78 Miles to Yosemite

Category: Proto:48

NP Boxcar – 6

Posted on by jkdummler
Finished!

It took a while, but the NP Boxcar from Rails Unlimited is finished, and as a bonus, another 36′ boxcar of a different style, lettered for the P&LE is also done, just in time for RPM Chicagoland this week.

The last steps for both cars involved what is for me, a light weathering. Because the effects that add age to a freight car carry depending on where the car is, what the material is that the car is made of, and a number of other environmental factors, I use a variety of products and media to weather with. This year I decided to weather everything we either a pencil, which I covered previously in part 5, the airbrush, paint, or some kind of solution or weathering agent. I’ve done pastels and powders before, and while they produce some nice effects, I find that for me, they cause more issues than they solve. I have to wear lots of protective equipment when using them, so I decided to veer in a different direction for these cars, and I’m quite happy with eh results.

A couple of my new tools and tricks include these two fantastic products. A Lead Weathering Set from AK and a bottle of Quick Age Scenery Solution from Monroe Models. The leads were fantastic for adding wear on metal parts, with some of the chipping color applied to grabs and ladders, door hardware, and anywhere it looked like something might be routinely rubbed or scuffed by a hand or foot. The Quick Age solution gave me a few different effects depending on where I applied it. When applied on the underside of the cars and allowed to pool, it gave me a fantastic grit and grime effect. When applied to the roof panels…..

The underside of the P&LE car shows the weathering effects of the Quick Age and some additional rust after the solutions have dried.

Ever had one of those “WOAH, WHAT HAPPENED THERE?” moments in your modeling? I applied the Quick Age before going to bed one night, and arrived downstairs the next morning to find that the roof panels of both cars looked like they were turning silver. Not exactly what I was aiming for, but I then read the bottle. Being a solution suspended in isopropyl alcohol, the chemical reaction between the Quick Age and the dull coat was what was silvering. I had read before that to fix this, you spray dull coat again, which I did to the P&LE car, and like magic, the silvering vanished. On the NP car, however, I decided to play with it a little and see if I could create an effect there by adding more Quick Age so the roof would look like the paint was starting to fail. I like the way it turned out in the end, and the contrast between the two roof appearances on the cars is appealing.

The NP car as it appeared after the first Quick Age application. I eventually did this process three times to get the final effect, knowing that I could restore the car color by using an overspray of dull coat if I chose.

Final assembly included adding the Protocraft couplers that were weathered carefully with two other rust solutions from Monroe Models, the air hoses from Hi-Tech details, and the couplers (Protocraft for the NP car and Rich Yoder Models for the PL&LE).

I’m excited to tell you that the roster shots for these cars were taken on the layout module. That was one of my goals for the year, and to spite the fact that the track isn’t yet finished being weathered and the California Golden Grass is not in, the module made for a fantastic spot to take those. They’re taken at eye-height (at least the side views are) which means that is what someone operating the layout will see, and the cars are really up there, in your face, easy to read, and a nice height for using the uncoupling tool.

The last photo there is a test shot. The station is an O scale paper printout of the YV station at Merced, CA. The two cars are “parked” at the YV freight house, allowing me to display that another part of my design plan, getting two cars at the freight house, is possible as additional layout sections are prepared for construction in 2020.

I’m very pleased with how these cars turned out. They’ll be on display at RPM Chicagoland, October 24-26, 2019.

The next projects are starting to line up, so there will be more to see.

-Jeremy

Merced – Track Plan and Arts & Crafts

Posted on by jkdummler

Part of my RPM Chicagoland presentation this year is showing off the track plan for Merced.  Part of getting ready to show the plan, talk to people about it, and demonstrate my design ideas has been to get a 1:1 drawing made the plan.  

Standing at the West end of the layout plan looking to the East. In the middle of the plan is the mainline. To the left, a track to serve the Ice House. On the right, the track leads to the Yosemite Valley freight house and station.

Those of you who have read my track planning posts before know I greatly prefer to plan in full size.  It’s visually easier for me to stand next to a set of turnout templates and visualize what I want the plan to look like.  One of the biggest challenges in changing scale, or in planning a layout in general, is knowing the scale of structures to layout, and making all of that approximate the visual appearance of photographs, especially when prototype modeling.

This is a mosaic of the track plan, stitched together as best I could at the moment. It features the sidings described in the top photo in the West on the left hand side. To the middle of the plan we see a yard track at the top and the YV house track along the bottom. To the East end, I’ve included a lead that will go toward the currently un-modeled roundhouse.
Drawings by Jack Burgess, which are available on yosemitevalleyrr.com from his shop, have been scaled to O scale, printed, and are now glued to foam core board. I’ll cut these out and place them on the track plan to give much more “real” view of my ideas. The feeling of size will be evident once these are sitting on the plan drawing and it’s a little more 3D.

As part of my own visual planning, and to illustrate the layout to others, I have printed drawings (or pmts of them) for structures from Merced, and a couple of pieces of YV equipment, YV26 and YV15 locomotive and caboose, to help with demonstrating locations and sizes.  I glued the drawings to sheets of foam board that will be cut out and have stands attached to allow the drawings to stand on the track plan.

