Time flies.....

Wow - Holidays have come and gone, and admittedly very little progress has been made on the layout.  Here we are in the midst of the warmest winter I can remember, heading into an early lacrosse season.  That means time for model trains might be minimal at best!  

When I can't get an ample amount of time at the workbench, like many people, I explore the internet on my lunch at work, or in the evenings when I am too tired to lift a finger.  If you want to see some of the best modeling out there, as well as thoughts and theories on operations, check out Lance Mindheim's blog and see what he's been up to.

Once you've had your dose of layouts and operations, stop on by The Weathering Shop and see what the crew there has been crafting.  The level of detail in weathering is second to none, and far beyond what you'll see on certain Youtube channels. 

There's tons more out there, as blogging and model railroading continue to cross paths.  For now, though, enjoy this gem, a Rail Yard Models X79 boxcar.  Rail Yard Models announced March 1st that they would be ceasing production of their prized kits, so pick one up if you can.  It is doubtful that you'll ever find another kit crafted and researched as well as these.

CR 281358 rests while being switched near Geneva, NY

Make some time for your trains once the kids are in bed and the wife is reading or watching the tube.  They miss you.

Building Bridges - Part 3

The primer coat I applied in Step 2 acted as the base coat in terms of color also, at least for the concrete areas.  I airbrushed some earth & mud tones very lightly to add some depth of color, going a little heavier around the seams where horizontal and vertical elements meet.  Think of any location like this, where you have a corner, as a place where crud will gather and accumulate over time.  After the airbrushing, I used AIM powders for the general grime and weathering.  Their color "Delta Dirt" is great for this, along with any shades of tan or brown.  Use them sparingly though, keeping in mind that  you can always add more, but you can't take it away once it is applied.

I established the locations where the bridge feet and support columns would be, and added a little rust powders at the bases.  I could go back and add more weathering under the feet in particular, but it is in a hard to see area, so I don't feel as though the effort would be worthwhile.  On the center median where the support columns come down, I darkened things up a little where the dust and dirt from passing trains would have settled.  On the road, much of that gets carried away on vehicles, so the effect is far less there.  Still though, roads are dirty places, so there needs to be some obvious wear and spillage patterns.  Take a look next time you're able to look down from a bridge, or even out on a well traveled street, and you'll see what I mean.

Weathering complete, before striping.

Everyone always wonders about making lines on their roads.  I've seen lots of techniques used, from automotive pinstriping to masking & painting, to decals.  The best I've seen though is the use of a good colored pencil and a straightedge.  The graininess of the markings help to imply a gritty texture underneath, and the colors don't come out overly bright. Don't forget some occasional filled areas, where the road crews have used liquid asphalt filler into cracks.  I used a fine-tip black sharpie - don't get too crazy though.  Again, look at the real thing and judge how ragged your road should be!

Close up of the colored pencil road lines and filler marks.  If I could only figure out how to model road kill.

The bridge was airbrushed using a mix of flat black and a small amount of D&H Gray, which makes for something a little darker than a grimy black.  The structure was highlighted with some gray and brown AIM powders, and then I added some rust here & there using artists oil paints.  In particular, the grates on the side platforms and the hanrdails are more visible, so they got a little more attention.  Hard to show though, until the top gets 100% completed as well as the scenery around it. 

A local freight crosses the newly installed bridge, heading toward the Brayton Milling Company.

After installing the bridge, I added Micro Engineering bridge track and soldered it in place.  Trains run smoothly, and the track needs to be painted now - actually, so does all the track on the layout!  From here, there's the details that will come with time.  Warning signs for the height, perhaps another traffic sign or two, and maybe a warning beacon on the vertical supports, and of course the base coat of paint on the blue foam.

Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!. 

Building Bridges - Part 2

The nexus for this project was a somewhat assembled 50' deck girder bridge from Microscale.  It is a really nice little kit, includes bridge track ( tighter tie spacing ) and cast metal bridge feet, which are often overlooked by modelers.  While not the same as the ones I modeled, here's a photo of some home-made feet on the long-abandoned D&H AuSable Branch in the Adirondacks.  Feet are important in that they can allow the bridge to move ever so slightly without uprooting it from the footings.  These were made from steel stock and are rigid with a large bolt holding things together, however if you look close, you can see how bent that bolt is!  Hence why the feet on more modern bridges have a hinge point to permit such shifting.

