We had our third operating session on December 20th with a crew of three. While it’s only plywood and track, it was still fun. I had a couple of locomotives that got removed from consists for acting up and two switches in Norton Yard that were giving me fits, but other than that, things ran pretty smoothly. Here is what Darrall, one of the operators, had to say:

“I had the opportunity to operate on Dan Bourque’s layout again Tuesday evening. Stuart Thayer did the Interstate mine run to Dorchester, Dan had the Interstate road job that originated in Andover, VA and ran through to Miller yard (staging on a lower level), while I drew the N&W yard job at Norton, Va. What a blast!!!

The night started by revving up N&W 1591 (a straight SD40) for the yard job. The first task was to pick up 7 cars from the Interstate interchange tracks and classify them in the yard for forwarding on the N&W or for delivery to the local industries at Norton. Once the cars were classified, the next step was to exchange cars at the N&W freight house, Ashland Oil, Armor Meat, a Mining Supply Manufacturer, and the N&W team track with cars that were picked up at the Interstate Interchange. The 9 cars that were picked up at the local industries, or sitting in the N&W yard were then blocked in the yard and moved over to the Interstate interchange tracks for pickup by Dan’s road job. Well…didn’t quite happen this way, but I did manage to get most of the work done. It was a great experience as it gave me ideas as how to approach interchanging cars between the BN and MILW in Great Falls, BN and CP at Sweet Grass, MT/Coutts, AB, and the BN and UP at Butte, MT on a future layout.”

The goal before the next ops session is to start on the basic scenery forms soon and complete the Interstate track between Norton and Miller Yard. I guess that’s my New Year’s Resolution.  Happy New Year! -Dan

While we’re on the subject of Digitrax, another thing I’ve found helpful is to have a functional diagram of your Loconet setup for troubleshooting or rewiring. When I was stringing UP5s and other components around the layout, I thought, “surely I’ll remember where this cable goes to later.”  Well, when it came time to add in components later, I found my memory wasn’t quite that good, and I kept having to trace all my cables to see where they went.  The solution was to create a simple diagram of my Digitrax setup on my favorite graphics tool, Microsoft PowerPoint.

The diagram includes a basic outline of the layout so I can easily match panels in the diagram to the real thing.  The color scheme for components is boosters/command station in blue, radio accessories in orange, computer accessories in purple, loconet panels in green.  The color scheme for wiring is Loconet cables in thick black and power cables in thin lines of various color to show where they plug in and what’s connected to what.   I update this diagram anytime I add or move a component and place the most recent copy in the back of my Digitrax notebook with all of my operating instructions.

In case you’re wondering, I’m not OCD (one look at my workbench will tell you that), but I do like to be organized when it comes to how things are constructed.  A well-built foundation and framework are good investments for future enjoyment of your layout.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I use a Digitrax DCC system on my layout. Overall, I’m very happy with the system and love the flexibility it provides. However, not everything is as intuitive as I would like (it’s that Human Factors Engineer in me), especially for operators who’ve never used Digitrax before. After several instances of looking things up over-and-over in the users manuals to figure out basic things like MU-ing locomotives, I decided to write my own operating instructions for the UT4 throttles and DCS50 (Zephyr) my operators would be interacting with. I tried to make these instructions as simple as possible by including only the functions used on a regular basis and keeping them to a single page.

Simplified operating instructions for Digitrax Zephyr

I post all the current instructions in a well-marked binder under the layout which I reference often, and the UT4D instructions (what most crews use) are posted prominently on a bulletin board in the layout room. I believe this has been time well spent. I’ve attached my instructions below in PDF form for those of you looking for something similar–enjoy!

Digitrax Zephyr Operating Instructions

Digitrax Zephyr Decoder Programming Instructions

Digitrax UT4 Operating Instructions

Digitrax UT4D Operating Instructions

I’ve been getting tired of just staring at plywood on the layout. I can’t really build much scenery yet because it will get covered by sawdust in the upper-deck construction, but I can at least start a few structures. I’ve had the tracks in at Dorchester for a while, but for the last operating session, the “tipple” consisted of a couple of small boxes stacked together. . . hardly convincing. I decided to start building the tipple. I’ve known all along this will be a scratchbuilding project based on one photo that appears in two of Ed Wolfe’s books on the Interstate. I have no plans or other photos, so I needed to make my own plans.

