78 Miles to Yosemite

Category: Proto:48

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

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

Scaling Expectations: A fresh look at what I’m modeling on the YV

Posted on by jkdummler
El Portal yard on the Yosemite Valley Railroad, modeled by Jack Burgess

If you’ve read any of my past posts on track planning for the Yosemite Valley, you might have noticed that I have been struggling with the idea of coming to grips with planning a layout that is not only in Proto48, but in reality the struggle is in planning a layout not in HO scale.  The break with trying to plan a whole railroad to fit in a space, or in my case, to fit on storable and manageable sections, is a mental hurdle that has caused some of my stagnation and inaction.

To give you some idea of the changes involved in scale-switching and learning to track plan in a new scale, check out this first deck track plan from a version of the YV that I started working on many years ago.  Designed to fit in a space slightly larger than a 2 car garage, this plan that I had assistance with from my friend Dennis, shows the area on the railroad from the SP interchange at Merced through Merced Falls on a single deck.  There is a lot of railroad on that deck, but in HO, this is possible.  

Now check out a plan I worked up for just Merced in O scale.  There are elements of the prototype that I’ve left out by choice and as you can see from the 6’ x 18” boxes I’ve drawn on this plan, I was working out how to build this as a portable layout, but the size of this end of the railroad, spread out in the valley, is somewhat daunting in O scale, and in reality is not, for me, a good location to start from to spite my thinking that starting “at the origination point” would be a good idea.

Jack Burgess has on his website a full page devoted to his track plan.  That can be found here: http://yosemitevalleyrr.com/modeling/layout-plans One thing you’ll see on this page is the wide-angle photo of the entrance to Jack’s layout space.  As you enter his layout, the first scene that you are met with is his rendition of the YV yard at the other end of the line from Merced, the yard at El Portal.

On one of my visits with Jack, I took the photo at the top of this post of his El Portal yard.  For anyone interested in the story of Jack’s rendition, the article “A More Prototypical Yard at El Portal” appeared in the 1998 edition of Model Railroad Planning.  Having stumbled back onto this article recently in reorganizing some magazines, I decided to give El Portal of the 1920’s another look to see if maybe it would be a better modeling solution.  This quote from Jack’s article got me really thinking about this:  

“The Yosemite Valley faced physical constrains similar to the ones that I – like most modelers – confronted during the design of my model railroad.  At El Portal, the eastern terminus of the railroad at the boundary of Yosemite National Park, the otherwise narrow Merced River canyon widened only slightly leaving little space or the yard and station.  Despite these limitations, the railroad managed to build a yard that served the like very well until it’s abandonment in 1945” – Jack Burgess, MRP 1998

I dug into two sources immediately.  Jack’s “Trains to Yosemite” and “Memories of El Portal” by James Law.  As I read parts of both of these sources, I began to realize that modeling El Portal solves some of my issues greatly.  The yard at El Portal in the 1920’s included lots of sports to switch, including the YV station for freight, the Government warehouse that may have been hosting a company making orange juice, a small ice house, Standard Oil, until the mid 1920’s, a logging incline, and the barium mines just to the west that were served by the railroad at a small ore bin.  That’s a really good amount of “work” to model and lots of “play value” in one spot.

Energized to do more research, and track plan, and build models, I’m getting going this weekend on finishing projects and starting to put together paper templates for turnouts to draw out my idea of what an El Portal in Proto48 might look like.

-Jeremy

Workshop and Model Builds Update

Posted on by jkdummler

It’s been a while since my last post.  Almost a year on from changing scale, I ran out of steam suddenly and got bogged down by a few projects.   I’ve been working on an ATSF Bx2 boxcar, and the end ladders have given me no end of grief.  There isn’t a casting or kit available, and I’ve been learning to assemble Chooch ladders by failing and breaking at least 4 sets, but I think I now have a way to adjust to this so we’ll see when the car comes out again.  

ATSF Bx2 with brake detail in place and grab irons finished. (Car from Rails Unlimited)

The other task bogging me down is finishing a pair of really finicky tank car rebuilds.  These cars started last San Juan cars that were stripped of details and had everything replaced.  The fact is, however, there isn’t really a good spot to grip these things that doesn’t have railings or other parts, and even though the decals have been here for over a month, and the cars have been on my to-do list almost daily, I haven’t gotten around to sitting down and putting lettering on the cars. 

