What Does the Lionel Train Co. Have To Do With the Battleship?
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- čas přidán 29. 08. 2024
- In this episode we're taking a close look at the binnacle, or compass, on the ceremonial deck of the battleship.
For more information on our on-board train event:
www.battleshipnewjersey.org
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Ryan. Good job. Two points. The binnacle is corrected on a “range” of known bearings by a compass technician experienced in the art. Much like piano tuners. This process of compensation is referred to “swinging the ship”. Once compensated the “navigators balls” are left alone. Variation and deviation change geographically. Thus charts contain compass roses that define variation for a particular local and address the rate of change of deviation over time for that area.
The magnetic compass is essential to the navigation of a ship. The gyro compass is inherently stable and eliminates the messy computation of true north from magnetic north compensated for variation and deviation. But the gyro has no way to “know” which way is north. The ships navigator must “set north” for the gyro. Once done that gyro “remembers” north. Until a power failure, mechanical failure or other event that causes the gyro to “tumble”. This usually occurs on a dark night, close to a foul shore, in a storm. That’s why there are usually both magnetic and gyro repeaters at the key conning stations. And in the gyro compartment. So the gyro can be re-set quickly at sea.
Redundancy is a wonderful thing.
Still done to this day, I used to race sailboats and you still "swing the ship" to set the boat's main compass. I don't care about GPS, Loran or anything else depending on electricity, they are good tools but when the power goes out, compasses, paper charts, decent wristwatches and sextants are the only way. It's vital to know the old ways.
Lionel used an egg albumin based paint to paint the compass bowls. The eggs needed to be very fresh, so Lionel set up a henhouse on the corner of an employee tennis court. Two dozen eggs a day provided enough paint for 60 compasses. From “All Aboard! The Story of Joshua Lionel Cowen & His Lionel Train Company” by Ron Hollander.
That's awesome!
Thank you for sharing that with us!
You Sir are a good egg! Interesting piece of knowledge.
@Will Kelly Buy the book I cited and read it for yourself. Seriously? You think I’d make up a story and then cite to the source where it can be found? Hoo boy...
@Will Kelly Because it’s the best book available on the history of the Lionel train company.
If they are going to set up a train for Christmas on the ship, someone out there who is a model builder should build a train flatcar with a replica battleship barrel being shipped to NJ. That would be a cool touch to the display.
That’s actually the plan. The trains will be G scale, which means the scale model barrel will be 3 feet long!
I can’t wait to see the final result!
I wish my Dad was still alive; he was an IC electrician on the Observation Island (EAG 125) in the early 1960's, and used to talk about maintenance and maintaining the gyro compass's and the repeating system.... He could have walked you thru the entire system....
I found two Lionel made USN compass in Moms attic a few years ago when we were cleaning it out for a sale, the home was purchased in 1956.
Compass #1 is a 3 inch compass in a cooper housing that is portable and has a date of 1942 on the face. Ive been told these were used in whale boats. In the cooper housing is also a kerosene fueled area to light the inside of the housing.
The second compass is in a wooden box , with s brass plate that reads Bureau of the Navy. my guess a 6 inch with Lionel 1942 on its face.
Both are prestine new condition.
I have no clue how they ended up in my Moms attic and Dad passed in the mid 60s, Mom had no idea and nobody worked for Lionel in our family.
I do know that the Lionel factory was located in Hillside NJ which was not far from Moms home in Essex County.
I also found up in that attic a Lionel made fishing reel.
Amazing company Lionel.
I think Ill make time to visit BB62 again. to see the Lionel display
I grew up loving trains, even my great grandfather worked on the railroad before joining the Navy in 1943. So my love of warships and trains comes full circle.
When I was a kid, I got an HO scale train for Christmas. My Dad and I built a layout on a 4X8 sheet of plywood.
As an adult I model in N scale. My favorite part of the hobby is to turn a train on and watch it go around. And around. And around. LOL.
It's always fun to let the grand kid drive grandpa's train.
I hope you take time to shoot a show on the trains you all have going in December.
