A Few Pointers From Your Friendly Neighborhood Locomotive Engineer

This article written by a Railroad engineer is a perfect primer on the safe way for an average person to interact with their local railroad. I cleaned it up a tad for ease of reading, but I haven’t revised any of the meaning inherent in each sentence. You should get a kick out of this, perhaps Operation Lifesaver should use this.

Source- Found on Craigslist Today, Author Unknown, but out of Albany, New York:

Let’s start with some DON’Ts.

1) A train is really, really big. Can we all accept that? Not even your Ram/F350/Hummer is a match for a locomotive. You say you have a Cummins diesel? Caterpillar? Detroit? Oooooooh. Well I have an EMD 567 on a bad day, and even its pathetic eighteen-hundred horsepower will pound you and your gleaming pickup into the fourth dimension, so please, stay behind the white line!

2) I hate blocking crossings. Seriously, I feel like a complete [fool] when I stop a train in the middle of the road and leave two dozen motorists to ponder their lattes and ask what the hell I’m doing. The truth is, sometimes it has to be done, so don’t honk at me, flip me off, or scream at me from the window of your Dodge Caravan. Instead, be patient and try to believe that there’s a point to what I’m doing. It’s called switching, and my conductor is depending on me to work slowly and not run him over.

3) Don’t climb on the equipment. I hate to sound like your mother, but you’re saving me a lot of paperwork and horrifying flashbacks by staying off the equipment. To you it might look like an abandoned train or a free ride, but when that [consist of cars] starts to move with you on it, there’s a damn good chance you won’t be able to hold on. As long as you’re on Wikipedia, punch in “slack action” and see what comes up. Also, the romance of riding freight trains is totally [false]. They’re really dark, really cold, really windy, and hobos are [effin'] SCARY.

4) Don’t put [objects] on the tracks. It’s dangerous to me and my conductor, and it’s ten times more dangerous for you and everyone else on the ground. If you’re wondering “can a train go over a rock?” the answer is YES. There’s only one problem. You probably haven’t wondered where the million shards of rock are going to go at four times the speed of sound, have you?

5) Stop whining about the horn. Countless accidents have been avoided because drivers missed the flashing lights but heard the horn. You’d have to blast Miley Cyrus and Lil’ Bow Wow pretty loud to drown out a five-chime, and often that’s the only thing that saves people. Still, that’s no reason to keep your stereo at eighty decibels as you’re rolling through a crossing at sixty without looking both ways.

6) By and large, railroad cops are major [bullies], so when you’re trespassing on railroad property, keep your head. These guys didn’t make it into the real police force, and they will [make a LOT of trouble for you] to make up for it. Also, walking on bridges and in tunnels is extremely dangerous. Ask yourself: If a train comes, where will I go? Trains are much wider than the rails they run on, so don’t be fooled.

Now for some of the DO’S.

1) If you see a large object (like a garbage can or an F350) that’s about to get love-tapped by a hotshot freight train, get in the clear. If that’s about to fly at a railroad crossing, run to the side of the street that the train is coming from. That way you’ll be behind the point of impact and you won’t have to worry about catching that beautiful pickup and its over-confident driver square on your shoulders. If you run away from the train you’re just putting yourself in the line of fire, and the death toll could very possibly be two.

2) If the gates stay down and the lights stay flashing, stay where you are. I guaran-damn-tee there’s another train coming, and speeding onto the tracks the moment the first train clears is a lot like celebrating a touchdown too early. WHAM.

3) When you’re waiting for a train to pass, it’s a good idea to stay back thirty or forty feet. Trains are operated by professionals, but often they’re loaded by total [untrained, lazy fools]. I’ve heard some real nasty stories about payloads falling off flatcars and crushing people in their vehicles, or doors sliding off boxcars and ripping through everything in their path. It’s rare, but stuff happens!

4) Always report problems or suspicious activity. If you see a photographer with a radio scanner and a huge notebook, ignore him. We know that guy. But if there’s a dude in street clothes working a crowbar through a signal box, hit us up and tell us what the deal is. Railroad crossings usually have signs with emergency numbers, or you can call the non-emergency number for your local fuzz. If an accident has already occurred or a life is at risk, call 911 instead. Pretty sure they have our number.