I think I kind of locked myself up by starting too many projects, trying to have something to do, and then got overwhelmed by having too may open-ended ongoing builds.  

Getting out of the funk there takes some doing, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now.

For starters, the Bx2 ladders have been frustrating because I have been trying to build them off the car and then add them to the ends.  In reality, the easy way as suggested by a friend, and the way to fix some of those issues, is to build them on the car end.  The issue with doing that is my Bissey vacuum vise that I have used for years when building in HO scale does not open wide enough to properly hold an O scale boxcar vertically for me to work on the ends.  I had not replaced it, and now I’ve hit a frustration by not replacing it, so I’ve taken care of that.  A new, and surprising smaller, vacuum vise was delivered this week.  The new tool will replace the old one, and I should be able to get the end ladders on my boxcar projects without trying to figure out how to balance a car and work at the same time one handed.

The tool pictured below is a PanaVise 209 Vacuum Base Jr. The link is here: Amazon
One other new tool. A bright green (so I can find it more easily) ergonomic hobby knife. Spotting things on the table is frustrating sometimes, so the bright colors can help.

To address the stoppage with the tank cars, I’ve decided to power on and have all the materials ready.  I’ve set a date, and a reminder on my phone.  I also would kind of like to get things on track here, and as I feel the energy returning, I’m sure that the tank car lettering project will get done.

Today is the day…. 3/6/2020. I had to get up early before work, but the first side of these cars is now setting with setting solution.

Beyond those blocks, I’ve acquitted the tools to try and fix the warped R40-2 kit, and have tested the height ideas I have for the layout by setting the section I built last year up on a table and having not only me, but my wife, sit at it and reach in.  The height and leg debate is ongoing in my head.  We’ll see where that leads this year when it’s warm enough to set things back up in the garage to build the next layout section.

Layout height test. More on this soon.

I’ve also taken a step back from some things that have been taking little bits of time here and there that I can’t control.  A couple of volunteer positions that I have enjoyed, but that with the way life changes from time to time I don’t have the energy or time as a resource to fully commit to them at the moment, either have or will be ending soon.  Unblocking my small amounts of availability to work on projects feels like a good idea.

So, here we are, not much progress has been made, but the energy and time are now returning, and hopefully I will have more to share with you soon.

-Jeremy

The Ice House – Part 4

Posted on by jkdummler

I have made a couple of adjustments to plans for 2020 that will affect which projects that are started, and planned, so it’s important to document those changes and plans.

First, I’m not changing what is being built first.  I still plan to work from the furthest West on the YV and head to the East.  That plan I’ve been comfortable with for a long time, and it makes the most sense to me, starting with where the railroad connects to the outside world.  That means the first structure is still the Merced Ice & Cold Storage facility.  I had hoped to be well into building that by this point, but illness intervened and I was out of commission for almost two months and am just now getting the energy back to return to modeling work.  

What is changing is the positioning of the facility on the layout.  It’s been bothering me that in my plan the Ice House was directly across from the YV Merced station and freight house.  I understand compression for modeling, but I’m also coming to grips still with planning for Proto48, and when it feels wrong, it’s wrong, and if I’m unhappy with things, I’ll always be unhappy and I do this kind of thing to have fun and enjoy the results, so a change is necessary.

Looking at the maps of the YV in Merced and the area around the SP interchange and the Ice House (my friend Jack Burgess has drawn fantastic maps of the area that can be found here: http://yosemitevalleyrr.com/prototype/tracing  or the maps are also in his book, “Trains to Yosemite” on pages 96 and 97) the general track arrangement shows what I have roughly redrawn roughly here.

The YV / SP interchange is slightly North of the SP station.  The interchange track leads to a YV track that somewhat parallels the SP North/South direction.  To the North, the YV track curves to the East and enters the main yard facilities.  To the South, the YV line takes a switch that again parallels the SP, and then there is a second switch that diverts to the East and reaches the Ice House.

