New Video: Track and Wiring Tweaks, 2

 I just posted the second of three videos in my Track and Wiring Tweaks series to my CVSNE YouTube channel. 

In this video I take a closer look at a turnout in Richford yard - what looked "in the heat of battle" (ie., during the operating session!) to be a tight gauge in the turnout that was causing the S-4 switcher to get "pinched" and stuck on the turnout. 

Checking the turnout and the locomotive with a gauge confirmed the gauge was not the issue. That particular locomotive needs it's decoder tuned a bit the track issue was easily corrected. 

You can find the video at THIS LINK. 

New Video - Track and Wiring Tweaks: 1

 I've uploaded a new video to my "CVSNE" YouTube channel detailing the process I went through troubleshooting and ultimately replacing a cantankerous turnout in my town of Berkshire. 

This is hardly in danger of winning any Academy Awards, but you might find something useful. 

You can find the video HERE. 

This is the first video showing how I'm going about correcting the issues we identified on the layout during Operating Session #1. 

More updates

In my update on Enosburg Falls I forgot to include a shot showing the Standard Oil dealer. The basis for this is the old Grandt Line kit - truly one of the most versatile structure kits ever offered in the hobby! The tanks need some additional weathering - I'm thinking a light wash to highlight the seams and perhaps some rust streaks. 

Another area where I did a little "tweaking" was in the East Berkshire area. There was one spot in this rural New England town where the railroad was four tracks across - the main, a double ended siding, and two spurs one in the foreground the other in the background. 

I opted to remove the spur closest to the backdrop, and  I may still remove the foreground one. Photo shows the turnout and spur removed. The gap ion the main track has since been filled!

Next step in this area will be to install the basic landforms in place, but I'm hesitant to hide my modern art painting on the plywood!  

Realigning the Sheldon Springs Mill

The paper mill complex at Sheldon Springs has always a key element of my Richford Branch. I built the benchwork and installed the track and got it working "fairly well." While the track in the mill yard itself functioned fine, the curve into the mill peninsula from the mainline didn't like steam locomotives. It was simply too sharp, or had a weird kink, or the curved turnout I incorporated as part of the curve was just a little out of whack. 

My trackwork nemesis....this turnout and that curve

I reworked that turnout twice, replaced it once, and tried re-aligning the curve. But nothing helped. I actually considered removing the paper mill peninsula altogether - and even extending the Richford yard peninsula to fill that space. Such plans were greeted with much groaning and subdued laughter. After all, the prime directive of this layout is to stay with the theme - ignoring all those great "what if..." ideas that constantly derailed progress on my previous layout. 

But something had to be done with the paper mill. 

The first issue I identified is that the track arrangement had gotten too complex and crowded. I won't really take a lot of blame for that - over the last few years I've come up with some more information on the complex that I didn't have a few years back. 

But although there are still some questions remaining about the purpose of some of the buildings (like exactly what is that "bunker" in the lower right hand edge of the overall shot of the complex for? And when did it disappear?)

I do have a pretty good feel for how the pieces of the puzzle fit together, and I'm fairly confident I know what the track arrangement should be. 

And of course comparing this newfound knowledge to the original track arrangement revealed a "close but no cigar" situation. Sure, I could freelance some buildings to fit the track arrangement as it was, but would I ever really be satisfied with that - especially when I'd turned up information on the real thing? 

Besides, reworking to reflect the prototype would give me a chance to really fix the operational issues with the lead into the mill. And it would reduce the amount of track and turnouts on the peninsula - I've come to the realization that the less track, the better. In fact I'm eyeing another spur (elsewhere on the layout) for possible removal.... 

The drawing shown here, which Bernie Kempinski did based on some of my sketches, shows the basic approach (although some of the specific structure footprints and track arrangements may change or evolve as the scene is constructed).  

The first step was to build a new, curved turnout for the lead into the paper mill. This replaced the original straight no. 6.

