78 Miles to Yosemite

Grasping Space and Size: Still Learning to Plan in O Scale

Posted on by jkdummler

Things have been super slow here.  Lots of stuff is keeping me away from finishing projects I wanted to get done, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about layouts.  

I write about this a lot.  Boiling a railroad down to a manageable and buildable and achievable track plan, especially a railroad that one knows really well.

While building has slowly progressed on what I have called a photo diorama, I’ve also been paying attention to other small layouts and ideas that might come in handy.  A couple of things recently added to that list or conversation, and sharing them is worth while.

A couple weeks ago, I started thinking ahead to when some of the constrains I currently have on layout building are alleviated.  It’ll be a few years, but it usually takes me a while to ferment a track plan, and the change from HO to O scale has been a real struggle for me to wrap my head around track planning in general, so starting now and playing with space sizes and what fits is a useful exercise.

I stared with a list of industries I want to model somehow on the YV.  These are the bottom line, most interesting (to me) things I want to model.  Call it part of Givens & Druthers thinking or LDE’s, but for my purposes I’m calling this the ‘Must Include Industries”.  Here’s the list:

Lumber Mill

  • Log Unloading Track
  • Box Factory & Lumber Loading

Portland Cement

  • Hopper Dump
  • Bagging House

Other Industries

  • Standard Oil
  • Ice / Cold Storage
  • Station or Warehouse (both if possible)

I decided to try and fit the above YV locations into a layout that would fit in the largest bedroom in our house, and landed with this plan.

It’s good, it checks all those boxes, but one thing is really glaring to me and that’s the need to operate this with a runaround track.  That takes a lot of space.

Runaround tracks are common practice in track planning.  They’re useful.  Being able to have a train make facing and trailing point pickups and stouts means you can access a lot of the available real estate on the limited layout space.  

Layout panning requires a lot of compromises.  As modelers we are striving to bend and fit a representation of linear railroads (in most cases) that follow landforms, not walls, into confined spaces.  While that is part of the art of model railroad building, it immediately means we are compromising from the outset. 

What would my YV-based switching layout look like if I added a few other considerations? Make the room smaller, so 12×12.  Make the layout require one crew, one train, maximum of two operators and a host.  Still include the desired industries.  

I believe we are at an inflection point in layout design in North America.  Our massive layouts that people have built for years here, or that people have aimed to build “some day” may become smaller, bedroom size or smaller, operationally interesting and detailed, with many tending further toward the cameo layout that can be built in townhouses or apartments and require small numbers of operators.  

So, inspired by this, and an HO scale layout I saw while browsing some layouts online, I’ve designed this YV-inspired/based layout.

The layout includes all the industries I wanted, the log dump and box factory / dry loading for the lumber company, a track for rock cars and a track for loading boxcars at the cement company, a track for Standard Oil, a track for the ice and cold storage, and right in front of that I can add a station for LCL freight.  All of this can be accessed by a train headed in one direction, doing trailing point switching with no runaround track needed.  Adding or flipping just one industry in the opposite direction might be interesting and mean that I could stage cars for sorting and delivery at either end, or on cassettes at either end.  Something to think about.

It’s interesting to think about how I’ve gotten here.  From track plans drawn to represent just Merced or just El Portal that fill a garage to a switching layout with YV industries that now fits in a spare bedroom, the idea of a manageable and achievable layout of my own coming down the road is exciting.  Small layouts are more common that we might be lead to believe.  Building rolling stock, detailed structures, locomotives, and finished scenes can be done.  One thing that a small layout needs in my opinion, is operational realism, and we’ll talk about that in a blog post that will be coming soon.

It’s definitely time to get back to the workbench.

-Jeremy

Avoiding Decal Disaster

Posted on by jkdummler

Did you spot it in the photo of the SP gondola I posted last week?  As soon as I posted the photo, I saw it.  Go have a look.

Top: A close-up from last week. See where the “S.P.” is…. that’s not prototype. Bottom: That’s much better with the letters and numbers in the right spots.