I pondered what the track between the Ice House and the SP station was for.  Not being able to sort that out myself, I asked Jack.  At one time that track was used for YV passengers to board trains headed for the National Park, but the spur was out of service and removed by 1935.  

I made the decision to move the Ice House from across the tracks from the YV station to a more prototypical location, and also to create more of the right location for the SP Interchange.  I am still going to keep the same slim 18” deep by 6’ layout section for the interchange area, which means I’ll have to compromise and locate the ice House on the wrong side of its spur.  That compromise is less offensive to me than having it directly opposite from the YV station, and is just part of layout planning and space considerations when compressing real world locations to the confines of benchwork.

I will be omitting the unused passenger track and it’s connection to the YV line.  It’s fortunate for me that it would mostly have been unused in 1928 so I feel justified in compressing it out to fit the space.  If it had been in regular use, I would have wanted to include it on the layout.

Here is the track plan for the Ice House and Interchange section.  This plan feels right to me.  When it’s right, put it on paper, stop working on replanning that, and move to the next item.

With the plan now ready, what you’re looking at in this track plan is my layout construction goal for 2020.  Finish the interchange and the Ice House.  I still plan to build the freight equipment associated with the ice and cold storage going on here, and now that I’m feeling better and have resolved my planning problem and visual problem with location for things, it’s time to get building.

I did learn an important lesson from this exercise.  Put the things on the layout where they belong as close to the prototype as possible and it will feel right.  Overly compressing things, especially in Proto48, does not feel right.  That lesson will help when it comes to the next steps.

-Jeremy

Thinking Things Out

Posted on by jkdummler

Tony Koester’s recent first installment in Model Railroader about his Proto48 layout has inspired some interesting review and rethinking of my layout plans.  I find this kind of thing to be important in the Fall and Winter allowing me to improve my plans for “construction season” when the weather improves.

In March, I made the decision to change scale because of my vision.  I hope you can tell from what I have been building how much I’ve enjoyed that change.  Now, closing in on a year later, with the experience of building the section of layout that I worked on last summer under my belt, I’m evaluating and making sure that my plans are solid and that I’ll be able to enjoy this layout plan for years to come.

My plans last summer set the layout height at 56” high.  That’s roughly shoulder height for me, and puts the trains right at eye level when viewing them.  That’s not uncommon in model railroading these days.  This height implies that the operator or viewer of the layout needs to be standing, and likely needs to be about my height (roughly in the 5’6-5’8” range) to be comfortable viewing the layout.  Not really a terrible issue, but I’ll come to why I’m rethinking this.

Last summer I designed a leg system that provided strength, light weight, and stability.  The catch was I hadn’t sorted completely out how to get the layout section onto the legs without assistance.  Setting up without the help of our oldest son was difficult to impossible.  It brought back not so fond memories of the rolling layout section of the N&W I had built the summer before that required 4 people to get upright, and even then, needed some adjusting.  On a good note, the triangle formed when the legs were attached provided stability.

As the winter set in here (and it was winter early, we barely had a fall), I moved the layout section into the house and into the closet where the layout will live.  Moving the layout section alines not easy.  The 3/4” plywood of the supports and deck mean that instead of being the sturdy and light weight layout I had hoped to be creating, I find that I’ve created a sturdy, but heavy layout section.  The overall weight for 6’ by 18” of this section is close to 70 lbs.  Maneuvering that by myself is not super easy as the section can be awkward (it’s bigger than I am).  

I had figured out late in the summer that the section of layout was heavy as I was moving it around the garage for painting and testing the mud.  To address that, I ordered a layout section of the same rough dimensions from Model Railway Solutions Ltd in England.  (https://modelrailwaysolutions.co.uk).  The layout section is much lighter, and I’m looking forward to test-building this section soon.  It arrived just as my preparations for RPM were really ramping up and I didn’t get a chance to do the construction before that event.  

