American O Scale: "Portway Terminal Short Line, MN".

[JAMO]

Ah, ok! I understand. So the solution is to drop the glue very precisely. It's a long job but it's necessary to obtain the best result.

In your case, the WD-40 will be not the solution.

I don't have used this technique. I've just seen somebody doing that on the web.

 

 

[F-UnitMad]

Apologies for the lack of updates in the last few weeks, but there's been nothing to update!! Life, the Universe & Everything seems to have got in the way, and I haven't even run any trains in the last couple of weeks!! 

But still here, hopefully will have more progress to report soon!!!

[Western Star]

On 02/07/2021 at 16:14, F-UnitMad said:

Life, the Universe & Everything seems to have got in the way...

Seems to me that you have been thinking about the Life and Times of Arthur Dent and trying to come to terms with the lack of railway interest in any of the books about his experiences.

[Keith Addenbrooke]

On 02/07/2021 at 16:14, F-UnitMad said:

Apologies for the lack of updates in the last few weeks, but there's been nothing to update!! Life, the Universe & Everything seems to have got in the way, and I haven't even run any trains in the last couple of weeks!! 

But still here, hopefully will have more progress to report soon!!!

I can sympathise: a message that has been on our family whiteboard…for months simply says:

 

Edited April 10, 2022 by Keith Addenbrooke

[F-UnitMad]

21 hours ago, Western Star said:

Seems to me that you have been thinking about the Life and Times of Arthur Dent and trying to come to terms with the lack of railway interest in any of the books about his experiences.

At least I haven't had to lie in the mud in my dressing gown in front of a bulldozer, to prevent my layout's demolition to make way for a Hyperspace Bypass.... 

[Northroader]

“Brain the size of a planet and they want me to ballast the track”

[F-UnitMad]

Well after several weeks of relative inactivity - apart from some highly enjoyable play times er, umm, I mean operating sessions - this afternoon I bit the bullet and had a bit of a ballasting frenzy.

I've been concentrating on the main line. Today I've done the line past the industry spurs, round the corner past 'Downtown', and the curved switch that leads into Portway Center from the south.

I should get the hang of this ballasting lark by the time I'm done. We've had the "Golden Spike" moment - is there a "Golden Ballast" moment??

In the meantime, I'm also glad I didn't lay a lot more track!! What I have is enough for satisfying operations, and doesn't take much time to clean. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 17, 2022 by F-UnitMad

[Donw]

Interesting that you find a simple layout allows interesting operations. It also seems to me to be more in keeping with a short line.

 

Don

[F-UnitMad]

13 hours ago, Donw said:

Interesting that you find a simple layout allows interesting operations. It also seems to me to be more in keeping with a short line.

 

Don

I've really only followed the sort of advice Lance Mindheim wrote about a few years ago now. It just takes a bit of faith at first to believe it works in practice!!

 

[F-UnitMad]

Carrying on the ballasting while I seem to have the mojo, and temperatures are warm to facilitate drying out the dilute PVA.

The main line is all done, attention now turns to the freight branch, starting with the curves south of Portway Center.

 

There isn't much room for 'abandoned' track on this layout, but it's a feature I like as it adds a bit to the imaginary history of the Railroad. In the top right is the beginnings of the representation of torn up track to the equally abandoned old grain elevator. There is fresher ballast where the switch "used" to be. I really should've modelled a 'modified' switch with various rails & frog removed, but I only had the idea after track laying was done!

 

 

 

This is a Walthers HO kit I didn't want to throw away, plus an O Scale elevator would be too large for the site, and I like to think this arrangement is - or will be - a fairly successful attempt at perspective modelling, when it's finished.

 

In the other corner is the old Downtown area of Shortside; again these buildings are remains from the old HO layout that I didn't want to get rid of, as apart from some rudimentary scenic work they were the only buildings glued in place!! With trees and foliage eventually obscurring them to a degree, again my excuse is it's another exercise in perspective modelling...

 

 

The branch ballast is a mix of Woodland Scenics Fine brown & grey ballasts, to look older than the main in front, less well maintained, and try and get that sunken, bedded in look of secondary US track.

Edited December 17, 2022 by F-UnitMad

[F-UnitMad]

I'll finish this ballasting, one day!!!

This evening's work has seen the track at the entrance to Shortside North Transload yard ballasted.

 

And over in the opposite corner, I've ballasted the old trackbed to the grain elevator. 

I'd left some spaces to depict where some ties have been removed - or decayed so much they crumbled to sawdust as the rails were lifted!! I'd already glued a thin layer of ballast in place, now before doing the main ballast I put four ties in place just held with a blob of 'black tack' (like blu-tac but much stickier). Then I spread the ballast as usual and applied 'wet' water & dilute pva.

After an hour or so I lifted the four ties to leave impressions in the ballast. It'll need a bit of fettling but does seem to have acheived the desired result.

[F-UnitMad]

A little 'project-ette' started today - also makes a change from ballasting!!

 

A load of lumber for my bulkhead flat car,  made with real wood, of course! 

8 strips of wood cut to length & glued together as a block. It needs a bit of sanding, & I intend to wrap it to disguise how overscale it is (!!!) but for now at least I can depict the difference between a loaded & empty turn.

The load does add some weight though, will have to see how it affects loco haulage capacity and train lengths, especially through the curves.

Edited September 1, 2021 by F-UnitMad

[Northroader]

You might do better with coffee stirrers, and do them with a hollow centre. If you hit anybody over the head with that wagon, you’ll get done for possessing an offensive weapon.

