Author Archives: Dan Bourque

Ballasting Track on the St. Charles Branch

Ballasted St Charles
Here’s the St Charles wye with ballast. Note the area of cinders where a track used to be

While I finished the basic scenery forms on the lower deck a few weeks ago, I decided it would be better to ballast the tracks before adding the upper deck benchwork while I still had good access to them. I’m so glad I did because ballasting gives the scenes a much more “finished” look even though there’s still a ton of scenery work to be done. I’ll be honest, I was dreading ballasting the track–I had little experience with ballast, but from that experience I saw it as a frustrating, tedious, and time-consuming job. I have now changed my tune! While it’s still time-consuming, I was able to learn and mature my techniques quickly to avoid the frustration and tedium, so I’ll pass along my method here.

First, I had to determine what kind of ballast I needed. This wasn’t as straightforward as I’d hoped. As best I can tell, most of the tracks in my area were at one time ballasted in cinders harvested from steam locomotives. The steam locos went away in the 1950s, and with them the ability to get cheap and ready cinders for ballast. Photos from the ’80s and ’90s clearly indicate most everything got covered in rock ballast–would the cinders still be around in the 1960s and ’70s? After some digging online, I found that cinders in many places lasted for decades after steam, and in the coal fields, it’s tough to tell cinders from spilled coal anyway, so an added incentive for cinders, at least on sidings and secondary tracks. For the main tracks, photos show the Southern’s ballast in this area was a medium gray. I toyed around with trying to find some actual rock to use as ballast, but in the end I decided on good old Woodland Scenics products made from crushed walnut shells because I can find it readily, it doesn’t cost an arm and leg to ship, and it’s pretty easy to work with. I used fine cinders and medium sized gray ballast in the big shaker containers for this project, and I was able to do the entire lower deck (12′ x 16′) with just under two shakers of each color (4 shakers total).

Second, I did a bunch of research on how to apply ballast, and I am so glad I did! In the end, I went mostly with the method Cody Grivno of Model Railroader lays out in the article here. The only other materials I needed were white glue (I bought a gallon), isopropyl alcohol (I used about XX oz), and dish soap. For tools, I used a spoon, a large flat brush, a white glue dispenser (like the ones kids use in school), two small jars with eyedroppers, a work glove, and my fingers. In the glue bottle, I mixed up some “just a bit wet glue” which is about 2 parts white glue, 1 part water, and a drop or two of dish soap–when you squirt it out, it should dissipate from its bead but not run. In one of the jars with an eyedropper, I made a mix of “very wet glue” of about 1 part glue, 6 parts water, and a drop or two of dish soap–it should look about the consistency of milk and absorb into the wet ballast (I’ll explain that in a minute) after a few seconds. You’ll need a LOT of the very wet glue, so you can either make a big batch or mix it on-demand when you run out (what I did… it was a lot of trips). The remaining jar and eyedropper are for the isopropyl alcohol.

Ballasting Step 1
Step 1. Lay down a pile of ballast in the gauge between the rails
Ballasting Step 2
Step 2. use a finger to spread the ballast between the ties, moving excess to the next section

I worked on the track in about 2 foot sections, usually one track at a time. If you’re doing two ballast colors, determine which ballast should be “lower” and work on that one first–for me, the cinders were replaced by ballast rock, so where they overlap, I did the cinders first. With about half-a-spoonful of ballast, I first apply it to the “gauge” (inside the rails) of the track. It takes a few tries to get a feel for how thick to lay it, but it becomes routine pretty quick. You want just enough that when you spread it the ballast fills the space in between the ties and rails with little on top of the ties and nothing on the rails. I found my finger to be an effective spreading tool, and I just rub it back and forth down the tracks, rubbing any excess ballast to open areas. Cody glues his ballast at this point, but I found it easier to lay the edge ballast first. I applied ballast to the edges by first running a bead of glue from the bottle down the side of the subroadbed and on top of the scenery–this helps the “slope” to hold better. Next I used the spoon to apply ballast inward toward the rail from about the edge of the ties until I couldn’t see the edge of the subroadbed any more. I used my finger again, first to poke the ballast under the rail a bit, then to wipe off the tops of the tie edges, and then to pat down the sloped edges until they looked smooth. I used a brush to clear off any unwanted ballast to outside the range of the glue (I vacuum it up later) and to remove any stubborn ballast from areas my finger couldn’t get to.

Ballast Step 3
Step 3. Add ballast to the edges of the track, use a finger to work it into the ties, then use a finger to clean it off the ties and shape the slope

Once I’m happy with the ballast shape, I glue it down. The critical part of this process is to USE THE ALCOHOL AS A WETTING AGENT FIRST! If you just add the glue, the ballast will float (and float away) which makes a frustrating mess. You can avoid this by first saturating the ballast with an eyedropper of isopropyl alcohol–just drop until everything looks wet. I follow the alcohol wetting with the very wet glue, making sure I apply drops to every section of ballast until things were saturated and it took a couple seconds for the glue to soak in. If you drop a big glob of white glue that somehow didn’t get diluted, no worries–just dilute it with some alcohol, and it will likely settle in just fine. I wet and glued each section by starting with the gauge between the rails, then moving to the edges. I found for the edges it’s better to start the alcohol low and work up to keep things in place, and its better to start the glue high and let it work down.

Ballast Step 4
Step 4. Using a dropper, soak the ballast with isopropyl alcohol
Ballast Step 5
Step 5. Saturate the wet areas with wet glue

Turnouts require a bit more care, and I probably didn’t take all the care I should have… it worked out ok, but I spent a couple hours massaging my turnouts to get them working smoothly again. I spread the ballast a little less thickly between the ties to make sure the points wouldn’t catch, and I took care to avoid putting ballast in the area of the throw. No matter how careful I was, there was always some piece determined to get stuck in the throw, so I used the brush (and the occasional X-Acto blade) to fish out any offenders. I used the very wet glue sparingly in these areas, but there was still some glue that stuck to the top of the ties causing the points to stick a bit. I believe Cody’s method is to drop the glue in first, then add the ballast under the points, and I think I’ll try this next time.

Ballast Step 6
Step 6. Clean off any excess ballast–I use a work glove for this
Ballast Step 7
Step 7. Clean any remaining ballast from the web of the rail–I use a combination of a matchstick and fingernails

After letting the glue dry overnight, I clean up any excess ballast. First, I use a work glove and rub it over the top of the ties and edges to knock off any obtrusive pieces. Next, I clean out the area in the web (sides) of the rail using a matchstick rubbed back-and-forth followed by a fingernail. I used a flathead screwdriver to clean out flangeways if necessary. I cleaned up any excess with a vacuum. You’ll inevitably find spots you missed with the glue, but it’s easy to just add more ballast, drop some alcohol, then drop some glue to repair.

Ballast is scenery, so I also wanted it to tell a story. Because track repairs would have been made with gravel instead of cinders in my era, I picked a few spots along the cinder-ballasted yard tracks to fill with gravel (in this case, Woodland Scenics fine gray ballast) to simulate a replaced tie. I like the look! I also picked a few spots in prominent areas to lay some cinders on the scenery to go underneath the ballast rocks to show that some tracks were once cinders but had now been ballasted with rock. I also laid a thin layer of cinders in areas where I know tracks used to be, even though I don’t model them in my era. Finally, I added extra cinders to areas under tipple chutes and where locomotives sit to represent spilled coal and grime. I’m pretty happy with how these “extras” turned out, but they won’t fully tell the story until more scenery is complete.

Simulated Track Repairs
The St Charles yard where the main is clearly visible. The gray areas on top of cinders represent tie repairs after the age of cinders

Ok, the ballasting was the last step before adding the upper deck, but you’ve heard that before… We shall see.

Finished Ballast at Mayflower
Here’s the finished ballast at the Mayflower tipple–the road is made from fine ballast as well

 

 

 

Lower Level Scenery Base Complete

Layout view 1 - Oct 2023
Here’s what the layout looks like from the door as of October 2023–this is from eye-level, so you can see where the upper deck will sit

Just a quick progress update. This week I passed a major milestone by completing the scenery base on the lower level to the “dirt base” level. This is the minimum I wanted to complete before moving to the upper level, so now nothing stands in the way. I’m debating doing a little track ballasting and a couple more mock-up tipples, but it’s exciting to finally be at a point where I can start putting in upper-level benchwork! I found a pic from three years ago to show the progress over time. I’m sure not moving fast, but there’s definitely been a lot of progress!

