78 Miles to Yosemite

Author: jkdummler

Going Fishing

Posted on by jkdummler

I’ve been doing research on some interesting notes from Yosemite Valley Railroad history to include in my presentation at the RPM Chicagoland event in October.  One piece that I recently ran into was some information on a “Fish Car” having been on the YV in July or 1921.  I wanted to know more about that car, the what, where, why of it all, so I started digging.  

The general use of Fish Cars cars was to haul fish eggs or fry from locations where the fish were farmed to other locations where the fish where then used to populate rivers and lakes.  The fry and eggs were shipped in modified milk cans and those cans were placed in “fish racks” inside purpose built or modified rail cars were typically lined in galvanized metal so that ice could be packed around the cans to increase the likelihood that the stock would survive the trip.

The notes on the YV hosting a fish car included a car number of SP 6263.  I needed to find out some information about that car, then, in order to understand what the SP might be doing with fish.

My research developed a description of the fish racks in SP 6235, a likely sister-car to 6263 (which might have been 6236 as 6263 was a horse car).  SP 6235 still exists at the Niles Canyon Railway, owned by the Pacific Locomotive Association.  Doug Debs provided some information on the fish racks included in that car:

“One end of SP 6235 is equipped with a “fish rack”: The floor at one end is covered with a watertight wall-to-wall sheet metal pan about 2″ deep.  The pan drains to the track. Removable heavy-duty wooden duck boards were inside the pan. The fish rack allowed wooden boxes of iced fish, iced early-season asparagus, and other high-value perishable freight to be transported by express car, and prevented these shipments from getting other items wet.”

It’s also interesting to note that these Harriman-era 60′ baggage cars, 6235 and likely 6236, were both built for the Central Pacific.

It’s likely that the car on the YV would have been very similar to 6235, and the fish racks might have been the same as the above description.  

With all that sorted out, then, and knowing some about the cars, I wanted to find out some information about the shipments and what they were doing.  A little digging produced a few documents of interest.

First, this document, which is a 1917 journal of the California State Assembly.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Kpw-AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA20-PA77&lpg=RA20-PA77&dq=southern+pacific+railroad+fish+car&source=bl&ots=CxFVYKd-iL&sig=ACfU3U0Sn16EP0A0g0AIQxQN2iCySv07Qw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjIy6zy8e7jAhUB7qwKHb9mDNU4ChDoATADegQIBBAB#v=onepage&q=southern%20pacific%20railroad%20fish%20car&f=false

Starting pn page 74, this document discusses hatcheries being built in Southern California, and on page 77 and 78 it discusses that the fish will be transported by rail, specifically calling out several railroads on page 78 for thanks for free transport of the crews and state-owned distribution cars.  The Yosemite Valley Railroad is specifically mentioned on page 78.

Next, this document, from 1922, and is from the California Fish & Game:

https://books.google.com/books/about/California_Fish_and_Game.html?id=VSEM7LlsqWcC

Starting on page 114, this document discusses establishing a hatchery to restock and provide fish for rivers and lakes that were “depleted”.  My conversation with Jack included that this is likely a bit of propaganda, as many of the types of fish being shipped and put into the rivers around Yosemite National Park were not native to the area.  That aside, page 121 describes fish cars, and discusses the construction of the first fish car owned by the state, at the SP Sacramento shops.  Eventually, CA did have 2 of these cars.  Photos of them are in the CSRM collection.

Photos of the California Fish & Game Commission 01 car ca be found here:

https://calisphere.org/item/cd4489e90dd004b163e0e8205b87588a/

https://calisphere.org/item/bd10b7160ac0615b17495b5254afd791/

To bring all this together, I found this document:

http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=kt5k4004bd&brand=calisphere&doc.view=entire_text

Searching this document for “Yosemite”, the first hatchery that appears is cited as being built at Wawona in 1895.  While near the National Park, this is still a haul for any shipping of fish on the YV.  The note indicates this location was established by the Yosemite Raymond Stage Line, which puts it not out of the realm of possibility that this hatchery, which shut down in 1928, was being stocked via some other means other than railroad shipment on the YV.

