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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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!
Part of the backdrop under the stairs involves a piece of the “sky” that sticks out
This is the first section I did. It’s amazing how much less noticeable the steps are with the mountains painted
Step 1 is to outline the distant ridges in chalk, and step 2 is to paint the distant ridges a bluish gray
Once the distant ridge is in, step 3 is to paint the next nearest ridge a little darker but still not bright green
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!
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 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.
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…).
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
The St Charles Switcher crew sets the handbrakes to leave a string of loaded hoppers on the grade while working the yard
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
Here’s the completed brake assembly with three pieces of wood, DPDT slide switch, brake wire (vertical), and control rod (horizontal)
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
Top view of the handbrake assembly–the top board helps to mount the assembly securely under the subroadbed
Here’s the handbrake mechanism installed under the layout–the control assembly should orient to the fascia and not the track
The control rod should protrude through the fascia at least 2″
With the brake in the RECESSED position, bend the control rod parallel to the ground
I use a wooden axle for the control rod and drill out a hole the size of the control rod along with a notch on one side
Here’s the finished control in the “off” position (in line with track)
Here’s the handbrake control in the “on” position–the LED helps alert operators that the track is not clear
The brake wire should initially be longer than required in the recessed position
With the brake wire in the recessed position, trim it to just above rail height with wire cutters
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
Here’s another handbrake on the main at a location where crews have to leave their train to work cuts of cars through a short run-around just ahead
Here’s another handbrake on a 3 percent grade above St Charles Yard–I use this one to set cars above the yard and use gravity to route them down the right track, just like the prototype would often do
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.
Step 1. Set the sound levels in the primary sound mixer
Step 2. Set the horn and bell to “0” in the alternate sound mixer
Step 3. Copy all other sound volume values from the primary to the alternate sound mixer
Step 4. Set up the “alternate mixer” to operate with forward or reverse direction (the direction in which it’s trailing in the consist)
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!
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.
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!
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!
The basic parts to make a simulated fusee including fiber optics, the Bakatronics flares / fusee circuit, and the timer circuit
Here’s the end of the fusee pulled out of the “road” for better viewing… just the end of a fiber optic cable melted into a mushroom shape
Here’s the powered timing circuit showing mode “P2” (reset time if pushed again) and “135” second of “on” time once activated
The fusees are controlled with a simple momentary SPST switch on the fascia
A look at the glowing fiber optic cable under the layout that lights the fusee
The St Charles Switcher crew throws down a couple fusees to protect the Pot Branch Road grade crossing near Mayflower
The layout’s not set up for night operations yet, but once it is the fusees will look spectacular!
Patrick and Stuart work Mayflower with the St Charles SwitcherPatrick 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.
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.
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
The St Charles Switcher arrives back in St Charles completing the ops sessionCrew assignment board for the session–I modified it halfway through to give “operator 1” more jobs… still working on balancing things
The basic scenery form is now almost done in St Charles–just some cardboard strips and red rosin paper… and lots of glueThe 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.
The basic scenery form is now almost done in St Charles–just some cardboard strips and red rosin paper… and lots of glue
Step 1 of a complex grade crossing–adding the guard rails (extending the existing guard rails in this case)
I used full size ties and wood glue to fill in between the guard rails, then used a razor to whittle everything down to rail-height
The almost finished crossing after whittling, sanding, and scribing lines and bolts with an X-Acto blade and thumbtack
“Protect Your Back Watch for Slack” safety slogan in the yard at St. Charles
Real railroaders are inundated every day by safety slogans. This focus on safety appears to have ramped up in earnest in the 1970s with slogans appearing on all sorts of company publications, in shops, and on rolling stock like cabooses. I thought it would be fun to bring some of these prototypical safety reminders to the layout.