Layout view 3 - Oct 2023
Looking back toward the door and the Mayflower Tipple. If you follow the tracks back from Mayflower on the right, you’ll pop out at the far end of the aisle on the left

 

Layout view 2 - Oct 2023
Looking along the St Charles yard with the wye ahead on the left–compare the progress in Oct 2023 to a similar shot from Oct 2020

 

Finished Lower Level Benchwork
Similar view as above from three years prior in Oct 2020

Scenery Part 2 – Paint and Texture

Finished base scenery in St Charles
Here’s the finished base scenery layer in St Charles as the L&N CV Local waits for Southern train 61 to clear the wye

Nearly a year ago I posted the beginnings of building my scenery using Howard Zane’s “paper shell” method. The unfinished red rosin paper shell about halfway through his process served as my basic scenery base for a while–it’s far better than plywood! As I’m nearing the time to move on to the upper deck, I finally got around to finishing the scenery base.

In progress scenery
This shot shows several steps in the scenery process including cardboard web, red rosin paper, and the finished base scenery with paint and dirt for texture

In the first post, I covered how to build the basic scenery form using cardboard strips, hot glue, and red rosin paper. Since that first attempt, I have changed my technique a little. I no longer glue a long strip to the backdrop (tedious) but instead just fold the cardboard strip to form a tab and glue the tab to the backdrop. Once the initial cardboard web and red-rosin-paper shell are in place, the next step is a layer of white glue. First, I put masking tape over the tracks and other features I needed to protect from the glue. I use straight Elmer’s white glue from a giant bottle I bought at a local office supply store. It helps to pour a little bit in a portable paint cup for easy access. I used a paint brush (approx. 1.5″ wide designed for house painting) to apply a thick layer of white glue over all the red rosin paper. If your paper layers aren’t tight, expect a little dripping, so be sure to clear out anything valuable from underneath first. When the glue is drying, it saturates the paper causing some unexpected wrinkles–I was worried at first, but most of these disappeared when the glue dried, and those that remained looked like pretty natural variations in the landscape. In places where the paper edges were warping up and away from the layer underneath, I brushed an extra layer of glue underneath and smoothed things back down with a finger.

Spackling the joints
After applying a layer of glue and letting it dry, I apply lightweight spackling compound to the paper seams to smooth out the edges

Once the glue dried completely, I added a step that Howard Zane does not: spackling the seams. I wasn’t happy with the edges of the paper as there were distinct lines that wouldn’t look natural with just paint. Additionally, there were a few areas that I needed to be completely flat, but they still had some undulations from the glue step. To fix this, I turned to one of my favorite materials: lightweight spackling compound that I picked up from the local hardware store. This is the same compound I use to cover screw holes and hide joints in masonite fascia and backdrops. It’s about the consistency of icing, and you just spread it on in batches using a plastic putty knife to smooth things out as best you can. Once it dried overnight, I used a wet washcloth to rub down the edges of the spackling compound and to taper it into the surrounding paper. This rewets the compound and allows you to get a smooth surface without sanding. Most of the seams were hidden after the first application, but a few areas required a second or third application to get the shape right.

Smoothing the spackling compound
Once the spackling compound dries, I use a wet washcloth to gently smooth the spackling compound to remove rough edges and blend it into the paper

Now things were finally ready for some paint! A friend of mine graciously donated a fine bucket of dark Kentucky dirt to me a while ago (a kingly gift!). I went to the hardware store and found a paint color that matched the dirt color pretty closely and had a gallon made in flat/matte finish. Back on the layout, I applied some of this color thickly with a small brush to about a one square foot area. Using a spoon, I sprinkled some of the sifted dirt onto the paint to give the scenery a little base texture. I left about an inch of the paint uncovered to avoid getting dirt on the paintbrush. Quickly moving to the next section, I painted some more and added more dirt, starting with the seam between the areas as it was the closest to drying. Eventually, the whole surface was covered. Once the paint had dried a little, I gently sprayed a layer of wet glue (about 10 parts water, 1 part glue, with a little dish soap) on top of the dirt. In the few areas where it washed away the dirt, I simply added more to the soaked surface and sprayed again.

Dirt on wet paint
I spread thick paint on about one square foot of paper at a time, then I sprinkle with dirt while it’s still wet

Once everything dried. I removed the masking tape and touched up any areas as needed. While there’s still a lot more work to go before the scenery is complete, I’m really happy with this technique to get to a good scenery base that looks a whole lot better than either plywood or raw red rosin paper! I won’t finish the scenery until the upper deck is complete to avoid ruining anything with sawdust and scenery materials raining down, but this current layer is resilient enough (and able to be vacuumed) to withstand the construction of the upper deck.

Finished base scenery in St Charles
Another view of the base scenery in St Charles looking toward the gap where the tracks descend to Appalachia staging

 

Simple Paintbrush Handbrakes for Spotting Cars

Paint brush handbrake holding empties above the tipple
Handbrakes in action holding empties securely above the Mayflower tipple

The ability to set handbrakes to keep cuts of cars in place on a grade is a crucial part of railroading, and a model railroad is no different, especially one set in the Appalachians. I’ve covered my technique for building manually deployable handbrakes via a retractable wire between the rails (article here), but the controllable brakes are complicated to make and install, so I reserve them for areas where I’ll be holding long cuts of cars on a steep grade or for where I need to hold a car for a while and then let it loose for some “gravity assisted switching.” But there are several dozen spots on the layout where I’ll need to spot small cuts of cars on slight grades, so for these areas, I wanted something simpler. I also like free-rolling cars, so tricks like putting a tiny spring on the end of one of the axles was also off the table–it needed to be something in the track. Enter the cheap plastic paintbrush! Each paintbrush handbrake costs just cents to make, and I can easily make and install a dozen in under an hour.

I picked up a box of 100 inexpensive plastic paintbrushes a couple years ago when the local Christian bookstore was having a big sale. I didn’t know how I would use them, so I put them away for a rainy day. That day came when I was playing around with different ideas for holding cars in place. It needed to be something I could roll cars and locomotives across easily without derailing or causing too much friction that would also be sturdy enough to hold a car when spotted over the brake. I first tried two methods that I’ve seen work for others. The first is a little dot of CA on top of the rail, but many of my spotting points were just too steep for this. Next I tried little lengths of fishing line mounted between the rails–these are good because they’re tough to see and work pretty well, but they make a noticeable “plink” every time they clear an axle or a hopper bay… in sections of the yard where I had several in a row, it sounded like a tiny music box playing a discordant tune!

Paint brush handbrake cheap brushes
The starting point for handbrakes are inexpensive plastic paintbrushes from an art or hobby store

Then I remembered the brushes. The plastic bristles are pliable enough to give when trains are moved across them but stiff enough to hold a car when no other force is exerted. They could also be trimmed both in height and in density using a pair of scissors. They are certainly more noticeable than the fishing line or CA dots, but my hope is they’ll blend right into dirty coal-covered tracks, and those that don’t blend in can be painted to look like weeds. Even with nothing to disguise them, I find they don’t draw the eye much anyway.

Paint brush handbrake holes
Step 1 is to locate where you need the brakes and drill a hole–the hole is offset to avoid wear-and-tear on air hoses

The first step is to locate where you want to install the “brake.” Figure out where you want the car or cut of cars to sit, then mark the spot where the most downgrade axle will sit–this is where you want the brake. In some cases, like the end of a track, you can mark the spot of the downgrade axle of the upper truck–I use this at the end of stub tracks where I need all the room I can get. For tipple tracks, I find it useful to have up to four handbrakes per track. One at the uphill end of the empty track to hold a full cut of empties, one just above the tipple to hold a shorter string of empties, one just below the tipple to hold a shorter string of loads, and one just before the fouling point of the downhill switch to hold a longer string of loads (or any “gotaways”).

