Dan’s Train Blog

What make a great issue of a magazine? In this web age magazines are having a tough time. It’s easy to gripe so now I’ll do the hard part. What works? What makes a great magazine issue that I’ll put post-its into the pages and come back to 30 years later?

Here are some examples I find flipping through all the marked articles I tagged for this series of blog postings.

Great layout building series. I’ve mentioned the bad ones. Here are the good ones I remember from the last 40 years.

• Brandywine Transit series by Walter R Olsen — a traction / trolley layout from the mid 70’s. I’m sure some of the techniques are a bit dated but I think this would still be a reference point for starting an HO traction layout.

• Jerome & Southwestern by John Olson – I still look at the book collection of these articles.

• San Juan Central by Malcolm Fulrow – obviously I liked this since I based my layout on this one.

What was good about these was that they were visually inspiring (or at least technically inspiring in the case of Brandywine) and you really got the idea you could do it yourself.

Great model building techniques. These could be in the form of how-to articles, cover photos (discussed in this post), or simply drawings.

Here are some examples:

August 1966: From Timber to Tidewater by James Sabol. A great article describing operations on logging railroads.

August 1976: The transofrmation of a caboose by Merk Hobson. How to scratchbuild in wood. Timeless good techniques.

August 1982: Building your first wood structure kit by Bob Hayden. I read over this article every time I start a wood craftsman kit.

August 1998: The HO scale Lilliput Logger by Iain Rice. I don’t hate ALL 4×8 articles. I love Iain’s work and his track plans are inspiring. I have all his track plan books too.

August 2005: Painting and weathering plaster by Bob Mitchell. This is a simple article but I know I’ll want to review it before working on my next plaster kit.

Other good articles:
An article series from another magazine is currently saving by butt as I’m building my turnouts are Didrik Voss’s articles on measuring and adjusting turnouts in the September and October Scale Rails.

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 1

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 2

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 3

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 4

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5½

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 6

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 7

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 8

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 9

I work in Point Richmond, California and we have a big BNSF yard (formerly Santa Fe) nearby. I have always loved trucks that have been heavily customized for their work and  this of course includes HiRail (or HY Rail) vehicles. This spanking new BNSF work truck is just too cool. I took these pictures over a couple days when this crew was working on tracks around town.

Front bumper and front rail wheels.

Rear rail wheels. Note the caboose style steps up into the truck.

Note the piece of rail up in the overhead rack.

What were the worst issues in the last 40 years?

Instead of listing specific issues I tried to get an idea specifically what it was that would make me think an issue was just not interesting.

1. A worthless 4 x 8 track plan inserted just to pad out the issue.

In several issues (at least three issues) that had NO interesting articles you could find a 4 x 8 track plan. Is it written somewhere that MR needs to publish a 4 x 8 foot track plan every year?

2. A (Stupid) Railroad You Can Model article.

The typical example is the Yancy RR described in the August 1974 issue. “You can model every track switch (both of them) on the prototype” And this is GOOD because …????

WHO wants to model a railroad that has virtually no traffic, no scenery and no significant history?

What I want are ideas on how to convey that I’m running the Santa Fe on 10 feet of bookshelf space. I want railroads pulling ore out of the mountains, lumber from the hills, or moving tonnage over the Rockies – NOT shipments of dog food.

In fact, the August 1979 issue is choice for WORST August issue. It has EIGHT articles about the Fonda, Johnstown & Gloversville Railroad, a stupid railroad nobody would want to model.

I’ll pay $1 to anyone who can prove to me they actually devoted an entire layout to the pathetic FJ&G RR.

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 1

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 2

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 3

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 4

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5½

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 6

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 7

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 8

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 9

What were the best August cover pictures from the last 40 years?

My top five:

Number 5, August 1969. A cover by the late Ben King. Ben’s little layout, precise models and beautiful photos were years ahead of their time.

Number 4, August 1973. Another cover by Ben King. Not happy with available cameras, Ben is showing the beautiful photos his scratch built pin hole camera could take.

Number 3, August 1976. Irv Schultz and his St. Clair Northern.

Number 2, August 1967. An engine servicing area on John Allen’s Gorre & Daphetid RR. John’s work always had a spark that was missing from most of his contemporaries’.

My number 1 favorite issue of August in the last 40 years 1980: Malcolm Furlow’s Denver & Rio Chama Western. Malcolm’s model building was not as good as John Allen’s but the composition of his scenes was always powerful and inspiring.

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 1

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 2

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 3

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 4

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5½

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 6

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 7

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 8

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 9

In the course of building a detailed layout, which takes professionals months and amateurs years, you can forget that there are easy and fun projects that you can knock out in a few hours.

My son is interested in trains but right now he likes cars better. So far his feedback about the layout has been “where are the freeways?”

Last time we were in a hobby shop he wanted a school bus — but not a yellow one, a white one. He ended up picking a Trident #90076 ($14.99!!) School Bus. They are really good looking models. I bought two.

I pulled off the front and rear bumpers which are mounted by long pegs and these also serve to hold the body onto the chassis. I painted the body with silver since white will not cover school bus orange easily. Next I painted the body a satin white and that’s it.

I have since mounted the clear red warning lights and I picked out the turn signals and running lights with Tamyia Clear Red and Clear Orange but my son is busy playing with it now so I’ll have to add pictures later.

Ok: got a hold of the bus for a nanosecond.

No, the title is not a typo…

I’ve always loved photos of early Tiburon, California. Tiburon grew as the “town at the end of the tracks.” Those tracks belonged to the San Francisco & North Pacific Railroad and later the Northwestern Pacific Railroad.

