Dan’s Train Blog

So I finally got some track laid up hill from my first turnout. Where have I been? My day job is building a piece of Microsoft’s latest operating system and we had a BIG deadline…

Anyhoo, as soon as I had two whole pieces of flex track down I did what every red-blooded model railroader does: hooked up a power pack and ran some trains!!

The good news: the track is nice and smooth and the one turnout works flawlessly despite obvious imperfections (see other post).

Too Steep

The bad news: I had been worried about the grade uphill from the turnout. On the plan it works out to about 5.8% but that’s with no vertical transitions. With the transitions (effectively the distance it takes for 1/2″ plywood to smoothly bend to the grade) the same height is being gained in less distance — so the real hill is steeper.

Honestly, I knew all this going in, but I had not measured the grade. When I ran a train I found that my thumping Life-Like USRA 0-8-0 swticher could not pull even two free-rolling Athearn 75’ shorty passenger cars up the grade (not that I ever plan on using those cars on my 1920′s layout but they were handy…). Oops. The grade is more like 7%-plus!

I had to lower the grade. Looking at the layout, the height of the grade had been determined by the height needed to clear over the return loop with clearance. I had arbitrarily chosen a pretty high clearance at that point.

However, I needed to reduce the height climbed as much as possible so I made a template based on the Howe truss bridge that will be used at that point and measured how much I could bring the upper track down while still clearing the NMRA recommended height.

I was able to reduce the height by 3/4 of an inch. That may not seem like much but the total climb was 5″ so that’s a 15% reduction. With the reduced grade comes a reduction in the needed vertical transitions so this brings the grade down to more like 6%. Still severe but more workable — and more like what I had planned.

How do you lower twelve feet of roadbed? Unscrew the risers, clamp at the new (lower) height, and re-screw them. Not too pretty but nobody will see this once the scenery is up.

Note that RAISING the track would be MUCH more work.

Can the 0-8-0 get the two cars up the grade now? BARELY. Luckily, my designed train length is four 40′ cars plus a caboose and the prototype NWP often needed doubling on their frequent short-steep hills.

Waterfronts have always been interesting to me since they are often funky and usually have lots of history visible.

I live just across the bay from San Francisco and a couple weeks ago I took the ferry over to the waterfront and took some pictures.

The tracks on the San Francisco waterfront were operated by the State Belt Railroad and were standard gauge with a large portion dual-gauged with 3 foot trackage to handle narrow gauge cars ferried over from the south-east bay and north bay.

Here’s a nice bit of old pier left. There are railroad tracks on it as well. This is the remains of Pier 22-1/2. That little bridge in the background is the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge. A beautiful bridge in its own right but forever outshone by the nearby Golden Gate bridge.

If you have the free Google Earth application (HIGHLY recommended) you can go right to this location and follow along the next few photos by clicking on the location link here: San Francisco Fireboat 1 Phoenix

Close up showing the girder style (like street traction) track in the old pier.

This bit of pier is near the San Francisco Fire Department’s Fireboat Station No. 1 station which is itself built on a pier. The fireboat was away that morning.

Just south of the Bay Bridge is this tight little space between buildings with the track intact. This is the north side of Pier 26.

A little further south is Red’s Java House. When I first saw this building ten years ago it was very funky. Imagine it without the spiffy new paint.

As I left off last time I had decided to buy a Walthers 90’ turntable instead of scratchbuilding.

Placing it into the rough cut 11” hole I had already cut, it was clearly going to need a bigger (and more perfectly circular!) hole.

The Walther’s turntable needs a 12-1/2” diameter hole. On my trackplan I superimposed that size hole where I had the smaller hole and it was a tight fit, but it did fit.

It is a good idea to read the instructions: closer reading reveals that the turntable needs a 12-5/8” hole. As usual – everything ends up taking a bit more space than you initially plan.

First I needed to draw a really accurate circle on the plywood. Normally this is no big deal but there’s a hole in the plywood where the center needs to be so I clamp a piece of ¼” plywood over the hole from below.

Next I need to mark the center of the circle. The approach tracks to the turntable are already laid out and their centerlines should cross exactly at the center of the circle. Using a flexible clear plastic ruler I draw lines out and where they cross will be the center of the new enlarged hole.

Drawing the first line.

Drawing the second line. Where it crosses the first is the center for the new hole.

From the center just marked I use an inexpensive compass and a sharp pencil set for a 6-5/16” radius to gently mark out the new circle’s outline. This kind of compass works fine as long as you use very little force.

Drill a starter hole for the saber saw.