PPaint brush handbrake trimmed down
Starting and ending points with the brushes, just a little off the top and thinned down with scissors
Paint brush handbrake ready to install
The finished “brake” ready to install between the rails

 

The second step is to drill a hole between the ties for each hand brake location. I found a 5/32″ bit drilled about 1/4″ deep worked for my paintbrushes, and I offset my holes closer to one rail to avoid constantly hitting delicate air hoses on cars. To prep the paintbrush, I first cut off about 3/16″ of the bristles with scissors–the idea is to have them tall enough to catch axles but not the sills of the cars or cut levers. Then I thin out the bristles by repeatedly cutting into the brush with just the tip of the scissors while rotating the brush around. How much you thin it out depends on the grade and how many cars you want to hold, but for my light grades, I trim down to about the last 20 or so bristles. It’s easy enough to thin them a bit more once they’re installed, and if you get it too thin, it’s easy to just make another. Then I use scissors and cut off the brush end of the paintbrush leaving about 3/16″ of the plastic handle to keep the bristles secure. Installing them is usually a press fit, but if they’re loose, a little carpenter’s glue will help hold them in place. I press them down until the handle is below the ties where its bright color will be covered up by ballast.

Paint brush handbrake installed
Paint brush handbrakes installed between the rails

The final step is to test the brake by running strings of cars across them to make sure they don’t derail and don’t cause any noticeable jerking movements in the cars (if you look closely, you’ll see some movement, you just want to avoid it being distracting). When you let go, the cars should roll and then come to a gentle stop once they hit the brake. Also test a locomotive across each brake to make sure it doesn’t interfere with the trucks (this is the most stressing pressure on the brake). On steeper grades, you may find having a few brakes in series is needed to stop a string of rolling cars, or you may have to spot the cars exactly on the brake to prevent them from rolling in the first place. It’s easy enough to add and remove these brakes while you’re trying to figure things out. In the end, I’ve found this is a great way to hold cars in place without the worry of damaging cars or scenery, and it’s tough to beat the price and ease of installation!

Paint brush handbrake in front of tipple
Finished “handbrakes” to hold the loaded cars in front of the Mayflower tipple mock-up

Installing Automatic Grade Crossing Signals

CV Local and grade crossing signals
The CV Local led by L&N RS3 100 crosses Bonny Blue Road with its newly installed crossing flashers

Many of the grade crossings on the St Charles Branch didn’t have flashing signals and were protected by flagmen or fusees (see how I simulate fusees here), but a few of the more prominent crossings were protected by automatic flashing signals and bells. One of those crossings is Bonny Blue Road which crossed two legs of the wye in St Charles. I was looking for a way to make these signals work automatically with nothing required of the crews (beyond sounding the horn for the crossing) and no hardware needed on any rolling stock. I quickly settled on using IR sensors mounted near the tracks to trigger the circuits required for the crossing. While many of the major manufacturers of railroad electronics offer circuits for flashers and for triggering based on sensors, there seemed to be a lack of good, simple options for the sensors. So I did what many of us do when we’re looking for something–I turned to eBay.

I found a lot of products for flashing crossing signals, but one it particular caught my eye. A company called “WeHonest” was offering what looked to be decent looking LED signals that came with a flashing circuit for a very reasonable price. Being a little suspect of a foreign company calling itself “WeHonest,” I needed four signals, so I ordered a couple sets and hoped for the best. I ordered the signals with two heads instead of four (front and back) because my signals would only been seen from one direction, and the ones with four heads looked too thick front-to-back (I plan to add dummy heads on the back later). When they arrived a couple weeks later, I was impressed with the quality for the price. The lettering is easily readable, the construction is mostly metal, and the size and shape are good for HO scale. I had to clean up some areas of the metal crossbucks, and some of the silver paint flaked off, but these were easy fixes. I initially hooked up the flashing circuit to a pushbutton on the fascia, and the flashing circuit worked flawlessly and controlled all four signals in a synchronized manner.

The signal piece was solved, so now I needed a way to automatically control them. My confidence in “WeHonest” was bolstered, so I explored their options. They offer a “model train detector automatic signal controller crossing system trigger etc” (also called a “master board”) which shows a diagram of how it can be configured to trigger a grade crossing flashing circuit using simple, single-unit IR sensors that don’t require a broken path. I also needed a circuit that could support four sensors due to the tracks that would trigger this grade crossing, and while the board only supports two sensors, their diagrams show that you can connect more sensors via separately available splitter cables. They also offer a sound effect circuit with multiple grade crossing signal bells (and a rooster). I ordered a master board, sound effect board, two splitters, and some additional IR sensors.

Wiring Diagram for Grade Crossing Signal Circuits
Wiring diagram showing the connections needed between the three circuit boards, signals, and sensors

The documentation you see on eBay is all you get, so it took some studying and tinkering to set things up, but it wasn’t difficult. The basic idea is the master board is connected to 12V DC and the IR sensors. The sound effect board and flasher circuit are daisy chained off the 12V DC “output” side of the master board which is only live when the IR sensors are triggered. The only surprise on wiring was there are no normal contact screws for the 12V DC input, only a plug for an adapter and a specific connector type (both of which are sold separately). I found a plug off an old RC helicopter I disassembled years ago that did the trick. I mounted all three circuits and the speaker on a piece of masonite to keep the wiring tight and organized. Rather than use the supplied speaker, I attached a pair of baffled cube speakers I had pulled out of a locomotive when I replaced it with a Scale Sound System speaker.

Grade crossing circuit boards
I mounted all three circuits and the speaker on a single piece of masonite to declutter and protect the wires

I installed the IR sensors between the rails and ties as the company indicates in the pictures. When anything passes over it within a couple inches, the IR sensor is triggered. There is no documentation on how the sensor works, but it has two elements, a blue dome and a black dome. I can only speculate that it transmits IR from one dome and receives reflected IR in the other dome. When I hooked everything up, it worked great… with two IR sensors plugged into the two separate sensor inputs on the master board. When I tried to use all four IR sensors, it would trigger the circuit no matter what I did even if nothing was present. I noticed some sensors were more sensitive than others, so I experimented with different placements and combos and even the positioning of the elements within the sensor. Unfortunately, I destroyed one of my sensors in the process, but thankfully they’re inexpensive, and I found the WeHonest customer service to be very responsive and helpful!

Grade crossing IR sensor
Here’s an IR sensor with a portion of the black dome covered in electrical tape to decrease its sensitivity

When my replacement sensors arrived, they did the exact same thing as before. Two sensors worked fine, four sensors triggered the circuit even with nothing present. I really liked the overall operation of these circuits, so I kept experimenting to see what might work. I speculated that the circuit detects based on a threshold of received IR energy–with one sensor, the ambient IR was low enough to stay below the threshold, but with two sensors, the ambient IR increased above the threshold to make it appear a train was present. I found that if I covered a portion of the black domed element on some of the IR sensors, it would keep the circuit from triggering but would still trigger if a train passed. After playing around, I found covering about 60% of the black element of all IR sensors with a small piece of electrical tape made everything work as intended.

Now that I’ve worked out the kinks, I’m very happy with the crossing! I’m able to control the sensor sensitivity via the electrical tape, I can control the flash rate of the LEDs via a dial on the flasher circuit, I can select the bell sound from one of several good options on the sound effect circuit, and all of this works automatically with no actions needed from the crew. I have two more flashing grade crossings to go on the upper level, and I’m satisfied enough that I’ve already ordered the parts to replicate this installation on those crossings.

Modeling an ex-CofGa 70T Hopper

SOU 70T ex CofGa 1
Side-by-side of an MDC car (left) and Atlas car (right) showing the slight length difference

In the last post, I mentioned some of the work that went into creating an ex-Central of Georgia 70T rib-side hopper from an old MDC Roundhouse kit. Atlas makes a much more crisp and better operating out-of-the-box car in its Trainman 9-panel, 70T hopper that is a good stand-in for this car, but it’s about 2 scale feet too long. The Atlas kit, however, is a great model for the Southern’s mainstay fleet of 70T hoppers in the 70300-73749 and 281000-281299 series which far outnumbered the ex-CofGa cars in the 74100-74584 series–all you have to do is remove the heap shields and renumber them. The MDC Roundhouse kit can be picked up in Southern paint pretty cheaply. It’s a far WORSE model both dimensionally and detail-wise to match the Southern’s main fleet of 70T cars, but its overall dimensions are closer to the ex-CofGa cars. However, it requires a ton of work to make the car presentable in a string of more recently produced and more detailed cars. So, is it worth the work? Spoiler alert: it’s not worth it unless you’re just a crazy hopper person like me who notices the subtle length difference between these different series of cars in a long string of hoppers.