[F-UnitMad]

The load is 15½" long, 2¾" high, & 2½" wide. Even just doing a 'shell' would take a heck of a lot of coffee stirrers!!

Happily I don't intend to hit anyone on the head with this freight car (or any other!) - I wouldn't want to damage it, after all.

[jasond]

Doesn't the day job expose you to the risk of big expanded foam?  Or get the wife some new equpt for the kitchen, eat even better and save the packaging!  Or slice some of the wood pieces lengthwise to lighten the load and give useful wood fo... (cont on pg.94)

Jason

[Keith Addenbrooke]

3 hours ago, jasond said:

Doesn't the day job expose you to the risk of big expanded foam?  Or get the wife some new equpt for the kitchen, eat even better and save the packaging!  Or slice some of the wood pieces lengthwise to lighten the load and give useful wood fo... (cont on pg.94)

Jason

Elsewhere I have seen exactly that approach used - polystyrene block hidden inside an outer casing of thinner wooden strips.  Totally convincing, much lighter, and the ‘genuine foam core’ joke got used too.

[F-UnitMad]

Thanks for the suggestions chaps, useful ideas I hadn't thought of. For this block I might try drilling out the insides. What could possibly go wrong?

[Western Star]

19 hours ago, F-UnitMad said:

What could possibly go wrong?

Do you really want me to make a suggestion?  Just think about tiffin...  Kyber pass...  oh well, carry on then.

 

regards, Graham

[F-UnitMad]

48 minutes ago, Western Star said:

Just think about tiffin...  Kyber pass...  oh well, carry on then.

Absolutely. Dinner party at 7. Black tie of course. Under fire, naturally.  

 

Edit: the whole history of the British Empire, condensed into six seconds.  

 

 

Edited September 4, 2021 by F-UnitMad

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

Replace the duchess and dinner with a wake board and a 40 grand holiday, and nothing much has changed viz England's Afghan Adventures. 

 

Toffs and their capers, eh?

 

Anyway.  Lets see some F units again.  Its been a while.  

[F-UnitMad]

56 minutes ago, Dr Gerbil-Fritters said:

Lets see some F units again.  Its been a while.

I can't post a video of my two Atlas Fs actually in service, unfortunately. They are currently both powered by single motor trucks, with an NCE DA-SR 1amp decoder, which was enough to enable them to crawl into view on 'Schiller Point', but is woefully inadequate for a proper layout with trains to pull & places to go. One of my 'round tuit' plans is to swap the gubbins about so one is a twin-motor all-axle drive again, with a meaty decoder, and the other becomes a non-powered dummy but hopefully with sound. This will make lashing-up easier, as speed-matching locos with different drives and different decoders remains for me one of the Dark Arts of DCC that I have totally failed to get to grips with.

 

For now we'll have another "blast from the past" moment with my old HO scale F9. I don't think I've posted these photos on this thread before, but may have elsewhere on RMweb.

This was painted for my fictional Stroud County Railroad, deliberately depicting it as a fifth-hand wreck almost on it's last wheels. It started out as a Bachmann model.

 

This had the same pancake type motor as the original Mainline Class 45; I believe they were made in the same factory, Kader in China.

Anyway I also had an Athearn blue box SW9, and wanted to lash up the two locos - easy enough with 12v DC if the drivetrains are similar. So I bought an Athearn blue box F7 and somehow cobbled the Bachmann shell onto the Athearn chassis. "One loco for the price of two", but as US HO was as cheap as chips at the time, still not a massive outlay.

So here's the two of them, lashed up very nicely on the layout I had at the time....

Note the trucks & fuel tank are now grey; the donor Athearn model was an SP loco, the Bachmann had started out as UP, hence the silver trucks. I don't think I ever repainted the Athearn chassis; not long after these photos were taken, I bought my first O Scale model (Atlas 'bobber' caboose, as shown previously in this Thread) and I was on my way down the slippery slope....

[F-UnitMad]

 Here's a chap I've been working on recently....

A model of a Switchman (UK Shunter) in classic pose hanging on the side of a car as it's propelled in to position.

Can't recall the make, now, possibly M.T.H., he was part of a cheap set of figures, and started out looking like this -

[F-UnitMad]

Part 2 (due to photo sizes for download)

....No idea what he was supposed to be doing or why he had a cricked neck, so he underwent a bit of surgery.

Swapped his head for one with a cap, and turned to look to his left, as that is the direction stock is propelled on my layout. Also had to close his legs together (no sniggering at the Back!) and re-spaced his arms a bit - unfortunately the grab irons & stirrups seem to be spaced differently on different car types, so his arms have to be spaced so at least one of them meets a rung when his feet are in the stirrup. To aid him he has a bit of angled brass strip glued under each hand & his feet.

With a bit of wedging he can even manage to hang on to cars with molded grab irons. The brass angles are more visible in this shot.

[Donw]

Now come on we need his head to turn with the direction of travel   Seriously it looks good. My frien Alan lent me a coach for an exhibition with a guard leaning out of the window. Drew a lot of attention that little detail. I think yours will do the same.

 

Don

[F-UnitMad]

Did you know there are Right & Wrong ways for a Switchman to get on & off cars like this?

Here's a very interesting Safety Film I found on YouTube. Dates from 1972, so some aspects, like roof walkways & high level brake wheels, would soon become history, but the basics of getting on & off a moving loco or car are fascinating.

 

Now Lance Mindheim has written in recent years that trains should come to a halt before the switchman gets on or off; not sure if this is a 'Class 1s Rule', as I've seen plenty of Short Line & Regional videos where it's still done the traditional way..... and even done the Wrong way, too!!!

 

I'll have to make another Switchman for facing the other way...