The next entry, though, is what I think is likely the hatchery that the noted fish car is supplying.  The Yosemite Experimental Hatchery and then the Yosemite Hatchery, which operated from 1918-1956 at Happy Isles.  The first fry were raised in 1918, but the permanent site was not secured until 1926 and put into use in 1927.  

My feeling is that the 1921 shipments may have been to Yosemite Experimental Hatchery or someone in that vicinity.

It’s likely that Fish Cars were not in every train, or moved every day, on the YV by any stretch. However, building a model of a Southern Pacific baggage car equipped with fish racks, and maybe even California Fish & Game Commission 01 would be fun and would add some interest into operations occasionally.

Fascinating what one finds when you start looking at interesting loads and cars!

-Jeremy

Getting Organized

Posted on by jkdummler

Goals are good things to have.  I find that list-making and goal setting spurs me on to accomplish tasks in a realistic timeframe, and I feel that accomplishment which then spurs me onward toward the next item on the list, toward the next goal.

I’m now looking at the projects I have started, or would like to start, and thinking about how to order them properly.  In the days when I used to build HO models, I’d build 5 or 6 models all at once.  That’s likely not to happen anymore.  The fact is, the larger equipment is simply space-hungry.  

I have set for myself a goal that I think is reasonable when it comes to kits and cars.  I’m planning to work on one freight car at a time.  Shocking to think about, when many of us have started kits and set them aside and started others.  Seriously, though, one kit car at a time.  I believe it is possible to build one car in 4-6 weeks at the rate I work.  Not super fast, but yet too, enjoyable.  

Here is the list of kit cars that I am planning to build, and the order in which I plan to build them.  Please note, there are more cars in the stash than are listed here.  I only picked the next 12 because that is roughly a year’s worth of work.  Once this list is completed, I’ll prioritize the next set of 12 to build.

  1. PL&E 36’ boxcar
  2. NP 36’ fish belly boxcar
  3. UTLX Van Dyke 6500 gal tank car
  4. PRR X29 Boxcar
  5. SP B-50-15 boxcar
  6. UTLX Van Dyke 6500 gal tank car
  7. PFE R-30-12 reefer
  8. PFE R-40-2 reefer
  9. ATSF Bx-2 boxcar
  10. SP B-50-12 boxcar
  11. MKT 1925 single sheathed boxcar
  12. SP ex-EPSW USRA composite gondola

I initially started cars 1, 2, and 3 from the list.  That has proven to be OK, but I am looking forward to wrapping them up and getting the number of in-progress cars down to 1 at a time.  That isn’t to say that if I get to a spot with a project where I’m waiting on supplies of data or photos that there won’t be a chance that a 2nd project is moving forward.

If I’m building just one kit at a time, or one car at a time, it’s likely that I’m going to need other projects to occupy modeling time and interest while things dry or while I wait for parts.  To that end, I’ve also organized some non-car projects.  A number of structures are going to be needed for the layout and getting those built will fall into the project list.  I plan to only work on one structure at a time, which will make the structures available as a second ongoing project group.  Based on my plans for the layout, I need to build:

  1. Merced Ice & Cold Storage
  2. YV water tank at Merced
  3. YV oil tank at Merced
  4. YPCCo packing house at Merced
  5. Yosemite Lumber box factory at Merced Falls
  6. Yosemite Lumber dry shed at Merced Falls
  7. YV steel water tank at Merced Falls
  8. YV station at Merced Falls

There is also a huge need on this railroad for motive power and home-road cars.  None of the YV cabooses, rock cars, box cars, flat cars, stock cars, MOW cars, passenger cars, or log cars are commercially available at the moment, and few have ever been in O scale. My guess right now is that I’m going to need/want 2 locomotives, 2 cabooses, 6 rock cars, 2 flat cars, 1 stock car, 1 box car, an unknown number of MOW cars, 2 passenger cars, and 6 log cars.  That’s 20-ish cars and 2 locomotives that need to be scratch built.  This group, then comprises the third project group that will be available. 

I have selected the two locomotives that I want to build.  Yosemite Valley 4-4-0 American #23 and Yosemite Valley 2-6-0 Mogul #25 are my targets.  Should a third locomotive ever become a want, I would target YV27 or YV29.  Two locomotives, though, should keep this railroad busy at least for right now with plans for only two towns in the offing.  The rest of the equipment is fairly straight forward.  YV observation car 330 is definitely in the plans as one of the passenger cars.  