My dad did the same thing for me when I was a kid. Probably back in the late 90s or early 2000s. Still have said layout, but it needs some TLC to make it functional again.
Ah, my some of my favorite disciplines in history combined! Maritime, industrial, and model trains!
It's stunning how our industry responded to WWII, truly one of the greatest periods in American history.
I collect a lot of modern Lionel and other O gauge, and absolutely love hearing about all the other wacky and wonderful things they have made throughout their history.
This could be doing the same job as the fluxgate in an aircraft compass system. The directional gyro has no idea where north is. The job of the gyro is to hold a set heading no mater what the ship is doing. A compass will bob and swing as the ship does. The fluxgate gives a compass signal to the compass amp which controls the compass indicators and the gyro damps the swings of the swings that the aircraft would cause.
My grandfather worked as a machinist for Lionel in NJ. During the war years he was transferred up to Maine where they manufactured those compasses for the navy. Gives me a great degree of satisfaction knowing that he had a hand in making every one of them.
As someone with a lot of vintage Lionel trains, it's cool to hear about their contribution to the war effort.
I wonder if those M, F, and Q coils are there at the base of the binnacle to provide additional -- or slightly different -- compensation to the compass itself depending on whether the degaussing was on or off? And yes, I still have my childhood Lionel train set -- and it still runs, for the grandkids, every Christmas!
There are also variations in the magnetic field across the planet Earth - if you are in the North Atlantic then magnetic 'north' appears to be someplace different than in the South Pacific. The magnetic pole also varies across the span of decades, so that is another source of error from true north that would require re-calibration to compensate and counteract.
czcams.com/video/WwIKx96q8lE/video.html
M, F and Q coils are NOT for the compass, but the compass may need to be "BOXED" to get her back in alignment after a hull Degaussing.
I have mine as well, 1950
I am a man who loves trains. Glad to see both you guys and the guys at the USS Alabama highlighting the involvement of America’s historic toy train company.
The variation between true north and magnetic north can vary widely. There in New Jersey the deviation is about 10 degrees east. If you went into the Pacific, up around Seattle and out toward the Aluetians, the deviation is about 20 degrees west, for a total change of 30 degrees. Even just crossing the Atlantic from New York to England, the deviation will change about 10 degrees.
That's the reason for the mnemonic: True Virgins Make Dull Companions And Wives.
It looks like maybe the magnetic binnacle was located at the ship’s central mass? Perhaps as another way to reduce errors?
Nice! I have a WW2 J-38 morse code key made by Lionel... probably around the same time and place as that binnacle. A piece of history! Good to have a magnetic compass as a sanity check, I'm sure.
Lionel crafted many different things for the war, their semi-automatic morse keys (bugs) are highly prized if you can find one with the tags still attached.
I'm a ham. What is the proper name for the paddle style CQ key? One paddle does dah's and the dit's
I have a chrome MFJ brand one. Paul - KC8SGJ
I’ve got 2 “bugs” built by Lionel and surprisingly, they both still have the plastic tags. The feel of the operation is every bit as smooth as my Vibroplex. De W9HZ
@@paulloveless9180 They did both straight keys (J-38's) and a version of the Vibroplex Lightning bug (J-36?). If you find a Lionel bug with the tag still attached, treat it like gold. The tags were plastic riveted onto the base and over time the plastic deteriorates and shrinks. There might be someone on the NJ's radio club who can demonstrate or show these keys (not necessarily Lionel, but you never know), as they would've been used during the WW II and Vietnam eras.
@@paulloveless9180 I believe your talking about an Iambic key.
@@EvanVanderStoep thank you. That is funny though because it reminds me of iambic pentameter.
Gyroscopic precession caused by the ships motion makes the gyro compasses (directional gyros) drift. The master magnetic will provide a constant to correct the gyros.
those mk19's likely had battery back up for power loss. the AN/WSN-5's it would have had in the 80's & 90's had built in battery back up. you can navigate off a magnetic compass, but it doesnt do much for fire control.
Ryan, your close but the reason for the magnetic compass is that it is the backup for the gyro's. The gyros require power and can on occasion
'tumble" and shut down. i was a IC second class.
