier to do with spline roadbed.

Ok I'll play picky !...

Ok I'll play picky!.....

That ain't no file mark. It's a rail nipper cut for a short piece of fill track. Someone forgot the rail joinner and by the look of the up turned tie the iron used on the 18G feeder (just under the truck) of the  next track over  probably over heated the plastic.  And we are running non-DCC ready turnouts are we.

. 

I was over to take a look at the rooling stock he has for sale and noticed this picture.. Ouch. Now that must be one big jump or is this the new Play-Doh track..

Close ups really  bring out the subtle hickups.  Mental note, no turnouts (unless Fastrack), no feeders, no joinners in pictures.  

Hey it still looks much, much  better than what I have.

Marc F