The “S.P.” was in the wrong spot.  Those should have been separated by the vertical support on the car side, not in the same space.  Uh oh.  I debated leaving it, I debated tossing the car, but I decided to see if I could fix it.  

As it turns out, if you haven’t set and sealed your waterslide decals you can remove them with simple scotch tape, the kind used to wrap gifts.  I pulled out the roll of tape and within seconds had the S.P. removed from the car side.  Fortunately I had a second set of that lettering, which I then applied to the car.

About a week later at this point, and the lettering is done and the car is sealed.  I’m glad I managed to remove the decals, and I’m glad I managed to correct what would have been a super jarring error for my eye every time that car winds up on display or on a layout.

I’m trying hard to get the details right (for me) on all my projects.  It’s not always easy, and sometimes mistakes are made.  It’s good to know they can be corrected.

-Jeremy

Things I’m Thinking About

Posted on by jkdummler

Years ago I used to read the sportswriter, Peter King’s, Monday column online after the Sunday football games.  I remember him having part of the column titled “Ten Things I think I think”.  With lots of different irons in the fire, I thought I would share a few different things I am working on or thinking about here, maybe not ten, but in a similarly disjointed manner, just to provide a catch-up on several projects.

  1. Your Library Is Your Friend When Modeling

I love books, and books about railroad topics are without question the most numerous books in our library hands down.  In prepping to work on the USRA gondola project that I am trying to finish up by the end of September,  I found myself needing lettering information.  I had intended to paint the car as an El Paso & Southwestern (EPSW) car, but after discussing things with Tony Thompson, it was decided that the Southern pacific acquisition of the EPAW in 1924 would have produced repainted cars by 1928, and I changed focus to reproducing a SP lettered car.  There is a photo in Tony’s Southern Pacific freight cars book on SP gondolas showing one of these cars in San Francisco in 1934, but that is a little later, and if the cars were repainted by 1928, they would likely have been shopped at least once more time and repainted again by 1934.  To get close to the right lettering on this car, I turned to another book that I had received as a gift last year for a future PFE reefer project.  The book, “Southern Pacific Painting and Lettering Guide” has a 1925 GS gondola lettering guide included.  Using that guide, the 1934 photo from the other SP book, and several sheets of different decals from Protocraft, I have assembled as close as I think I can a plan to letter the model as it might have appeared in 1928.  Without multiple references, I would have been floating without a guide.  I’m thankful for the books that I can reference for photos and information.  They allow me to model to the best of the ability of the information and my skills at the moment.

2.  Getting the Most out of 3’ x 18”

A single track on the 36″ long photo diorama
Two tracks is better use of the space.

The photo diorama that I created is still standing in our garage without much progress being made there.  The weather in the Midwest has been hot, humid, or just generally bad for working out there. My initial plan was to lay a single track down the middle of the board.  At the same time, I want to use this small board to learn a few things, most importantly, how to hand lay Proto48 track.  With that in mind, I have decided to lay two lines of track on this project, one as a mainline and one more as a siding, allowing me to experiment with tie spacing, ballast, grass, etc… and really prefect the look of the track before moving on.  As the weather cools a little this next week, I am hoping to get roadbed down and some basic scenery texture in place to get rid of the pink foam.  I’d like, by the end of September, to have fascia on this project all the way around, the basic mud down and dry for the scenery, and be at the point where I’m sorting out rail, tie, spike, tie plates, and other track details for the Fall.  Doable?  We’ll see.

3.  “Mill Road” is the e-book I’ve Been Looking For

OST Publications, and Mike Cougill, have produced another fantastic e-book in their new release, “Mill Road”.  The book discusses Mike’s journey with his Proto48 Cameo layout and his thought process on the design, what is important, and some of his ideas on construction of such a layout.  It’s a well written, well thought through, and inspiring guide to this kind of layout design philosophy.  This is a similar road to what I’ve been finding myself drawn to, and Mike has put it in writing better than I could.  I highly recommend buying a copy if you’re interested in the Cameo layout concept, or how one comes to focus on what is important to you in modeling.  Bravo, Mike!

