Thinning the Herd: When You Have Too Many Trains.

When collecting anything, from bottlecaps to chris-craft yachts, eventually you reach critical mass; that point when either there’s too much stuff. Sometimes this can grow to so many items that it begins to intefere with daily life or a job. I know many model railroaders who have thousands of freight cars, hundreds of locomotives and perhaps a layout to run 1/100th of their fleet at a time. There are brass collectors with entire floor-to-ceiling walls of glass cases of $200-7500 locomotives and rare cars. Lionel collectors are in a league of their own. It’s not uncommon to see a guy who has turned his basement into the New York department store christmas demonstration layout, with yellow and cream boxes covering all four walls. Impressive? Yes. However what use is a collection this complete if it cannot be appreciated by anybody else, the relavance of having one of each type of postwar lionel cattle loader becomes irrelavant if you pass on and your massive collection is fragmented into the 10,000 pieces you took an entire life to build it into in the first place.

LEARN FROM EXPERIENCE
Since I was six years old I’ve gradually purchased HO scale trains. I’d get money from my grandparents and aunts and go spend it at the local GATS show. I had an adept sense for frugality which sometimes worked quite well for me and sometimes backfired spectacularly. I can honestly say that I’ve only paid retail for less than 6 of my 50+ locomotives in my collection, and ironically the ones I bought new usually fell apart faster than the junkers I bought and repaired. Until about a year ago I used to do this with freight cars, buying anything I liked and running it on my layout, until I discovered the detail of Accurail, Kadee and Intermountain cars, but that’s another story.

Of course buying junkers has an incredible benefit; if researched, some of the older cars (especially AHM, Ambriod, and Roundhouse) offering were based on some very eyecatchingand unusual prototypes. These were (and still are) a pleasure to find, rebuild and redetail. The only problem with junkers is occasionally you put the rosy colored glasses of “oh! this old MDC shay doesn’t run now, but if I spend some extra time working on it, despite some missing parts, perhaps I can get it running and looking nice. and for $5, I suppose I can’t afford NOT to buy it..” Yeah. er… no.

With new cars, especially the meticulously decorated cars now offered RTR from Atlas, Athearn, Intermountain and others are so intoxicating when seeing them on the shelf of the hobby shop. Seeing that Atlas billboard reefer and thinking about a whole string of fancifully decorated reefers carrying pickles, choclate, baby food, meat, sausage casings, fruit, vegetables and other perishables…until you realize that they outlawed billboard reefers in 1936….and your modeling the mid 1950’s.

Restraint is the Key

Setting yourself a particular modeling year isn’t just for Jack Burgess. I HIGHLY reccomend that you choose an era, or a specific year and stick to it. Choosing, say, 1954 would keep you from buying 100 billboard reefers, Second generation diesels, ultra colorful 40′ boxcars, and still be able to run steam on your layout. Choosing 1974 would pretty much give you a nice range of “modern” equipment in shiny new appearance with a small handful of 1950’s era equipment. An earlier era, like 1904 would be a challenge, probably requiring a lot of scratchbuilding, which would save you money by not purchasing 100’s of kits. I’ve been tempted to break my era entirely and model Tunnel motors and GP40X’s, but then I see where my real interest lies, small mainline steam, and keep focused. Focusing my modeled year has undoubtedly saved my thousands of dollars and unnecessary desires for random (and expensive) pieces of equipment.

Minimize your “Project shelf”

This is ever harder than restraint, once you have chosen and era, you typically would buy a huge pile of stuff for the trains you want to model, and I’ll bet not all of it is ready to run. Furthermore I’ll bet that some of the stuff you want for your layout will be unique and would sometimes require extensive redetailing or kitbashing to make your model look like it’s real-life counterpart. As I began seriously modeling, these projects seemed to appear and multiply. I have two doodlebugs made from harriman coaches and halfed GP40 frames floating around in my workshop along with 2 dozen steam locomotive projects and a slew of “bad-order” freight cars. Oh, and did I mention the project list doubled when I went DCC two years ago…yup, decoders for all! *sigh*

The other half of this equation is the stack, shelf, pile or cabinets filled with unbuilt kits of all types any modeler worth their salt has. Building a shake the box kit is worth it just as a diversion from larger projects sometimes and it’s always nice to have a few lying around, but you go to a couple of train shows and then your modeling space is covered in kits for buildings, freight cars in plastic wood and resin, locomotives in metal and plastic and then suddenly a few evening projects turns into what seems like a years worth of work, and what do you do in the meantime while staring at the pile of kits? Why purchase more of course!