Along with these three groups, there will be layout work to complete.  That gives me four more or less separate spheres of projects to tackle.  Group 1: Kit Cars.  Group 2:  Structures.  Group 3: Scratch Builds.  Group 4:  Layout.  They can all run concurrently, but the key is going to be one item from each group at a time.

This is what I’m thinking will work for me right now.  We’ll see how it all comes together.  I used to do this kind of planning in January as a goals for the year kind of look ahead.  It may be coming on to August, but this year the scale change and getting that all under control and plans made for moving forward means I and doing this and you are seeing it here at the end of July.

I’m ready to hit the workbench this week and finish-up the NP boxcar build so it can go to paint.  The plan is to finish that by the end of August.  Books are coming in the mail on how to scratch build locomotives.  I’m excited about that.  We’ll be looking at Merced Ice & Cold Storage shortly as well, and some big plans for layout construction are also on the horizon.

Lots to do, now that I’m organized, it’s time to get it going.

-Jeremy

St Louis RPM 2019

Posted on by jkdummler
Out the window of Amtrak train 302 “Lincoln Service North”

We attended the RPM in St Louis over the weekend. It was a fun event, and we’ll look forward again to going back. This year, we rode Amtrak down and that too we will do again.

Here is an album link for the photos I took at the event. I tried when possible to get the names of the modelers photographed with the models or ‘near’ the models for future reference.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0PSP8ABgUf2ELq3N5H9HNi0fQ

-Jeremy

NP Boxcar – 2

Posted on by jkdummler

I’m still slowly working at the NP boxcar.  Sometimes I’m getting 5 minutes here or there, and occasionally some more.  Summer is a busy time around our house, but I am making progress.

I decided to work on the grab irons for this car.  There are three styles of grab needed, and each has had it’s own learning involved.

The car sides have 24” grabs with the nut/bolt casting already on the car.  They’re cast into the sides, with dimples that I had pre-drilled with a #78 bit.  The challenge here and the learning, was to bend consistent grabs by hand.  To do this, I employed a simple jig from San Juan Car Co.  The jig allowed me to size the grabs, and then my Xuron bending plier made the corners neat.  I tried using the jig to make the tight bends, but after a few tries, I found that the plier was much better at that part of the task.  After bending the grabs and cutting them to length, I added them to the locations on the car sides, and spaced them from the car body using a .050 piece of scrap styrene.  They were then glued in place.

The brown square of plastic is the San Juan jig. The white strip is my .050 spacer. Here also you can see a grab that has been bent in the jig, ready for the Xuron.
The Xuron bending tool that I used to tighten up the corners of the grabs.
The styrene spacer in use to get a grab iron set at the right distance from the car side.

The car ends on this model include drilling dimples for 18” grabs, but there is no cast-in nut/bolt/washer.  Looking at the car, this allows for drilling of all the holes to take place without the grabs then intersecting and interfering inside the car. However, this also then required a different type of grab.  I tested out and marked the holes I had drilled with the #78 bit with 18” Tichy grabs, and they lined up the way I wanted.  I then used those #78 holes as pre-drilled locations to open them up with a #67 bit.  Once the holes were larger, grab iron matings in brass from Precision Scale were added that include the nut/bolt/washer.  The ends require 8 total of these each. One additional 24” grab was bent for a single location on the car end.

With grabs on, I then drilled more #78 holes for the eye bolts required to mount the uncoupling lever.  Tichy eyebolts were used, and I once again bent my own lever from .020 wire.  I found measuring the distances in O, once again, was easier than I used to find this in HO. 

Once the uncoupling lever was in place, I then added a roof walk support from Chooch to complete the A end of the car.  The B end assembly is almost exactly the same, though as of this writing, it is still in progress.  I need to add the brake staff, piping, retainer, and platform before I add the uncoupling lever.  I am also in the process of bending the grabs that go on the laterals on the roof.  Hopefully that work will be done in the next few days and I can get the brake system on the car and be ready to prime and paint when I have a chance.

The finished A end of the car. Still missing are the lateral grabs and the sill steps. Those are coming soon.