Ok, if you’re still reading, here’s a little more on what it takes to model one of the ex-CofGa cars using an MDC Roundhouse kit or one of the slightly improved Athearn versions. First, what’s wrong with the model out of the box? These molds are at least 40 years old, so the detail is sub-par–the rivets are clunky, the grabs are thickly molded, the brake platform and brake wheel housing is grossly under-modeled, the brake wheel is horrendous, and it’s just missing some details like the long grabs on the left ends of the car and bracing inside the car. Also, the bottom sills and corner posts are super thick at the ends. The interiors have an ugly scar right in the middle where the injection molding was done. The most egregious issue is also the most likely to escape notice (so I didn’t bother fixing it): the middle hopper bay is reversed with respect to the brake end. The lettering is not up to today’s standards but acceptable for a car that will be weathered, but there is no lettering on the ends of the MDC cars. The car also comes with arched heap shields that can be added, but they’re a little too short to look right, something that I initially ignored but eventually remedied by replacing them with parts off an Atlas car. It’s also missing details that were on the CofGa cars like slope sheet bracing on the ends.

SOU 70T ex CofGa 4
Detail differences between the original model (right) and the modified model–note the difference in the side sill width

I remedied most of these issues with an X-Acto blade. I started by removing the angles between the bottom sills and the side panels. Next I worked on the side/bottom sills and carved away excess material from the top and bottom with a No 11 X-Acto blade (leaving essentially just enough for the “PULL HERE” lettering). This was done to both the ends of the sides and the ends. I also removed the excess material from the left-side corner posts with a blade (I left the ladder side alone) and cleaned up the excess plastic in the steps. I narrowed down the ladder grabs with the X-Acto blade using repeated small cuts on the back side and alternating between top and bottom until the grabs were essentially round-ish instead of rectangular. I also used a chisel blade to remove the awkward rib down the center of the underside of the slope sheets. Finally, I removed the molded-on grabs from the lower ends adjacent to the couplers.

SOU 70T ex CofGa 6
Details added include tack boards, grab wires, tow rings, cut bars, and train line

Next came the added styrene bits. I added some flat bits for the tack boards and the panels where the coupler cut bar would attach. Some large triangles (using the Atlas cars as a model) became the interior bracing. The most complex part was the slope-sheet bracing under the ends. I made these from three pieces of L-girder styrene and just dimensioned and cut them to resemble photos. I also replaced the brake wheels with more detailed Miner wheels from the parts bin (one Kadee and another whose origin is lost). I added wire grabs adjacent to the couplers, and added custom-bent long grabs on the left ends made from .012″ brass wire and tow loops made by bending .012″ brass wire around a thumbtack (I bend them into a “J” shape and just drill one hole). I bent coupler cut bars and eye bolts from .012″ brass wire using a little jig I made. I also added a couple pieces of brake-gear piping between the reservoir and triple valve bent from .020″ brass wire. The train line is a piece of copper wire from an old ethernet cable sandwiched between two pieces of L-shaped styrene. The final details included Kadee No 5 couplers, Intermountain metal 33″ semi-scale wheels (faces, backs and axles painted black), and arched heap shields salvaged from Atlas models (the in-progress photos here show the MDC arches which I replaced before weathering). Some careful carving and putty fixed the ugly scar on the center sill inside the car.

SOU 70T ex CofGa 3
Detail differences on the ends

I wanted to renumber the cars and detail them for the early ’70s, so I removed a couple of the numbers and the black-and-white lube stencils the best I could by scraping them off with the back of an X-Acto chisel blade. I custom-mixed some paint to match the body and covered all the new details and scraped sides. I added the new numbers, ACI labels, and end reporting marks using a combination of Microscale, Herald King, and K4 decals. Now they were ready for weathering!

SOU 70T ex CofGa 5
Interior detail including braces and covering up the injection mold scar

For weathering, I started with some drybrushing of dark rust spots in a few places on the sides. Next I airbrushed them moderately using a combination of flat black and dark tan airbrushing and washes. Since these are old cars that have been repainted, I went a little heavier than usual with the black on the interiors. I hit them with a wash of flat black paint and water, letting it sit for a minute and then wiping it off vertically to produce some rain streaking and shadows on the details. I used a wash of light orange rust and water on the interior and then added some drybrushed rust spots inside.

SOU 70T ex CofGa 2
String of Atlas and MDC cars mixed in–the differences are subtle but noticeable

In all, these cars took probably 4x as long to detail and make layout-worthy as the Atlas Trainman cars. Now that they’re complete, I do like seeing the more stocky look of these CofGa cars mixed into a long string of Southern-heritage 70T cars. So much so that I’ll probably eventually go back and take all the heap shields off my Atlas cars and renumber them into non-CofGa series. Thankfully I’ve only completed 3 of these Atlas models, so it’s not a huge sacrifice. So, if you’re a hopper nut like me and nerd out on seeing the subtle differences between car series, then knock yourself out on a project like this! If you’re not a hopper nut, I recommend sticking to the Atlas models and saving yourself a lot of trouble.

 

 

 

Hopper Class of April 23

Hopper Class of April 23
The hopper class of April 23 consists of 11 hoppers, mainly L&N and heritage cars

It’s time to introduce another “class” of hoppers graduating from the workbench to the layout. Looking back I see the last class of hoppers graduated in April of ’22, so I guess I’m averaging about a dozen hoppers a year… got a ways to go! This class was fun because most of the cars are for the L&N trains on the layout. Previous to this, most of my L&N cars were of mid-’70s paint and markings, so I focused on some cars to represent the mid-’60s to early ’70s including four PS3 70T cars, a PS3 50T car, and three ex-Monon two-bays (ok, I don’t need 3 Monon hoppers, but they came as a set, and I got them for cheap so…). The three remaining cars represent Southern prototypes including two ex-Central of Georgia 70T cars and an old 50T offset in red with Roman lettering.

L&N 70T PS3 Hopper Tangent
This Tangent PS3 2750 hopper received a new number, corner tow loops and roller bearing trucks to represent a later series of cars

The easiest cars of the bunch were the 70T PS3s which are all factory-painted Tangent cars with excellent detail. The four cars all came lettered in the 73000 series, and after looking through pictures, I decided they’d also be good to represent the 150000 and 153000 class cars that were also delivered in the “DIXIE LINE” paint scheme. For hopper 152067, it was as simple as changing the number and build dates. I scraped off the old lettering using an X-Acto chisel blade–it leaves a little shiny spot, but this is easy to disguise with weathering. Hopper 153708 was a little more involved because this class came with the later style tow loops at the lower corners of the car and roller bearing trucks. I snipped off the modeled loops, cut new corner tow loops from .015″ styrene, glued them on and painted them. A set of Bowser roller bearing trucks and metal wheels fit well and kept the car at the proper height.

L&N 50T PS3 Hopper Walthers
This L&N PS3 is a factory painted Walthers Trainline kit that’s received new ladders and other details

The 50T PS3 is a factory-painted Walthers Trainline kit which is an updated version of a VERY old model kit that’s been around since probably the 60s and has pretty clunky detail. I remedied the worst of the detail issues by cutting off the ladders and replacing them with DA ladders and added new scratchbuilt heap shields. A new Kadee brake wheel and some new wire details like brake gear piping, grabs, cut bars and train line hose finished the detailing.

Monon 50T Hoppers Atlas
These three hoppers came in a single box from Atlas–they’ve had their details enhanced and have been extensively weathered but are otherwise stock

The Monon 50T hoppers are pretty much stock, factory painted Atlas hoppers. I used my favorite “grab narrowing” trick where I carefully cut away the back of the ladder grab irons with a sharp No 11 X-Acto blade. This makes the detail look much finer from any distance and is easier and quicker, in my opinion, than completely replacing the grabs with wire. I did add some wire grabs on the lower ends along with some cut levers and train line hoses.