Magnetic declination while it may be minimal on the East Coast is not on the West Coast where it is about 17 degrees off from true north. Always good to know where you are so you can get to where you want to be. USGS Topo Maps all have the declination for that map printed on them. Still have an O Gauge Lionel train.
Lionel made many interesting things during WW2. For instance, a large number of hand-held radiation monitors made for the Manhattan Project, and post-WW2 Civil Defense, were made by Lionel. They won these contracts because of their experience producing miniature, low-power electronic circuits.
Excellent video on the magnetic compass and it's location. I knew the ship had to have them as a backup to the Gyro- compass but never knew the location. Thanks for the video.
Yeah, the magnetic compass sends a signal to navigation. Fun Fact: There are magnetic maps that detail the magnetic topography of the oceans, and in some areas if you do not have those maps in hand you may find yourself going 90degrees askew. As for the placement, as you mentioned the ship is a huge chunk of steel that becomes magnetized at every eyeblink. That area is magnetically 'neutral' as possible on the ship. But, don't take my word for it. I'm just a retired AT1.
Great video Ryan. I have my Dad's and my late Uncle's Lionels from PreWWll to Postwar. Lionel was well known for making instruments for the Navy.
Navigation and the various methods of “how to get there” are interesting. From reading the stars to magnetic compasses to electronic gyros (surface ships) to GPS to ESGN (electrostatic supported gyro navigation - submarines). One would think that marine navigation is easy, without error and safe … it is none of the above. Unique navigation conditions via sea state and weather make it both challenging and the reason you want to be at sea.
Add LORAN to the list.
I remember reading an article in an old copy of Popular Mechanics talking about how the US government was working to build a database of people who were into electronics, woodworking, or metalworking as a hobby and had equipment to where they could make things for the war effort if the factories were incapacitated or were unable to keep up. That and they were looking for people like watchmakers, jewlers, gunsmiths, and so on who might be willing to be pressed into service manufacturing or repairing things like airplane instruments if needed. It was truly a situation where they were pulling out all the stops. Then there was the "guns for freedom" effort to collect donated civilian firearms and ammunition to arm the British citizens in case Britain were to be invaded after the evacuation of Dunkirk.
The richness of history provides far better stories than fiction writers could ever hope to come up with.
Good to have you back, Ryan! We missed you these last two episodes. And yes, my father loved model trains, as did a neighbor who was a Pearl Harbor survivor.
Where was your father stationed during the attack?
@@josephstevens9888 It was neighbor who was at Pearl Harbor. I'm not entirely sure what his job was or what he was doing there. I do know he was in the military, but I'm not sure if he was Army or Navy. He passed away from cancer when I was a teenager. Unfortunately, I didn't entirely appreciate the historical resource that was right in front of me until he was gone. My dad would have known all these answers, but he passed not long after the neighbor. If I remember correctly, he was in the mess hall when the attack began. Unfortunately, that's all I remember.
Just to clarify your comment at 3:17...magnetic variance from True North depends on the position on the earth where the compass is located. Variance can be from zero to many degrees.
Ryan the compensators on each side are called Kelvin balls (or bars in this case). The Flinders bar is a soft iron bar mounted in the binnacle vertically fore of the compass center. It provides vertical field correction while Kelvin's (or navigators) balls/bars provide horizontal correction.
This was awesome. I recall having to find the binnacle on the Missouri (as part of qualifications) and wondering at the location. There was little reason to go back there and I probably only looked at it that one time. Of course there was a communications jack nearby, but it's hard to imagine steering by a remote compass, and we never tried it when I was standing bridge watches. It would have made an interesting exercise. I was not aware of any repeaters which showed magnetic bearings alongside the true bearings from the gyrocompass repeaters. It is quite a monument to redundancy. Missouri received a GPS receiver in 1989, which was a brand new military-only technology at the time, to accompany our Omega and Loran-C receivers, sextants and chronometers, and gyrocompasses and magnetic compass.