Safety slogan “Think Safety Then Proceed” occupying a corner at Mayflower
The first step was to determine what kind of safety slogans the Southern used. I found the best place to find them was just above the steps of a caboose, so I pored over hundreds of photos of Southern cabs, zooming in over the steps to see what slogans I could make out. I was able to capture more than a dozen slogans including the following:
“SOUTHERNERS THINK SAFETY”
“WATCH FOR SLACK”
“GET A GOOD GRIP FOR SAFETY”
“GET ON AND OFF AT SAFE SPEED”
“ON OR OFF CHECK FOOTING”
“THINK SAFETY THEN PROCEED”
“LIFE GOES YOUR WAY WITH SAFETY”
“SAFETY – GO FOR IT”
“DISMOUNT AT SAFE SPEED”
“PROTECT YOUR BACK WATCH FOR SLACK”
“THINK THROUGH EVERY MOVE”
“GET A GOOD HOLD ON SAFETY”
This safety slogan is the most unique to the Southern, so I placed it next to the Southern logo on the fascia
Armed with these slogans, I headed off to Hobby Lobby to pick up the closest lettering stencil I could find in the 3/4″ size range, a yellow paint marker, and a black paint marker – less than a $10 investment. I selected a few blank spots of fascia around the layout and used masking tape to provide a level reference line for the lettering. I just hand-held the stencil against the fascia, applied some yellow paint marker in the correct letter, and wiped the wet paint off the template. I carefully held a paper towel up to the freshly painted letter and dabbed it dry without smearing–this not only allowed me to move on to the next letter quickly, but it helped to created a worn and mottled look to the letters that I liked. Once the upper line was done, I measured and picked the middle point of the line, reset the masking tape for the lower line, and started with the middle letter for the lower line to keep things centered.
I decided to add the quotation marks as well. They appear on some of the slogans (not all), but I think it helps make it clear that these are pulled from somewhere instead of just being a random sign on the fascia. The template didn’t have the quote marks, so I used an X-Acto blade to make my own stencil in a blank spot on the plastic template. After things dried, I used a combination of the black paint marker and a sharpie to clean up around the edges. Finally, I used the Sharpie to draw in some extra stencil lines across the letters using pictures of actual Southern stenciling as a guide (for example, a line under the top part of the “T” and lines across the top and bottom of the “C” and “S”).
Ok, there’s one more project down that’s been rattling around in my brain and one less excuse to procrastinate on getting back to scenery…
This was a simple project that only required a list of slogans, a cheap lettering template, a paint pen and a Sharpie
This safety slogan is the most unique to the Southern, so I placed it next to the Southern logo on the fascia
Safety slogan “Think Safety Then Proceed” occupying a corner at Mayflower
This safety slogan seemed particularly appropriate for a switching-based layout
I put the “Protect Your Back Watch for Slack” slogan in the yard at St. Charles
The St Charles local slows to pick up orders from the operator at the St Charles depot
This update is proof positive that I will do anything to procrastinate on building scenery… Of course, in my mind I’ve justified this delay as important because I need to be able to visualize the scene in St Charles before putting in the basic landforms. Sure, let’s go with that very logical explanation!
Several months ago I shared my plan to build mock-ups of the major structures on the lower level, the first of which was the Mayflower tipple which has appeared in many updates since it was built. I don’t want to build the permanent structures until construction on the upper deck is complete, but I’d like to have some of the key buildings represented both to visualize scenes and to give operators something better than just a block of wood to represent the buildings they’re working. Creating these mock-ups also requires me to build scale drawings (in MS PowerPoint) which, in theory, will make it MUCH easier to build the actual structures down the road. Of course, PowerPoint makes it easy to add colors and textures, so why not?
One of the few pictures I’ve found of the St Charles depot–it was darker, but I lightened it to see more of the details (photographer unknown, please tell me if you know so I can give proper credit)
The St Charles depot burned down in the late ’70s, so there are very few photos of it. I worked with a couple of grainy shots and one grainy overhead image to get the basic size and layout. I used scanned plans from other Southern stations to get basic dimensions and features and to serve as a template for building the drawings in PowerPoint. I don’t have the space to model the station full-size, so I aimed for about 90% to scale on the length and about 70% on the width. The toughest part of the drawing was getting the cut angles for the roof right in a flat rendition so I could get the 3D shape correct. It required some trigonometry that made my brain hurt, but in the end I got a double-pitched roof with 22- and 35-degree slopes, pretty close to the drawings of other Southern stations. I omitted the curved roof windows for the mock-up as they would have been a pain and aren’t important to visualizing the scene. The detail like windows and siding is just lines and shapes drawn in PowerPoint, and the roof shingles are a texture I found online. Don’t ask me why the door on the track side of the station is suspended on the wall with no ramp or dock, but as you can see on the prototype photo, it is!
