Out with the new and in with the old

Ever have one of those moments when you just realize that no matter what, things are not going to work the way you had hoped? Well, after getting this little railroad to the point of operating some trains it was obvious that my big spiral helix was not going to work. It was just to big for the room to allow for comfortable fit of people to operate trains. So I have removed the new helix base and installed the old one that I had originally installed. This has opened up the room very much and has made for a comfortable space to have operators as well as access to tracks and sidings to allow for operation.

This is the view of the original bench top that was going to have a helix up to the second level. Now it will be a single level with industry and a small town.
Access is now available to the three bridges area for operations. This was very difficult with the oversized benchwork for the spiral helix as access was virtually non existent.
Now with a nice wide isle two people can pass each other very easily. Now you may ask with no helix up to the second level, Just how will trains get up to the second level? Well thats easy, by way of the spiral helix that was removed. Just where will this spiral helix be located? Well thats for another post some day in the future but for now we'll just say it involves a hoisting system and a planed 6x 12 foot section of benchwork that will be out side of this railroad room. But that is some time down the road perhaps in 2012 this next year is going to just be getting this room finished and operating fully.

The loop is complete

With the lift out in place across the door way the lower level is now complete with a loop for running trains around the room. It's fun to be able to operate trains now on the lower level.
With all three bridges across the river (not sure of a name for the river yet) this corner is now ready to have scenery completed.
This is one of the manual turnout controls that uses fishing line and a spring to control the turnout. By pulling out and turning the knob it pulls the line that pulls a wire that is connected to the throw bar on the turnout and the switch points are moved. By turning the knob back the return spring allows for the switch points to move back to the original position.

This is the other end of the turnout control the under side of the lay out. The music wire is the main driver of the throw bar for the switch points. The spring ensures a full return when the knob is turned back to the main position. The read and Black wires are the main bus and track feeders that run all around the lay out to supply the voltage to the track.

Trip to Feather River Canyon

Karen and I went to Feather River Canyon today for some fall colors. But we were about one to two weeks early as there was not any trees turning yet. We did enjoy one of the most scenic drives we have ever had. It was fun to follow the railroad as it cuts through solid rock tunnels and steal bridges. Past hydro electric stations and old mining and lumber camps this is one of the most amazing displays of engineering around. It took 9 years for the railroad to go 70 miles in 1937 at a cost of $100K/mile in 1937 dollars. I can't even imagine what it would cost in todays dollars. We ended up in Quincy and had pizza for lunch then toured the town a bit and visited the museum. One can't visit a town without going into the drug store. And one of the treats was some pumpkin fudge. Now it's not what you think it is down right delicious so we just had to buy some.

This is one of the places where the highway bridge crosses over the railroad bridge below. Up the canyon the railroad passes over the highway which is one of the interesting things about this drive. As the highway and railroad take turns crossing back and forth from one side of the canyon to the other. Sometimes they are on the same side of the canyon but for the most part each one is on ti's own side of the north fork of the Feather River as it cascades down the canyon.
The highlight of the trip for following the railroad was the famous Y steal truss bridge at Keddie. This is a west bound train of hopper cars crossing over the bridge. Karen and I had spent about a half hour at this bridge as I hiked down to it and took several photos. Then we headed back to Quincy to see if we could find a water fall as we got about a mile from this bridge I heard this train so we turned around an beelined it back to the bridge to get this photo. It was fun racing back to get out and get some quick shots of a train crossing this one of kind bridge.
The high light of Quincy was this 78 year old Sequoia gigantea. Planted in 1932 as a sapling by John Loring who was a zealous worker for the Methodist Church. Karen and I thought it was the most beautiful tree we have ever seen. Lots of history in Quincy as gold mining and logging were the reasons for people to settle in this area.

What does this all have to do with model railroading you may ask? Well a good model railroader will spend time doing research to find out how to model the prototype. I have been wanting to make this trip for several months to see the bridges and especially the steal truss Y bridge at Keddie. So all in al it was a fun day and we are planing a trip to see the fall colors as soon as we can.