Southern 50T Hopper Athearn
Southern 50T hopper in Roman scheme weathered as if it’s seen a few miles

The Southern 50T offset hopper is a factory-painted Athearn model from a set of six (more of these to do). The roman lettering was common in the early ’60s and was almost entirely phased out by 1970. I wanted to model it in its last year or so of old paint. Detail-wise, it got the narrowed grab treatment, a new Kadee brake wheel, and a few wire details.

Southern ex-CofGa hoppers from Roundhouse kits
These two ex-Central of Georgia hoppers started as Roundhouse kits but are full of added and modified parts

The most work-intensive of the bunch were the two ex-CofGa 70T hoppers. These began as factory-painted Roundhouse kits (one used, one “new” but very old stock). Up to this point, I’ve been content to use the Atlas Trainman version of this car which is a pretty good stand-in. I also use the Atlas cars for my “primary” Southern 70T hopper fleet, and in reality, the Central of Georgia cars are 14″ shorter in length (40’6″) than the Southern’s big 70300-73749 class of cars (41’8″)… crazy me, I thought “wouldn’t it be cool to have the ex-CofGa hopper be noticeably shorter in a lineup?” Let’s just say these cars need a LOT of work to bring them up to modern standards and to correct the most egregiously noticeable detail faults and missing details. Lots of styrene, cuts, and extra details later, these cars emerged. Perhaps I’ll do a whole write-up on them [see the full write-up here], but they do, indeed, look cool and distinct in a lineup of Southern 70T cars… was it worth it? Only to a hopper freak like me.

Hopper Interiors
I spent more time than normal weathering the interiors of these hoppers using a combination of airbrush, washes, and dry brushing

Most of these models represent cars that were already 10-25 years old when I’m modeling them, so they got some pretty heavy weathering. I did some dry brushing of rust spots on the exterior. The Monon cars got some car-colored dry brushing to fade portions of the big “MONON” using pictures as a guide. On several of the cars, I masked off portions of the data (LT WT and LD LMT) and shop markings with rectangles of tape–when peeled off after the airbrushing, it looks like re-stenciled data which is appropriate for cars this age. I airbrushed them all with a light spray of flat tan to fade them a little and add some dirt, especially around the trucks and bays. I also airbrushed some flat black into the interiors–the older the car being represented, the more black it got. Next I used a wash of black with a little tan on the outside to darken the seams and corners and dull things down. On the inside, I used a wash of Vallejo “orange rust” and water and dabbed it on heavily with a big brush, letting it dry in splotches and in the corners (some got a couple coats). For the oldest cars, I drybrushed the interior with orange rust, particularly along edges and panel lines. Finally, I put dabs of Vallejo “dark rust” into the centers of the orange spots to make it look like an old but growing rust spot with fresh orange rust along the outsides and dark rust in the middle.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with the additions, and it’s fun to have a few “rust buckets” running around in the trains. Can’t wait to load ’em at the next ops session!

Hopper Class of April 23
A different view of the Hopper Class of April 23

Operating Session – Feb 21, 2023

Ops Session 2-21-23 Rick at Mayflower
Rick directing the switching moves at Mayflower as conductor for the St Charles Switcher

Had a great small operating session with a new operator, Rick Trinkle. Rick is an O-scaler and serious BN modeler, so I tried to show him that the hills are greener in the HO scale Appalachians. We took our time and ran three trains over about 3 1/2 hours circa 1976. It was amazing how much more “in role” the layout seems with a few mountains painted on the backdrop and the basic hills down. The layout also cooperated more than usual with only a few slight hiccups… each time is an improvement.

Ops Session 2-21-23 Bridge View
Rick pointed out this cool view that is now possible with the backdrops complete… just a little foreground needed…

One new thing I added to operations was an “origin” column in the master switch list to go along with the “destination.” This allowed us to not only build a custom switch list with the cars in our outbound train, but it allowed us to search through the master switch list to identify the cars we should be picking up to make it a complete switch list. Going to stick with this!

There were some “firsts” in this session:

  • First operating session with any “green” on the layout
  • First use of an “origin” column in the master switch list
  • First use of a TCS Wow Sound decoder (a replacement for the burnt out LokSound in my L&N C420)–sounded amazing, especially shoving cuts of cars up the hill to Mayflower!

Learning points:

  • Gravity-assisted switching moves are useful and doable with the “handbrakes”–we used the brake above the yard twice to move the caboose from one track to another using gravity instead of a long run-around–saved a lot of time!
  • Still a couple derailments, both Tangent cars… very odd since these are the heaviest cars on my layout
  • Still need a couple more “handbrakes” in spots to keep cars from rolling when spotted–these can be the simpler static paint brush variety
Ops Session 2-21-23 Rick working the St Charles Local
Rick working the St Charles Local dropping empties at St Charles Yard
Ops Session 2-21-23 Long Reverse Move
The ever-dreaded back-up move shoving 25 empty cars into the yard at St Charles

A Very Productive Day

More Backdrops - Lower Level Overview
Here’s a look at last Saturday’s progress including finishing most of the lower level scenery base and painting the rest of the backdrop

I had a happy aligning of the stars on Saturday where my wife was gone for the day, I didn’t have any big “chores” to do, and I had just learned how to paint backdrops! All that combined into a day spent furiously trying to finish up the lower-level scenery forms so I could paint the rest of the lower-level backdrop. It was a good day, and I’m pretty happy with the results. I learned that the painting is my favorite part, roughing in the scenery with cardboard strips is my second favorite, and papering over the cardboard with section after section of red rosin paper is a distant third. Round 2 of backdrop painting went a little smoother than round 1 as I think I had a better grasp of the techniques, and the paint brushes seemed to work better on their second use. I liked the results of round 2 so much I went back and redid some sections of round 1.

More Backdrops - St Charles
The St Charles Local traverses the wye with the newly painted backdrop. It will soon descend through the backdrop in the corner, a hole much tougher to spot now

The scenery covers over the hidden track along the back wall that joins St Charles and the Mayflower section, so I decided to do a test run… I can now verify that I can indeed – by twisting at odd angles, reaching into small gaps, and fishing it out the last couple feet with a long string of hoppers – free a stuck train from the most remote part of my hidden track! Lesson learned–when you use hot glue for scenery, it tends to leave a lot of strings hanging down, and go figure, locomotives don’t pick up electricity so well when their wheels are covered in bits of glue string! A little wheel cleaning and some extra sweeps of the hand through the area (again at odd angles via small gaps), and trains now traverse this area nicely.

More Backdrops - back corner
Where the two lower-level scenes transition–the backdrop on the right is lower than the left, hence less blue sky

I’ve only got one section left that still needs a backdrop and scenery forms, over the helix from staging. Painting the backdrop in the corner was the big barrier to adding this, so that will likely be the next step, and the LAST step before building upper-level benchwork… it’s getting pretty real.

More Backdrops - Into the Helix
Here’s where trains will leave the lower level and enter the helix to the upper level–I think the backdrop painting along with a few trees will hide the transition well

Let There Be… Green!

Painting Backdrops 3
The finished scene showing the brighter foreground trees painted with yellow and mars black mix–what a difference the painted backdrop makes for the scene!

I collected art supplies to paint my backdrops many months ago, but like any project that intimidates me, they sat around in a drawer until I could get up the nerve to pull the trigger. I’ve done one painting my entire life about 30 years ago for an art class, so my experience level with this is just a hair above zero. I’d like to thank Jeff Kraker who sent me a link to a video series by Chris Lyon he followed on how to paint backdrops using a few basic acrylic colors and an impressionistic “blob” method. I learned a TON from this five-part series including the fact that you shouldn’t actually use green paint–how counter-intuitive is that? Having watched the series twice and armed with supplies, I finally jumped in! As you can see in the pictures, I’m no Michelangelo, but I’m happy with them for now, and I’m sure I’ll make some adjustments and touch-ups as I gain more experience.