Get your screwdriver, glue and NMRAgauge, because you should finish some of those car kits. Now. You’re already spending time reading this blog, you could have put together an Athearn Boxcar or converted an older N scale car with Micro-Trains couplers or started kitbashing an On3(0) flatcar, or begun thinking about your next layout.

Don’t buy the chicken before it hatches.

I cannot tell you how many buildings I have purchased over the years for my layout, only to optimistically think while planning a new layout “oh, It’ll fit” and once having laid the track and constructed the building to find out that it doesn’t. It’s always nice to have a stash of buiding kitbashing parts handy, but one box leads to a chest of drawers leads to a dresser leads to a dresser, toolbox, small parts box and two moving boxes filled with building kit parts…and the built buildings scooped up at trainshows for nothing cover shelves. They all need to go.

The roster of your locomotive collection exceeds any sensible ratio!

I was, and still am an engine fan. A couple of years ago I had more operable engines than operable, reliable freight and pasenger cars. That has since reversed with an influx of cash, but again the fleet has grown full of “fat”, either poorly detailed or freight cars with sub-par operating characteristics. The other thing to watch out for is too many unique cars in what should be a sea of Black and Boxcar red. You might want to take a closer look at some of your freight cars sometime and see how crude the details might be on some of your older offerings. You might as well do the best option, upgrade or sell. Be realistic witht the amount of time you can dedicate to projects (see above) and decide how many cars you REALLY want to upgrade and how many you can comfortably live without.
A highly detailed, nicely weathered and perfectly operating small fleet of cars is more impressive to any visitor than a vast sea of dusty, crappy looking, shiny plastic-with-badly-pad-printed-lettering rolling stock.

With locomotives it’s another story. That story is for another time though. Stay Tuned.

SP Common Standard Turntable from an Atlas Model PART 2

Now that the concept proved successful, it was time to dive into actual construction. Luckily, I had a turntable lying around from a display I took to shows last year, and although it was nicely weathered and a nice model in it’s own right, it was cheaper than buying a new one.

I began construction by salvaging an Atlas turntable motor from another damaged model I was given. The motor and gears worked fine, and recycling is paramount to any model railroader. So I installed the motor onto the turntable and then soldered wires to each rail in the center, so I could run the electricity up onto the future bridge.

I also purchased a 12″ by 12″ plexiglass sheet to use for the new (non-rotating) turntable pit. I traced the circumfrence of the atlas model with a pencil onto the plexiglass and lightly scored the plexiglass. I then used the “scribe n’ snap” method for making a remarkably perfect circle. If you look closely in the above photo, you can just make out the plexiglass disc.

Next, I had to build the open steel underframe for the bridge that would span the turntable pit. Most turntable scratchbuild tutorials go for the classic plate-girder look, but I decided to go for something more interesting, as you know. I built it almost entirely out of styrene “I” beam structural shapes I had laying aound. The main I beam is a scale 4 feet tall, laying on its side making the strong center beam.

This really took alot of patience and a couple failed attempts, which I suppose will make good shop clutter or scrap loads. I had to not only cut all these I beams identical widths, they had to be notched to interlock with the large “I” beam.
If someone knows a really great, smooth and clean way to cut structural shapes like these to identical lengths please post a comment, I’d love to hear it. Eventually I got the necessary amount ot structural shapes cut and began putting it together.

Now that the underframe is complete, it’s time to build the pit rail and outrigger wheels to support the ends of the turntable. In our next two installments, we’ll build some truss structures and the outrigger wheels.