I used 1/4″ foam core to give stiffness to the basic structure
I learned from the Mayflower tipple that using ordinary paper results in the glue bleeding through and staining the color, so I printed this one on heavy paper, almost card-stock and about as thick as my printer would handle. I cut the basic walls out of 1/4″ foam core using the drawings as a template to give it rigidity, but the roof is just the card stock. I built a base and the loading dock on two sides using layers of foam core and covered parts with print outs of boards and vertical siding cut to shape. A couple of tiny “ST CHARLES” signs made from folded paper completed the mock-up. Everything is assembled with basic white glue. After it dried, I set it on a piece of plywood I attached to the sub-roadbed using spacers to level it on all sides–I figure this will make it easier to install the final structure level.
Now that it’s in place, I see that I need to raise the roof probably another 3/16″ which will be easy enough to fix in the final version [update, I raised the roof another 3/16″ as seen in the first photo, and it looks better]. For now, though, it’s great to have something anchoring the scene in St Charles, and I’m sure it will perform many years of dutiful service as I’m very slow. Oh, and if you know what colors the St Charles station was painted (there are clearly two), please leave a comment!
Here is the set of scale drawings flattened and printed on heavy paper
The toughest part of the drawing was getting the angles of the roof right… trigonometry in 3D… my brain hurts, but it worked!
I used 1/4″ foam core to give stiffness to the basic structure
The base and loading dock are made from layers of foam core with paper boards cut and glued to the edges
The original mock-up with the roof too low… didn’t look quite right
Bird’s eye view of the station scene–the track in the back will be hidden by a hillside behind the station
After letting the mock-up sit for a day, I decided to “raise the roof” to get it closer to prototype. I carefully removed the roof with an X-Acto blade and cut a piece of 1/4″ (really 3/16″) foam core to raise things a bit
The St Charles local slows to pick up orders from the operator at the St Charles depot
The semaphore in action indicating the St Charles Local has no orders to pick up before proceeding eastward to AppalachiaBlade down and red light indicating both east and westbound trains must stop at the station to sign for orders
I had one major project to complete before completing the scenery base on the lower level, and that was the train order signal in St Charles. I’ve been putting this off for a couple of reasons. First, I’ve never made a full working semaphore before, so I wasn’t sure exactly what I was taking on–the dwarf semaphores I made a while ago gave me a significant head-start, but this was much more complex. Second, I don’t know exactly if the Southern used a semaphore in St Charles – or if they did where it was located – so I was hopeful my procrastination would result some evidence. Alas, I finally just had to bite the bullet and build the thing! Yes, I know there are commercially available semaphore kits, but what would be the fun in that? I’m a glutton for punishment, and I had a bunch of brass stuff laying around, so why not try to scratchbuild one?
I know with 100% certainty that the station in St. Charles had an operator who passed train orders to Southern and L&N crews working the branch. There is both photographic and timetable evidence for this. In the era I model, it was typical for a train order station to have a three-color signal of some sort indicating “red” (stop to sign for orders), “amber” (slow down to pick up orders) or “green” (no orders – proceed), and a three-position semaphore was common. On most stations, the semaphore is built right alongside the station’s office with the control levers inside the station. However, pictures of the St. Charles station clearly do NOT show an adjacent semaphore or any other type of signal. The only thing I can think is that the Baileys Creek Branch to Mayflower cut off the St. Charles main a couple hundred yards geographically south of the station, and train movements on this branch were controlled by the station–perhaps the signal was closer to this junction to allow train crews to see it an heed from both the St. Charles and Baileys Creek Branches. So, that’s what I chose to model!