Check out how much this bridge shifted, taking the anchor bolt with it!  Remember to model feet on your bridges to avoid this kind of catastrophe!

Here's the model - I took photos only after assembly, so I will outline what was done, though not in any particular order. 

The basic bridge was already painted black, a new one is cast in gray plastic.  I added styrene strip stock along the top edge to act as the connector for the walkways on either side.  Next, I installed the walkways, which are a pair of Tichy's open grate platform kits.  The see-through plastic walks are as good as any etched metal I have seen and actually have a far more prototypical thickness to them.  They're also quite affordable as you can see from the link.  I held off on the handrails for now until the other components of the bridge were in place.  

Next, I added support brackets from the bottom of the walks down to the bottom lip of the support beam, making them from styrene strip stock.  The size really isn't important here, so long as it looks appropriate.  I am all for using what is on hand rather than going out and buying a size that is correct by definition.  I then used .0125 rod to make turnbuckle support rods between the supports on one side - in my case the viewer will never see the back of the bridge.  

Getting to the bottom of things, I used some Central Valley parts from the scrap box to make a pair of support columns, which I attached to styrene strip stock underneath the bridge, sort of like a mounting plate might be.  I used the center supports because I liked the visual interest they added for the street below.  Just the same, this bridge is at a point on the layout where a lot of stopping and switching is done.  I can justify the supports as being prototypical as the locomotive may be stopped on the bridge for some time.  

 

Finishing things up on the top, I added the handrails from the Tichy set.  Be careful, the rods break easily!  I found that even when bent a bit, they look great though - perfectly replicating the utilitarian pipe railings found on many bridges.  I used walks on both sides because of the switching being done, and the access a brakeman might need on either side.  Plus, it plain old looks cool.  After installing the all-important feet, I applied a gray primer and let it all cure.

 

Nest time you'll see the finished project installed, painted, and weathered.  Enjoy!

Building Bridges - Part 1

For the past year or so, the layout has sat without a bridge over a street, thereby causing the progress of tracklaying to stop.  A couple months ago, I dug out an old Micro Engineering bridge I had built years back, and decided it would be a perfect fit. Here's how it went:

First things first - I cut through the foam with a utility knife and finished the cut through with a hacksaw blade.  I had to scrape the leftover adhesive off the top of the support structure so I'd have a smooth surface to work with later on.   

Then I put the basic elements in place to test the idea before getting into the major construction.  The mainline passes over the street, which gently drops under the bridge and starts back up the other side.  The notch on the right will be for a parking or loading area for the brewery structure above.

Styrene is so cool to work with.  I used full sheets of Evergreen and end-glued them together to make an uninterrupted arc.  Underneath the styrene is a second full sheet holding everything together.  I prefer using Ambroid cement for any plastic work - the stuff bonds quickly without damaging the plastic and the resulting joint is indestructible.

At this point I also added the sidewalks, which are built up strips cut from larger sheets.  These strips are what actually holds the arc of the road in place permanently.

Obviously the ground doesn't just "stop" at this sort of a underpass, it has to be held back.  Rather than using a big thick styrene, I used thinner sheets to give and flex a little.  I pulled the road out and used it to trace the arc onto the side of the sheet for a perfect fit.  Then holding the sheet in place, I roughly traced the outline I wanted onto the sheet and cut it down to shape.  From this, you can see the finished shape on the left side that will be contoured into the foam later on.  After this step, I added pillars and beams to the face of the walls as you might see on a retaining wall of this size.  I also cut in the parking area on the right, and faced the curb with strip styrene to make everything seamless.

After a coat of gray primer, things really start to take shape!  The connection from the road to the parking area needed to be a bit flexible for installation, so I used .010 styrene there.  Unintentionally, this created a ripple in the plastic, which looks a lot like the usual poorly-paved transition from public to private property. 