Hand made turnouts take 2

After my first attempt to assemble turnouts I decided to give PC board ties a try. I went to Fry's electronics and bought two PC boards and cut my own ties and assembled my first turnout using this method.

This is the first one I have made with PC ties. The frog is a little to far forward but over all it's working ok. I stll need to make some adjustments like soldering the rails to the PC ties first since my PC board is just a tad bit thinner than the wood ties. I think I could have had a better fit had I done all the soldering first.

This is looking west of what will be the main yard on the lower level. The track in the background is ready for ballast.

This is my home made cutting table for cutting out the PC board ties. I just used some old drawer slides for the table and mounted my Dremel tool and used a cutoff blade to cut each tie at 1/10th of an inch wide then cut them to length with a wire cutters.

Hand made turnouts

I'v started to make my own turnouts by hand it's fun and challenging to say the least. I have been trying to get one straight turnout done before attempting to make a curved one.

This is the first one it's a # 6 left hand that I have made from scratch using a templet from a track work book I have. It's ready for painting and then the ballast.

This is the first curved turnout I have made it's a 30" radios on the out side and a 24" radios on the inside. You can see the rails in the first photo in the for ground. I have been using contact cement and spikes to hold down the rails. Once I get the rails installed on this switch I will paint them and the ties and then add ballast.

Three Bridges

I have decided to call this corner Three Bridges as there will be three bridges here when all is done.

The Bridge on the left (which will be the center bridge when all is done) is a wooden truss bridge from Campbell, I have about five hours into it so far. The one on the right is one I have built from scratch using the templet from the Campbell's kit. I need to get it painted and then glued in place. This will be a spur to a mine eventually.

Kind of a birds eye view looking down on what will be a river and the mine site. The first layer of water is in the falls area, once I get the bridges all done and installed the rest of the water can be added. I am using clear calk adhesive which will look like fast running water when I'm all done. Thats the plan at least.
All this working on the railroad couldn't be possible in the 100 deg F days we are having if it weren't for this new AC. Thanks Dad & Mom for the early Christmas gift. It's a pleasant 79 deg inside and 100 out side.

Building some scenery.

Because of the difficulty in getting to the wall to paint back ground scenery Karen & I purchased two Woodland Scenes back grounds and mounted them to poster board. I then cut out the sky section because I plan on painting in my own clouds. By mounting it to poster board it gives it some strength to bend around the corner so there is no sharp corner but just one smooth curve of scenery.

After getting the backdrop mounted to the wall with spray adhesive I started adding the scenery to tie it all together. This is the first part of carving the foam to look like the rocks and river bank that will flow out of the backdrop into the scenery.
After carving the foam board it's starting to take shape. Next will come the first layer of paint.

This is two colors of acrylic paint (burnt sienna & golden brown) mixed to give the base color of the rocks and river bottom. I'm hoping to get everything painted and then add the water in such a way that it looks like its flowing out of the backdrop into the for ground. The section of foam board scene here crossing the river will be two of three truss bridges.

Helping Hands

One of the great things I love about model railroading is having the chance to meet new friends. It's even better when those friends lend a helping hand to work on the railroad. Such was the case today when Bryan and Bob came up from Orangevale to help out. It was great fun and they were able to get two sections of roadbed laid out which will be a small freight yard while I worked on some scenery.

This is Bryan laying out what will be the east end of the yard. He is laying one of two turnouts off of the mainline.

Here is Bob working on the center of the same freight yard. Bob is working back to the west end which will have two turnouts as well off of the mainline.
Here is the two sections of roadbed that will make up the freight yard. I'm not sure what this area will be called just yet but when it's all done I'm sure a name will come to me. The track next to the wall is the up hill climb to the spiral helix.
This is some of my handy work at painting a back ground scene. I hope to be able to paint most of the back ground scenes.