A Railfan Report 6/23/09

(Delayed due to vacation, the SP Turntable article will appear monday)

On Monday 6/22/09 RailfanHunter went to Haggin Junction to catch 2 special trains in one day. The first train of the day and the only train I saw on the Sacramento Sub that day was a northbound BNSF manifest lead by 4 BNSF Heritage II C44-9W’s, one of which had its paint peeling near the roof. The next train was the eastbound California Zephyr Train #6. P42DC’s 85 and 65 were leading the train, which also had a baggage car in Amtrak’s Phase III paint. Next up was westbound San Joaquin Train #701, which was lead by CDTX F59PHI #2004. A few minutes after the passage of 701, other railfans started to show up, which told me that the specials would be rolling through at any minute. I relocated to a different area of the wye to get better angles of the specials. About 3 minutes after I had adjusted my tripod, the Disney Christmas Carol train came into view. after making a slow runby past my camera, the train took the wye, to be turned to go westbound toward San Francisco. As Christmas Carol train was finishing up it’s turnaround at the wye, and was on the west leg preparing to switch back onto the mainline to start its westbound journey to San Francisco, the UP passenger special came into view. I sat at a red signal while the Christmas Carol train cleared the block. After the Christmas Carol train cleared, we wondered why the passenger special hadn’t moved yet, and according to the scanner infomation, the crew on the special was arguing with the railroad museum if they should be wyed, or just roll on through the junction. While this argument was going on we heard the dispatcher direct the ZNPOA intermodal through Haggin and that he did, as it came roaring out from behind the special passing through the interlocking and putting on an awesome show as it headed for Oakland. About five minutes passed before a decision was made with the special and the museum. It was Decided the the special would not wye, but instead bypass the wye, and head into the museum locomotive first. The special was headed by a clean SD70M and had 6 UP passenger cars in tow.

It was a great day for railfanning at the wye.

Atlas Turntable Kitbash- From Wooden Wonder to SP Common Standard.

The Atlas turntable has been a staple of model railroading for more than 40 years, and still sells well today. However despite it being one of the most mechanically well-designed turntables in existance, it is a model of a very unusual prototype. Wooden plank turntables did and still do exist today. The wooden plank turntabe was used in the late 1800’s for street railways, cable car operations and small industrial railroads to not only provide a means to rotate motive power but also to serve as an accessible pedestrian or vehicular thoroughfare when not in use. It also would have been installed in areas where a turntable pit would have been dangerous or not feasibly built. Despite these advantages, they were expensive to maintain and all but a very select few survive today. Most, if not all of them were “armstrong” turntables in which an operator had to push on the piece of equipment to get it to rotate. Other examples of armstrong turntables include “gallows” style turntables and very early cast-iron turntables, all dating from the beginning of railroading forward.

Due to the fact that the wooden plank turntable is an extremely rare type of turntable, it shouldn’t be on as many layouts as you see them on. The benefit of the Atlas model is that you don’t have to modify your benchwork in any way to use the turntable, which is a major plus compared to nearly any other model on the market.

In this next series of articles I aim to get a solid, non-rotating turntable while achieving the detail of a Southern Pacific Common Standard 100′ turntable, albeit selectively compressed. It won’t be an easy project, but it’ll reward you with an excellent looking and operating piece of equipment that’ll always work well.

The Concept

The Idea is to cover the rotating top of the turntable, to legnthen it to the outer edges of the device and create a highly detailed steel turntable structure to be visually appealing and eyecatching.

From a mechanical standpoint, It’ll have wires soldered to the rails on the deck that’ll be fed up through a tube to the rails at track level. The whole turntable will swivel from this central tube which is glued to the former top of the turntable.

A new concrete pit will be scratchbuild out of acrylic sheet and painted. Pit rails will be installed to guide the outrigger wheels on either end of the bridge.

The extended edges will allow a Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0 (with Vandy Tender) to turn itself around, which was impossible before the modification. This opens up the turntable to medium sized motive power and it can also turn an SD-45T-2 with ease as well.

The first step was proving my concept before jumping head first into a complex project, so I cut a large doughnut shape from grocery bag paper electrical tape. Testing out the false bottom concept was a success, it turns fine as long as there’s clearance over the former wooden top of the turntable.