Painting Backdrops 1
Step 1 is to outline the distant ridges in chalk, and step 2 is to paint the distant ridges a bluish gray

My first step is to outline the top of the distant ridges. I actually used a low angle view from Google Earth to do this, so the basic contours are actually what you’d see standing in the actual scene. Kid’s sidewalk chalk is a good medium for this as it can be easily erased with a wet wash cloth. Next I painted my distant ridges–this was something the series didn’t cover as all their scenery was closer. One thing I wanted to do was to nail the color of distant hills. I live in the mountains, so every day I get to see that distant hills covered in trees are not green at all–they’re a shade of gray-blue, almost purple. To get a color close to this, I mixed some of my sky blue backdrop color with a little mars black, and a little cerulean blue which looks about right to me, though if anything, they’re not purple enough. I applied the paint using the techniques in the videos, just wet the brush (A No 10 round in this case) and dab, dab, dab, blob, blob, blob. I didn’t want distinct trees in the distance, so I mixed the paint pretty good, leaving just a little variation and shading.

Painting Backdrops 2
Once the distant ridge is in, step 3 is to paint the next nearest ridge a little darker but still not bright green

Next, I added some primary yellow to the palette and started moving to the second ridgeline, still using a good bit of the sky blue but now adding more yellow which makes a nice Woodland Scenics-ish green when mixed with the mars black. Once the second ridge was in, I felt it didn’t have enough definition, so I dabbed the brush in some mars black and touched the base color without mixing it in and “blobbed” in some shadows. Finally I transitioned to the larger trees near the bottom. No sky blue, just a lot of yellow and a little mars black barely mixed and blob, blob, blob, again adding some areas of shadow with a little more black in the mix.

Painting Backdrops Corner
This is the one hard corner of backdrop on the layout–I think once I play with the lighting it will be a little less stark

The result is what you see here. It’s certainly no real art, and it doesn’t look nearly as nice as the backdrops in the video. Still, I think it gives a decent impression of a deciduous forest and Appalachian ridges that doesn’t distract from the foreground. I also think the color will blend pretty well with common light and medium green ground foam and foliage. I did about 15′ of linear backdrop in under 2 hours… not a bad return on time invested. I love what it does to the layout feel, as well. For the first time since I started building the layout, when you walk into the layout room it feels Appalachian. Looking forward to painting more and improving on my bare-bones techniques!

Layout Handbrakes for Model Railroads

Layout Handbrake in Action
The St Charles Switcher crew sets the handbrakes to leave a string of loaded hoppers on the grade while working the yard

Gravity is a major factor in prototype railroading, but it can be quite troublesome for a model railroad. Very little real track is actually completely flat, so train crews routinely use the handbrakes on individual cars to hold them in place in yards or sidings. Not only do handbrakes hold cars in place, but in the Appalachians where I model, gravity and handbrakes were often used to move cars from empty tracks to tipple loading points, to move loads into the right track below the tipple, or even to run-around a caboose at the end of the line. Modeling working handbrakes on individual cars isn’t very practical, so what is a model railroader to do? Some install springs on the ends of a car’s axles to use friction to hold the car, but this can’t be “turned off” to allow the car to roll freely. Others use little picks they stick into the ballast to hold cars in place, but this can be destructive to scenery, and it leaves an un-prototypical giant stick next to a cut of cars. I’ve adopted a method of fascia-controlled “handbrakes” on the tracks which works well for my needs.

Layout Handbrake step 1
The first step of the handbrake is to locate where you want the brake, drill a hole, and insert a brass rod sleeve for the brake wire

This method is overkill if you just want to hold cars in place on a siding. For this I recommend a drop of CA, a piece of monofilament line sticking up through the tracks, or the end of a soft brush if more strength is needed–I use all of the above for holding cars in place when set out. I use the method here where I need brakes sometimes and free rolling other times, so the first thing you need to do is figure out where you need brakes. I once heard a story about a design presented to a university for a new campus that didn’t show any sidewalks. When the dean of the university asked the designer why there were no sidewalks, the designer replied “wait a year after the campus is open, then you’ll know exactly where the sidewalks need to go based on the trails through the grass.” So, where do I install brakes? Wherever I find I need them when operating trains–a question I also pose to my operators after every session: “is there anywhere you wished you had handbrakes but didn’t.” Generally speaking, they’re needed anywhere a crew will need to leave cars on a grade for a period of time to conduct other work. Since I’ve got lots of grades on the layout, I’ve currently got five handbrakes installed on the lower level alone.

The concept of these fascia-controlled handbrakes is simple: install a movable piece of strong wire between the rails tall enough to hold an axle with a mechanism to retract it when not in use. Once you know about where you need brakes, mark that spot between the rails, and make sure the area underneath is clear enough to install a brake mechanism. Remember, the brake can really be anywhere along a string of cars, so if your ideal spot is not to ideal under the layout or on the fascia, just move it a few inches. I use 1/16″ brass tube as a protective sleeve for the .025″ steel music wire I use as the brake, so once I find a spot, I drill a vertical hole between the ties for the brass rod. I like to offset the rod about 1/4-1/3 between the rails to avoid interfering with truck bolsters (coupler trip pins will also be an issue for those who use them… in fact, a similar mechanism might work for uncoupling too, hmmm…).

Layout Handbrake Off Position
Here’s the finished control in the “off” position (in line with track)

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I’m a big fan of manual controls using slide switches–I use them for turnout controls, semaphore controls, and now handbrakes. You also know I’m a stickler for creating a fascia where the controls make sense and aid an operator instead of confusing them. In the case of the handbrake, I wanted it to be easy for operators to see when the brake is “set” and when it is retracted, so I settled on a control lever that lies in-line with the track when retracted and sits at a sharp angle when “set.” Just for good measure, I also use a bi-color LED to illuminate amber on the fascia representation of the affected track when the brake is set to help mitigate inadvertently running into a brake with the delicate footboards of a super-detailed locomotive (been there, done that).

Layout Handbrake Assembly
Here’s the completed brake assembly with three pieces of wood, DPDT slide switch, brake wire (vertical), and control rod (horizontal)

For the brake mechanism, I use a vertically mounted slide switch (DPDT in this case) with a 3/16″ throw–this is just enough to catch the axle of a 36″ wheel in HO scale when extended and still retract to almost rail height when recessed. The brake rod itself is a piece of .025″ music wire bent into a squared-off “J” shape running through a hole in the slide switch–initially, make this piece long enough that it will stick up about 1/2″ or more above the rails when in place. The control mechanism is a piece of thick steel rod (.062″ music wire) with a bell crank bent at one end. Th rod should be cut about 3″ longer than the distance between the brake’s track location and the location of the control on the fascia. The bell crank is offset about 1/4″ from the rod. As you can see in photos, I drill a hole in a piece of 1×3″ board centered on the slide switch and offset about 1/4″ laterally for the control rod to pass through (lined with 3/32″ brass tube for smooth operation). I also bend the bell crank at 45-degree angles instead of 90 as this allows me to make adjustments to the crank offset in either direction, shorter or longer. The structure for the mechanism is typically three boards: 1) the slide switch board with a large hole drilled out for the switch (mounted with screws), 2) the control rod board mounted 90 degrees to the switch where the bell crank is secured, and 3) the attachment board on top to make it easy to mount to the plywood sub-roadbed. I use 1×3″ pine for most of my pieces, but I may use different thicknesses of attachment plates to get the control rod at the right height for the fascia control–the brake wire can be really tall and still work, so better to have the mechanism hanging lower than to have to curve the control rod to the right height. Once I’ve got the three boards assembled with 1 1/4″ drywall screws, I disassemble it, insert the bell crank end of the control rod, insert the bell crank into a hole drilled in the slide switch, adjust the bell crank as needed for smooth operation of the switch, and reattach the boards with the screws.

Layout Handbrake Assembly
The left is the front side of the assembly that will face the fascia–note the brass rod sleeve in the wood where the rod goes through

For the fascia, I drill a hole for the 3/32″ brass rod sleeve as close to horizontal as I can get it and pointed directly at the brake location on the track. I pick the spot on the fascia that allows me to do this while keeping the control rod as perpendicular as possible to the fascia (you don’t want the control rod coming out of the fascia at a strange angle if you can help it). The LEDs are nice but not necessary, but this is the step where I drill the holes, about 1″ behind the brake control. I like to drill the hole through the fascia the exact size of the LED bulb and then use a second larger bit from the back side of the fascia to create a space for the rest of the LED–this keeps the LED from popping out the front of the fascia. I use bi-color red/green LEDs which glow a nice reddish amber when hooked up to AC (e.g., DCC track bus), and I attach one lead to one side of the track bus (with a 470K resistor), the other lead to the “up” position of the slide switch, and a third wire from the center position of the slide switch to the other side of the track bus. Super simple.