After finishing the semaphore blades, I attached a .015″ brass wire via solder and made a spacer from brass strip folded on itself. I used the same brass strip to make swivel bases for the blades on both sides of the pole
Like my dwarf semaphores controlling access to the coal branches, I wanted the semaphore to be fully operational including lights, blade movement, and fascia-mounted controls. The first job was making some semaphore blades. I did this by making an outline of an upper-quadrant blade in PowerPoint, scaling it to 1:87, and printing it onto a label. After attaching the label to some thin sheet brass, I drilled holes for the lenses, pivot point, and control rod and cut out the blade with scissors, using a file to clean things up. I soldered on the pivot rod, .015″ by bending one end, inserting it through the hole, and soldering it to the blade face. Next I added a small spacer for the blade onto the rod made from a piece of small brass bar bent on itself with a hole drilled through. I painted the blades flat black and insignia red for the blade end. The back of the blade got some silver Sharpie following pictures I’ve seen of other Southern stations. The lenses are just short pieces of fiber optic with one end melted into a round shape using a soldering iron (just hold it near the end of the fiber optic), attached with CA and colored with kids markers.
The next step was to add the brass ladder stock and connect it to the mast with U-shaped .015″ brass wire
The mast is a piece of 3/32″ brass tube. I made two mounting plates for the top out of brass bar, filed flat spots onto the tube, and attached them via solder. Next I added some guide loops for the rods that would go from the ground to the blade. I bent something resembling the shape of Saturn out of .015″ brass wire and soldered it tightly around the mast, using a semaphore mast diagram printed to scale as a guide for positioning, three guide loops total. This resulted in two U-shaped loops, one on either side of the mast. I finished the loops by soldering a small piece of wire across each U to make a smaller hole to the outside away from the mast. My soldering skills are not great, so this was a lot of ugly blobs until I took a file and cleaned things up. I added a piece of brass ladder stock by connecting it to the top with solder, bending it, and making U-shaped supports out of .015″ brass wire which I soldered into place in three locations and cleaned up. I painted the mast assembly flat black and then used a combination of silver Sharpie and silver paint to finish it.
Now I was ready to put the blades onto the mast. I fashioned some control rods from .015″ steel music wire, inserted them into the blade holes, and ran them down the guide loops on each side. After inserting the blade pivots into the mounting plate, I bent the brass rod 90 degrees to hold each blade in place while allowing it to pivot freely. I made the base from scraps of plywood (see pictures) and drilled a 3/32″ hole for the mast, two adjacent 1/16″ holes which I lined with 1/16″ brass tubing for the control rods, and a larger hole for the ladder to slide into. I press fit the mast into the holes with the rods going through their brass tubes. Then I ran a piece of fiber optic cable down the tube. I first tried to file one end of the fiber optic at an angle to get it to shine through the blade lenses, but this didn’t work well. I ended up holding the fiber optic over a spare piece of 3/32″ brass tube which I heated with a soldering iron. When the tube got hot, the fiber optic bent itself over the tube in a perfect curve which still conducted light well. A little more heat to make a rounded lens at the end, and I had my “light” for the blades.
Here are the mechanisms made from 3-way slide switches. Not only do the switches route power to the bi-color LEDs, it also connects the lever to the signal mechanically and provides the detents for movement
I wanted to use .062″ steel music wire (the same stuff I use for manual turnout controls) for the fascia-mounted control rods, so I crafted two triangular levers out of thick styrene hinged at one corner to convert the horizontal control rod movement into vertical movement for the blade control rods. I covered this in some detail with the dwarf semaphores, so I won’t cover it again here. With the mechanism in place, I mounted the base and semaphore assembly in place on the layout. Next, I worked on the control rods made from 36″ pieces of .062″ steel music wire. Where they would cross through benchwork, I drilled 2/32″ holes and lined them with brass tubing. I was able to get a pretty good bend in the control rod without it kinking this way.