Follow along as we venture into the complex world of constructing a turntable from wood, brass, styrene and acrylic sheet.

Here’s a sneak peek…

A Railfan Report 6/15/09

On Sunday 6/14/09 RailfanHunter took the Amtrak Capitol to Davis to do some railfanning. The Davis Wye is a well-known railfan location, it is a Junction between UP’s Martinez Subdivision, and California Northern’s West Valley Subdivision. For those of you who don’t know what California Northern is I’ll give you some information on the railroad. California Northern is a shortline railroad that was formed in 1993. It was formed in response to the Southern Pacific’s “spinning off” of some of their branchlines during the 1980’s. The Southern Pacific had the CFNR serving the industrial spurs along the West Valley Line and Napa branch, including the famous napa pipe company. California Northern’s eaarly roster consisted of former C&NW GP15-1 locomotives, but later they purchased SD9’s, which were later sold to the Fillmore & Western Railroad. They now have purchased several locomotives from leasing companies, including a GP20 still in the failed SP-Santa Fe Kodachrome paint. Now, onto the trains, and my day at Davis.

The first consist I saw were a two California Northern GP15-1s coming in as a light engine move, they went down to pick up a waiting cut of cars on a siding just east of the station platform and the wye. After coupling onto the cut of car the train had to wait for a Union Pacific intermodal to pass. The intermodal was a mix of autoracks and doublestacks, and was headed by an SD70M. After that, several Amtrak Capitols were moving in and out of the station, with their destinations being Emeryville, Sacramento, and San Jose. The next UP train to come through was a stack train headed up by a General-Electric Evolution Series locomotive, this train had a single midtrain helper. After leaving the station for about an hour to have lunch at the In-N-Out Burger, I headed back and was happy to see a green signal, it was for an eastbound Amtrak Capitol Corridor coming into Davis for a station stop. The next and final freight train of the day was an eastbound UP stack train with an Evolution Series locomotive leading, it was a suprisingly short train. After several other Capitol Corridor arrivals and departures, the westbound California Zephyr Train 5 came into view. It was ver confusing, because it went through the station, when it usually stops. It had 2 private cars from the original California Zephyr, which ran from 1949 – 1970.

All and all it was a great day for railfanning at the wye.

Visit a Prototype Modeler’s Meet.

There’s one facet of the hobby that’s surprisingly fun and definately informative and impressive. It’s your local prototype modeler’s meet. Here you’ll find beautifully detailed models in a casual, friendly atomsphere where you can really appreciate and enjoy them. You’ll often find the true “master modelers” at these conventions, often people you might be familar with through the Model Railroad press.

To check one of these out for Interacting with Miniature Railroading, I brought some of my weathered and kitbashed models to the event to see what reaction I’d get and also to see how easy or difficult it is to fit into these events.

I visited the Bay Area Prototype Modeler’s Meet in Richmond, Calif. (BAPM for short) last saturday and was extremely impressed. Tucked away in the cafeteria of a Catholic School in Richmond Heights, the well lit room lent itself to really being able to see the models in natural light.

FOR A FULL GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHS COVERING EVERY MODEL IN THE EVENT, CLICK ON THIS PBASE GALLERY BY HARRY WONG.

When I arrived at 11:45 a DCC clinic featuring the new SPROG II computer-to-track programmer (which runs on JMRI) was just wrapping up. I paid $10 to get in the door, which wasn’t any problem for me, considering what and who I’d find inside. I also bought 2 Raffle tickets.

The room was mostly filled up, three rows of tables down a 75X30 foot cafeteria, with more than 100 models on display. About 90% of the models were HO, the rest were various narrow gauge scales, including my On30 2-6-0. It is no wonder why HO was represented so heavily as the sheer amount of aftermarket detail parts available is staggering. I asked where to set up, and a friendly member just told me to set up on any empty table, which I found quite refreshing in comparison to handling the insanity of getting a table at a train show.

I was met with pleasant remarks after setting up, and it felt good to finally have a group of modelers that are supportive instead of arrogant, close minded, overly eccentric individuals I often see at train shows. The prototype modeler group is not only nice, but extremely intelligent and informed on their particular area of intrest.