Once the turnout was finished and tested I removed the track and plywood subroadbed from the peninsula. I'll remove the fascia panels next - actually I might be able to swap the taller and lower fascia panels. But I ordered a couple of pieces of bendy board from Rockler just in case. 

While I'd love to have this scene basically looking complete in time for the open house scheduled as part of MARPM in October, I may not meet that goal. There are several other projects I want to get finished up - such as the background forest areas in a couple of other spots on the layout, and ballasting Enosburg Falls and Richford, that may be a better use of time between now and the open house. 

But on the other hand my layout progress has been somewhat paltry over the last year ... the MARPM open house (and our annual Holiday open house, which we'll be hosting this year after a couple of year hiatus, may be just that gust of wind I need to get a bunch of stuff done. 

 

http://centralvermontrailway.blogspot.com/search?q=Sheldon+Springs

One less siding, but better performance

If you want to find every place on your track that needs work, try running a brass steam locomotive over it. While today's diesel, and even plastic steam locomotives can run down a gravel road without a hitch, brass steam engines are the most finicky of all. 

I had one spot - a fairly broad curve - where the brass engines were all derailing (or stalling). Stalling is usually a power pickup issue - but derailing in this case was the fault of the track. 

I wanted to add a siding from the curve, and thought I was being clever when I bent a Micro-Engineering turnout to follow the curve, but I either didn't do it correctly or the brass engines were just a little too stiff to deal with the curve-into-tangent-into-curve-into-tangent arrangement. After thinking the matter through I decided the trains negotiating the curve reliably outweighed the benefit of having one more siding to set out and pickup cars.

Frankly while I fretted over this for a few weeks, but the fix didn't take more than a couple of evenings. The photos show a little more detail:

You can see the offending turnout at the top of the photo. Diesels, plastic steam locomotives, and cars went through it without a hitch. Brass steam locomotives not so much.

I pre-bent some Micro-Engineering flextrack to a curve so the new alignment would continue the same curve radius as the rest of the mainline. Note the difference between the old and new alignments.  

I covered the creamery building with a paper towel and then soaked the old track and ballast with water and alcohol mixture. After waiting about 10 minutes the track and ballast came right up. 

 A quick scraping with a putty knife removed any remaining ballast and dirt and leveled the roadbed. 

Laying the new track was a matter of pre-bending it to a constant curve radius (in this case 40", you can see the track radius gauge in place at the joint between two sections of track) and gluing the track in place with adhesive caulk. 

After the track was painted, weathered, and ballasted. I thought about moving the creamery track to the left as well, but I like how there's a gap between the main and the siding. Next step is static grass on this entire curve area and details like telegraph poles and the like. 

 

Doubling Staging Capacity

One advantage of modeling a one-train-a-day branch is that solo operation is no problem. Sure, I'd love to have two- or three-person crews, but until enough folks get vaccinated (happy to report I got my first vaccine a couple of weeks ago!) solo sessions aren't going away anytime soon!

My staging consisted of exactly one track for St. Albans and one track for the CP in Richford!). About 10 days ago I noticed  everything - and I mean everything - was derailing as it came out of the St. Albans track.  

I'd had some noticeable rail kinks in one or two spots on the layout a few weeks ago - likely due to the rather sudden change in temperature and humidity. Most of these were easily fixed but in the case of this particular track something about the temperature and humidity shift, and/or the track itself, caused the rail to actually separate from the ties in the meat of a curve. 

Even before it became my version of a monorail, I'd noticed  issues with the brass 2-8-0s on this curve. As they went through the curve the top of the extended tender coal bunker would just touch the edge of the cab roof causing the locomotive to short. 

Since I had to relay the track anyway I opted to increase the radius of the curve. I even found I could add a Peco curved turnout and add another staging track - doubling the storage/display capacity of my yard. 

This hill, built in somewhat of a rush prior to an open house, never really looked right to me. 