I worked for Red Stack tugs in the 1980's and 90's and they had a number of old navy YTB's and I do remember one of them having a Lionel company binnacle in the wheelhouse.
Nice. Glad you're a Lehman Gross Bahn guy as well. My brother ended up with the family set, originally bought in Germany in the late 60's / early 70's, after my parents passed away.
This is really cool! Two of my favorites...The New Jersey Battleship and Lionel Trains. Thank you for sharing.
Model trains & a battleship. What an awesome combination. I have had HO scale trains over the years. I still have some in boxes for lack of space for full-time displays.
I still have my original Lionel Train set. I thought that I new lot about Lionel but I never knew they made compasses for the Navy. How cool, thanks Ryan for sharing.
Seem to recall Lionel manufactured Geiger Counters for civil defense purposes in the 50-60's as well.
One of my maternal aunts, Mary Harley, built copper binnacles at the
Southeastern Shipyard in Savannah, Ga. The yard built Liberty Ships during World War Two.
Yet another cool video, Ryan. Thanks! And it's amazing how you can see the 80 years of brass polish on that name plate!
And yep, we had trains. It was sort of "the thing to do" back in the day, at least on the east coast of the U.S. I remember as a kid getting excited to go view all of the model train displays during the holidays.
Gotta Say, a fascinating part of this was the tomahawk launcher in the background
I literally just bought my very first Lionel train tonight. Talk about small world.
A great distinction for Lionel. Somebody call an IC man! ( Compass gear belongs to them??) I served on a fast attack sub back in the 80's and remember doing ops with the New Jersey. Just an incredible sight to observe at sea. Love your videos, keep them coming.
Great video, lionel did many things for the war effort. Lionel o and o27 trains have always been under my Christmas tree. Lionel also made large scale.
I grew up with Lionel and MTH model trains! Primarily O scale but have been getting into HO scale recently!
As a model train buff and ww2 buff who loves this channel I might have geeked out
I'm a big fan of Lionel O scale trains and I completely forgot they made stuff for the navy! Awesome video!
Lionel made instrumentation during the war.
Surprised at the 1940 compass date. Lionel was still in train production in 1941. I have two 1941 Lionel locomotives, a 226E and 225. Very smooth running and high quality. Lionel started producing trains again in 1946. Some models carried over from prewar, most tooling/casting dies were modified into new models.
Never knew this, it was great to learn I've just started collecting Lionel (in Australia)
Thanks for the great information
I'll have to look at that train event, great video as always!
Very true, IBM was making guns, as was GM and many others. Companies took the best way they could convert their peacetime capabilities to make something for the war effort, and went full on, abandoning any thought of their commercial ventures. That commitment was key in winning the war. It's a part of our history that doesn't seem to be taught in our schools, and that's very sad. Our true history is being rewritten by people who had nothing to do with it.
Thanks for telling the story of our nations history through the New Jersey!
I've never heard of a train garden... Interesting. Thank you Ryan and team for all you do !
My favorite "well, that's random" US war matériel contractor in World War II was the Rock-Ola Corporation, which made slot machines, pinball machines, jukeboxes... and, during the war, M1 carbines. :)
I know that durring WW-II, Lionel trains recieved Gov't contracts to make Aircraft gauges & instruments for the Air Corpse, - I was not aware that they manufactured anything for the U.S. Navy
Wurlitzer (the jukebox company) made VT (radar proximity fuzes during WWII. Smith Corona (a typewriter company) made rifles.
Thank you
The variation from magnetic north to true north can be way more than "a couple of degrees". During WWII in the north pacific it would have been over 10 degrees. I am not sure what it was in the central or south pacific.
i grew up with HO scale trains!! we had a whole room designated just for them!!👍🖖😉
I grew up with HO as well. Blue box athearn kits were my favorite.
im 50 and we still have alot of those trains still!! my pops still plays with them!!👍🖖😉
We missed you Ryan!!!
The ships Master Gyro Compasses do not feed the ships magnetic compass. The repeater located next to both gyro compasses is there for comparison to the colocated compass whether that is the fwd or aft compass.