It was time to explore the rest of the tables during the lunch hour. I wasn’t disappointed.

The really neat thing about these prototype modeler’s meets is not only do you see the ‘finished’ models but you also get to enjoy the models in progress as well. Elizabeth Allen’s impressive model of a Southern Pacific SDP45 has been impressing people for the couple of years she’s been constructing it, and just look at the attention to detail!

All the gray parts on the locomotive are from the well-known modeling detail parts supplier Cannon & Company. The current owner was out to display his equally spectacular freight car models and talk with the prototype modelers to get ideas for his next products.

Next to the “in-progress” models all the tables were of course the fleet of beautifully painted and detailed complete models. This Southern Pacific “torpedo boat” GP9 is an excellent example. (The nickname torpedo boat comes from the airtanks on the roof, which are usually behind the fuel tank under the frame, but the fuel tank was enlarged to extend the locomotive’s range, and they had to go somewhere.)

Not only were there plenty of Western US power, there was an excellent display of Brazilian meter and standard gauge equipment by Edson Yamazaki. All of these models were heavily kitbashed and superdetailed.

The most impressive model I saw was a Brazilian DDM45 which is an SD45 built to run on Meter (3′6″ gauge) rails and has 8 axles featuring the classic DD40AX sideframes.

In addition to the Freight Cars& Diesels, there was a good turnout of steam era equipment and passenger cars, all nicely detailed.

You should find and attend the next prototype modeler’s meet in your area, there should be at least one annual event in your NMRA region (although it’s not affiliated with the NMRA in any way) check with other local modelers to find out about these exquisite events! For those willing to travel the Western Prototype Modeler’s meet is in San Bernardino’s beautiful mission-revival style AT&SF depot in Septemer.

Redwood Valley Meet 6/6/09

On Saturday 6/6/09, I and the webmaster were at the Redwood Valley Railway’s annual meet. There were 3 visiting locomotives, along with the usual roster operating. I spent most of my time on the vertical-boiler 1-Spot, which I also got to operate. There were two public trains operating, one of which was a doubleheader. I also had the task of moving tables and chairs from the shops to the roundhouse, all the major moves of the supplies were done with the 1-Spot shunting a flatcar around. When the wood that was brought with the 1-Spot to the railroad was getting low, we hooked the it up to a four-wheel wagon (known as jimmies on the RVRY) and went up to the shop, and with the help of several other people, the old rotten wood pile next to the shops was put to good use. After the wood was in the car, Jay (owner of the 1-Spot), asked who hadn’t ran it yet, and everbody but me had, so I had the chance to take the controls of the locomotive, and I ran it back and forth for a few laps.

This by far was a great day, and for me, a very memorable experience.

The 57th Redwood Valley Railway Meet- Friday

The morning began with the clearing of brush from the right-of-way in the morning and final preporations were made for the arrival of our fellow railroader’s camper trailers to arrive up at the shops. When I arrived at noon, we ate lunch and then gathered firewood for the vertical boilered one spot geared steam locomotive.

The One Spot arrived in a dualy ford pickup and was carefully unloaded from the back of the truck using specially built bridge rails. Fortunately it was loaded without a problem and was rolled directly onto the rails.

Then the fun (at least for me) began. I had a chance to spend most of the day operating the #2, a Gasoline-Hydraulic locomotive. We headed to to barn 1 to switch out the cars needed for the two revenue trains that will operate on Saturday and Sunday. We also collected a bunch of four-wheel two-axle “jimmies” that are typically used for MOW service for the tiny #18, an 0-4-0 locomotive, to haul around during the weekend.

As the day turned to afternoon, more people began to show up and help with our operations. While moving the coal gon full of chairs, we discovered a mouse in the gondola, as we unloaded more and more chairs the little guy shot around the gon frantically. We picked up his mouse nest and placed it in the brush. Next, we had to try to grab the mouse! We had four people herding it around the gondola, and eventually one of our youngest members grabbed ahold of it, but it broke loose and flew out of his hands and flew past me onto the ground.