5) Last but not least, when you’re inconvenienced by a train, remember that we’re pulling for you! Trains are a great way to conserve fuel, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and keep American jobs alive and green. Rail technology is the best solution to our energy crisis, and as the rail network grows in the years to come, it’s important for everyone to stay safe. Look, listen, LIVE.

A Modern Engine House and Diesel Locomotive Servicing Facility

Located at Alameda Naval Base, in Alameda, California; this small three-stall concrete engine house could be just what your model railroad could use for a nice, small but more than adequate locomotive servicing facility for your small roster of Diesel Locomotives.

The Construction is very sturdy, simple and elegant. Its thick concrete walls are board-cast concrete. There are two rows of clerestory windows that run the length of the building perpendicular to the triple entrance doors. The building used to have rails enter all three stalls, and there’s a machine shop annex on both sides of the open part of the Engine house devoted to locomotive storage. The building looks long enough to store 2 EMD, Baldwin or ALCo switchers end to end on each track, with an obvious total capacity of 6 units.

The three tall doors are located on both ends of the building, so basically there’s a three-way switch on both ends of the building fanning out to three tracks and becoming single track in both directions from the building.

It would make a fun and relatively easy building to scratchbuild as there aren’t any ground level windows to worry about except on the north side, just the clerestory windows in the roof otherwise. It’s modern and clean appearance are perfect for those not wanting a hopelessly outdated wooden engine house, an instantly recognizable brick kit or a rickety tin engine shed.

If you do end up scratchbuilding it, send me photos and I’ll post them up here in this article.

Here’s views of the building from all 4 angles and the roof.

Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago IL

Big layouts are something we all (or most of us) dream about having.  The chance to run a train on our layouts from one major city to another with mountains, bridges, plains, rivers, small towns in between…. all of it sounds fantastic.

The reality is that many of us don’t have the space for such a massive layout.  One place, however, does.  The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, IL has a HO scale layout that reaches from Seattle, WA all the way across the continent to Chicago.  This massive layout occupies a whole gallery of the museum.

Starting in Seattle, the layout is a massive undertaking.  Operating as a large loop with multiple trains running on at least three tracks, the layout takes some time to view.

As impressive as the layout is, I felt like it was anti-climatic.  As amazing as it is, the scenes didn’t feel “right” to me, and the sheer size makes it difficult to view properly.  Because of where it is located, the viewing distance is held back to the point that no detail is possible to see.  I felt more like I was viewing the scenes from a passing airplane (which may be the point since the gallery has aircraft displays overhead).

To spite my complaints, the layout is worth seeing.  It is simply amazing due to the size and scope of what was modeled.

In the same gallery, a major surprise was waiting for me, one that made the model railroad almost seem to vanish as soon as I saw it.

NYC 999…. The locomotive that ran 112.5 miles an hour in 1893.  The locomotive speaks for itself.

The museum visit was well worth it.  Other models, exhibits, and demonstrations were amazing.  From my perspective, the railroad related portions of the collection were worth the trip.

Part 3: Actual Construction of the Photo Diorama

Look back on Part ONE and Part TWO if you haven’t already read them:

This is also a tutorial on how to make marshes and salt ponds in scale. So let’s jump in and see how it’ll come together. Make sure you have all the materials as outlined in part two. This is an easy evening project, it took me about 3-4 hours to complete the entire module. Obviously you want the whole thing to dry overnight, especially in regards to the water.

Draw out where you’re going to put everything.

I used a pencil to mark where the roadbed and to outline how wide the embankments are. I also drew a variety of other things like a culvert and wooden pilings, some of which never made it to the finished module.

Lay down the sub-Roadbed

I used the woodland scenics risers because they were laying around in my workshop. If you’remodeling a straight piece of track, go ahead and just use a piece of 1X1, rounding out both ends. I attached this, along with most of the scenery with Hot Glue to speed up construction time and provide a good level of durability as well.

