 |
| CUT 25 was a 750hp Lima-Hamilton LS-750 switcher. There were only 6 LS-750's built and all 6 were bought by Cincinnati Union Terminal Co. The 6 LS-750's handled all the switching duties at the terminal, mail & express facilities, and coach yard. CUT 25 was the last one built and was delivered in 1951. (Allen County Historical Society photo) |
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Wordless Wednesday #8
Friday, February 19, 2016
Test Module construction - Part III
Even though this module is only 18" x 7' and I really haven't gotten that far with it yet, I've learned quite a few things from it.
After putting the 1:1 track plan down on the door and looking at it in real life size, I decided I didn't like the way the turnouts were arranged. The two curves leading into the crossover are 36" radius on the inside and 38" radius on the outside. I flipped the crossover around to make it a right-hand crossover to ensure that a train going through the crossover will come off of or go into the larger of the two radii in the same curve direction as the turnout adjacent to the curves, thus relieving the s-curve effect of the crossover as much as possible. With the turnouts arranged as such, now the only s-curve is inside the crossover itself rather than the two s-curves there would have been going from the curve to the crossover or vice-versa. With the crossover being a #9, the effect should be minimal anyway and hopefully the 85' passenger cars look fairly realistic going through the crossover.
The next lesson learned is that I really like the Topper Tape for roadbed. I originally thought it was adhesive on both sides but as I started unrolling it I discovered it is only adhesive on one side and that the paper backing is attached to the non-adhesive side. The Topper Tape is a soft foam similar to the Woodland Scenics foam roadbed. The adhesive side of the Topper Tape is sticky enough that it stays in place when you put it down, but it can easily be pulled up multiple times and put back down again. It is also very easy to cut with regular scissors or a utility or hobby knife.
Central Valley Ties and Turnouts.
I haven't started attaching rail to any of the Central Valley products so I have no AAR comments on that yet. I am going to try using Pliobond to attach the rail to the ties although I may also try using the bend-over spikes that come about every 4-6 ties on the straight tie strips. I will probably use both methods on this module to test them both.
I have discovered one thing though that irritates me about both the turnouts and the tie strips. They are all made of injection molded styrene so you get the mold remnants sometimes along with the parts.
In the first photo you can see at the top end of each tie is what I call a "hanging chad". I am somewhat OCD and feel the need to remove these even though they will probably end up under ballast and not be visible. They come off easy enough with a hobby knife but it is just an annoying step that I'd rather not do. This photo also shows the centerline guide, tieplate detail, and the bend-over spikes (on the larger tieplates) used to attach the rail to the ties. Allegedly all you have to do is bend those over the rail foot with a small nail set tool.
In the photo below are more mold remnants that need to be removed. You can also see the difference between the spacing on the branch line ties (lower piece) and the mainline ties (upper piece). These branch line ties are the CV 2002 variety that do not have the bend-over spikes, so all the rail needs to be glued to them.
I have also discovered that transitions between crossover turnouts and also on diverging tracks from turnouts require some special tie placement. For this I plan on using Clover House PC board ties which I have in 12" lengths for cutting to length as needed. The PC ties are almost the same thickness as the Central Valley ties which is a plus. I first looked at using wood ties but they are quite a bit thicker than the CV ties. I could probably get away with wood ties though because once the rail is attached to everything it would probably just push the thicker wood ties down into the Topper Tape and still be nice and level.
I also have a supply of Proto:87 Stores scale tieplates that I plan on using on the PC ties. These things are very tiny and a pain to work with. I would not attempt to use them on an entire layout but in certain high-visibility and high-detail trackwork areas they should look very nice. The plan is to insert them under the rail and then solder the rail and tieplate to the PC ties. This should add some strength to the track in the crossover as well because the turnout strips don't have the bend-over spikes so all rail has to be glued to them. They aren't quite the same as the tieplates on the CV ties, but I still think they will look good once everything is painted and ballasted.
I think I am at the point where I will start gluing the ties down to the Topper Tape and start attaching rail and building the turnouts.
Stay tuned!
After putting the 1:1 track plan down on the door and looking at it in real life size, I decided I didn't like the way the turnouts were arranged. The two curves leading into the crossover are 36" radius on the inside and 38" radius on the outside. I flipped the crossover around to make it a right-hand crossover to ensure that a train going through the crossover will come off of or go into the larger of the two radii in the same curve direction as the turnout adjacent to the curves, thus relieving the s-curve effect of the crossover as much as possible. With the turnouts arranged as such, now the only s-curve is inside the crossover itself rather than the two s-curves there would have been going from the curve to the crossover or vice-versa. With the crossover being a #9, the effect should be minimal anyway and hopefully the 85' passenger cars look fairly realistic going through the crossover.