4.  Endings

This December, my subscription to Model Railroader Magazine will come to an end.  I have subscribed to MR since 1987.  Even with a small HO scale switching layout stored in the closet to work on this winter, the content in MR has become irrelevant to my modeling interests and sadly the magazine has become a quick scan monthly when it arrives and is then recycled.  I haven’t saved an issue in several years.  When the current subscription ends, I may occasionally pick up a copy if there is an interesting article, and I’ll likely continue to add to my shelf of Model Railroad Planning special issues, but my subscriptions to Model Railroad Hobbyist, Narrow Gauge & Shoreline Gazette, and O Scale Magazine will continue, and reading and support for O Scale Resource will as well.

5.  The Right Builder

Parts for YV 29

As many of you know, my vision is greatly limited (I’m legally blind).  When I switched to Proto48 from HO scale, and decided to keep on modeling the Yosemite Valley Railroad, one of the biggest losses for me was the locomotive roster.  The Beaver Creek YV moguls are a real draw to modeling the YV in HO, making it possible to have 5 of the 7 locomotives rostered in the late 1920’s, 1930’s, and up to abandonment, essentially ready to go in brass, and Jack Burgess having had an excellent article on modeling the two 4-4-0 American’s on the roster in Model Railroader, built from the excellent Bachmann modern 4-4-0 models.  After doing the research on building a locomotive model, knowing the skills, the tools, the materials, and incredibly importantly, the vision, I decided to take some of my own advice that I give in clinics on modeling as a low vision person, and look for help.

After an extensive search, talking to a large number of people, I’m very happy to share that Bill Meredith of Leadville Designs (https://leadvilledesigns.com) has started work and made fantastic progress on building a custom Proto48 model of YV29 as it would have appeared in 1928.  Pictured here are some of the parts for the model.  It has been a pleasure to develop this project with Bill, and I’m very excited about what is happening.  YV29 will be sound equipped, battery powered, and I’m looking forward to sharing more of the project as it progresses.

With that, it’s time to get back to work on projects, and hopefully I’ll have some progress shots to share with you soon.

-Jeremy

Photo Diorama – Up on Legs

Posted on by jkdummler

Just a brief update this week on project.  I’m working to push things forward and sharing even small steps of progress because it helps me to organize what needs to be done.

Been here before. The adjustment to a photo diorama from layout module was pretty straight forward and took only a couple of hours to assemble and to adjust the legs. At 48″ from the ground, the height is still for viewing and reach.

The photo module project has made it onto its own legs.  I’m very pleased with how fast this came together, and the weight is much better for a mobile platform.  Instead of 52″, the top is now 48″ from the ground, and it’s quite comfortable to stand at. I modified the angled braces from the previous effort on the legs into a single cross brace for stability, and that has worked nicely. The legs have pockets they fit into, and then the frame for the diorama base rests on cross members on the legs that are there to keep the legs aligned and to provide that support. Those same cross braces also provide a location to grab when moving the set up diorama, so there isn’t awkward holding points like the last effort had.

I will likely try and get basic color onto the diorama and a fascia onto the project before Fall.  I located my supply of small spikes and my splicing tools that I purchased a few years ago.  The next step will be to lay the roadbed product down and get that dry, and cut some styrene for the fascia.  I need to find time to draw the tie plates in a 3D CAD program because I need to have my own printed.  I don’t know of any commercial 3 hole tie plates out there at the moment.  

My modeling block is pretty much gone. I’m working at my 15 minutes a day program, making lists, planning work, and looking forward to finishing these things.  It would be amazing to be able to take photos of the finished freight car projects on the photo diorama.  That’ll be a neat thing to be able to share when we get there.

-Jeremy

Back at it: Project Updates For August 7, 2020

Posted on by jkdummler

After my last post, I made the decision to eliminate the really heavy piece of benchwork/module that I had built, and this week, cut up into three pieces, that section has departed to the dump.  The scenery “mud” on that project has great promise, as does the Flexxbed that I chose to use for roadbed.  However, the super heave, 3/4” plywood frame and decking just made it unwieldy to move and store.  Having decided that it’s skill-building and project c completion time, that piece no longer fit into my plans, and thus, it has met it’s end.