By the 1920’s Tiburon housed a dense cluster of rail yards, ferry piers, and shops. It was also home to an extremely wild bunch of buildings that grew organically around the end of tracks.

Because the shore near Tiburon was extremely steep, any flat ground was created entirely by filling in the surrounding bay. The railroad did a pretty organized job of it. The townspeople just threw dirt in as needed, drove piles into the remaining shallow water and threw up their structures in a way that would strike terror into the heart of any modern building inspector, fire marshal, or health inspector. Here could be found hotels, cheap housing for railroad workers, bars, cathouses, and stores.

The picture above is looking west. If you looked to the east of the yards and shops you would find much more respectable (but to me less interesting) housing.

I want a town on my layout that captures some of the feel and spirit of Tiburon of this era. However, given my tiny amount of available space I cannot make a serious attempt to model anything about Tiburon of the 1920’s except its “feel.” Additionally I’m going to emphasize, to the point of exaggeration, many of the more colorful aspects of the town so I decided to highlight that by dubbing my version of the town “TiburBon.” Amazing what the simple addition of a “b” does.

Locals insist Tiburbon is pronounced “Tiburr-bon” although visitors seeking a bottle of liquor (found here in abundance despite Prohibition) unfailingly pronounce it “Ti-bourbon.”

After looking at maps and photos of Tiburon in the past and walking the streets today (I live in Tiburon) I shaped an idea for the land and water around Tiburbon onto my planning model.

Before I go further with the track work in Tiburbon I decided I’d get a start on the rough scenery here since the town will end up a highly detailed scene behind the tracks and will be easier to work on before the track is laid in.

First I cut a sheet of ¼” plywood to fit which runs the full length of this module. This plywood will be the bottom of the bay. Everything goes up from here.

I laid out paper on the plywood and penciled out shapes guided by what I had on the planning model but I always find that I end up making adjustments once doing it full size. Once I was satisfied I re-traced it in pen.

I cut the paper plan into a templates and cut the shape I needed out of 2” thick bead board sheets. I use a Woodland Scenics hot wire cutter and an electric hot knife to cut Styrofoam. I wear a mask for the fumes and do as much as I can outdoors but as far as I’m concerned heat-cutting foam is the only way to go. Here I’m test fitting them before gluing.

The boat shaped piece of foam board is testing the size of a 60 foot boat.

There’s a gap in the back and eventually I’ll be pouring in my bay water so I laid a piece of  3/16” foam core board there as a dam and glued it down with liquid nails.

The first base level exactly matches the height of the top of the cork roadbed in the adjacent rail yard (good planning on my part). I cut stacks of 2” foam boards up to until I liked the height. I’ll carve these down with the hot knife and glue them down later.

Most materials used to model water (I haven’t decided what I’ll use yet) will seep through any available holes so I sealed the edges with silicon sealant.

The two blue lines were different ideas I had about the water level. Looking at the photos, Tiburon was (and is) built very close to high tide level so I’ve settled on the higher water mark.

I added a fillet of paper mache. This is needed since most paints refuse to stick to the silicone sealant and I want to start to build up the texture.

I painted everything from the high water mark down with my “wet mud” color. This is a base color I had made in latex paint and I use it everywhere under dirt. The color ends up basically olive drab. I’ll probably paint black any areas I want to appear as deep water.

Well, this is all I’m going to fit in on Labor Day weekend.

Yes, I’m still futzing with the track and that darn hill. As I described last time, the hill was too steep and I lowered the end height ¾” and estimated that I had brought the grade down to 6%.

Was it really 6%? I decided to do what I should have done in the first place, really measure the grade. With a ruler and a level-bubble I was able to estimate the grade easily enough, but I could see that the hill was steeper in some places than others. I decided I needed better measurements to not just tell me the grade but tell me how much I should correct elevations along the grade to smooth things out.

Couldn’t I do this with the CAD system? Not really. Something 3rd PlanIt does not do well is vertical transitions and what I’m talking about here is an eight foot ribbon of plywood that eases up to the grade, climbs (and goes around an 18″ radius turn), and finally levels off at the top.

So I got out a ruler and measured the height of the roadbed every three inches to the nearest 1/16th of an inch, entered the measurements into a spreadsheet and found some trouble. The average grade was 5.8% — very close to and below the original estimate. However, that average was made up of sections at about 4% and others at 8%.

Making the speadsheet also made it easy to calculate which risers needed to be adjusted and by how much.

While I was at it I decided to try to pull off another ¾” from the overall climb. To reduce the need to climb I had to change the type of bridge from this:

to a plate girder type bridge like shown below which allows a minimum rail-head to rail-head distance. The bridge shown is a standard Atlas bridge which is not realistic if examined closely — I’ll have to take care with detailing and finishing.

And lose that beautiful Howe truss bridge? No, I’ll simply shorten the wood bridge and it will continue to the left.

 The good news is that the reduction in height reduces this grade to 4.5%. The climb up the other side of the hill becomes 3.7% (same climb but longer run). Now that (admittedly still steep) grade is even with no sudden steeper parts.

Lesson learned: measure, test, measure, and measure again.

So Model Railroader (MR), my NMRA membership, and Railroad Model Craftsman (RMC) subscriptions all came up at about the same time.

I usually subscribe to Model Railroader two or three years at a time. Sorry MR, not this year: I signed up for one year. RMC gets a two year subscription and the NMRA one more year.

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 1

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 2

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 3

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 4

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 5½

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 6

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 7

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 8

40 Years of August in Model Railroader – Part 9