-Jeremy

Catching Up

Posted on by jkdummler

It’s been busy in fits and starts here with projects.  It’s also been a while since I posted, so there are some things to catch up on.

The Layout:

When last we left the layout, it was a sea of pink foam on top of the benchwork.  It’s still lots of pink foam, I have not managed due to a rest requirement from my physician, to get a base color on the layout.  However, the roadbed of Flexxbed from Hobby Innovations was laid using a thin layer of gray latex caulk as adhesive.  When that dried, I spread another layer of the same caulk and laid the track.  I’m using code 125 flex track from Right-O-Way.  The detail in the track is fantastic.  I’m looking forward to getting joint bars installed, and weathering done on the track in the weeks ahead.  In short order, the ‘mud’ will go down on the layout, and I’m looking forward to sharing those photos.

Still a sea of pink foam, but there is roadbed and track, which means that the next time there is a day available, the base color should change.

At the Workbench:

It’s been a slow start at the workbench.  I am used to HO kits where, for the most part, all the bits and pieces are included, all the right wire sizes are in the box, and if there is bending or making of anything to be done, there are instructions.  I have also found that I have made myself some bad habits of hiding things that wouldn’t be seen in HO, or that were done the fast way, not necessarily the most elegant way, simply because in HO scale, nobody would see the mistakes or the pieces I sort of fudged because they’re too small and hidden.

The red circle shows where the KC brake goes. Finding the right mount shape and details has taken me almost a month.

In Proto 48, all of that is out in the open, in plain view.  Many kits,  like the Northern Pacific boxcar I decided to start with, are “a la carte”, meaning you get the body of the car, some basics and suggestions, and off you go to find parts.  Some of that I am sure comes from one kit being buildable into O scale 2 rail (Ow5), 3 rail (if you wanted to), and Proto 48.  Including parts doesn’t always serve all 3 properly.  

For example here, lets look at the 3 week struggle I’ve had figuring out how to mount the KC brake system under this NP car.  In HO, I may have left the brake off completely, like a few friends have, on similar cars, because the side sills are deep and most of the equipment would be hidden.  In P48, however, with larger pieces, and with my layout height at 55”, you’ll likely see the equipment hanging, even if minimally.  In HO, I might have used a small block of styrene to mount the brake on the sill, and maybe even continued it to the floor of the car for support, simply because it wouldn’t be seen.  I’ve struggled with this in P48, because getting the right shape is now something I find necessary.  After much discussion with friends, and me being dense at this and struggling to understand, I finally went out to the Illinois  Railway Museum a few days ago and crawled under a Fowler car to get a photo of a similar mounting bracket on the brake system of a museum car.  Now I know what shape to make the mounting bracket, and what details to add.  Yes, I’m aware that this is under the car, and that unless I set it on a mirror, likely I’m the only one who will see this, but some of modeling is like that. It’s you knowing things are three.  I’m now in a spot where I can get the bracket made, the KC brake cylinder mounted, and the rest of the brake system installed so I can move on to other parts of the car.

This bracket is under a 1929 SOO sawtooth boxcar at the Illinois Railway Museum. Now I have a clear idea of what the bracket should look like for a brake mount, and I can replicate that in styrene for my NP car, and others.

In the end, I’m breaking some bad habits I had developed when building cars in large batches in HO.  Fast doesn’t work now.  The 15 minutes a day that I’ve been striving at for many years, that is what I believe is going to be the road forward for me.  A single part, or a set of grabs, applied to a car, allowed to set.  A set of decals applied to one side of a car, allowed to set 24 hours, sealed, then the car turned and another set applied.

This will likely mean several cars or models are in progress all at once, but it also means that things will be done correctly and to the standards I have set for myself.  I’m throwing out the timelines I had built for HO car construction along with those habits and adopting a new, it will get done when it’s done right, approach.  

Positives:

While doing all this work, I’ve been somewhat tentative about getting going.  My vision had scared me into not trusting my eyes in HO, and getting past the avoiding working sage was a hurdle all of it’s own.  I’m quite pleased to report that I have been able, working with the P48 equipment, to remove some magnification from my setup.  My headband that I have been using allows me to add a x7 and x10 magnifier on top of my x10 in my prescription glasses.  I’ve been able to remove the extra x10 and I’m seeing wonderfully still.  