Lay down the Cork

Using the hot glue gun again, I laid the cork atop the sub-roadbed. I also used scrap pieces of cork from previous track work projects and made the slope of the embankments with them. It’s a sturdy way to make the embankment and a good way to use up all those extra small pieces of cork that you’d rather not discard.

Drill holes for pilings

This step is unique to my module, but it’s a handy tip for planting telegraph poles too. Drill 3/4 the way into the wood, stopping before you hit bottom, and then glue the bamboo skewers into the plywood, cutting to fit. Yes, you do this before you apply the sculptamold so you don’t cover up the holes you just drilled.

Cut the Pilings to length

Now, since the pilings are more than 75 years old and in a harsh-salt rich environment, there isn’t much left of them. I cut them to hap-hazard lengths as per prototype photographs and then roughed up the tops with an exacto knife to give them a frayed look. You could stain them at this point with an Alcohol/ India Ink wash.

Apply the Plaster Gauze/ Cloth

Cut really thin strips of plaster cloth, dip them in water and place them on the embankment. You can attach them with hot glue, for speed, or you can layer more than one to make it strong as well. Only apply the plaster cloth to the embankment, not to the flat areas.

Mix Sculptamold and Apply Dirt

Mix the brown acrylic paint in with the sculptamold to take the bright white sheen of out of the bag sculptamold. Then apply with fingers covering the entire diorama up to the cork roadbed. Also cover the embankments and plaster gauze. Then take finely sifted dirt and apply it atop the wet scupltamold. Repeat the dirt application until it’s completely covered.

Make the Salt Pond with Hydrocal

Like using Hydrocal for snow, you can model salt mashes with out-of-the package hydrocal. Basically take a spoon and sprinkle it on top of the wet soil until you’ve got a layer of salt to your liking. Then take a spray bottle of plain water and wet it.

Lay and Ballast the Track

Go outside and spray rail or roof brown on your track, not worrying about the tops of the rails. Once it’s dry, use an abrasive track cleaner to clean the tops of the rails. Then tack the track to the cork.

Cut a tiny notch in the top of the bag and gently shake the ballast around the rails and a few scale feet on either side of the ties. Then like the prototype, go in and tamp the ballast around the ties. You can use a real stiff bristle brush for this operation, it works nicely.

Why I use Arizona Rock & Mineral ballast instead of Woodland Scenics ballast is because it’s made from real rock (WS ballast is made from Walnut Shells) so it doesn’t float away when you get it wet like WS ballast does. Use a spray bottle of 50/50 carpenter’s glue and water with a touch of dish soap to break the water tension.

Add the Low Foilage

I used a mix of silflor grass tufts and lychen died more realistic medium brown/green by soaking them in RIT dye for half an hour. Then, planting the lychen fine branches upwards, used carpenter’s glue to hold the foilage down. You can also use Aleen’s Tacky glue, which also works better.

Add the Water

I matched a photograph of the bright rust orange saltwater and painted it directly onto the hyrdocal in low spots the plaster had made from sprinkling it on the surface of the sculptamold. Then I poured the Acrylic Glazing Liquid on top of the low orange portions and let the entire diorama dry overnight.

Now it’s time to take photographs!

Part 2: Building a Photo Diorama for Your Model Trains

Okay, so here’s the first part of building a photo diorama for my rolling stock.

The Modeled Locale

I wanted to model something out of the ordinary but still generic enough as not to steal the scene from my weathered rolling stock. I’ve always been fascinated by the salt ponds in the southern part of San Francisco Bay, mostly owned by Cargill. These salt ponds used to produce millions of tons of salt each year for food products. With exposure to different atmospheric conditions, brine shrimp populations, and sunlight, they can turn the really shallow water some spectacularly surreal colors. The most common is a bright rust orange, but you can find them in lime green, orchre yellow, dark teal green, and normal water colors. For my diorama I chose a portion of Southern Pacific’s Coast line between Alviso and Drawbridge, Calif. This stretch has the mainline run on an elevated embankment with mashes and salt ponds running immediately on either side of the embankment.

The Concept for the Diorama

The elevated mainline will provide the advantage of a number of interesting below-rail level photographs as well as allowing me to position the camera in a wider variety of interesting angles from 10 feet below the rails to directly above the rolling stock without any obstruction. Without any trees and only low weeds and scrub brush, it’s a realistic area devoid of tall vegetation.