Cut the hole

Somehow I forgot to take any photos of this step. Maybe it was because I was holding the saw with both hands!

Anyway, I carefully cut the hole with a new blade in the saber saw and with a little bit of shaving the new hole works great.

The edge of my plywood base for the yard area is now dangerously close to the edge of the turntable so I immediately add some pine 1×3 facing boards and use a cargo strap to hold them while I glue and screw them in place.

The plastic lip of the turntable is exactly the same thickness as the ties under my track. Since my track is riding on cork roadbed I need to raise the turntable to match the track height. The easy way to do this is to run a ring of roadbed around the turntable hole to use it as a riser. Then I just cut away the bevel where the approach tracks come in.

I still have to actually assemble the turntable but I’m moving on to laying the track first.

When I was younger I used to go climb and play on this little ship. Many years later (around 1982) I got a picture of it. Unfortunately, I only had a cheapo camera and the boat has since collapsed.

I found the print (only 3×5 inches) and scanned it at 300 dpi optical about ten years ago. I’ve always thought she’d make a great model for a RR/Wharf scene.  

I’ve never been able to find any reference to her but she had “MARIN” faintly painted on her bow.

I think the Marin worked as a small freight and passenger ship. The main deck was very heavy construction: three layers of 2″ planking at skewed angles with asphalt and fine gravel coating on top. There was no evidence of any forward bulwark. In other photos of similar boats you see removable open rails on the forward deck.

It looked like cargo was loaded on and off the foredeck and stored as far back as the area under the main cabin. The part of the main deck covered by the upper cabin was open except for 3 or 4 support posts up the middle. One of these can be seen directly under the front of the wheelhouse.

The engine and hardware were long gone. There were indications that two cylindrical fuel tanks were mounted under the main deck on either side leaving room far a good size in-line gas/diesel engine mounted above the keel, towards the stern. She had a single screw and rudder.

There was only four feet of headroom inside the flat-bottomed hull between the frames and the deck beams under the main deck. I think she was built as a motor-boat (not converted from steam) since boilers usually had to be in the middle of the hull and there really wasn’t head room on the MARIN below the main deck.

The wheelhouse was elevated about three feet above the upper deck level. Inside, the wheelhouse had a large “shelf” across the after portion which was actually the roof of the Skipper’s cabin. The upper cabin had a small captain’s cabin forward that went full width. The remainder was undivided and had benches along the walls facing inwards.

The boat used to be about 100 feet from the water on the north shore of Bodega Bay, California. The location at Mapquest (or other map website) may be found by entering the following location: Bay Flat Rd & Whaleship Rd, Bodega Bay, CA 94923

Measurements: The yellow circle shows where I placed a story pole on the ship to aid in measuring it from the photo. It was painted white and black on the belt rail of the hull, just forward of directly below the front of the wheelhouse. It is marked in feet with the first and third feet white and the middle foot black. The middle foot also has six inches marked in alternate white/black patches (these are slightly below the resolution of the camera).

I estimate the length to be about 60 feet, beam almost 20 feet.

Ok, so far this first turnout is kicking my ass. I’ll produce a real “how to build these turnouts” article — when I really know to build one of these turnouts. Right now, I’m severely learning. Think of this as a “still clinging to the cliff” kind of report although I’m still having fun and I’m still happy about choosing the Central Valley turnout kits.

Central Valley Model Works (CVMW) has been around since the late 1940’s. However, their CVT system of styrene tie strips and turnout kits is relatively new. I’m building most of my track using Micro Engineering code 83 flex track. Code 83 you say? Yes, I have some old Rivarrosi and IHC engines that I actually like, and code 70 is too low for their (way too big) flanges so code 83 it is – good enough.

For turnouts I originally intended to use Walthers/Shinohara code 83 #4’s – these are excellent turnouts but were completely out of stock for the foreseeable future during the end of 2005 when I was putting all my materials together. I procrastinate enough at the best of times and having any real excuse to stop forward progress is simply too risky so I shopped around for an immediately available alternative. The CVT turnouts had been on my short list and they were available. I ordered straight from CVMW and they arrived quickly.

The pros, cons, and costs of the CVT turnouts are obvious:

Pro: great detail – museum quality looks.
Con: you need to build them yourself and I feel it’s fair to say that they are one notch more difficult than the normal way one would scratch build a turnout and obviously way more work than a pre-built turnout.
Cost: very comparable with other turnouts. Not really a factor in the decision.

I picked a spot on my layout to lay the first turnout.