I am a huge antique Lionel train collector.
Excellent. Very educational as always. i toured the Iowa many years ago when she was in Port Everglades Florida. Thank You and an early Happy Thanksgiving.
BNJ, Some time ago you talk about the turrets of New Jerry having not been turn because the turn machine are gone. I assume you would like to exercise the turrets. What I am about to say is going to sound harsh but this is the idea. Have a semi-truck size tow truck come out and use its wench to connect to the end of the peer side barrel and pull the turret peer side on all 3 turrets. Than your team could grease the the turret rolls when done have the tow truck come back out and run its wench line to a block on the side of the ship opposite of peer side. Than pull turret back to centerline or if you want very close to centerline so the turret set in a different location by a little bit very 2 or 4 years.
Cool didn’t know that. Thank you 🙏. Great video thank you
Where I live, magnetic deviation is almost twenty degrees, it's a significant difference.
captain; "ensign why do you keep yelling 'WOOOO WOOOOO!!!" whenever you report a compass reading?"
ensign; "old habit whenever i was rounding the bend, skipper."
75k subscribers… congrats New Jersey team!
We missed you Ryan glad your back.
“If you have learned *nothing else* from watching the 650+ videos…” As always, Ryan FTW.
Only issue, once started it smoked from the top, and they gave a toot.
what is our heading?
Ship.
As a BoyScout I stopped wearing ferrous belt buckles because of the ease in which they can interfere with a magnetic compass. A side benefit is that the aluminum buckle that I have now does not set off the metal detector at work.
Welcome back Ryan!
When I first heard Lionel trains I remembered my train set.. but when u said they made trains in ww2 I thought during the war they retooled the model train set factory to make life size trains 🤣
My uncle sent me his Lionel train set. I loved it. He also got me into sailing and his father was in the navy sailing out of NY harbor on an ocean going tug. I wish the train had survived the fire but only the engine was not melted. By then it was not my thing so I did not try to rebuild the set but had wanted to keep it. Would be so cool to still have it. Singer made steam powered gen sets taller than me. It is really just scale. A sewing machine has a motor, casting, crankshaft, bearings, it's all just much, much bigger.
Singer made .45 automatic pistols (M1911A1's) for the government just before the war, having only produced 500 for a study makes them the rarest of all the .45's made and the holy grail for a collector, one that hasn't been depot rebuilt and is all original is worth tens of thousands of dollars on the collectors market.
I love model trains and trains in general
Fascinating. Thanks!
I sure wish I had every Lionel train set I threw away or destroyed when I was a kid.
Hey guys! Can you make a video comparing the New Jersey to the Japanese Kii class battleship or the Amagi class battlecruiser? I really love your comparison series btw :)))
Someone should have told that 2nd Lt in Desert Storm about magnetism. Maybe he wouldn't have looked stupid trying to use a compass while sitting on a tank...
Ya'll Take Care and be safe, John
I bought one of those J-36 Semi-automatic "bugs". It was built by Lionel and other companies (Smith Corona was another) under license from the Vibroplex Co. which had been building these keys since 19th Century RR days. Vibroplex was too small to meet the wartime demand. The J-36 was an exact copy of the Vibroplex Lightening Bug, identical except for not being chrome plated and not having jeweled bearings. Many young radio amateurs who were licensed in the 1950s bought these from war surplus vendors in the mid-1950s. On the surplus market they cost $3.95 plus postage. The Vibroplex of the time cost $40-50 or more depending on the model and was above the allowances most of us had. Mine has the Lionel logo. The parts are totally interchangeable with the Vibroplex original as I had to do when the main pendulum spring of mine broke from corrosion. A J-38 key, also made in huge quantities during WW II (Only ace operators were permitted to use "bugs.) I have one of those too but there is no indication as too who made them. The J-38 is a hand key with Morse being sent with an up and down moment of individual dots and dashes of the Morse alphabet. Rookies (as I was as a 13 year old newly licensed amateur in 1955) were expected to start with a hand key for the 5 wpm requirement for a Novice License. After gaining proficiency in sending and receiving Morse and qualifying for a higher grade of license, they switched to a "bug" which used a sideways motion, which reduced arm fatigue and made the "dits" of Morse code repeatedly by the spring pendulum. While some still use a bug today, most expert Morse operators today use an electronic key which also makes the "dahs" automatically as well. If you moved the pendulum weight you can send faster. You had to be proficient in your sending or you would be labeled as a "lid" a poor operator. It don't know the origin of that term but likely went back to 19th century RR days. If you were deemed a "lid" you might be asked to "QLF" a psuedo and sarcastic "Q" procedure shorthand which equated to "Buddy, why don't you try sending with your LEFT foot. LOL.