I had a 12″ diameter circle of plywood left over from making a hole for an old Walther’s turntable, and decided to use that as an ultra-portable base for this modestly sized diorama. I can fit most locomotives and virtually any piece of rolling stock onto the small diorama, and the best part is that I can carry it extremely easily to a location to shoot photos.

The List of Materials

1. Piece of 1/2″ plywood, any shape, but in a portable size
2. 2″ woodland scenics risers for the mainline
3. Bag of sculptamold
4. Plaster Gauze/Cloth
5. Water and tray for Plaster cloth
6. Mixing bowl and small spatula for the Sculptamold
7. Brown Paint to mix into the Sculptamold
8. Piece of nicely detailed track, with low profile rail (like code 70 in HO or code 40 in N scale)
9. Cork Roadbed
10. Track Nails
11. Carpenter’s Glue
12. Arizona Rock & Mineral Co.  Ballast (I used “SP gray mix”)
13. Silflor grass tufts (or you can use static grass)
14. Hydrocal
15. Bamboo Skewers (for wooden pilings)
16. Woodland Scenics “Realistic Water” or better yet, Glossy Acrylic Glazing Liquid
17. Roof or Rail Brown Floquil paint.
18. Hot Glue Gun and Glue

Modeling Philosophy

As I begin setting fort on the occasionally daunting task of modeling a prototype railroad, I find myself facing many choices.   There are so many products out there from this manufacturer or that manufacturer that vie for not only attention, but also hobby money, hobby time, and promise results of one sort or another.  It is, thus, in a world full of products and choices that it is important to decide what YOUR modeling philosophy is going to be.

Many things and people have influenced my philosophy, but by drawing on their statements and ideas, I have developed my own standing where I am comfortable and it gives me direction in my railroading.

If I chose to, I could do model railroading easily.  I could buy any steam or diesel locomotive painted for any railroad that I had heard of or fit the region where I live.  I could buy sectional track, and there are now products out there that we’re all familiar with that even have roadbed included in the sectional track, and use that.  I could use code 100 track and build something to just watch the trains run.  For many people, that approach is how they get into the hobby.  It’s how I got into the hobby, with that first train set nailed to a 4’x8’ sheet of plywood.

That level of model railroading occupies a large portion of what is done in the hobby.  Ready-built structures, weathered cars out of the box, locomotives that come with all the details already on them and ready to roll.  You can build a model railroad in an afternoon with grass mat, snap-together track, ready to roll equipment, and pre-built structures.  If that’s where you choose to go with your railroading, I welcome you to railroading and I hope you will enjoy your trains enough to want to delve deeper.

My personal idea of railroading is somewhat different.  An article by David Barrow some years ago in a long-lost railroading magazine stated that the idea is not to be a model railroader, but to be a railroad modeler.  Think about that for a moment.  What are you?  Are you modeling just the trains, or are you modeling a railroad?  I, personally, am modeling a railroad and that makes me a railroad modeler.  I intend to model not only the trains so they’re “neat” to watch run, but also so they do work.  My approach has already shifted away from that first 4’x8’ sheet and toward running a railroad.

Going back to the idea of the basically ready to run railroad, modeling a prototype line, in a set year, in a set season, as influenced by other modelers who I know, read, and talk to, I find that my focus becomes more and more what is right for the era, railroad, region, season, etc… and less just getting by with something that is just close.

It comes down to a few statements that point further toward the basis for my philosophy.

1.  If I wanted quantity of equipment or speed of construction, I am in the wrong hobby, modeling the wrong railroad.

2.  If I wanted inexpensive or easy to find equipment I am using the wrong brands and materials.

3.  If I wasn’t interested in accurate, near or actual museum-quality equipment, I wouldn’t be modeling the railroad that I am modeling.