An easily accessible simple siding on the mainline. The CVT instructions (yes, I actually read them) say to start by gluing down the tie strip onto the layout. However since this was my first one I chose to do a quite a bit of dry fitting on the workbench before doing anything on the layout.

I made a drilling template out of ¼ masonite and drilled the “throw” hole and holes for feeder wires. Then glued the tie block down with contact cement and glued down a small piece of roadbed to be the foundation for the switch stand.

I’d love to say “then I just attached the rails and away we go” but there has been a lot of learning. Central Valley recommends barge cement diluted with MEK to attach the rails. I tried it and this is a really good recommendation — but there is still some art involved.

After some work I got my first turnout installed and working.

I’m using Tortoise switch machines and I’m using 1/16” square brass rod to throw the turnout.

The Tiburon Railroad-Ferry Depot Museum is building an HO scale model of the Tiburon railroad yard of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad as it was in 1909. After several meetings with the the permanent staff I was informally commissioned to build some of the structures starting with “Ark Number 4.”

“Arks” are local (Marin county, California) slang for what were more commonly known around the country as “shanty boats.” Around the 1880′s and 90′s it became very popular to vacation in home-made houseboats around the San Francisco Bay. Known locally as “arks,” these houseboats, every one unique, once numbered in the hundreds. None survive afloat but many were hauled up on land to serve as housing for railroad and other local workers looking for low cost “funky” housing. I plan on having many of these Arks in and around my 1920′s Tiburbon.

In 1909 several arks lined the Bay shore along the approach to the Tiburon yard. My sole source of data for this building were enlargements of this photo from an old post card:

After estimating dimensions from the photo and negotiating with the museum staff how the two sides you can’t see might have looked, I proceeded to build my model. Museum requirements were to use materials compatible with at least a 50 year lifespan. Styrene is prohibited for any use but small details. White metal castings are also prohibited. In some ways this meant going back to techniques popular in the 1960′s: Strathmore, acid-free paper, wood, white glue.

A drawing I made before construction.

I’ve been dabbling at model building (cars, trains, planes, ships) since my pre-teen years and while I have 30 years or so of experience this was my first stab at really scratchbuilding. Fortunately, I have been an avid reader of Model Railroader and the Narrow Gauge & Short Line Gazette and I drew heavily on all those articles and pictures to help me build this model.

The scale is 1:87 HO. Overall dimensions are 33′ x 16′ not counting the not-so-out-outhouse. Roof is Campbell shingles on a solid wood core. Walls are hand-scribed Strathmore on a basswood core. Windows are real (damn thin) glass. Floor is board-by-board scale 1x4s.

During initial track planning I specified an 80′ turntable at Tiburbon. Eighty feet looked long enough given the types of engines I wanted to run. This worked out to 11 inches in diameter and this felt ok given the overall size of the scene.

The plan was to scratchbuild the turntable but those of you who have done this before know: it’s really easy to build a turntable badly. Fortunately, I realized this immediatly after casually cutting a rough 11 inch diameter hole in the main track sheet of Tiburbon.

First: a rough hole will not do the job.

Second: it became clear that a precisely built and aligned pit, bridge, and approach tracks are required or I will be very sorry indeed.

Third: since this turntable is in the IMMEDIATE foreground of the scene it must be tidy looking.

Enter the Walthers 90′ Turntable kit (unpowered) on sale for $31.98.

I’ve had spotty to poor experiences with Walthers plastic kits but I figured for $32 I’d get at least a few pieces I could use. So far it looks great. Simple and tidy. With some easy modifications will turn smoothly. I plan on turning by hand since the table is right at the edge (will I regret this?).  

I’ll have to enlarge the existing hole but it basically fits and now I can turn a USRA 2-8-2 Mikado if I want. I’ll post details on cutting and installation soon.

Yes, actual construction! I’m breaking from the ranks of arm-chair modelers where I have been comfortably hiding (and yet still whining) for many years.

As soon as I finalized my trackplan I built a planning model to confirm I liked the track alignment and arrangement. Now I was ready to start actually building benchwork.

One of the benefits of using a CAD system like 3rd PlanIt to design your layout is that it gives you a list of which materials needed and how much of each. Exporting this data I had:

L Girder, 1×4 = 489
Wood, 1×2 = 1635
Wood, 2×2 = 843

Where these last numbers are amount needed in inches. Converting to feet and then figuring out how many 8, 10, or 12 foot pieces I needed, I was able to make one trip to the lumber yard. Okay, one and a half trips because I oops’d at one point and did not leave myself enough long pieces so I had to run back and buy a couple extra 1x4’s.