The photo diorama is now making progress. I’m working on modifying the legs from the last effort to fit this project, and to make some design improvements.

In it’s place, I have started constructing a new “photo diorama” to be able to learn some skills with.  It’s only 3’ long this time, and though the Fram is built from left-over 3/4” plywood benchwork pieces, the decking will be a simple piece of 2” insulation foam.  I have, at this point, glued and screwed the plywood together for the frame, so I’ve made progress there that I’m pleased with.  To use this as a display and photography diorama, I plan to make some functional adjustments to the legs from what I now call the “Heavy Module” and reuse them.  The plan is to adjust the end plates on the legs to allow for the diorama to be bolted in place, not just floating.  I’ll then adjust the length of lateral supports, and I’ll have legs that will bring things up to a height of about 50” which is comfortable for me for viewing and photography.

Modeling supplies have been cleaned up and organized again. It’s good to start fresh every once in a while with the organization.

It’s not all layout items that have made progress either.  I was fortunate to be able to correspond with several railroad history and modeling experts regarding the USRA gondola that I have planned to finish soon.  My initial thought was to letter that model as an El Paso & Southwestern car, but after corresponding about the likelihood of any of the EP&SW cars remaining in EP&SW paint by 1928, the general feeling was that the Southern Pacific would have repainted the cars after their 1924 acquisition of the EP&SW, and it is hotly unlikely that there would be a car in original lettering by August of 1928.  To adjust to that, I’ve repainted the gondola from black into a better base for SP lettering, and I’m looking forward to getting that finished soon.

Additionally on the freight car front, I have started the finishing process for the ATSF Bx2 boxcar that I detailed late last year and early this year.  That car will be first up for finishing, and I’ve set a personal goal of finishing it in August.  

This car is first up to finish. The Bx2 has been in progress the longest, so it’s first to be finished, hopefully in August.

The general finishing order for projects ahead currently stands at:

ATSF Bx2 Boxcar

SP USRA Gondola

UTLX Tank Car 1

UTLX Tank Car 2

PRR FM Flatcar

YV Caboose 15

Once I finish the projects above, I’ll pick new models from my stash and start working there.

On the skill-building front, I’ve decided to learn to hand-lay track in Proto48.  The photo diorama will be my first go there.  I’ve hand-laid track in HO before, but the detail level in Proto48 will be different.  Right now I’m hunting for a way to get the number of 3 hole tie-plates that I will need to prototypically lay YV track, and I’ll be looking to acquire the materials soon. I will likely use the tie plate project as a way to get started with 3D printing parts as I have seen some other Proto48 modelers do.  

I’m looking forward now to sharing more progress in detail on specific projects I have going on as I move them forward.

-Jeremy

Emerging from a Funk

Posted on by jkdummler

Along the way, I’ve lost my way, and have been trying to fight, claw, and adjust my way back to a mindset that will get me back at the workbench and get some projects finished or moved forward.

I think it’s only natural in the times we live in at the moment to have some stagnation in projects.  Due to the fact that some items we use in our hobby have become difficult to acquire, and the general uncertainty we all face, I’m sure I’m not the only one who has had trouble getting to the workbench.  It’s also Summer, the general “low ebb” of model railroading, so that likely plays a part.

As I hit a wall with planning and looking at what to do in the future, I found myself struggling to build models or finish models.  The energy and wind went right out of my sails, and the desire to sit down and work omg a project I found hard to come by.  

Model railroading is not an immediate gratification hobby.  In reality, it’s long-term and slow paced.  That’s not bad.  Maybe that’s why when you read all the surveys in the hobby press it points to a demographic that is older than I currently am.  There’s more time to do things.  I don’t necessarily buy into the idea that the hobby is aging.  We all are.  However, I know quite a few young model railroaders who are in the hobby and enjoy it.