Off to safe storage in the event I need them again…. the x10 magnification plate from my headband magnifier.

Along the way, I’ve wanted to get some additional practice building, gluing, drilling, etc…. With models.  The time away while fighting my eyes had made me question my abilities, I felt rusty.  So, I sat down and built.  Not with the O scale equipment, because I wanted to get to the point where I had adjusted the vision equipment before starting much there, but with some plastic models for a table top wargame.  I’ve learned a few techniques for cleaning up plastic, found a few new tools that I really like, and adjusted my lighting and magnification so that now I’m ready to build the freight cars and structures.  If I was going to give some advice to anyone, I’d say this.  Build something.  Doesn’t have to be a train, but build something, learn some skills, relearn some skills, get comfortable with your tools, THEN go build the models you love building.  This is really the struggle I created for myself by resisting a scale change for so long.

Onward:

There are specific things to share about tools and research, and that will all come here soon.  I’ve spent a few weekends volunteering at the Illinois Railway Museum learning about riding, operating, doing things like railroaders do.  I’m looking forward to seeing how that experience influences how I approach the models as well.    More soon….

-Jeremy

Ballast Choice

Posted on by jkdummler

Color plays a huge role in our modeling and setting the location of our layouts.  There are debates over the right paint color for freight cars, colors to use for structures, and just about everything else associated with modeling.  However, the colors we use in our scenery are not often debated, but are up to the modeler to decide what looks best for their location.

As I close in on it being time to lay track and get it ballasted on my layout module, I was looking for ballast appropriate to the Yosemite Valley, and I recalled a conversation that I’d had with Jack Burgess about ballast while on one of the YV historical society weekend hikes, and my recollection was that the YV had gotten a good deal of their ballast out of the Merced River as crushed river rock.  Without checking that recollection against anything, I set off and ordered a sample of crushed rock ballast from Superior Scenics of their “Western Blend” ballast in a few sizes.  The product arrived about a week later, and I really like the mixture of colors as it looks like the shales and rock that I recall from visits to the area.  Lots of browns and reds mixed into some yellow and gray.  

Then I decided to check my sources and the Yosemite Valley email group at groups.io.  Some quick searching brought me some information that contradicted my recollections of the conversation, and sent me hunting in my own photos of the area for a different set of colors.  Here’s what I found:

“Initially (but I don’t for how long), the ballast came from gravel pits on

the Merced River near Snelling/Merced Falls; I doubt that that gravel was

crushed. That would make it the typical gray of granite although it wasn’t

the high-quality crushed granite used by the Class 1s.”

The above photo is from a YV group trip several years ago along the former right of way.  In the river you can see a huge deposit of granite, which has the tones described in the documentation.  

With that, I went back to Superior Scenics and ordered their Salt & Pepper blend.  That arrived this last week, and is an excellent match to my own photo and the description of the ballast as gravel and the photo I took in the Merced River.

The Western Blend will still be put to good use.  As I said it’s a good match to the colors of the earth and shales in the area, and as I go along, I’ll mix a little of it into my scenery here and there to convey the right colors of the rocks found along the YV.

Most of the scenery materials that I want to work with at least on this first section of railroad are actually here.  I’m waiting on one delivery, a little be warmer and dryer weather, and then it’ll be time to lay track and make mud.  Scenery is not long off, which I’m excited about.  It’s time for the ground on the first module to stop being pink and start looking like earth.

What did I learn?  Don’t rush, check sources first and don’t rely on my recollection of conversations.

-Jeremy

NP 36′ Boxcar – 1

Posted on by jkdummler

It’s time to get started on some freight car builds.  There are things to do with the layout as well, but Spring in the Midwest has so far been very wet and that makes some of the work to have materials dry difficult.  I’ll get there. 

In the mean time, I’ve selected a Northern Pacific 36’ boxcar model made by Rails Unlimited as the first of the cars to build for this new layout.

Protocraft says about these cars on their website: “Built by Pressed Steel in 1903, the N.P. received 1,700 of these Class XM 36’ wood boxcars with the outside fishbelly underframe arrangement.  Series were 37300-38999.”

Rails Unlimited sells car kits “a la carte”.  That means you get the car body, and all the details are up to you.  That allows for serving O 2 rail, and Proto:48 modelers, and people who want more or less detail, depending on preference.