What I think is interesting is we have a ship made only 80 years ago with all the documentation on how it was built, but because we no longer use certain technologies or build things the same way, there are now things they did that we haven't a clue as to why.
I still have my Lionel train that I got almost 50 years ago.
Now thats cool
Got Lionel trains from my father when I was five, gave them to a train museum when I was sixty-six.
We moved into the house I now own in 1987. I found a German device in the basement that turned out to be a compass used in the navigation system of WWII German bombers.
Now I might have to get some Lionel's, that's just awesome.
I bet the gyroscopic compasses were susceptible to shock and the impact of incoming fire or even a full broadside could throw off calibration. Gyroscopes need to be calibrated but they could be recalibrated with a magnetic compass and celestial movement of the sun and stars.
Nah, they're mounted on shock absorbers. Figure everything from aircraft to missiles, and I think pretty much every stage of rockets like the Saturn V have gyros, and obviously they were all exposed to extreme G forces and shocks.
Gyroscopic compasses precess due to the rotation of the earth. They need regular adjustment as a result. Flux gate compasses are used in more modern systems to correct the gyrocompasses for north-south orientation. (Or you can just use computers if your gyro platform is good enough to measure your current orientation in space).
@@allangibson2408 US warships since at least the mid 80's have used inertial navigations systems for navigating, and fire control.
@@leftyo9589 Yes - and that became possible in the 1960’s with enhanced computer systems. It was sci-fi in the 1940’s when the New Jersey was built.
@@allangibson2408 -- Well, it's been awhile since I read about it but my understanding is that the "gyro" was held to "local" vertical by a gimbal and weights. The rotation of the earth caused the system to "sense" the rotational axis of the earth. The system wasn't like an aircraft gyro which maintains a constant heading. The ship gyro senses the rotaltion of the earth and uses it to find TRUE north.
Awesome Information
Would you guys consider doing a video about asbestos and how does it affect restoration and work for the museum staff, volunteers and guests? I'm an archaeologist and we have quite a problem with asbestos on our sites and on construction sites where we provide mitigation and resque escavation.
Our asbestos was removed by the navy in the 80s, so its mostly just government inspections now to confirm that
We had Aurora car layout under the tree.
Yes Lionel trains were big part of my early Christmas too.
De-gaussing coils center on the magnetic compass to check the ship is de-Gaussed. How else could you tell? It the compass points magnetic north after the procedure then all is correct. That is you are cancelling out the field of the ship, has also to be done each side of the equator, for obvious reasons.
Awe so Rayn is also a model train guy that is awesome !
The way you were winging it about how the magnetic compass repeater works, must mean somebody tossed the tech manual for it. Now that the magnetic poles are rapidly changing positions and in the process of switching pole location must mean that changing the declination must be hard to keep up with.
They also made Geiger counters after the war. I have mine.
How do you “Box” a battleship’s compasses? How did they “Swing” the ship? In the Coast Guard on a 95 foot class patrol boat we tied up to a dolphin on a light structure of shore and swung the boat in an arc pointing the boat in the cardinal direction using the phrases “Can dead men vote twice, and “True virgins make dull companions” . Look up the phrases for meanings, as well as “lubber’s line”
Those little compasses for the boats wont read to well on board that massive steel ship. You will need to send those little compasses out on the little boats away from the battleship, and then they can point the way.
It's ironic that "Redundancy" is the one thing to remember on a style of ship that became obsolete.