Layout Handbrake Under the Table
Here’s the handbrake mechanism installed under the layout–the control assembly should orient to the fascia and not the track

Mounting the switch mechanism is a bit of a pain and requires some planning and patience. From under the layout, I run the control rod through the fascia. Then I find the brass rod going up through the tracks and insert the brake rod (it helps if the brass rod is long enough to protrude beyond the plywood of the sub-roadbed). With the mounting screws on the attachment plate ready to go (screwed in so they’re almost through the board), I gently move the mechanism around until the brake wire is more-or-less vertical, the switch operates freely, and the control rod is as straight as possible between the fascia and mechanism. The mechanism is oriented to put the rod and switch perpendicular to the FASCIA rather than the track (angle relative to track doesn’t matter here). Once I’m happy with the placement, I run the mounting screws into the sub-roadbed.

Layout Handbrake Fascia Control
With the brake in the RECESSED position, bend the control rod parallel to the ground

On the fascia side, I now have about 2″ of control rod sticking out. With the slide switch in the DOWN position, I then grasp the control rod with a pair of needle nose pliers flush with the fascia so the bend will be about 3/16″ from the fascia and use my hand to bend the control rod to align with my track diagram (horizontal) in the direction of the bell crank so that “up” on the control = “up” on the brake. My convention is to face the controls and bell cranks to the left, but either works. At this point, I have the leverage to test the mechanism and fix any issues. If all is good, I use a Dremel cut-off wheel to cut the end of the control rod so about 3/4″ beyond the bend. For the control lever, I use a wooden 1 3/8″ “axle peg” which can be found at any large craft store–it’s admittedly an odd shape, but it’s distinct, easy to find, and easy to use. I insert the pegs into a vice and drill a hole the exact size of the control rod about 1″ deep into the center of the peg, then drill another hole in the side about 1/8″ from the flat end into the first hole and use an X-Acto blade to create a notch between the two for the 90-degree bend in the control rod. The peg is usually a press fit onto the control rod.

Layout Handbrake Wire Height
The brake wire should initially be longer than required in the recessed position

The final step is to trim the brake wire. I’ve found if I use a pair of wire cutters at rail-top level when the brake is in the DOWN (recessed) position, it is low enough for all my locomotives to clear and extends high enough to catch all my axles when needed. Because the wire’s location can be tough to see (especially when cars are over it), I use a little dab of yellow paint on the outside of the rail to indicate where the brake wire lives for easy spotting by crews.

Layout Handbrake Rail Paint
The brake wire can be tough to see with cars on top of it, so I use a little dab of yellow paint on the rail to help operators know the brake location

I’ll also share some “lessons learned” for using this type of handbrake:

  • The brake will find your lowest-clearance locomotive and keep it from moving until you trim the brake wire–remember this locomotive and use it to test all brake installs
  • If you try to pull a string of cars when the brake is engaged, you WILL bowstring every car between the locomotive and the brake off the rails (sometimes violently)
  • If you leave the brake “up” and roll cars into it, they will bounce back quite jarringly upon hitting the brake
  • If you don’t pay attention and activate the brake under a truck bolster or low-hanging part of the car, you WILL raise the car off the rails and derail it (or topple it)

Other than these “gotchas,” I’m very happy with the operational possibilities these handbrakes add to the model railroad!

 

Configuring DCC Consists for Directional Horns

As I’ve stated in previous posts, sound decoders have drastically changed my approach to DCC consisting. In an ideal world, I want all movement controls (forward, reverse, braking, dynamics) within a consist to be controlled by a single throttle, and I want only the lights, horns and bell of the lead unit to respond when an operator selects these functions. Digitrax’s “universal consisting,” unfortunately, doesn’t allow function-controlled movements like braking to go to the entire consist. Also, if you reverse the direction of the consist, you have to rebuild the consist to control both movement, lights and sound with the new lead unit. This is not a big deal for trains that only run in one direction, but every single one of my trains is an “out and back” where the lead unit of a consist switches, sometimes several times in a session. Asking operators to rebuild the consist every time they switch the train’s direction is not ideal.

Moving to “advanced consisting” (decoder-aided consisting) solved many of these problems but not all. Using the “consist” tab in JMRI, I was able to use the directional lighting features built into my Soundtraxx Tsunami 2 decoders to set the lights on the end units in a consist to “respond to consist address” but only in forward or reverse, thus solving the challenge of only getting the end lights in a consist to illuminate. The horns and bell, however, cannot be set to only operate directionally using the consist controls, so I was stuck with picking one loco in the consist to respond to all the horn and bell commands… this works, especially if all units use the same horn type, but it bothered me a bit to hear a Nathan M5 from the trailing GP35 instead of the Nathan P3 from the leading GP38. When I posed this question to a group of Digitrax experts, one of them pointed me to this video from Soundtraxx where someone had figured out how to use “alternate sound levels” function in the Tsunami 2 decoders to get directional horns, so I had to give it a try. The video left a few steps out, perhaps because they were using “simple consisting” (same address), so I had to experiment a bit to figure out how to make it work with advanced consisting, but in the end, I was able to get the consist to perform [almost] exactly as I had hoped using the following method.

The Gist

Soundtraxx Tsunami 2 decoders have an “alternate sound mixer” designed to make it easy to select a new set of alternate sound levels with the press of a function button. Additionally, the “function mapping” in Tsunami 2 decoders allows you to set any function to operate automatically when the command station commands the decoder in “forward driving,” “reverse driving,” “forward driving,” or “forward standing” conditions. The trick is to set all the alternate sound levels to match the primary sound levels EXCEPT the horn and bell which are set to volume “0,” then use the function map to configure the alternate mixer to operate any time the decoder is moving in the trailing direction (forward or reverse based on how it’s sitting in the consist), and finally to set up the decoder to “respond to consist address” for horn and bell functions. When you set up the locomotives on the ends of the consist in this manner, it has the effect of silencing the horns and bell when the locomotive is trailing and not leading. Here are the steps in JMRI.

Consisting for horns and bells 1
Step 1. Set the sound levels in the primary sound mixer

 

Consisting for horns and bells 2
Step 2. Set the horn and bell to “0” in the alternate sound mixer

 

Consisting for horns and bells 3
Step 3. Copy all other sound volume values from the primary to the alternate sound mixer

 

Consisting for horns and bells 4
Step 4. Set up the “alternate mixer” to operate with forward or reverse direction (the direction in which it’s trailing in the consist)

 

Consisting for horns and bells 5
Steps 5-8. Set up the advanced consisting so directional lights and functions for horn and bells “respond to consist address” and enable the automatic functions

 

Some of the settings will depend on where the locomotive is in the consist and whether or not its on the end. For a locomotive in the middle of the consist, you can either set the decoder’s light, horn and bell functions to “locomotive address only” in the consist tab, or you could place check marks in all four columns in the function map (forward driving, reverse driving, forward standing, reverse standing) so only the alternate mixer with zero volume for bells and horn are used. If you change the orientation of the locomotive, you may need to change the FL settings in the “consist” tab and swap from “forward” to “reverse” check marks in the function map. Also, if you’re using a locomotive on the end that doesn’t support an alternate mixer (like the Soundtraxx Econamis I have in some locomotives), then you’ll need to pick just one of the locomotives to “respond to consist address” to provide the horn and bell for the whole consist and disable the directional checks in the function map.

That’s it! Now when you run a throttle using the advanced consisting address, the lights on the ends will be directional, AND only the horn and bell of the leading unit will respond to the throttle’s horn and bell functions no matter which direction you’re running. Click on the video at the top of the page to see this in action, and if you’ve got some even better tips and tricks for this, please leave them in a comment below!