Planning ahead, I added the center curb for the support columns on the bridge.  The bridge looks really cool - I'll cover how it was built in the next installment!

How do you choose what to model?

This is a common question modelers ask themselves.  It can be quite a conundrum, one that can be wrestled with for days, weeks, sometimes years before starting out down a given path.  There's no right or wrong answer, no good or bad - it is a matter of preference and personal interest, plain and simple.  I have a good friend that has been trying to sort out an era to model, along with a layout type, for over a year now, and he's no closer to figuring it out than he was at the start.  So how DO you figure it out?  I think there's a number of factors that you have to consider, starting with conversations about the layout. 

1.  How much space do you have to use for your layout?  Do you have an entire basement or attic, which lends itself to a large mainline style operation, or a spare bedroom suited to a switching layout?  Sure, some of the track-planning special issues out there would lead you to believe that you can stuff an entire mountainous coal branch in a 10 x 10 room, and you probably can - if you don't want to be able to stand next to someone!

2.  How much time do you have to put toward the layout?  If you're retired, then great - you might be blessed with a lot of free time.  If you have a wife & kids though, don't count on being able to work on the layout for more than a few short hours a week.

3.   How much money can you put toward the layout?  Pretty self-explanatory; room prep ( lighting, paint, heat, wiring, finishes ) alone can set you back a pretty penny before the first piece of benchwork is cut.  Smaller layout = smaller budget.

As Murphy's law of model railroading will tell you though, you can never have enough space, time, and money all at once.  There's a compromise in there somewhere though - for me it was a 10 x 10 room off the back of our house that needed some paint and lighting work.  It works for me, my family, the house, and my budget. If you don't even have a room, then think about a Free-Mo module, or a diorama.  They both get you into the groove of building something and don't take up much space at all.   

So now that you know a direction for your layout ( if you're building one ) sort out the railroad you want to model.  For most people this is the easiest question to answer.  Perhaps you grew up by the tracks of a certain railroad, or saw photos in magazines that have inspired you.  Keep in mind the availability of models and your abilities as a modeler while making this decision.  For example, if you're thinking of modeling an obscure shortline, then you should also be sure you're either capable of custom painting your own locomotives & rolling stock, or willing to pay someone else to do it for you!  Once you know the railroad(s) you want to model, you can establish the era for your efforts.  You'll want to consider model availability, accessibility of information ( if you're going with a prototype ) including reference photographs, and frankly what will provide the most enjoyable experience for you throughout the process.  After all, if it isn't fun, then it isn't really a hobby. 

Do you want to model history?  If so, how far back does your chosen railroad go, and what time period sparks the greatest interest for you?  For me, this was right around 1980 - Conrail was only 4 years old, there's still plenty of predecessor paint schemes untouched, LOTS of weathering opportunities, and there's a certain grit and grime to that era in most of the photos I have referenced.

Or....

Do you want to model "today"?  A lot of folks go this way, but few excel at the concept like Eric Brooman's "Utah Belt", where locomotives, rolling stock, signalling, etc all are maintained as if it were TODAY, every day, right down to the retirement of equipment, just like a real class one line.

Taking all these questions into consideration, there is yet another option, that of "Protolancing".  Tony Koester has discussed this in his books, the modeling of a plausible scenario, using realistic paint schemes, operating methods, and appropriate equipment.  This theory is what allows me to operate D&H equipment side by side in Geneva NY, over a hundred miles from the nearest D&H tracks!  It never hurts to make up the story of your railroad as a part of this process, and writing it out is a great way to shake out the particulars of your protolanced operations.

Seems like a lot of work to go through just to build a model railroad, doesn't it?  For some, this process takes minutes, for some it will take much longer.  At the end of the day it comes down to how realistic you want your layout and modeling efforts to be.  I encourage you to think through each decision carefully, utilizing your resources of time, money, and space to their maximum potential.  The decisions on the particulars of the Seneca Terminal Railroad took months for me to work out, but I now have a clear vision of what this railroad will look like.    