My standards are high, aren’t they?  I intend to use high quality equipment, from the benchwork lumber, to the cabinet-grade plywood for decking to the milled homasote for roadbed to the code 70 track and so on and so on.  I’m buying the accurate, (and hard to find) brass equipment.  The equipment that is not commercially available will have to be scratch-built.  That’s the standard.  It is high.  Then, I’m embarking on one railroad that I intend to be working on for 30 years or more, not a railroad that I feel I need to have done in three months so I can move on to the next plan.

What it all boils down to is this:  I understand that the kind of standards I have for the railroad modeling that I am doing will mean two things.  First, it isn’t going to be cheap.  That, however, is relative.  Cost over time, at least in my life, isn’t a bad thing.  I am willing to pay what it takes to have the equipment and railroad be what I want it to be.  I’ll be happier with the end result if I have used quality and not cut corners.  Not because others will know, but because I will know and if someone who is knowledgeable about the prototype I am modeling (the Yosemite Valley Rail Road) visits the layout, they should be able to walk the line and recognize the locations without wondering why a building is a strange color.  Two, along with things costing what they wind up costing, it all takes time.  Lots and lots of time.  I’ve spent MONTHS now preparing my layout room.  It still isn’t done and I am determined to get the room to the point where I’m comfortable in there before I cut a stick of benchwork.

I may sound snooty, but I don’t think I am.  I’m not looking down my nose at anyone.  It makes me really happy to see people entering the hobby and progressing to whatever they find is their enjoyable level of immersion in railroading.  For me, the fact that my standards are high, with everything, means that I simply know what I’m doing, am guided in my decisions for the layout by those standards, and I am not willing to digress from them.  For me, it makes railroad-modeling fun.

Happy New Year!

-Jeremy

Weathered Locomotives for Sale (Take 2)

I thought I’d share a Pair of locomotives I’m selling on eBay this week. All are weathered using photographs of the real counterpart locomotives.

Representing an F3A later in it’s life, this weathered cab unit soldiers on in revenue service, hopefully on your layout. It’s an Intermountain model that’s superheavy and can pull plenty of freight cars, and it’s also DCC ready. Couple it up to one of SP’s famous “overnite” trains or just a mixed freight or local, it’s a great general purpose locomotive. These F units lasted with the Black Widow paint longer than most other diesels on the SP. Note the completely weathered underframe and fading silver paint.   Auction ends 5:00 PST Sunday Jan 10th, 2010

This Santa Fe GP60 was weathered and faded using actual photographs of the REAL Santa Fe #150. Stick it on the head end of your intermodal or piggyback trains heading west! Auction ends 5:00 PST Sunday Jan 10th, 2010

Building a Photo Diorama for Your Model Trains

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Here’s a list of guidelines I’ve developed from making one of my many photo dioramas, these have been lessons learned from experience more than anything. Remember the old rule of modeling, if you take a photo and it looks unrealistic, go back and enhance that particular feature until it does. This will help refine your modeling skill and make a great display too.

-It must not exceed the size of the trunk of your vehicle
-It should be fairly light, so if you want to walk out into a field to take a photograph with it, you’re not lugging some bulky, heavy ungainly thing.
-Choose a Photogenic scene
-As an alternative, build a more generic photo diorama if you’re using it to sell a product.
-Make sure, sense you’ll be using it for photography, that the diorama is hyper-detailed.
- Every detail should be to exact scale to enhance realism and fool your eye.
-You can make your module specific to an era or generic.

-Any structure that you put in the scene should also have a LOT of detail, be painted and ideally weathered.
-However it’s best to avoid buildings because unlike a simple bit of scenery they could put a shadow over your rolling stock, thus defeating the whole concept of a photo diorama.
-It might also be best to avoid telegraph lines unless you’re modeling them out of service with wires removed, because in most cases you can’t really model them past your diorama, which might prove difficult. The other disadvantage to it is that poles might obscure your models, defeating the purpose of such a diorama.

-Paint your rails, you cannot believe what a difference this makes!
-weather the ties with various shades of grey-brown
-Make sure your trackplan, whether it be a mainline and siding, a double or triple track mainline is realistic and representative of the region you’re modeling.
-If you’re modeling track longer than 40 feet, and it’s not welded rail, buy some scale joint-bars (aka fish plates) and make sure to stagger the joints, real track doesn’t have the joints parallel to each other because that’d break the bars when the concentrated force of the steel wheels would roll over it.
-Buy the most detailed track you can for the diorama, since you’re only going to use very little of it, you can afford to spend a bit more on it.
-You could also hand lay the track and super-detail it to the Proto:87, Proto:160 or Proto:48 standards outlined on their respective websites. This will look the best and you’ll sharpen your tracklaying skills at the same time.