For me at the moment, it’s not a lack of interest, it’s that roadblock of a layout.  We all want to know where our trains are going to operate.  That’s part of the joy of planning a model railroad.  The pieces of rolling stock, the structures, the locomotives, are all smaller parts of a larger whole.

I’ve writing so many times about the starts and stops of my modeling.  How do I get myself to the point where I can just, even slowly, make progress without getting stuck?  

While traveling recently to care for an older family member who was ill, I had a chance to read the August, 2020 Model Railroader.  MR has become a read and recycle magazine for me the last few years, but there was an article in this issue that I found to be quite interesting.  The article, “All You Need to Know In Four Square Feet” by Lance Mindheim.  The article revolves around a learning layout in minimum space.  The line, right at the beginning of the article, that really gets my attention is: “A layout on a board can teach you vital skills before “the day” comes”.  Ok, that’s interesting to me because I have come to the realization that I am not at “the day” but I still want to build something.

As I read this article and got to thinking about layout planning, I stared to really separate items and tasks of modeling into groups for myself.  One group, we’ll just call “Group A” are the tasks I can do, have space for, have the skills for, have the materials for, and the other, “Group B”, are the sills where I need to spend some time learning, trying things, experimenting, and find out what works for me and what I like. Changing scale from HO to Proto48 isn’t a 1:1 change, and there are things I need to experiment with and relearn.  Group A tasks consist mostly of rolling stock construction items.  I can do that, I enjoy doing that, and I would like to do more of that.  Group B items include finding a way to manage benchwork, track laying, scratch building structures, and scenery.  

Suddenly, I found myself separating things into individual models, which the completion of a pice of rolling stock of a structure being the whole, instead of just a piece.  I can focus on the Group A tasks, and if I am careful with what I’m doing, I can experiment with a really simple and manageable ‘layout’ based on the idea shared in the MR article, sort out everything I need from the learning there, not feel bad about tearing stuff down or starting over if something doesn’t work because I’m not working on a final layout, I’m working on a learning project, moving skills and tasks from Group B to a Group C where thins are practiced and learned and ready for “that day” when I am in the spot for a layout.  Along the way, the Group A tasks, building the rolling stock mostly, will get done, and when it’s time, those things will just be ready to roll and I won’t have a layout without something to run on it.

This week I’ll get the workshop cleaned up and sorted, started projects organized into an order that makes sense, likely with the ones closest to being done up first, and I’ll settle a spot for a practice “board”, and get to practicing both the things I know I enjoy as complete projects unto themselves, and learning the skills I need and want to practice for when that “some day” comes.  

That idea gives me the calm from the storm of trying to layout plan in a vacuum that I’ve been battling, and I think now I will have some projects in P48 to really share as we close the Summer out and head into the Fall.

-Jeremy

My “Achievable” Layout Thoughts – More Realities, Living Inside the Reality and Being Happy With It

Posted on by jkdummler

As we’ve worked here on two model railroaders with different railroad prototype interests trying to fit layouts into a shared space, and at the same time have started to grapple with the idea that not only may space, but time, could be limited in the years ahead with family obligations and needs, I have been thinking quite a good deal about what is “achievable’ in some plans and goals for my modeling.  Along with that, I’ve been really focusing on the “why” I have for modeling the Yosemite Valley Railroad, which, I hope, I can tie together here.

The biggest draw for me to the YV is the logging operation.  If you look back to my first plans for El Portal, I included the logging company incline.  As I revised and revamped the plan, and lost the logging operation, I struggled to maintain a way to include some of the lumber company, and later the baryte mine and considered adding the limestone operation to try and keep some of the flavor of the YV other than just the passenger station.  As I compressed El Portal and started to loose the passenger operations, even though I told myself I was modeling the freight operations at El Portal, the more I looked at it, the less of El Portal it was.  