The Caboose

Conrail 18652, former Lehigh Valley 95100, in Manchester, NY, September 2011 - Photo by Joe Nugent

The caboose has always been one of my favorite parts of railroading.  Long ago, I used to watch the trains go by my Grandparent's house in Indiana, on the street trackage of 15th Ave in New Albany.  Beyond the diesels Milwaukee Road and L&N, like every child, I waited to see the caboose at the end.  The best was sleeping over and waking up at all hours of the night to watch the flashing red beacon gently float out of sight as the train started its journey over the Ohio River.

Cabooses still play a role in prototype railroading, as well as model railroad operations no matter what the era.  While once used on all trains, the caboose is still used today as a shoving platform for a crew to act as the lookout on long reverse moves during local switching, or as a base for radio control locomotive operations.  This means that you can integrate a caboose into almost every layout.  And why wouldn't you want to?  They are a fun build, and because they varied so widely depending on the railroad, era, union requirements, and crew preferences, you can use any number of models as a starting point, or just weather one of the beautiful RTR models on the market.  

I'll post some photos and information on a recent build in a future post, but for now, I wanted to share a link to some photos that former RIT Model Railroad Club President Joe Nugent took last week.  This is one of 2 cabooses that was located for a couple of years in Manchester, NY, and recently hauled away, hopefully to a good home.  If you happen to be modeling a Lehigh Valley, Conrail, Reading, or other caboose with the Northeastern Model as the basis, these are invaluable for getting a rare look at the interior.  Enjoy!       

Progression

As model railroaders, we create a physical model of history, or at least how a locomotive, freight car, or caboose looked at a certain point in time.  I find it fascinating to look back at the history of a prototype and see where it has come from, which offers up the chance to build that same model as it might have looked long ago.  For instance, this caboose, long-stationed in Plattsburgh, NY:

The Bay - Where the action is.

This is Delaware & Hudson caboose number 35815. Originally, it was built in 1970 as Erie Lackawanna #C378.  Shown in March of 1976 in Marion, OH, less than a month before Conrail, it won't hold these colors for long:

Erie Lackawanna C378, from the collection of Gene Dent / fallenflags.org

Almost immediately, the shops in Oneonta patched over the EL heralds and markings, applying a quick temporary fix:

Date unknown, assumed 1976, from the D&H Virtual Museum

By 1979, it had been repainted into the D&H "Spartan Scheme", at least matching the corporate identity of the classic red caboose:

35815 in 1979, from the D&H Virtual Museum

The 35815 remained in this scheme, as best I can tell, until the D&H was absorbed into Guilford in 1984.  By then, things were pretty rough on the railroad, and the caboose ended up being damaged by fire.  This resulted in the caboose emerging from the repair shop in Guilford's orange paint, with a "G" herald to the left of the bay window.  While I can't seem to locate a photo of the caboose in that scheme ( Guilford was not well-liked by railfans ), the caboose survived those tough times. The D&H was purchased by Canadian Pacific in 1991, and by 1993, it was wearing the same scheme applied in the mid 1980's, only with the "G" patched over. Check out this photo.

Note the square of off-color paint, covering the "G". Thank God.

When I lived in Plattsburgh in 1996 - 1997, I saw this caboose ( or a close relative ) go up and down the main from the yard to the Georgia Pacific plant every day.  It looked much the same as it does now, perhaps minus the graffiti. 

Primer finally showing through after 20+ years of foot traffic

A defaced 35815 still holding onto D&H livery

Interestingly, 35815 was sitting parked in Plattsburgh recently with a GP38-2 has quite a history itself, originally built as Lehigh Valley 319 in 1972, then shipped off to D&H as 7319, then D&H 225, then 7306, and finally re-painted by CP Rail at their Ogden shops into STL&H 7306 in April of 1997. 

Resting on a weekend, basking in the sun, STL&H 7306 & D&H 35815

So even with some gaps in the history of 35815, you can still see quite a progression in age and paint.  The choice becomes at which point to model the prototype, generally dictated by the chosen modeling era.  But for those that want to show off weathering skills, maybe a touch of D&H red under that orange would be neat to see.  Nothing wrong with being able to see some of the history, as well as know about it.