This brings me to the whole reason I’m thinking about these things.  Tony Koester’s article about his P48 layout includes some really interesting tidbits of information .  He discusses how he planned to build his layout to be light, which will be discussed in a future article (looks like the MR that arrives at the end of December) and built out of foam and aluminum channel.  That would create a very light weight layout section indeed.  Those sections would be manageable by one person for sure.  Additionally, near the end of the article, there is some discussion about layout height.  Tony had planned to make pieces of PVC to increase the layout height because his plan was to display it on folding tables at train shows and events that he attends, and getting the layout higher was, he thought desirable.  Then he had an experience with a differently able individual who appreciated the fact that the PVC had not been made and the layout was at table height.

Funny how things percolate up at opportune times.  We have recently been discussing in our house the fact that standing for long periods is not desirable for some ongoing medical issues, and that the ability to sit next to a layout is something that might be an improvement, either in a rolling task chair or on a rolling stool.  That would make it easier to have longer operating sessions without causing pain and discomfort.  It also would be good for displaying a layout at RPM’s and elsewhere.  In reality, displaying this layout at those kinds of venues is going to be important. 

About the same time, I was moving some modeling books around and chanced again on Lance Mindheim’s “How To Build A Switching Layout”.  In the opening chapters there is a discussion about using hollow core doors as the benchwork for smaller layouts.  This got me thinking about my plans and materials.

There is a lot swirling above, so let me try and coalesce a coherent line of thinking from that.

  1. My testbed layout section is perfect for using as a photography or static display, but the weight of the construction, the difficulty in moving it and setting it up with one person, makes it less desireable to me because my layout is going to nave to be able to move often and be set up by one person most of the time.
  2. My chosen layout height of 56” from the ground, while providing excellent viewing for the equipment, does not provide comfort for some operators and viewers who may need to sit through an operating session due to joint or back issues.
  3. Resolving the height issue and the setup issue is easily accomplished if folding tables are used to set the layout on, which also solves one person setup issue.
  4. Resolving the weight issue can be done by using lighter, imported, model railroad “baseboards” or by using hollow core door benchwork.

The fact that I’m likely to have to move this layout around often, take it to train shows and set it up, and do that with little assistance is weighing heavily on me at the moment.  Getting that sorted out this winter will make achieving progress in layout building come Spring and better weather much easier and faster.

-Jeremy

Patience Pays Off

Posted on by jkdummler

Hunting for materials and models is part of the fun of prototype modeling.  While we’re now entering the early winter “holiday dead zone” for work in my workshop as family and other events surrounding the Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year holidays transpire and take time and energy, I am using this time to hunt for and plan for projects that will start once the Christmas tree retreats to storage again and the cold winter sets in and I once again begin construction projects.

One of the most exciting finds from recent hunting includes a kit I have been seeking since last March.  A Mullet River Model Works kit for Yosemite Valley Railroad caboose 15 was recently put up for auction and I was fortunate enough to be able to acquire the kit.  This will get slotted in early next year for construction.  It’s definitely time to have a YV piece of O scale equipment built.

My ongoing project to create car routings for industries on the layout and beyond the layout on the YV has lead me to some choice points in my hunting for kits and rolling stock in general.  I’ve been collecting information about kits that have been made in O scale that would be appropriate for the pre-depression era modeler.  My rough starting list will be a future post here.  I’m working through identifying cars that would be appropriate for me to hunt for, as the holidays usually bring listings online for cars, and the March Meet in Lombard, IL, will be taking place in the next few months.  Knowing what I’m looking for there will be important.

Hunting for a San Juan Car Co kit of this WP car is higher on my list than a SOO line saw tooth boxcar, even though the SOO car is a fantastic model, making choices in rolling stock that are plausible and justifiable in my modeling date and location is important to me.

The rest of the projects are waiting for parts.  I’m hunting for brick to use for the Merced Ice & Cold Storage project, brake wheels and grab iron bolt castings for car projects, and other details are in the process of being sourced, so come January (or maybe later this month) I’ll be ready to get going on the ongoing projects.  The punch list of things I want to do is long.  I’ll be looking forward to sharing projects with you as I get progress made.

In the mean time, there is an exciting (to me) new series starting in Model Railroader magazine with the January, 2020 issue.  Tony Koester’s P48 layout is being featured as the new MR Project Layout for the year.  It’s going to be really interesting to read these articles.  If you read MR, or if you might think about changing scales, or model in P48 or O scale, these will be worth reading.

-Jeremy