Foamcore mockup of the Dorchester Tipple drafted in PowerPoint

I wanted something I could modify easy instead of pencil on paper, but I’m not a CAD guy. I know, I’ll use Microsoft PowerPoint! I use PowerPoint all the time in my job, so I’m intimately familiar with its capabilities and limitations. I thought it might be useful for making a line drawing plan of the tipple. With measurements in hand, I turned the “grid” on in PPT and decided to make 1 grid line = 1/4″. I quickly added lines for the tracks (3 grid lines apart for HO scale) and started working on the top plan for the tipple by inserting lines (tip: if you need a line to be off the grid, hold down “ctrl” while moving the object with arrow keys). Once I was happy with the top, I “grouped” the lines, made a copy, rotated it 90 degrees and moved it with the arrow keys until it was back on-the-grid. I then added a series of straight lines at strategic points like the roof peak and ends that became the basis for drawing the front view to the same scale, much as you would in manual drafting. I drew up plan views for all 4 sides this way.

Draft plans of the tipple using lines and the PPT grid

Next, I wanted a 1:1 print of the plan. After printing out the plan and comparing it to reality, I found I could create a full-size print by increasing the size of the drawing 300% in both dimensions using the “size and position” options available on right-click of the grouped drawing. At this point, I thought it would be a good idea to create a full-size mockup to see how it would fit into the space and to make sure the track clearance was good. I decided to build one by gluing prints of the plan to 1/4″ foamcore and cutting them out. Rather than just create a black-and-white model, I found some corrugated steel and wood textures via Google and cropped and sized them to make tiles for “painting” my plan prints. I tiled them across the plan and then brought the plan back to the front of PPT using the “bring to front” option on right click. I also made little windows using the rectangle and line tools in PPT (made 1 then copied it 20 times). Finally, I used text boxes to add the painted on sign that’s clearly visible in pictures.

Full size color printouts of the plans prior to mounting on foamcore

After printing the sides, I glued them to 1/4″ black foamcore with Elmers white glue and let them dry (smearing the glue first helps keep the paper wrinkles down). I cut them out with an XActo knife (this was pretty tedious on the latticework under the tipple but worth it) and glued the sides together. I made the roof out of black matting board and glued some paper with printed corrugated steel on top of it. The resulting building looks pretty good from a few feet away, and it’s a heckuva lot more convincing than a stack of boxes. Now that it’s in place on the layout, I can play around with the design and build the basic scenery around it without having to build the actual model. I plan to use this for most of my structures–you not only get some easily modifiable plans, but you can start to really get a feel for the scene and give your operators some interim scenery without too much time investment.

backside of the complete tipple mockup

Rusty roofed CofG boxcar

This is one of my new favorite cars. This car started as a factory painted Intermountain 50 ft PS-1 boxcar kit. I model the Southern after the acquisition of the Central of Georgia, so I thought it would be nice to have a couple of “heritage cars” floating around the layout. This scheme was quite dated by my layout’s era, so I wanted to have a car that looked a bit like the rain-streaked and dirty CofG 5505 seen at this link in 1972.

I built the kit as directed with a couple of exceptions. First, I notched out the side sill with an X-Acto to match the photo of CofG 5505. I also used a Plano etched metal roofwalk instead of the one that came with the kit which I attached with a little Walthers Goo (I’ve found roofwalks glued on with CA tend to “pop” when the temperature changes). I dry brushed the roofwalk with some Testors acrylic Aluminum to take off some of the chrome-like shine and help it match the roof.  Other add-ons include Kadee couplers and Detail Associates coupler cut levers.

Weathering this car was a blast. I started with the rust on the roof. First, I mixed some Testors acrylic Rust and Testors acrylic Interior Black to make a dark brown color to represent old rust. Using a small brush, I started painting on rust starting under the roofwalk and working out. I intentionally made some panels worse than others, but the key is painting a pattern that looks believable to the eye. It helped to study some boxcar roofs online first. Next, I used Testors acrylic Rust to hit the edges of the dark brown to simulate the “new rust” between the old rust and unrusted sections. I also applied some new rust to the roofwalk at each rib to simulate where the hardware holding the roofwalk in place was starting to rust.

Closeup of the rusty roof

After the rust had dried, I made the streaks on the roof and sides using a wash of highly thinned dark tan followed by highly thinned black wiped off vertically with a paper towel. It took two washes of the black to get the streaks to be highly visible without making the car look completely filthy. You can read more about this technique in the NYC Double Door Boxcar post.

I love this car!