Progress with a spiral helix

I have been figuring out a spiral helix that will allow the trains to be seen all the way up the helix to the upper level. It starts out at a 36" radius and ends up at about 26" radius.

I used plywood for the sub-road bed along with foam cut to 1/2" thickness. The next step will be to glue the cork roadbed and then lay the track. It will be four loops when completed and clime about 18" when done. Planning on putting scenery that will have tunnels and bridges to depict the Tehachapi loop area.

Benchwork and Backdrop

I now have a 10'x 10'6" room to build my railroad. I have painted the walls a sky blue and have the bench work roughed in as you can see in the photos. The benchwork is mostly an open L-girder design with 1/2" plywood on top to support the foam bard. I am planing on using the foam board to allow me to sculpt terrain and finish it off with scenery so I don't have to use very much plaster to build the landscape. I am also going to be using geodesic foam scenery that I have already started using on the first layout that has now been completely scraped except for the scenery that I had built.

This is a section of the benchwork that is 30" wide and 35" high. The upper deck is 55" high and 19" wide this will all be covered by foam board and the sub roadbed will be foam as well.

This section has the foam board applied and is ready for the sub roadbed to be added. I am using a type of foam board that is not exactly what I wanted but I am hoping to get the extruded foam board that is what most modelers use. This type has a foil layer that has to be removed in order to have access to the foam to sculpt contours and ditches to give the landscape some life.

The next step is to start painting the back drop before I get to much further along and it become more difficult to paint.

Major Construction

After some thought and finally getting some time to start I have decided to start over on my layout. So I am building a railroad room in the garage to build a double deck railroad. It's a 10' x 10' room with a storage deck above it. Once the construction of the room is finished I will have to build the bench work and start laying out the roadbed for the railroad.

Very special thanks to my son Bradly! Without his help I couldn't have done this. I would still be trying how to figure out how to build the walls so I could have a storage space above the train room.
Brad hanging the joist for the storage area overhead.

This lay out is history but I will be using the scenery on the new lay out.

The goal is to have a mining and logging theme railroad set in the late 1930's using the Verde Tunnel & Smelter railroad as the main inspiration. I will have a more northwest scenic theme so it will not be a model of the Verde Valley as such. Not enough trees for me.

It will have two decks one at 35" hight and one at 54" this will allow for more railroad in less space. I want to model Hope Well and some of the smelter at Clarkdale as well as a logging branch. Maybe if I can fit it in the mainline will be Ash Fork depicting the transfer of ore from Clarkdale to the AT&SFP.

The past two weeks have been busy getting some color on the rock face of the mountain as well as getting the bridges installed and spending time at Bryan's helping with his layout. Also was sick with a sinus infection but feeling much better now.

All the bridges are installed and working very well. Just need to do some detailing and finish adding some paint to the rocks, ground cover, ballast and some trees.

Started installing a can motor in my 4-6-2 steam loco. I used the rotor of the old motor so I could use the drive gear. I decided to use parts of the old motor frame to hold the shaft and and gear at the correct angle so they would mesh correctly.

I dismantled the windings and just used the front motor mount/bearing assembly to hold the gear at the proper angle.
I then used a wire butt splice that I cut to the correct length and soldered the motor shaft to the old motor shaft/gear. This is the new can motor and gear/shaft mounting assembly clamped waiting for the Gorilla glue to dry. Once it's set up the motor gear assembly will be ready to install into to frame.
Then the Digital Sound Decoder (DSD) will be installed and wired to allow for DCC control of the loco. I have a speaker to install as well which will give this steam locomotive life. This is a Tsunami TSU-1000 medium steam service decoder. So by the end of the week should have an operating steam loco video to post.

Above and Below it's coming together.