The next lesson learned is that I really like the Topper Tape for roadbed. I originally thought it was adhesive on both sides but as I started unrolling it I discovered it is only adhesive on one side and that the paper backing is attached to the non-adhesive side. The Topper Tape is a soft foam similar to the Woodland Scenics foam roadbed. The adhesive side of the Topper Tape is sticky enough that it stays in place when you put it down, but it can easily be pulled up multiple times and put back down again. It is also very easy to cut with regular scissors or a utility or hobby knife.
Central Valley Ties and Turnouts.
I haven't started attaching rail to any of the Central Valley products so I have no AAR comments on that yet. I am going to try using Pliobond to attach the rail to the ties although I may also try using the bend-over spikes that come about every 4-6 ties on the straight tie strips. I will probably use both methods on this module to test them both.
I have discovered one thing though that irritates me about both the turnouts and the tie strips. They are all made of injection molded styrene so you get the mold remnants sometimes along with the parts.
In the first photo you can see at the top end of each tie is what I call a "hanging chad". I am somewhat OCD and feel the need to remove these even though they will probably end up under ballast and not be visible. They come off easy enough with a hobby knife but it is just an annoying step that I'd rather not do. This photo also shows the centerline guide, tieplate detail, and the bend-over spikes (on the larger tieplates) used to attach the rail to the ties. Allegedly all you have to do is bend those over the rail foot with a small nail set tool.
In the photo below are more mold remnants that need to be removed. You can also see the difference between the spacing on the branch line ties (lower piece) and the mainline ties (upper piece). These branch line ties are the CV 2002 variety that do not have the bend-over spikes, so all the rail needs to be glued to them.
I have also discovered that transitions between crossover turnouts and also on diverging tracks from turnouts require some special tie placement. For this I plan on using Clover House PC board ties which I have in 12" lengths for cutting to length as needed. The PC ties are almost the same thickness as the Central Valley ties which is a plus. I first looked at using wood ties but they are quite a bit thicker than the CV ties. I could probably get away with wood ties though because once the rail is attached to everything it would probably just push the thicker wood ties down into the Topper Tape and still be nice and level.
I also have a supply of Proto:87 Stores scale tieplates that I plan on using on the PC ties. These things are very tiny and a pain to work with. I would not attempt to use them on an entire layout but in certain high-visibility and high-detail trackwork areas they should look very nice. The plan is to insert them under the rail and then solder the rail and tieplate to the PC ties. This should add some strength to the track in the crossover as well because the turnout strips don't have the bend-over spikes so all rail has to be glued to them. They aren't quite the same as the tieplates on the CV ties, but I still think they will look good once everything is painted and ballasted.
I think I am at the point where I will start gluing the ties down to the Topper Tape and start attaching rail and building the turnouts.
Stay tuned!
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Wordless Wednesday #7
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| AC&Y (now WLE) bridge over Newton St. in Akron OH. Note the clearance sign on the right... |
Monday, February 1, 2016
Test Module construction - part II
I decided to make some changes to the track plan. There were two things I wanted to change. The first was to make all the non-crossover turnouts face the same direction. I did this because I will probably add a couple industries to allow me to actually operate this tiny module ala Lance Mindheim style. With no runaround track, I felt I probably needed to have both the outer spurs with the same facing. The second change was to make the curve tracks a sharper radius that puts it more in line with what I will be using on the larger layout. The parallel curved tracks are 36" radius on the inside and 38" radius on the outside, with 2" track spacing. The curves in the first plan were 220" radius! The smaller radius curves will allow me to see what 85' passenger cars look like on more realistic curves and how they perform with 2" track spacing in the curve. In fact, all the track spacings here are 2".
I then printed the track plan on 8 1/2 x 14 legal size paper in landscape mode. The entire track plan fit on 14 sheets of paper. That's still alot, I can't wait to see how many sheets a 13' x 40' layout prints out. I put the sheets down on top of the door and lined them all up with the sighting guides and taped them together as a mockup on the door. I actually didn't print all 14 sheets here, because some of the sheets had only a couple inches of track on them at the outer edges of the plan.
Tracklaying Products
One of my go-to people for model railroading influence is Chuck Hitchcock. His original Santa Fe Argentine Division layout was featured in the December 1983 Model Railroader issue and was the first time I said "That's what I want". He wrote another article about that layout in the Model Railroad Planning 1997 issue called 12 Hours at Argentine. The focus of that article is on passenger train operations and was the second time I said "That's what I want". At some point in the early 2000's he tore down the Santa Fe Argentine Division and built a new layout called Argentine Industrial District.
Chuck used two products in the construction of the Industrial District layout that I plan on using. The first is well known to model railroaders and that is DAP general-purpose adhesive caulk. It appears that product is no longer made by DAP, at least with that name. I believe the same product is now Kwik Seal adhesive caulk. I was unable to find DAP general-purpose adhesive caulk anywhere, so this is what I got. I got the clear version instead of the white. This is what I will use to "glue" track down to roadbed. There were other adhesive caulks available but they all sounded like they were way too strong an adhesive for model railroading where I might actually want to lift the track after it has been caulked down.