-add weeds made from silflor (available from scenic express) Aviod the strange looking Woodland Scenics grass material. In an ideal situation, try to buy some static grass from WS or scenic express, AVOID GROUND FOAM AT ALL COSTS!
-It’s best to keep foilage low to the ground, trees in scale rarely look realistic when directly compared to real trees that’d undoubtedly show up if you take your photos outside with the diorama.

-If you can, try to add some interesting features, like detailed signal bridges or semaphores if that’s appropriate.
-Similarly, a nice small stand-alone detail would be a signal or telephone box as well.
-Adding a railroad crossing also might be a great idea, especially if you really enjoy modeling vehicles.

-Don’t attach your people permanently to the module, it’ll look funny to have the same person in the same spot in 100+ photos. Use bees wax and gently apply it to the soles of the shoes of the figures to get them to stick for a photograph, or use that woodland scenics product for sticking figures down.

Finally, Remember that when building a realistic looking photo diorama’s main purpose is to show off the rolling stock and locomotives, and the diorama should be plain enough as not to take the focus off the trains themselves.

Happy Holidays from Interacting With Miniature Railroading!

Layout Tour: The Santa Cruz Northern

For anybody who’s read the major modeling magazines since 1988, you’ve probably come across the proto-freelanced “Santa Cruz Northern” a fictional railroad joint venture between the Western Pacific and the Santa Fe. This partnership was actually quite common, so this adds to the believability of this scenario.

The thing I really enjoy most about the SCN is the way the mainline snakes up over the coast range, you can definitely get a feel for the actual locale being modeled. The railroad grade itself is far from flat as it battles constant grades up and down the pass from San Jose to Santa Cruz.

Super-detailed diesels that seem to represent the 1960’s-1980’s round out the collection of motive power, this is one of the highlights of the layout, surely. It’s so nice to see someone who pays attention to WP equipment by detailing it heavily to represent the actual prototype. Of course, thanks to the joint WP-ATSF venture, you see a smattering of Santa Fe equipment along with the Freelanced Santa Cruz Northern, which seems to have a mostly ALCo hodgepodge of Ex-SP equipment, which has also been detailed as per SP practice, which is pretty neat to see.

There’s a good variety of industry on the layout that’s (mostly) reflective of actual industries found on the ex-SP Santa Cruz branch. Cement reigns king, and a massive cement plant dominates one peninsula of the layout. Redwood logging and lumber products are the other mainstay, with vegetable, fruit and fish canning a close third. A handful of warehouses and other line side industries round out the population of industries on the layout.

There are some really quite impressive railroad related structures on the layout, and they steal the show from the collection of easily recognizable kits you find on the layout. There’s a beautiful scratch built Roundhouse that I believe follows WP practices. On the other side of the layout sits a depot entirely clad in corrugated iron, which is an unusual, but most likely prototype specific building. It looks quite nice.

Anyhow, for being a 21 year old layout, it looks it’s living in an interesting contrast. It’s constantly being improved, or at least it seems so, and yet some of the scenery seems pretty dated. Some of the buildings could use replacement, most of the vehicles are unimpressive; sometimes distractingly lacking in detail, and the trees are a tad unrealistic, but overall the layout is comfortably presentable. I saw some new scenery improvements while I was there, Silflor grass is creeping slowly onto the layout and I spotted some really realistic (and cool!) looking forest undergrowth, ferns and all. I think what I saw was a layout in transition, slowly becoming a really excellent layout one modern scenery technique at a time.

He also does operating sessions 4-6 times a year, and this layout was definitely built for operation! It uses an extensive car card and waybill system to route freight, which by all observations, works quite well.  No lack of motive power or rolling stock to move around either!

If you ever get the chance to visit this layout, I really must recommend that you see it.