I'd never liked how the hardshell hill at the other end of the staging track had come out. When I built it - just before our Christmas 2019 open house - I didn't brace it sufficiently so the whole thing kind of sagged in all sorts of odd ways. 

One thing that made this spot a little problematic was access to the wall switch that controls the room lights. I didn't want the switch plate to be visible, so I added a opening in the fascia that I can reach into to turn the lights on and off. To prevent another sagging hillside incident I constructed a Gatorboard former cut to the rough outline of the hillside with a hole cut to clear the light switch. A box from a couple of pieces of Gatorboard was added to make the recessed area look a little cleaner and to stop the hill from dropping down. 

The new hill under construction, with the Gatorboard former against the wall. (The two staging tracks are visible center left against the wall).  

The hillside is made from strips of foamboard cut to rough dimensions, glued in place vertically and side to side, and then formed to the final shape. That hill is basically solid so it isn't going anywhere anytime soon. The very top surface is florist foam to facilitate installing trees. 

Next step will be to fill in some of the gaps in the hillside, paint, and add ground texture and foliage. 

A huge Milestone and mocking up backdrops

My original goal when I started this layout was to have the major infrastructure - benchwork, track, and wiring with basic scenery. I'm pleased to report that this afternoon, approximately 18 months after starting construction on the layout, all the track and wiring are completed well ahead of schedule. 
I've even gotten a start at roughing in the scenery, especially in the Enosburg Falls area around the implement dealer (come on, you didn't think I'd have a blog post without mentioning the implement dealer, did you?!)
One thing I've been thinking about before starting the around the walls scenery is the backdrop. One possibility I'm looking at is using Trackside Scenery's (for their website, click HERE) line of photo backdrops. 
I even mocked up a couple of possible arrangements. 
Trackside Scenery offers a varied and versatile line of backdrops, and the quality of the images is second to none. 
Unfortunately, they have a limited selection of fall backdrops, and the ones they do have are very - uh "vivid" - neat but as this test shows, so much fall backdrop might be a bit overwhelming on a relatively large layout. And since there's only a "Fall Valley" series (in the center of the image below) and a Fall Mountain series, I think the backdrop may end up just a bit repetitive. I don't know a lot about backdrops but I do know you (1) don't want them to be obviously repetitive and (2) they should complement, and not distract from the 3d modeling. 

For my second attempt I used backdrops from two different sets the Hickory Hollow and Valley Flats series - both of these are in the "green season." 
Frankly, I'm seriously considering doing the layout's scenery in the green season - for variety if nothing else. All, and I mean, all of my layouts since I was a teenager have had falls trees. Maybe it's time for a change of pace?
To that end, I even tried painting a couple of my fall colored Super trees with an overcoat of green paint. I'm happy to report that works, and actually adds another layer of color to the tree that makes it look pretty realistic. In fact, if I stick with the autumn trees I'd likely give each one a misting with the airbrush before installing them. 
But let's return to the backdrop:

Frankly, I think the profile of the distant landscape looks much better than with the autumn backdrop. 
I also like how the fascia (and the underpinnings of the layout) are all the same bluish green color. 
What I don't like about either of these is the obvious point where the top of the "sky" ends and the sky blue wall color begins. 
There's something like 2 feet of additional light blue wall up there - and it doesn't look natural. 
One solution would be to trim the backdrops at the treeline - and eliminate the photo sky. Frankly, I think that border between the photo backdrop and the wall can be as difficult to get right as painting the whole backdrop in the first place. 
A possible solution would be to simply paint the band of blue above the sky to match the fascia - creating an upper valence with paint. 
Photoshop makes it easy to rough this in, just to see how it would look. Forgive my rough photoshop skills, but I did this in literally 5 minutes before dinner. 

I wasn't sure I'd even like this, but frankly I think it sets the layout off better than running the blue up to the ceiling. 
I still haven't made a final decision on the backdrop, but I do really like the darker color defining the upper limits of the sky. 