Benchwork with track.

Benchwork without roadbed and track.

I’m building the layout into four big pieces. This is part of my plan to make the layout movable (but not necessarily easily portable).

It is important to get the first piece lined up well because it is much faster and easier going forward if you can just use the first section as your solid reference. Another decision I made was to build only the first section as a free-standing four legged section. All the other sections would have one end held up by its neighbor and the other end held up by its own legs. This minimized the number of legs needed and increased the amount of clear space below.

I built up the L-girders and cut all the legs and joists to length outdoors in advance, measuring from the CAD drawings.

Believe it or not, I live in an apartment. Let that sink in a second. An apartment. Not only do I live in an apartment, but my wife and I are spectacular pack rats. We have STUFF. My son has stuff too.

Therefore, one thing you will see in these pictures is that I could not actually start with an empty room. There was nowhere to put the stuff. An important factor in my design was that as I build a section, I move stuff under that section, clearing space to build the next section. That under-layout storage is important and was another motivation to have a rather high 53.5 inch track-zero height. I did have to fill the hallway and the living room with some displaced stuff over the one month it took to build the benchwork.

My son thought the whole thing was great. And yes, my wife is a saint.

Here’s the first section going up.

Once the first section was up it’s ready to hold up the next. I put ¼ inch lag screws on the ends of all the legs to allow the height to be adjustable for any irregularities in the floor.

Here’s the next section and as you can see I’ve already snuggled a bunch of stuff underneath. Note everything is on wheels so it’s pretty easy to pull stuff out if I need to get underneath.

Continuing on with the third section. The sections are attached to each other only along facing 1×2 face plates at the section edges.

It finally dawned on me that I need more light in this already effectively windowless room. I bought a couple fixtures and put decent (relatively expensive) “full spectrum” tubes in them. I’m surface mounting everything since it all has to come out some day. I’ve tidied up the cords much better since this photo.

Note: this is just a start on the light. Fluorescents are an efficient way to get the bulk of the light into the space. I plan on adding many small halogen spots to give good shadows and a warmer color.

Last section.

In several of these last shots you can see that I’m using an image stitching program to combine shots giving a wider-angle view.

Roadway – note I use the term “roadway” to refer to the wood structure beneath the roadbed where “roadbed” is the stuff you actually put track DIRECTLY on. Some people say “sub-roadbed” — I use ½” plywood.

Building the roadway is one of those things that is REALLY hard without two things: the CAD system printing out full size paper templates and a saber saw. As far as I’m concerned there’s no other way to do it.

I actually made a paper model of the pieces of roadway to estimate how many sheets of plywood I’d need (three 4’ x 4’ sheets). By the by, unless you need several REALLY long runs, having the lumber yard cut 4×8 sheets of plywood into 4×4 sheets makes your life MUCH easier.

Anyhow, I printed out the full size templates from the CAD system (lovingly assembled from many 8-1/2 x 11 sheets of paper) and staple them to the plywood. I just staple them on long enough to copy their outline onto the wood using a nice new black sharpie pen. You can use a pencil if you want but the thick black ink line is easier to follow while cutting.

SAVE the templates: you will use them again later.

I don’t have any photos of actually cutting the plywood. It was threatening rain that weekend so I was hustling along fast enough to get it done yet still keep all my fingers. Besides the saber saw I also use a band saw whenever the shape of the piece is such that it fits through the throat of the saw.

Remember I said keep the templates? You need them to quickly and easily lay out the turnouts and the track locations. Once the roadway was installed, I would tack the templates over the pieces and use one of my trusty sharpies to trace slowly over the track plan, letting the ink soak through and mark the wood.

I was moving fast and the benchwork is definitely good enough but one thing I would change next time: Malcolm used 1×2 risers on his San Juan Central so I figured I would too. Next time: use 1×4 risers. The 1x2’s are plenty strong but because the 2 inches is so narrow (really 1-1/2 inches) they tend to be wobbly. For a small weight penalty, 1x4’s would have been much better.

Cork Roadbed

It’s fast, relatively cheap, not too messy, and it’s good enough. If I was hand laying track I might have gone for Homasote but I just didn’t want to do it that way. Frankly, the old Tru-scale milled pine roadbed was pretty good. Now available from Trout Creek Engineering — the flat stuff you put your own ties on, not the stuff they made with ties and grooves cut into it. I’d probably do something like that before Homasote. Call me weird. The only thing halfway interesting about putting down the cork is that I would use contact cement alternatively with white glue to hold it down.