Here’s the finished semaphore from levers and lights to the blades in the background
The heart of the control rod mechanism is a 3-way slide switch. I bought a handful of these for the dwarf semaphores because of their longer throw, but it turns out they were exactly what I needed to control both the throw and the lights for the full semaphore. I’m using 2-lead, bi-color red/green LEDs for the lights. Controlling the red and green is easy enough with DC and crossing the +/- leads on two of the poles on the switch to get the red and green on the end throws of the switch. For the amber, I wanted to use the AC current from my track power. It took a bit of thinking through the use of the 16 leads (it’s a 4-pole slide) to figure out how to route both AC and DC power to the same LED without ever crossing the streams, but the arrangement seen hand-drawn on my cheat sheet (see gallery below) works well. I secured the rods to the semaphore to the slide switch by bending them 90 degrees and inserting them into a hole drilled through the switch control. A second rod inserted through a second hole in the switch control was run through a piece of 3/32″ brass tubing to the front of the fascia where I capped it off with a wood ball (smaller than the ones I use for switch controls so operators can tell the difference).
The final step was to run LEDs from both switch mechanisms to the fascia where I used stick-on letters and graphic tape to make a little drawing of a semaphore in each direction alongside the track diagram–the operators can look on the fascia to see the color indication if they don’t want to use (or don’t understand) the blade positions on the layout. Finally, I added a second clip to hold orders under the fascia so that the old clip is now “train orders westbound” and the new clip is “train orders eastbound.” So far I’m really happy with how the semaphore looks and now it operates, and it was really fun to build. I know it will add yet another aspect of prototypical operations to the layout as crews now have to read signals to see whether or not they need to pick up orders.
I made a diagram of a semaphore blade in Microsoft PowerPoint then printed it in HO scale onto a label. This made it easy to attach it to the sheet brass, drill holes, and cut it out with scissors
After finishing the semaphore blades, I attached a .015″ brass wire via solder and made a spacer from brass strip folded on itself. I used the same brass strip to make swivel bases for the blades on both sides of the pole
One of the finished blades painted black and red with no stripe per Southern custom. The lenses are short pieces of fiber optic with one end melted round by holding it close to a soldering iron. The color is just marker
I made guides for the blade control rods using .015″ brass wire bent into a “flat Saturn” shape around the mast. The control rod is .015″ steel music wire
The next step was to add the brass ladder stock and connect it to the mast with U-shaped .015″ brass wire
The base plate is simple. Under the signal is a second layer of plywood to get the signal to track level. Holes for the mast, rod guides and ladder are in the middle (the right-hand holes are mistakes). The plywood fin will support the levers to connect the manual control rods to the rods going up to the blades
Here’s where the lever rods meet the rods going up to the blades. The multiple holes in the styrene allow the rod to be repositioned for more or less throw (I ended up using the top hole on both to get more throw)
Blade down and red light indicating both east and westbound trains must stop at the station to sign for orders
Blade halfway and amber light indicating the eastbound train should slow to pick up orders (handed up by the operator) but doesn’t need to stop and sign for them
Blade up and green light indicating no orders for the eastbound train
Here’s the little cheat sheet I made up. I scaled the blueprint to HO and used the sheet to plot my throw and my wiring for the 3-way slide switch
This is the finished wiring of the 3-way slide switch. The ends connect to DC for the red and green colors of the bi-color LED. The middle attaches to AC (DCC track power) for the amber (rapidly flickering red and green)
Here are the mechanisms made from 3-way slide switches. Not only do the switches route power to the bi-color LEDs, it also connects the lever to the signal mechanically and provides the detents for movement
Here’s the fascia end of the semaphore including levers (WB in, EB out), indicator lights along the track diagram, and the clip for the orders which necessitate the signal
Here’s the finished semaphore from levers and lights to the blades in the background
The semaphore in action indicating the St Charles Local has no orders to pick up before proceeding eastward to Appalachia
The first scenery forms are in place at Mayflower using Howard Zane’s paper shell method
So there are two reasons why I’ve been working on so many models lately. First, I enjoy building models. Secondly, I’ll admit that I’d hit a major mental block with the layout’s progress because I needed to work on the basic scenery for the lower deck before adding the benchwork for the upper deck. I could retrofit the scenery, but I figured it was worth it to add it now to save myself about 260 lumps on the head trying to install it under the upper-deck benchwork. This last week I finally got up enough gumption to jump into the deep end and start the scenery!