End of Year Progress Report

I'd mentioned in a previous post that we were having a holiday open house for our neighbors. Happy to report the event was a complete success. It's always interesting to see the reaction of non-modelers to a scale model railroad. A lot of people mentioned they'd expected to see a train around the tree, or perhaps a Christmas Garden* - instead when they came downstairs they saw, well, this.... 

I managed to add some initial scenery to the front corner by the entry to the layout area prior to our open house. I'm happy to report that the trees that were carefully packed up by my father close to two years ago survived the move and storage. 

Take this as an end-of-year report on the status of the Richford Branch. 

I placed the cannery in the front entrance area. The structures, such as the barn in the background and the various buildings visible in the previous photo, are stand-ins. 

The stationary end of the swing gate
 showing the slot the gate slides into. 

 The entire mainline "loop" is in place, including the swing bridge track. The photos show how it's constructed and how it works. Essentially, the swing gate surface slides beneath a piece of mdf that's secured to the plywood subroadbed with a gap between the underside of the MDF and the layout frame. 

Action shot! The end of the swing gate. Note the
paint scrapes indicating the friction lock. 

To date friction does a fine job holding the track in place. At some point we'll add some sort of locking mechanism and a perhaps an electrical interlock to kill power when the bridge is open. 

Closed position. I soldered the rail to
some PC board ties on both the gate
and the layout to help keep the rails aligned. 

The trains ran just fine over this bridge for more than 4 straight hours - so I consider the swing gate a complete success. 
With the mainline in place and operating, I've turned my attention to the two peninsulas - the papermill peninsula and the Richford peninsula. 

A set of Fast Tracks twist ties glued to a piece
of 1/8" plywood to form the lead into the paper mill yard. 

After playing around with flextrack for an afternoon, it became obvious the paper mill
 peninsula would benefit from a handlaid turnout or two. Besides, I continue to have issues with ME turnouts, meaning I might be handlaying all the turnouts on the two peninsulas.
I also have been laying out the track for the Richford yard. But that deserves it's own blog post. 

Tracking turnout issues

Like many modelers, I opted to use Micro-Engineering turnouts on this layout due to the appearance and the fact that they have a a built in spring mechanism to hold the points in position without the need for any under table mechanical or electrical devices.
While all turnouts need some tweaking prior to installation, I've noticed some disappointing - infuriating actually - issues with the latest batch of Micro Engineering turnouts I obtained.

Actually, it started with some of the first dozen or so - cars and engines derailed regularly at the frog on several of them. At first I suspected the frogs were too high (a common problem with ME from a few years ago). But that wasn't the case here. Closer examination revealed a piece of plastic sticking up above the rail head surface - essentially the plastic filling the insulating gap where the frog connects to the closure rails was sticking up - quite a bit (close to .040-050" by my best estimate. I was able to trim it away on top easily enough, but this same plastic had filled the inside of the rail web - not as easy to remove.

Second issue - the latest batch of turnouts I bought earlier this year  have some sort of systemic issues with the throw mechanism since all (okay, 17 out of 20) of the springs don't snap back to one side when they're thrown. In other words, they only stay thrown right or left. It's like the spring has too much tension in one direction and not enough in the opposite direction.

Third issue - much less common - but on several of the turnouts it takes little - very little - force for the rail to spring free of the ties. In one case I'd used a rail cutters to shorten the straight side of the turnout only for the entire rail to come off in my hands.

I'm frankly at a loss for what to do - I have a fair number of these installed (the entire mainline "loop" - and I've gotten savvy enough to know I need to check for these issues and avoid installing any turnouts that exihibit these problems. But I do need turnouts for the peninsulas and don't really want to have to buy 60 turnouts to get 20 that work correctly. And I certainly don't want to have to rebuild the things.