I’m in this scale now for the details.  That said, I was excited to acquire this car as an already assembled body.  Rails Unlimited has cars as flat kits or one piece assembled cars.  Not having to glue-up the body get’s me ahead, and let’s me focus, for this first car (there are lots of flat kits in the stash to come later) on the details and construction.

As part of the process of determining what parts I want to use, I’ve acquired a sampling from several sources.  Grab irons, brake equipment, grab irons, sill steps, etc… have all come from a variety of suppliers. With that in mind, let’s go through what I plan to do to with this model.

First, the car body.  From Rails Unlimited as I said previously.  This model has a great amount of detail already in the casting including some of the bolt heads for grab irons, the train line  is in place, nice door hardware, and the roof walk and laterals.  The level of detail just in the casting is better than I would have been expecting, and more than I have seen coming from HO.  The drill locations for adding grabs are evident and everything appears to be nice and clean. 

Now, the details.

For the brakes, as the prototypes had KC brake systems, I bought some samples of Precision Scale, Scale City, and San Juan examples.  I’ve chosen the systems from San Juan as my preference for the detail in the parts.  For sill steps I have some from Chooch and some from Tichy here, and I still haven’t made a decision on which to use.  Grab irons are going to be Tichy or custom bent, while the brake equipment on the car end is from Chooch including the platform.  Couplers, I have decided to use couplers made by Protocraft that are magnetically operated.   They will mount in Kadee-style coupler boxes.  To my delight, Hi-Tech details makes O scale air hoses, so those will be applied.  Protocraft has decals for these cars (though in 1928 I won’t have the NP herald on the car).  Similarly, the arch-bar trucks for the car are also to be Protocraft.  I’ve chosen Scalecoat as my paint of choice for the car when I get it finished.  

We’ll cover weathering updates when I get there.  Some of the keys to my HO scale toolbox I’ll be discarding or upgrading and changing.  It’s time to learn new things there as well.

With everything here to get started, and a long weekend ahead, we’ll see how much work I can get done.  I’m looking forward to sharing the progress.

-Jeremy 

It looks like I’m not making progress, but….

Posted on by jkdummler

Not a lot of progress to actually show has been made on any project in the last few weeks.  One, work and family commitments at the end of the school year have been flying up quickly and piling on top of one another.  Aside from those things, the process of getting ready to build things has taken some time.

Have you ever heard the old adage that moving from a city to the country brings a slower pace, and how life slows down?  The same seems to be true of moving from HO scale to O.  I’m finding that the pace of everything is much slower.  Perhaps that is because what I’ve chosen to model is still a niche within a smaller overall number of modelers, and perhaps some of that is related to learning curves associated with finding all new suppliers.

Having modeled in HO for so long, if you asked me “who should I get K brakes from” I would instantly point you to the Tichy Train Group website.  I know others like PSC parts, but for me, the Tichy brakes are fantastic.  However, in O, Tichy has a completely different line of parts, meaning that hunting down K brakes or anything else, is involved in a learning curve, and in many cases, placing small orders for parts that cam be compared to other suppliers of parts to determine which ones look best and which ones perform best in a given application.

As everything flying around is now winding down, and thankfully a myriad of parts orders are actually here or nearly here this week, it’s time to start getting to work on a couple of projects.

First, I have freight cars from my new stash of car kits selected to build.  A fantastic 36’ Northern Pacific boxcar made by Rails Unlimited will be one of the first cars to hit the workbench.  At the same time, should Spring/Summer ever decide to arrive this year, I have cork roadbed here now to add a dirt road to the YV module, so that will get done and then basic scenery will start going in.

One funny thing happened this week that is worth sharing, as it illustrates the mindset change necessary to move from HO to O.  I bought the cork for building the base of the road I am intending to install, and then found a crossing from Scale City online.  It’s a wood crossing, and while the YV crossings of unnamed dirt country roads were likely just filled earth, I wanted something to practice painting wood on, so I ordered the crossing.  When it arrived, I was shocked at how wide it is.  Then I realized that I am thinking in HO scenes still.  The crossing is just two lanes wide.  Nothing super massive, but in my HO vision, it was massive.  After realizing that it isn’t actually oversized, I determined that I should probably assemble a vehicle chassis before I install the road, so that’ll get done this week too.