Another product Chuck used for the Industrial District layout is Topper Tape. This is a soft foam adhesive tape with many uses but its most popular use is for putting under a pickup truck cap where the cap rests on the top of the bed.
This tape is 3/16" thick and comes in several different sizes but the one I got is 1 1/4" wide in a 30' roll. The cost was under $6 at Home Depot. I like the 1 1/4" width because HO scale track with 8'6" long ties is right around 1 3/16" wide. The tape is also slightly adhesive on both sides and comes with a non-stick paper film on it that peels off. Chuck talks about using Topper Tape for the Industrial District layout in another article in the August 2003 MR is titled 6 Great Layout Projects. His article on adhesive caulk and topper tape is project #2 in that article. Chuck recommends leaving the paper on the tape when laying straight sections of track because the paper keeps it straight as an arrow. Once it is down on the layout the paper film can be removed. Without the paper film it is very curvable but he says you have to be careful not to stretch it out when laying it in a curve.
So, when I printed the track plan out, I set AnyRail5 to have a 1 1/4" roadbed trace to make it the same size as the topper tape. Now all I have to do is cut out the track outlines and lay it down on the door and trace the outlines onto the door, and then put the topper tape down using the outlines as a guide. Here you can see the width of a Central Valley mainline tie section compared to the width of the tape. My plan is to use topper tape on the two-track mainline for a raised roadbed effect, and then the two outer spurs will transition down to flat roadbed to represent non-mainline track.
In Part III I will trace the roadbed outlines onto the door and start putting down topper tape.
Cheers
 |
| The green outline is the footprint of the hollow core door (17 3/4 x 79) |
I then printed the track plan on 8 1/2 x 14 legal size paper in landscape mode. The entire track plan fit on 14 sheets of paper. That's still alot, I can't wait to see how many sheets a 13' x 40' layout prints out. I put the sheets down on top of the door and lined them all up with the sighting guides and taped them together as a mockup on the door. I actually didn't print all 14 sheets here, because some of the sheets had only a couple inches of track on them at the outer edges of the plan.
Tracklaying Products
One of my go-to people for model railroading influence is Chuck Hitchcock. His original Santa Fe Argentine Division layout was featured in the December 1983 Model Railroader issue and was the first time I said "That's what I want". He wrote another article about that layout in the Model Railroad Planning 1997 issue called 12 Hours at Argentine. The focus of that article is on passenger train operations and was the second time I said "That's what I want". At some point in the early 2000's he tore down the Santa Fe Argentine Division and built a new layout called Argentine Industrial District.
Chuck used two products in the construction of the Industrial District layout that I plan on using. The first is well known to model railroaders and that is DAP general-purpose adhesive caulk. It appears that product is no longer made by DAP, at least with that name. I believe the same product is now Kwik Seal adhesive caulk. I was unable to find DAP general-purpose adhesive caulk anywhere, so this is what I got. I got the clear version instead of the white. This is what I will use to "glue" track down to roadbed. There were other adhesive caulks available but they all sounded like they were way too strong an adhesive for model railroading where I might actually want to lift the track after it has been caulked down.
Another product Chuck used for the Industrial District layout is Topper Tape. This is a soft foam adhesive tape with many uses but its most popular use is for putting under a pickup truck cap where the cap rests on the top of the bed.
This tape is 3/16" thick and comes in several different sizes but the one I got is 1 1/4" wide in a 30' roll. The cost was under $6 at Home Depot. I like the 1 1/4" width because HO scale track with 8'6" long ties is right around 1 3/16" wide. The tape is also slightly adhesive on both sides and comes with a non-stick paper film on it that peels off. Chuck talks about using Topper Tape for the Industrial District layout in another article in the August 2003 MR is titled 6 Great Layout Projects. His article on adhesive caulk and topper tape is project #2 in that article. Chuck recommends leaving the paper on the tape when laying straight sections of track because the paper keeps it straight as an arrow. Once it is down on the layout the paper film can be removed. Without the paper film it is very curvable but he says you have to be careful not to stretch it out when laying it in a curve.
So, when I printed the track plan out, I set AnyRail5 to have a 1 1/4" roadbed trace to make it the same size as the topper tape. Now all I have to do is cut out the track outlines and lay it down on the door and trace the outlines onto the door, and then put the topper tape down using the outlines as a guide. Here you can see the width of a Central Valley mainline tie section compared to the width of the tape. My plan is to use topper tape on the two-track mainline for a raised roadbed effect, and then the two outer spurs will transition down to flat roadbed to represent non-mainline track.
In Part III I will trace the roadbed outlines onto the door and start putting down topper tape.
Cheers
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