We set up for a nice sit-down meal as the sun began to set, and afterwards Myself and a young volunteer took the gasoline-hydraulic locomotive out for a night ride! He handled the first run with professional skill, and I took the second train out, with a smooth ride had by all. Both times we stopped at the other end of the railroad, which has an incredible view of berkeley, richmond, and marin county in the distance. The second ride saw the moon rising just above the locomotive and I snapped the shot below.

After the second run, I deposited the riding car at Euke siding and took the flatcar, boxcar and locomotive up to the shop spur, where I spent the night inside the boxcar with my sleeping bag on the cool summer night.

The gasoline-hydraulic number two site on Euke siding (known for a grove of eucyluptus trees that once stood there 35 years ago before they were removed for fire danger reasons and replaced with Redwood trees, which are living quite healthfully.)

RVRY #2 sits in the pocket track at Army Camp.

The one spot is being unloaded from the pickup truck, slowly and carefully!

A visiting railroader arrives with his 15″ gauge speeder.

Piloting the two around the railroad on the first night ride.

The view from “snake rock” looking at Richmond and Marin County in the distance.

A Railfan Report 6/3/09

On Tuesday 6/2/09 RailfanHunter decided to go to a well known Californian train watching location, Union Pacific’s Haggin Junction in Sacramento. Haggin was originally just a flyover between the Southern Pacific and the Western Pacific with the SP on the upper line and the WP on the lower line. After the UP/WP merger in 1982, Haggin became a small interchange yard between the UP and the SP. After the UP/SP merger in 1996, and after UP completely absorbed SP in 1999, Haggin became a wye and junction between Union Pacific’s Martinez and Sacramento Subdivisions. Haggin in the morning hours is great for BNSF fans because of BNSF run-throughs on the Sacramento Sub. It is great for intermodal fans in the afternoon hours, because of heavy UP intermodal traffic over both subdivisions. The Sacramento Subdivision will see more action than the Martinez Subdivision on a daily basis, because the Sacramento Sub is a major line for intermodal traffic over the UP, and is also a major line for the BNSF, so it can transfer to its own tracks (BNSF Stockton Subdivision) at Keddie Junction in Stockton. The Sacramento Sub runs from Stockton – Oroville, and the Martinez Sub runs from Roseville – San Jose. I saw 12 trains during my trip to Haggin; two of which were BNSF freights, four Amtrak Capitols, six UP freights, and a UP highrailer.

It was a great day out at the junction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCF1e77eyOE&feature=channel

PART 2- The Manson Dredging Warehouse in N Scale

Now as you may remember from the First Part of this article, we are using Windows Live lLocal and Google Maps side-by-side to aid in modeling a rather unremarkable, but essential structure for my Richmond Pacific Rail Corp. N scale model railroad. The railroad itself is a 2X4 Switching layout featured in this previous article.

So, now that we’ve built the walls, it’s time for their first layer of paint and a roof!

The Roof over the warehouse is pretty straightforward, Just 0.40 styrene measured and laid onto the angled walls. The ridge of the roof will have a tinfoil cap to make laying the tarpaper easier and make it look more realistic in the end.

Building a hip roof is a completely different challenge though. You could use a lot of geometry to make it completely precise, which I would recommend if you’re capable of such feats, but here’s a simple way to do it.

This first step has you make a sturdy flat roof placed flush with the top of the walls to act as a base for the angular sections. (Note that this method is simple and won’t offer interior roof detail, obviously.) Then I stacked two large pieces of balsa wood and cut the roof angles (usually 25-50 degrees) with my razor saw and then proceeded to the next step.

I then added some large roof trusses and angled them off the main beam to the edges of the walls. The corner posts are VERY tricky and will take some experimentation to get a nice flat posts for the angled roof surface to adhere to.

Next, using thin sheet balsa (I would have preferred to use Basswood sheet, which is not only thinner, but better looking and more realistic) I cut out shapes for the roof.

I then gave the roof a base coat of black to give the scale tarpaper something to adhere to along with the glue and provide some opacity. The final roof color will be a much lighter gray, to match the actual color.

Stay Tuned for Part 3, Tarpaper, Weathering, and Final details.