Protecting Model Train Grade Crossings with Simulated Fusees

Fusees protecting a grade crossing
The St Charles Switcher crew throws down a couple fusees to protect the Pot Branch Road grade crossing near Mayflower

I enjoy trying to copy every element of prototype railroading I can… as long as there’s at least an element of fun in it. When I saw this short video showing a Western Maryland crew dropping fusees (pronounced “fyoozees”) to protect a grade crossing, I started thinking about how I might model this. Fusees are used by railroads for many purposes including dropping them on tracks to warning following trains of their presence–because of this purpose, fusees are designed to burn for a set time, commonly 10 minutes. Fusees can also used to protect grade crossings that don’t have flashing lights like the one in the WM video, especially when it’s dark or posting a flagman wouldn’t be practical or safe. Since I want to model nighttime ops, and I haven’t made any HO scale flagmen to post yet, I decided I wanted some simulated fusees to protect the handful of crossings I have on the layout.

My first attempt was pretty simple and economical, just two fiber optic cables embedded into the “road” (it’s just paper and cardboard at this point) on either side of the grade crossing routed to a bi-color LED that I connected to the DCC track bus (creates a reddish orange glow) and a simple SPST push-button switch. To keep the fiber optic cable from falling through the road, I melted the end into a mushroom shape by holding it near a hot soldering iron. The other ends were taped together and inserted into a piece of shrink tubing around the LED. It was functional enough to protect the crossing, but I really wanted a way to 1) put the fusees on a timer, and 2) make them look a little more realistic.

Parts to make a simulated fusee
The basic parts to make a simulated fusee including fiber optics, the Bakatronics flares / fusee circuit, and the timer circuit

The timer issue was solved by searching Amazon and looking at a lot of different timing circuits. I finally settled on this one, though it’s probably overkill. I like it because you can choose one of several timing modes (fun to play with for other projects), you can set the timer for however long you want to keep the relay “on,” and you can easily see the timing settings on the display. To make them more realistic, I started with an internet search for “model railroad fusee,” and after chasing through some links in model railroad boards, I discover the Bakatronics BK-111 “Simulated Flares / Fusees Kit.” It looked promising, especially since it’s designed to power two fusees that “light” and extinguish several seconds apart (like one person is walking a short distance between lighting them, just like a grade crossing). I ordered two just to make sure it would work, and I was not disappointed! When activated, they “light” at different times, flicker independently for a while, then the first one goes out, then the second with a nice slowly diminishing burn out… really cool looking!

Fusee control
The fusees are controlled with a simple momentary SPST switch on the fascia

The Bakatronics fusee circuit is designed to work with either a momentary switch (stays on for about 30 seconds) or an on/off switch (stays on as long as the switch is closed). Instead, I wired the fusee circuit to the timer circuit so I could set the time the fusees stay lit exactly, and all the operator has to do is push a button once. I use a 4:1 fast clock, so a 10-minute burn should last about 2.5 minutes / 150 sec. The Bakatronics circuit add some time on its own, so I found a setting of 135 sec on the timer keeps the fusees lite for about 10 scale minutes, and like the prototype, the crew only needs to worry about whether or not to put down another set of fusees (push the button again) if the first set “burn out.” Both the timer circuit and fusee circuit run off a ~12V DC bus I have running around the fascia, previously to power semaphore lights. Here’s a video of the fusee in action…

We used these on my last operating session, and I thought they added a neat bit of prototype thinking for the crews–we had to think about protecting the crossings while moving the trains, and the flickering fusees gave a visual representation of the action taken. I can’t wait to try them at night when I’ve got the final lighting installed!

Wiring Diagram for Grade Crossing Fusee Circuits

Operating Session – Dec 29, 2022

Ops Session 12-29-22 St Charles Switcher
Patrick and Stuart work Mayflower with the St Charles Switcher
Ops Session 12-29-22 St Charles Local
Patrick runs the St Charles Local figuring out how to get 10 pounds of cars to fit in a 5 pound sack

Or is it “operating session Aug 2, 1976?”… Regardless of the date, it was a lot of fun hosting two great friends, Stuart Thayer and Patrick Tillery. This was the first-ever 3-operator session on the layout, and despite only having one of the two decks complete, it still took the three of us the better part of three hours to run four trains. Part of that is because I know Stuart and Patrick are both experienced operators and prototype buffs, so we put some “veteran mode” rules into effect. In addition to the normal rules of “get the cars where they need to go,” “follow signals,” and “follow the timetable and orders,” we had to protect crossings (more on that in a later post), unlock/set/lock semaphores to protect the branches we were operating, cut cars to avoid blocking a new road across two yard tracks, and follow all blocking instructions including placing all loads ahead of empties.

 

Trains included a “Black Mountain Local” that simulated bringing in the previous night’s haul from the non-existent upper-deck tipples, an L&N “CV Local” to handle the L&N’s trackage-rights agreements at two tipples, Train 61/60 the “St Charles Local” bringing empty hoppers out of Andover (staging) and returning with loads, and the “St Charles Switcher” working St Charles area tipples and the Baileys Trace Branch to Mayflower. With the “veteran mode” rules in effect, even the simplest of trains still took a while to operate. Just the movement of the Black Mountain Local out of the helix (including a stop to reset the semaphore) and blocking in the three-track yard took a full scale hour (15 minutes real-time). Despite the simplicity of the St Charles Local’s job (bring empties, pick up loads), the yard’s prototypically small size creates the need to use the tracks and wye creatively to swap out cuts, and the instruction that all empties (in this case empty covered hoppers) have to go behind the loads, drives the sequence of picking up cuts.

Ops Session 12-29-22 St Charles Switcher
Having completed work at Baker, Patrick slows the mine run to a crawl on the way back to Mayflower as Stuart protects the crossing with fusees

Growling L&N C420 1317 plied the Southern’s rails without incident with Stuart at the throttle, but his luck was not to hold when he took the throttle for the St Charles Switcher with GP38AC 2877 and GP35 2649 at his control. Let’s just say that there is a certain switch at Mayflower that 2649 decided it needed to jump every time, and it only needed to cross that switch 18 times to work the tipple. Despite several breaks to ensure proper gauge and freedom of motion in 2649’s trucks and tweaking some spots in the switch with a gauge and pair of pliers, 2649 was determined to stay on the ground. Of course, now that the session is over, 2649 navigates that switch just fine… sigh. I still have a long way to go until things are bulletproof.

There were several “firsts” in this session:

  • First 3-operator session
  • First use of the new semaphore in St Charles
  • First use of the new “fusees” I’m installing at all the grade crossings
  • First use of the new-and-improved crew assignment board
  • First time a “tipple” has been in place at Baker (a new mock-up)
  • First use of a new “speed-retarding system” on the steep portions of the St Charles Yard (spaced-out monofilament line)
  • First use of the new “safety slogans”… and no one was seriously hurt 😉

And of course some areas for improvement and “lessons learned”:

  • Too many derailments–I still need to improve my trackwork to make it bulletproof
  • I need to make blocking instructions more prominent if I want them to be followed
  • I don’t think the use of the train-order semaphore in St Charles is as understandable as it needs to be
  • I still need to work on the crew assignments to better balance how much each operator works
Ops Session 12-29-22 St Charles Switcher
The St Charles Switcher arrives back in St Charles completing the ops session
Ops Session 12-29-22 Crew Assignment Board
Crew assignment board for the session–I modified it halfway through to give “operator 1” more jobs… still working on balancing things

More Scenery and Road Crossings

Scenery forms in St Charles
The basic scenery form is now almost done in St Charles–just some cardboard strips and red rosin paper… and lots of glue
RR Crossing 3
The almost finished crossing after whittling, sanding, and scribing lines and bolts with an X-Acto blade and thumbtack

Just a quick progress update. After procrastinating and working on a semaphore, a station mock-up, and even safety signs, I’ve finally started work on the scenery again. Using the same “paper shell” method of cardboard strips, red rosin paper, and lots of hot glue, I’ve been able to get the wye in St Charles filled in with the basic land form. Of course, putting in the cardboard underlayment for the roads got me thinking about grade crossings, so I had to pause again and put in 6 grade crossings using rails and wood. Pretty simple and nothing profound, but I’m happy with the way they’re turning out. I didn’t worry about vertical height of the wood initially, only horizontal placement. I used a razor blade to whittle the wood down to rail-height level (a little tricky and scary, but effective), then used a little sandpaper and a “bright boy” track cleaner to ensure the wood doesn’t stick up and cause electrical contact issues.

That’s all for now.