78 Miles to Yosemite

Category: Proto:48

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

The Correct Choice

Posted on by jkdummler
YV23. Likely taken at Merced (Author’s Collection)

The right choice for me, modeling wise, encompasses several things.

I’ve just spent the last few years starting to learn 1920’s freight equipment.  When I tell you that by 1939, the world of freight cars is vastly different than it is in the late 1920’s, it’s no joke.  The depression had an effect on the freight fleet of the nation.  New rules for safety appliances, and new rules for trucks on freight cars, along with more steel and less wood cars means that when I went back to 1927 and started modeling, the learning curve was steep, but now I’m comfortable in the late 20’s.  I want to stay modeling that window of time and build equipment appropriate to the pre-depression era of railroading.

My struggles the last few months have not only been vision related, but subject related.  The things I thought were drawing, wound up not being so, and as time went by, I got to the point of not really being interested in the research.  That likely contributed to the “drift” in my planning.

How to remedy these things with a move to Proto:48?  Staying in the pe-1930 era is relatively easy.  There are lots of subjects that could be modeled.  I know there are models in O scale of the locomotive I used to look at in books I checked out of the library as a kid, a Santa Fe 1950 class 2-8-0.  I saw one at the O scale meet, and in O, those are even prettier than they are in HO.  There are models of Southern Pacific “Valley Mallet” 2-6-0’s available from Glacier Park.  I’ve seen those too.  There are Nickel Plate, Great Northern, Pennsy, and other railroad small steam out there in O.  While tempting, they’re not the right fit.

The right railroad is the one I stopped modeling to hone my skills as a modeler.  I’m going back to the Yosemite Valley.  It’s “the” railroad that really has my interest, and this time, I’m ready, and I’m excited about the choice.

Staying in the pre-depression era, I’ve chosen August, 1928 as my modeling month and year.  By selecting that date, I can include a great many of the class Yosemite Valley points of operation like the logging operation and the limestone movements to the Portland cement plat just outside Merced.  

There were plans to import Yosemite Valley 2-6-0’s in brass in the early 1990’s, but those plans wound up being canceled.  The locomotives, then, will need to be scratch built.  That will be a challenge, but I believe it’s something I am ready to tackle.  Without the need to build 100+ pieces of rolling stock for a layout, I can spend the time to build a locomotive.  It’s actually exciting to consider because in O scale, dead-rail or battery operation is a real possibility and something that I am interested in including in my build.  I may wind up building 2 or 3 locomotives over time.

My plans for a layout are going to be focused on a portable, storable, modular layout.  18” wide, and with each module 6’ long, I am currently planning for a layout that runs, without staging extensions, to about 42 feet long completely set up.  Should I decide to build curves so I can bend the layout, it’ll wind up being even longer.  Curves will come later.

With just over 77 miles of railroad, picking locations to model, even in 42’ of length, means making some serious selections and leaving much out.  The obvious location to pick for at least one town is Merced.  Merced had the interchanges to the Southern Pacific and the ATSF, the largest YV station, locomotive service and other facilities, a house track, small yard, and a few small ice and cold storage industries.  CLOSE to Merced, so, still within yard limits, was the Yosemite Portland cement Co. plant.  It’s a stones throw outside Merced.  

The other location that really has some of the heart of the YV operation wise that I can see including is Merced Falls.  The massive sawmill with log pond, drying fields, box factory, station, a YV turntable, and other lumber loading, Merced Falls provides destinations for log cars, the occasional rock car, and lots of boxcars.  

Further up the line, places like Bagby, Emory, Incline, Rancharia Flat, and El Portal are really tempting locations to model.  I think for now, those will have to be suggested with traffic running from an interchange in Merced to a staging location just past Merced Falls.  In the future, I may build additional modules to include one or more of those.

There is, on a map, space between Merced and Merced Falls.  There are a few things I could fill that space with, but it’s likely that, at least to start, I’ll fill in with a model of Edendale creek and the bridge across there.  Eventually I’d like to add Snelling because I really like the station there, and probably Hopeton for the stock pens that were still there with a set of scales in 1928.

There is much more to come.  I’m really excited to get started on this whole project.

-Jeremy

Bigger Things

Posted on by jkdummler

I could have called this “Going Home” or “Accepting Reality”. However, the positive note that “Bigger Things” means (at least the connotation of those words is in my mind more positive) is what this needs.

I’ve come to a point with my vision where I simply can not continue to struggle with HO scale modeling. To spite my furious efforts to find something to model, shrinking the scope, playing with location, trying to plan and go narrow gauge to avoid decals…. it just doesn’t work. I’ve stretched it as long as I can, and yesterday I posted on my Facebook page a ‘Notice of Abandonment” for all things HO, with liquidation of kits, cars, structures, parts, etc… to soon follow. When a railroad is abandoned, it often is not just the railroad that dies, but the communities that are served can also die and be abandoned. This is only abandonment in the terms of HO scale.

I sat with my wife who has listened to me talk about what I “might” do in the future, in that ‘some day” down the road when I was ready to move up in scale, along with two other friends this weekend, having the “what are you up to in your modeling” conversation, and each of those three people looked at me and in their own ways, prodded me to not wait, to make a change, to be excited about modeling again, and to do “bigger things”.

We attended the Chicago O-Scale Meet in Lombard over the weekend. As the show wound down on Saturday, we had a fantastic opportunity to spend some time talking with Damin Keenan about his 14″ x 12′ O Scale swishing layout. Damin’s layout is long enough that if you stand at one end, the equipment on the layout is far enough away at the other end, that you have to move to where it is. Additionally, we noticed while talking that the layout really changes character and look if you change sides you are operating it from, so the “front” and the “back” view really affect what you’re seeing. Even changing ends of the layout has a similar effect.

O Scale switching layout by Admin Keenan on display at the Chicago O scale Meet, 2019.

While this layout isn’t massive, it has some cool details. Things like the figures hanging out or a work crew in a parking lot at the right hand side, derails on the tracks, hand thrown turnouts, locomotive sound and lots of operation for a small space in a large scale.

While chatting, my wife commented that a double-depth layout like this could be operated really easily as a 28″x12′, or if built right, it could be ‘opened up’ with two 14″x12′ sections placed end to end to reach 24′. Wow… that’s a fantastic concept.

“I can see the wheels turning”, said my wife at one point about me thinking about a layout in O. But not just O, Proto:48. There are a myriad of places online that explain Proto:48 better than I can (yet) but the gist is the rail is actual scale instead of the slightly too-wide of standard O scale 2 rail.

I spent the second day of the show examining things in the dealer room with a completely new eye. “You’re making the change, right now” was a quote from breakfast that morning and another friend. Ok, but I am a steam guy, a pre-1930 steam guy, I needed to look around and see what was there so I could start to figure out what I want to build.

I managed to find lots of USRA and 1920’s equipment available. By “lots” I mean “enough”, as even a 14″x24′ layout isn’t going to need much equipment. I also found that I could see the details on the equipment, read car numbers, access couplers, without needing even my reading glasses, where in HO I’m mostly in need these days of readers plus multiple magnifiers.

So, HO is abandoned. I’ll be liquidating things, keeping a few pieces for display here and there, but for the most part, like I did 15 years ago when I went to HO from N, I’m out and not going back.

What to model? Remember I said this could have been titled “Going Home”?

Yup…. I figured out how to do it, in Proto:48, and it’ll be really fun.

-JD