One of the things I enjoy most about model railroading is meeting new people who are fellow railroaders. Such is the case this past month. I met Bryan Daniel and his friend Bob at the Model Railroad Expo at Cal Expo last month. Bryan is building his own HO layout and Has allowed me the opportunity to work on it with him and Bob. So I have had a blast helping Bryan and getting to know him and Bob as well as working on my own layout.

This post finds us working on both the bottom and the top of the layout. This is one of the auto reversing controllers that I have installed to allow the DCC control to reverse the signal to the locomotive when it returns from one of the reverse loops.
Much of the time this week has been spent on finishing this 4-8-4 Northern steam locomotive model kit from Bowser. I have had this for about seven years and was able to get it finished to this point. Still need to get the detail parts put on and install the DCC decoder as well as paint and weather it. Still lots to do but it runs on DC and it has been a fun project.
The scenery is coming along fine here is my rock face and river bottom almost ready for painting and finishing.
Getting ready for the hard shell which will finish this section of the mountain. Having fun and learning lots.

Starting to learn how to us rock casings

This is the smaller of the two molds I have it's just been painted with white lacker and it's drying so I can cast the mold. About fifteen minutes after the reason is pored it's ready to be hot glued onto the hard shell. Because it's still pliable it can be shaped to what ever contour you want it to be.

This is the larger and more rugged rock molds with a fresh coat of paint drying. It's fun to cast these and then while they are still pliable you can tear them and do just about any thing you want to when you are gluing them to the hard shell.

Here is some castings glued to the hard shell. I will get this section all covered with the rock casings then I will start the painting and detailing portion. The bottom of the river is almost done even have the bridge supports cast and glued into place. I used a mold that looks like bricks have been used to build the supports.
Just a few more castings to add then the painting and detailing will be the next step. The upper track in this photo is going to be a bridge just not sure what type it will be yet. My goal is to have this section all done this weekend.
When I am waiting on the paint to dry I work on my 4-8-4 Northern Steam locomotive kit. Starting to get the boiler details filed and glued on then it's time to put the boiler on the drivers and frame. The tender is done and as soon as I get the boiler mounted it's time to paint. This is a Bowser cast mettle kit that I have had for about eight years have about fifty hours into it all ready. I just started to work on it agin this week it's been about seven years since I have worked on it.

All of the track is down now it's time for scenery

After laying the upper level of track I realized I needed to reverse this cross over so I used a putty knife to pull up the track and installed two right handed turnouts instead of left handed. This will allow for the trains to be turned around at each end of the run. Just had to sand the roadbed and re-glue the track down.
Have all the track down and have started to put the foam board support for the Geodesic foam scenery.
This is going to be a river flowing from a water fall with a bridge over the river on the upper level and three bridges on the lower level. I have started to learn how to use the geodesic foam which is the base of the river bed. It's a two part epoxy that you mix and spread over window screen. It sets in about ten to fifteen minutes to a point where you can still mold it to the shape you want. After about an hour it's set hard and ready for finishing.

It all stared with a table

I had started to lay out the track before I started to use the foam board so I had to redo all the lay out of the curves. I had made measurements for the radius points and transfered them to the 2" foam board. I then used felt markers to mark out the curves. There are 18" and 22" radius curves and two of the curves are a combination of both.

I first put down the lower level roadbed and track and made sure it was good and smooth before adding the grades to the upper level. Both inclines are at about 2.5% and are 4.5" above the lower track. At this point I was planning on using plaster cloth for the scenery and had put some down on the outside incline.

With the upper level subroadbed ruffed in it's ready for roadbed and track. Most of the track is Atlas sectional track and some flex track on most of the curves. I have been given several boxes of model railroad buildings, track, and rolling stock from Monte McKeon a friend who had built a model railroad with his grandfather when he was a boy. Most all of his railroad was in boxes and so I am using some of this track as well. I am using cork roadbed and it's all glued down with Liquid Nails for Projects.

This is a double dog bone laid over it's self so there is one loop on the lower level and one on the upper level.

Planning on having tunnels as well as bridges.