Fascia for the Railroad

Some progress on the railroad with the fascia installed.

I am going for a rusted metal look for the fascia. So I have the bottom coat of orange on and I will put some dark brown to give it a rust color when I am done.

With the base coat on I will let it dry then add the dark brown in layers to give it a rust color. This are was where the helix was going to be but with it removed I have a small yard for switching cars.

Building a swing gate with bridges.

It's been an interesting year and I realized this is my first post in quite some time. With Karen's mom passing away very unexpectedly in February most of my railroad time was used in trips to AZ with family business.

But I have managed to get some work done on the layout this year all be it time consuming on building a swing gate for access into the train room without having to duck under the section of track in front of the door.

This first photo sows the gate in the closed position. I used the same general construction that Charlie Comstock used in his model railroad Bear Creek & South Jackson. I have one bridge in place with the start of scenery underneath the bridges.
When the gate is in the closed position it's held in place with the brass road in the back just to the right of the bridge end. The small micro switch will be used for cutting the power to the tracks when the gate is opened. Wouldn't want a nice brass locomotive or any loco crashing to the floor when the gate is open.
I have removed the second bridge for now to allow for easier access to complete the scenery for the river bottom. The black paint will be where the rive water will be after I finish painting some more detail before adding the resin which will give it the final look of water flowing down the river.

With the gate fully open it allows easy access into the train room with out having to duck under a rather low bench work. It's been fun getting to this point as I have spent most all of my time working on this gate and building a second through truss bridge. The one on the left is just sitting in place for the photo and is the second one I have built. Once this section is completed and operational I will get back to working on the helix.

Helping Out on the Unita Railroad

I made a trip to my friend Bryan Daniel's model railroad the Unita RR. Bryan and his friend Bob have made a huge amount of progress this past year. It was fun to see the scenery taking shape and all the work they have done since the last time I was there about three months a go.

This is a shot of the mining area just to your left as you walk in the layout room. The rock cliffs are made using the geodesic foam and cast satin reasons that I have been using on my layout. Bryan is modeling the Colorado scenery where the Unita railroad operated in the late 1800's and early 1900's.

This steal truss bridge that Bob built spans a large canyon that has two tunnel portals where the main line will run next to a river that will flow in the foreground. The section to the right is what I worked on that will be the river cascading down to the bottom under the truss's that support the bridge.

This is an areal view of the mining area with most of the scenery done. About the only thing left is to get the ballast around the railroad ties.

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.