One of the challenges with this plan is that it’s BIG.  It’s big enough that I have been having a challenge photographing the whole thing to share here.  When I get to the RPM, my hope is that as I post this plan on the walls to give presentations, or unroll it to share with others, I can get some better photos.  

There’s lots to do, but the visual assistance provided by these drawings for planning is immensely helpful.  I can show others what scenes will look like, and get some idea of the vision I have in my head is and see if it is coming together in 3D as I build.

-Jeremy

Layout Fascia – Last of the Garage Work for 2019

Posted on by jkdummler

As Fall settles over Northern Illinois, it’s time for me to button up layout work that needs to happen in the garage and move the layout section inside for the winter and for work that I want to do “at the bench” so to speak. 

A couple of weeks ago I started test-painting some ties, but decided that it would be easier to paint the ties if I had the track lower and in better light than I typically get in the garage.  That left one task and that was painting the fascia.

When I applied the mud to the layout, I slopped some over the edge and down the fascia.  I wasn’t thinking at the time about protecting that area, and I should have.  Going forward when I am adding mud, I’ll tape off and cover any fascia materials.  This time around, though, I broke out the orbital sander and a couple of minutes later had smoother sides to work with.  The mud wasn’t really an issue, I knew I could and it down.  The biggest problem there was covering the now sanded area with paint as all the materials there are ‘thirsty’ and as it turned out required several applications of the final paint color to cover.

It doesn’t take long to paint the fascia on this layout section.  It’s only 6’ long and 4” tall.  That said, I took my time applying the “forrest black” paint.  I picked this color with my wife’s assistance.  It’s intended to not be completely black (like the layout legs) but also not to draw the eye.  I used a standard soft bristled paint brush and listened to some music while painting.  

It took about 4 coats to absorb and cover everything.  I kept finding spots especially around the screws and washers that were getting missed, and finally resorted to closing the garage door to darken the room, getting a powerful flashlight and a small brush, and lighting just the area I wanted to check for missed spots.  That worked really well and finally the paint was on.

I like the overall effect.  Standing right next to the layout, your eye is drawn to the lighter browns on top and not to the darker fascia or below.  I don’t intend to add skirting of any kind to the layout, so this is closing in on the final look.  

I’m going to let the paint cure completely.  It’s been very rainy here so a couple of days at least to make sure the surface is hard and set.  Then I’ll remove the legs and bring the section inside where I’ll be able to paint the ties and get the ground cover on.  

It’s amazing how “complete” things look when the fascia is painted.

Stay tuned, tie painting and weathering is coming along.

-Jeremy

A Brief Track Update

Posted on by jkdummler
Two out of three days of the Labor Day weekend were spent at the Illinois Railway Museum working as volunteers on various trains.

Some progress has been made again on the layout.  Over the recent Labor Day holiday I spent some time marking out locations for joint bars on the layout.  Using my scale rule, marked with tape, and a sharpie marker, I located the joints 39 scale feet apart.  Then with some CA and laser cut joint bars from Precision Scale Company, I added the bars to both sides of each rail at the appropriate points.  

I marked my scale ruler using tape to make spotting the 39′ mark easier.
The laser cut joint bars from Precision Scale Company were installed using CA adhesive.

The next day, I painted the track using some Rustolium camouflage brown.  The resulting color is quite close to the dark brown rust on the rails that I’ve been studying out at the Illinois Railway Museum.

The painted track. Once all the ties are weathered and some additional color is added to the metal portions of the rail, I’ll use a Bright Boy and clean off the tops of the rail.

With all of that now dry, the next step will be painting the ties to simulate untreated redwood ties.  The palate will likely be mostly grays.  Then I’ll add some additional rust highlights to the rail, and we’ll move on to painting the fascia and laying down ground cover.

I should have an update on the NP boxcar project in the next few days.  It’s close to heading for the paint shop.

-Jeremy

Playing In The Mud

Posted on by jkdummler

The weather and schedule cooperated this weekend for me to make a little progress on my P48 YV module.  This is a test run that will eventually be part of the larger plan.

The goal this weekend was to make ‘mud’.  The process has been in several articles over the last few years in some of the modeling publications.  The essence of the idea is that you’re making paper machete by using celluclay and latex paint.  Some people add vermiculite to the mix.  I wanted to try out adding a powdered concrete coloring agent.  The idea there being that the powder provides another dry colored material that is color-fast.

3 of the 4 components to my version of “mud”. The only one not pictured is just water.

I got ready to start and then discovered that my paint had frozen over the winter and turned to a solid rock in the can.  A trip to Hole Depot solves that this morning, and then I got to work.

This is not a clean project.  I highly recommend wearing gloves like I did.  However, the end result, with seams in sub roadbed filled and some minimal cleanup to do with a dental pick along the track before I tackle detailing that this week, is pleasing.  No mor sea of pink foam!

I’ll now let this dry for a few days before I clean up a couple of spots, paint the fascia, and detail the track.  I’m aiming to have static grass on before it gets cold here.  The module has a spot inside the house in the near future. 

More to come. The mud is almost dry, and it’ll be time to move to the next step before the coming long weekend.

-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

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

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