The catalyst for arriving at the right formula for modeling came in a few parts in the last couple of weeks.  The first idea churning piece was that a model railroading friend who had spent a few years focusing on a branch of the CNW recently decided that he was modeling the wrong thing for his interests and has moved back to porto-freelancing his own line, modeling the things he enjoys about railroading and not staying focused on something that isn’t inspiring him to model.  That info began percolating through my brain about the same time as I published the most recent track plan for El Portal.  The second piece was already bubbling as I compressed my layout plans from 20×20 down to 16×16 and then 16×8 to fit space for a layout that fits my wife’s railroad interests.  Sharing space for multiple layouts is not common for most railroaders.  I consider myself fortunate to be able to share this hobby and an interest in railroads and trains with my wife. 

Why am I here, modeling the Yosemite Valley?  I said it above.  I’m here for the logging.  I’ve always been fascinated with logging operations, and the operation on the YV certainly provides lots of opportunity for modeling unique equipment that sets the railroad specifically as the YV.  Hands down, no brainer for me.  If I’m going to abandon El Portal as the location, which by this point is something that is thoroughly under consideration, the location to pick has to be related to the logging operation.  That means modeling Incline where the log cars go from the YV up to the logging camp at the top of an incredible incline, or it means modeling Merced Falls.

The idea of sharing space has been, to be honest, the roughest thing to overcome.  When I started really looking at sharing space, we actually considered building an “M” shaped layout, with my wife’s interests on one side, a fictional town in the middle, and the YV on the other side.  I drew a plan, but it wasn’t right.  It was awkward, and didn’t feel prototype.  It felt forced.  Then I realized that sharing space is about more than just sharing space with another layout, but making sure that any layout fits in the available space.  We’re at that awkward age here where we have nearly reached the end of having children at home, may need to eventually relocate to care for aging parents, and layouts don’t always fit in that equation.  We live in a townhouse in a part of the country where the car needs to use the garage, and the garage needs to be multi-function around that, allowing for storage, painting booths, wood working, and other things to be done there, beyond just having a 16×16 layout stood up there.  We tore down a layout we started in the garage because it suffered from being exposed to a polar vortex and then high humidity in the summer months.  

As a modeler in the time we live in, access to print, digital, and online video is almost immediate.  I’m sure that a good portion of all those media types influence not only my thinking when it comes to layouts, but also the thinking of others.  I have, as of late, become a fan of some of the smaller, but satisfying layouts, that one might see in Europe and the UK.  

Here are a few samples of what I’ve been watching and been influenced by:

Cottensmore – A great two-section layout depicting just a locomotive service area.
https://youtu.be/I-n7hQ6a2Zw

Christ Nevard’s Model Railways – Some small layouts with high detail.

For a North American inspiration, the layouts that are depicted here, with small scenes, influenced by the “One Turnout Layout” that Lance Mindheim has written about on his own blog and in Model Railroad Hobbyist Magazine are good idea starters.  These layouts are by Alex Bogaski.

Again a North American layout inspiration by John2618 on Youtube:

The focus of all of these layouts beyond size is on operation, with built0-in time for operating the trains.  Many of them include the layouts either sharing space with other hobby requirements like the Cottensmore layout where the workbench is in the same room, or where the layout actually shares some living space with a bookshelf under it like Alex Bogaski shows in the first link.

When I first started sketching out the YV in Proto48, I had planned to include a rendition of Merced Falls.  Looking again at the track maps for this location, the yard is linear, is only three tracks wide at most spots, had room for the logging operation that I’m interested in, would accommodate my compulsive interest in modeling boxcars to service the box factory and dry lumber shipping here, and has some other unique features that make it a great sport to model like the water and oil tanks, and a turntable.  

In looking at everything together, I decided that a linear, sectional, layout fits the needs of my space for storage.  A 2’ deep layout gives me enough room to build quite a lot of the prototype trackage while focusing on the right of way and not so much on the surroundings.  Keeping the plan linear avoids when possible curves that might be tight for prototype standards.  So, I started drawing.

Right away, I knew I’d found the “right” fit.  It feels right.  I can envision this in my head.  Additionally, it’s a standard that I can continue to build with.  I can use the three section, 18’s maximum length, standard to help fit a layout for my wife into our current and future spaces.  If space, time, and desire allow, a second YV location could be modeled this same way.

