Model Railroading > Welded rail train on the DB&W Railway.

Fellow Modelers,
Many years ago while on Sherman Hill I photographed an eastbound ribbon rail train as it approached the west end of Hirmosa Tunnel.
It was an amazing sight. It was one of those "someday" modeling ideas that has been on me ever since that day.
Over the last several months I was able to locate and work with a plastics company to have scale 136 pound rail manufactured. Then it was off to the races!
The folks at RibbonRail in Springfield, Mo. were extremely helpful with supplying photos of rail cars, providing dimensions, etc..
The contractor at the welded rail facility in Shreveport was also very helpful with rack dimensions.
The first photo is the "tunnel car" found at the end of a loaded ribbon train. This is a KCS 5 high ribbon rail train coming down into Somerset Canyon on the Denver Boulder & Western Railway. The second photo is the "tie down" car where the rail is bolted to the racks.
Tool boxes, an air compressor, and chairs can be found up on the top of the racks on this car.                                                                    
The rail was manufactured in 17' lenghts or about 1480' scale feet. There is a UP MOW 23 car ribbon rail train on deck that will be loaded in the next few days with full lenght 17' sticks of rail.
This is a 8.5' ribbon rail train. Loading the rail took about an hour and a half last night. The customer of this model went with 5 high racks but ordered only rail loading on the first four tiers. The top tier will not be loaded on this model.
There are 36 sticks of 8.5' rail or about 306' of rail on this model.
There are many version of ribbon rail rolling stock out there. I have built UP, MP, BNSF and this KCS version.
The BNSF version is 22 flat cars with 6 high racks for a total of 918' of rail.
Website work will begin in the morning to get all the pertinent information about ribbon rail train models up on the website. Many options will be available to meet individual customer needs.
This is also the first video I have ever posted so forgive me for the quality.
Thanks for taking a look!
David Ward
Protoloads


 

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OUTSTANDING!!

Very impressive. Whats the threader car look like?

Very impressive.  Nice work!

Very nice! This fills a big hole in the modeling world. I can't wait to get my own train.

-Dave



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/16 10:29 by djh4d.

Neat train! The video looks fine.
 

Wow!  That is fantastic....

John Parker
Longmont, CO
BNSF Fall River Division

I want. I want. I want. I want. I want........!  Really awesome!  What are a rails made out of to bend so easily? Amazing!
 

Nice work. Thanks for sharing!

Announce when where and how much, and my order will follow shortly.  Great job!

        Agree that the video should be shot in landscape, not portrait . Center of rails are not marked with a white or yellow stripe., don't forget the details.

Umm, how do you plan to ship a 17 foot train?

Are the cars heavier than normal? 

4thDistrict Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The video would be much more effective if it was
> recorded in landscape mode, not in portrait mode.
> How many movies or TV shows are in portrait?
> NONE!!! It's the ribbon train that is of interest
> to your viewers, not the sky above it or the rock
> cliff below. 

Nothing nice to say? I looked but can't seem to find any of your videos, I must have missed them.

While a whole CWR train may be out of the reach of many modelers, I think just buying some lengths of the rail to have along the tracks would fit well with any layout from the 1960s on.
New rail waiting to be laid (and painted a metallic gray) or used rail that was taken out (and painted rust brown) are very common sights.
Thanks for sharing.

4thDistrict Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Chad Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > 4thDistrict Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > The video would be much more effective if it
> > was
> > > recorded in landscape mode, not in portrait
> > mode.
> > > How many movies or TV shows are in portrait?
> > > NONE!!! It's the ribbon train that is of
> > interest
> > > to your viewers, not the sky above it or the
> > rock
> > > cliff below. 
> >
> > Nothing nice to say? I looked but can't seem to
> > find any of your videos, I must have missed
> them.
>
> Try these. It's not hard to hold the camera (or
> phone) to show more of the intended view:
>
> https://youtu.be/ijlCIEFPWQc 
>
> https://youtu.be/PyZyL0Kiwog
>
> https://youtu.be/lTuY9qSZcrY
>
> https://youtu.be/6GU8N1XmtqE
>
> https://youtu.be/j8SD3VVeX_E
>
> https://youtu.be/Mzwp4ZhzGag
>
> Have any more useless comments you want to
> make???
>
>
>
>  

Nice videos,  I assume your layout? Not useless, you just seem a bit grumpy. Rather than complement the poster on his work which is great, you bitch about the orientation of the video.

Well... Looks like im not going to be able to afford college anymore, but a UP rail train is probably a better investment anyway.

Travus



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/16 19:36 by suvart.

First of all, if you want to make comments about the format of the videos , make them over at digitial cameras. com. This is a railroad site just in case you lost your focus. (yes, that was a pun). Now, with that in mind, this model MUST be seen in real life to do it justice. David was set up at the St.Louis Prototype meet and had nearly a whole train of these cars ( two cars shy of the prototype) set up. The entire train would not fit on two 8 ft. tables. His techninique for modeling is unparalleld in our hobby in my opinion.  But wait, there's more. David has some more original surprises coming in the future and I, for one can hardly wait for these models to be made. 

Didn't see anywhere about minimum radius curves it can handle? Very cool!

I'm in David!