What I'm leaning towards is to leave the ones that are down and working in place - knowing full well that I might have to replace them "someday."

I might just handlay the turnouts for the peninsulas - but that obviously is going to take more time and I really wanted to get all the track in place by the end of the summer. Perhaps "temporary" track (Peco, Atlas, etc...) on the Richford peninsula - enough to finalize the track arrangement? I don't know.

Irritating.

Stubby Peninsula

A quick update on progress down in the basement. 

Most of the subroadbed in the "yard" and "town" areas - those sections where the terrain will be basically flat - has been installed. I temporarily propped up plywood in all the areas where the subroadbed will be cut to fit the track and taped large strips of paper to the plywood. I'll arrange flextrack on the paper, trace around it, cut it out and use the result as templates for cutting the plywood to shape.  
As I was positioning the track I realized it might help to have at least the first section of the peninsula in place to ensure the track curving onto the peninsula landed on benchwork and not on the floor. Luckily I'd pre-painted the components for the peninsula so when Stic stopped by the weekend before last we got the first 8 feet or so of the longer peninsula attached. In order to give some additional stability to the peninsula I used an IKEA Ivar cabinet. This will be useful for storing layout construction and scenery supplies - although the bottom shelf of the cabinet will house a couple of (heavy) boxes of magazines. 

Rockin' Out?????

 I spent New Year's day rocking out...

Lots of little rocks that is!

I spent a fair amount of time ballasting track - Made great progress, but there's still a bit more to go.

To capture the look of a transition era mainline requires a three stage process -

1. Cinder fill on the sides. After that dries (by the time I worked my way around the layout adding cinders it was time for lunch, and by the time I got back at it the cinders had dried enough to proceed!)

2. Add the gray "rock" ballast to the main and passing sidings (spurs and house tracks get cinders...)

3. Still need to go back and tweak a couple of holidays and other spots.

Got everything ballasted from the north end of Randolph to the south switch in Richmond - I have no idea how many linear feet of track that is, but it's a lot. All that remains is Richmond itself, the south end of Randolph, and the passenger station at White River Junction.  

Only thing that stopped me was I ran out of ballast!

Sorry for the somewhat poor DoF on these photos - I took them with my phone before I left for the office this morning, and apparently my hands were a little shakey from all the "rockin'" I'd been doing...

White River Junction from the air, 1953

A few months ago I found a neat UVM web site that featured vintage images of Vermont - including some aerial views of Essex Junction and even a close up a industry at Waterbury. While these images were extremely helpful, the White River Junction selection was pretty slim pickings. In fact all that came up in a search of "White River Junction" was a bunch of photos showing the interstate highway being built through the Green Mountains in the late 1950s. While somewhat interesting, it hardly was useful for my layout research. 
That was a few months ago, and the internet is always changing. I've had some time during my lunch to wander around the internet over the last couple of days. Just for fun I went to the UVM site and entered "White River Junction" in the search window, fully expecting to find those same photos of interstate highway construction. Wow, those folks at UVM have been busy. There are dozens of photos of White River Junction - including this one dating from 1953 that at long last shows exactly how the turnouts between the station and the CV yard were arranged. If you go to the link you'll be able to use the "Zoomify" function to get some real close up views.

Essex Junction Trackwork - Update

Rather than overcomplicating things, I decided to go with a very simple homemade spring to hold the points on my hand laid turnouts. As you can see from the photos, the spring is a piece of .028" brass wire bent to a 90-degree angle with two "legs" bent downward. These legs are inserted in holes drilled in the throw bar and an adjoining tie. 
Once the turnout is finished, painted, weathered, and ballasted, I think it will be virtually invisible. If I want to take a realistic photo of the scene at some point it's a simple matter to remove the spring and replace it once the pictures have been taken. 

Thanks to all who commented with suggestions - the "spring" you see here is actually the result of some experimentation over the last couple of nights. I'm pleased with how well it works. Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.