So, the plan at the top of this post now follows, as closely as possible, the map for Merced Falls.  I drew the West end of town, leaving off the East end where the house track and the trackage in front of the lumber company would come back to the mainline.  I may build those later.  This, however, feels right.  It’s achievable.  It’s buildable, and livable and really is the right choice.

You’ll notice that I’ve moved some of the recent posts about El Portal to the “archive” in the next few days as I direct my attention and modeling energy and time to Merced Falls.

I had started to think I was suffering from “analysis paralysis”.  Turns out I was suffering from location, space, and interest paralysis.  Similar concepts.  Now I have a vision, and an achievable vision.  It’s time to build.

-Jeremy

More El Portal Plans: Compression and Reality of Layout Space

Posted on by jkdummler

I have been working on track planning in earnest this week in my free time.  There is a daily routine going of gluing and weighting parts for my YV15 caboose build, work, and then digging into track plans.  At the moment I’m please to share some of that progress with you.

What is wrong with the plan I had?  The easy answer is, it’s not buildable in my circumstances.  It’s a buildable and workable plan, yes.  It’s 100% of the prototype track at El Portal, in the prototype locations.  I did, however, need to include a bend in the yard that never really existed, just to get it to fit into my 20×20 maximum space.  That space, too, is the maximum, but the reality is I need to get down to a space that is roughly 20×10 so the other 20×10 can be shared with my wife for her own layout and modeling projects.  Not super easy, with all the track included, which means some choices need to be made.

First choice, the yard needed to be straightened.  The big bend in it wouldn’t, with my skill and vision level, be buildable on modular benchwork.  That’s a given of reality and needed to be addressed.  Second, compressing the yard would require me to loose some of the track, and likely some parts of some structures.  That’s also probably a given with the limitations of size and layout space.  

Off we go then.  

My first pass at a new drawing removed two of the 4 yard tracks, and tried to keep as much of everything else as possible.  It worked, but then we’re at 30’ long.  I’m never realistically going to have a 30’ space to put a layout in.  However, the yard was straightened out and the 4+’ depth across the tracks was fixed.  That’s a good thing!  Progress.  It still “feels” like El Portal to me as well, which is important as well.

This is the “middle” stage of drawing El Portal again. It’s 24′ long, still too long, but the process of picking what track to shrink is ongoing at this point.

Next changes, removing some of the track in certain spots in the middle of the yard gets me to 24’ long.  Then a further decision to loose the passenger train shed and part of the YV station gets the plan down to 20’ long.  I’ve finally achieved getting the turntable in, which I’m thrilled about, and the “business” end of the YV station is still there.  I could park some passenger equipment in front of that occasionally for fun and photos.  

Almost there! I’ve got the plan down to 20′ in one direction, but it’s still 11′ in the other. The El Portal yard has been fit to a reasonable and buildable space. Now there’s a new dilemma brewing where the red arrow points.

I used a 52” radius curve on the West end of the yard, and that then get’s me to 11’ in the opposite dimension.  Getting closer.  By using a 52” easement and a 48” main curve, I can get to a 20’x10’ overall footprint.

This then brings me to a new dilemma.  What to add to the space opposite the El Portal yard?  Three options come to mind.  Option 1, a scene in the Merced River valley, with just a single track running through it.  Option 2, the next real station to the West, being Incline, where the log trains could operate.  Option 3, the next spot to the West where the local freights would have much work to do at Emory where the limestone quarry for the Yosemite Portland cement Co. was located.

I discussed the thoughts with my wife.  The plan to have one train operating is a strong draw for me.  There isn’t really room here for more than one train, “the” local.  However, the space available is also valuable as an opportunity to add some additional operation to the layout plan.  “You like switching, so add some more operation” was the suggestion I received from her. She knows me well.  That eliminates just a track running, so option 1 is out.  Again, the idea of incline, while tempting, means two trains, and one just moving back and forth along one side, without much to do.  That eliminates Incline.  Emory wins as the other location.

The current working and nearly final plan for a 20’x10′ Proto48 version of two places on the Yosemite Valley Railroad. In the next few days I’ll fill in actual structure sizes, fascia and scenery locations, and begin to lay this out on paper in full size to make sure the CAD drawing fits what I’m looking for in the full size model.