Anyone following along on Facebook will also have noticed a change this week.  I’ve changed over to a group page instead of a simple page.  There are several reasons, but if anyone is there and interested, please look up Yosemite Valley Railroad in Proto 48 and come join in.

-Jeremy

The Space Between

Posted on by jkdummler
Module 1. This is the stretch between Merced to the West (left) and Merced Falls to the East (right).

I’ve been here before, but somehow, it feels different this time around.  I’ve put into practice everything learned, and a few “best practices” seen elsewhere, and this time, without cutting corners and without settling for recycled materials, I’ve got the first module for the Yosemite Valley in P:48 standing on its feet.  

The module is 6 feet long and 18 inches wide.  In HO, that’s a whole empire.  In O, it’s a scene.  However, it’s also roughly sitting at 55 inches (track height) from the ground.  That’s fairly tall.  This means, though, that you won’t be seeing the whole thing all at once.  

The basic benchwork structure. Here you can see the 3/4″ gap at the end where the legs key in without a mechanical attachment.

The basics of the construction are pretty common for me now.  The majority of the materials are the 3/4” birch plywood and Kreg pocket screws.  Many modelers have started going this direction, and it makes sense.  I use 3.5 inches for the ripping of the lumber dimension, and then cut everything to the right lengths.  The decking is 1/2” plywood.  Heavy, yes, but these modules will have to move around, so I plan to overbuild.  On top of the decking, I used 1 inch pink foam.  I thought about using 2 inch, but without a plan currently for a bridge or much relief necessary on any of the scenes I plan to build, 1 inch should give me some play without making the layout too tall.

The legs are build from milled 2×2’s.  I got some heavy duty furniture leveling feet and adde them to the bottoms.  At the upper end, the layout is resting on the top of the legs, keyed into a slot in the benchwork by a piece of plywood.

This construction photo shows the module upside down. The two supports for the angle braces are offset from the center line of the benchwork by 3/4″ to allow for the screws that attach each of them to the center support.

At the height I’m building from the floor, and because I’ve had issues in the past with stability, I also added some angle braces from each leg set reaching up to the center layout support.  My angle braces are 1×2’s, and they are 39” long.  At the ends, a 3 inch block glued and screwed to the supports allows me to bolt them in place.  The supports are offset slightly on each side, so the center of the layout is actually between them.  I still, upon standing up, had a wobble back and forth along the long axis of the layout, but tightening the bolts used to connect the angles all the way solved that.  I’ll replace the standard nut I used for construction with a wing nut for each one that will make setup and take down much easier.

Some details see here include the pencil-line grid I laid out for drilling the screw holes in the fascia, the angle of the brace under the layout, and the fact that the entire layout is essentially resting on the 4 legs.

I ripped the fascia from hardboard to just a tick over 5 inches and it fit perfectly.  The fascia pieces are attached to the layout with 1” wood screws with countersink washers.  To be honest here, I ran out of the washers with only one side of the fascia in place.  Another box of 100 will arrive tomorrow and it’ll only take about 20 minutes to install the other side.

From here, the next steps are to paint the legs and braces black, lay the roadbed, and get going mixing and adding a layer of “mud” to the scene before laying track.  There are lots of details to sort out, like joint bars, the kind of grass to use, and if there will be a road of any kind here or just tracks, grass, and trees.  

A sea of pink foam! It shouldn’t look like this much longer.

More to come soon.

-Jeremy

A new, old, name

Posted on by jkdummler

Today I’m renaming the blog here on these pages, “78 Miles to Yosemite”. Some of you may be aware that my old page was taken down last year due to some unfortunate circumstances. While muddling through setting up here, fighting with my vision, and all that’s gone into returning to modeling the Yosemite Valley and what I love to model and research, the name here was sort of a placeholder, and in many ways, similar to other blogs by other railroaders who I have great admiration and respect for.

So, I’m reviving the blog name, and returning it to a more appropriate name for what I’m modeling and doing. 78 miles is not a huge distance, but the fun I’m having on the trip certainly is worth while. I hope you’ll continue to read along and enjoy the things that I have to share.

-Jeremy