With El Portal and Emory on the layout, in a 20’x10’ space, the CAD drawing looks pretty good.  This is a plan I can lay out in full size and see how things fit on a roll of paper.  

That’s the next planning step.

-Jeremy

YV29 after the YV

Posted on by jkdummler

After the YV shut down and the equipment was liquidated, YV 29 was sold to a railroad operating in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico.  There, the locomotive operated for years until it was retired, and eventually was placed on display in the parking lot near a train station in Veracruz, Mexico.

This is a Google street-view capture of YV 29 on display in Veracruz, Mexico
A Google satellite view of YV29 on display in Veracruz, Mexico

I recently ran across a DVD offering from Image Rail, titled the “Mexican Collection”.  This is a set of 8mm video transferred to DVD of some railman trips to Mexico from the early 1960’s. Knowing that a large number of US equipment retired to Mexico, I picked up the DVD in the interest of just seeing steam engines running, but with the bonus of the summary of the video saying that there was one trip that had been made to the Yucatan.  

First, it’s a fun video.  There are great shots of steam run bye in color.  Many of the locomotives I could identify from their original owners, and that was fun.

Two screen captures from the DVD of former YV29 in service on the Yucatan in Mexico in the early 1960’s.

However, the part that got me greatly excited was when I got to the portion of the video that shows the Yucatan trip.  In the waning light, apparently just before dark, a lone 2-6-0 rolled across the screen.  Using photos of YV29, I was able to identify the engine as the former YV29 recorded in service in Mexico.

That was a fun catch.  

-Jeremy

It’s 1928 in El Portal, not 1920-1928ish

Posted on by jkdummler
The date I set for my modeling year and month sets lots of other things. Check the reweigh date on this car. It’s within the right period to be in service in August of 1928.

Modeling a month, and a year, provides absolute context.  That’s one of the reasons I chose to model August of 1928.  August in California is usually hot, the grasses that give the state it’s nickname, “The Golden State”, are tall and that unique golden that sets them apart.  

On the YV, August would see a number of tourists/tours headed to the wonders of the National Park, so passenger service is still high, and much of the freight traffic that might be season-dependent is running a or near a peak before the drop off into the Fall and Winter.

Modeling a specific year allows me to properly choose the equipment to run, properly paint the equipment, and properly letter that equipment.  The same thing goes for the structures, and the track layout.

In my last post about refining El Portal, I discussed the baryte mine and changing the plan so that the mine no longer appears on the track plan I shared.  You may also have noticed that the same revision removed the logging operation on both ends of the yard.  I’m modeling August of 1928, and the logging operation moved from El Portal to the station of Incline, further to the West, in 1924.  In 1928, there wouldn’t have been any activity, and the track connections to what would have been the El Portal logging Incline would have been removed.  Therefore, I’ve removed the logging operation from El Portal.

I had originally considered stretching the logging operation date at El Portal to be able to include this really interesting set of car movements with YV log cars and tank cars for the oil reload.  While this would be a wonderful operation to have on a layout, it didn’t exist at El Portal in 1928, and I’ve picked 1928 for specific reasons related to what I stated above, the equipment, the paint schemes, and the operation, so out goes the logging operation from the plans.

While this reduced the amount of traffic, it puts me back into a spot where I am more comfortable with prototype modeling.  A specific month, of a specific year, was chosen to accomplish a model of that time.  If I include elements of an earlier, or a later, year, I’m not really modeling that specific month and year, at least in my head.

The operating plan will now include the Merced Local arriving in El Portal, doing it’s job, and being put to bed (likely before a lunch break).  Then the El Portal Local will be built, and depart.  One train, one crew, probably two people, and an agent/dispatcher.  More boxcars, more gondolas, fewer flat cars, fewer YV log cars, and still a bunch of interesting operation.

So, the plan was adjusted by removing the leads to the logging wye at El Portal, and my plans will adjust for operating the model accordingly as well.

-Jeremy