The first step is to draw out the line where the scenery meets the backdrop and glue a cardboard strip along the line
Ever since I read his article in the Jan 2007 Railroad Model Craftsman, I knew I wanted to use Howard Zane’s “paper shell” scenery technique. For mountainous ground that’s mostly going to be covered by trees and the occasional rock casting, this method is extremely simple and uses easy-to-find and cheap materials including cardboard, hot glue, red rosin paper (available for under $20 for a 3′ x 167′ roll at home improvement stores), and white glue. I won’t go into his whole technique, but you can see from the photos that it’s essentially outlining the hills on the backdrop with a cardboard strip, building a lattice of the basic landform from strips of cardboard, and covering the lattice with small patches of rosin paper. The next step (which I haven’t started yet) is to cover everything with a thick layer of white glue to smooth it out and give it stiffness.
Step 2 is to make a lattice of cardboard strips. I bent them and softened them before installing them with hot glue to get more natural bends
I’m starting with Mayflower and working around to St. Charles. Some would recommend a much steeper terrain so the majority of the background is hills and trees, but I’ve opted to go with a more natural angle between 30-50 degrees slope. This means my backdrops will need to be painted really well since the transition from scenery to backdrop will be very visible. If you look closely you can see where I’ve drawn in the ridge line near the top of the backdrop. I don’t know how to paint yet, so what could go wrong? We’ll see how that goes soon enough!
So far this has been a time-consuming but enjoyable project, and I’m very happy with the paper shell method. I’m learning little tricks as I go which will make it go faster as I gain more experience, but it’s great to start seeing things take a shape other than plywood and dimensional lumber!
Step 3 is to hot glue small sections of red rosin paper to the cardboard lattice
L&N RS3s 108 and 100, highly modified Athearn RS3s in original black and cream and early gray and yellow paint schemes
Standard diesel power on the L&N Cumberland Valley Local (CV Local) that served the St Charles Branch was a single RS3 until around 1974 when they were replaced with a single C420. The RS3 was the quintessential L&N mine run power of the ’60s and early ’70s, and these units sported a variety of paint schemes through the years. While the Phase III RS3s with rectangular carbody filters, prominent number boards and gyralights were more common, the early Phase IIs made regular appearances as well. I picked up two factory painted Athearn models a couple years ago to become CV Local power. I’ve been noodling on them for at least the last year, and the combined Southern Railway Historical Association (SRHA), L&N Historical Society (LNHS) and Railway Prototype Modelers (RPM) meet at Chattanooga, TN in October 2022 gave me the impetus to get these across the finish line.
In-progress shot of L&N 100 showing some of the pilot and cab details
The Athearn models are decent, especially the body shape (old MDC shell), crisp paint, and fine handrails. The detail level, however, especially on the pilots, left a lot to be desired. I ended up scratchbuilding a ton of parts for these models which was actually a lot of fun and very rewarding! First things first, the black locomotive came as 102, and it had the original parallel exhaust stack these units were delivered with. I wanted 108 because it actually served as CV Local power in 1964 still in its original paint, so I scraped off the “2” on the long hood, scraped off the number-board decals, and replaced them with Microscale numbers from an L&N set. I also replaced the stack with a transverse stack from a spare shell and filled the old holes. For L&N 100, I “faded” the red L&N herald on the cab sides with a little wet sanding to make it look as though the red paint was wearing off and leaving the yellow underneath, something evident in many photos.
On the body, I scraped off the hood-door latches and replaced them with pieces of bent wire. I added some scratchbuilt lift rings to the long hood as well, and I bent new long grabs to curve around the hood ends as the factory grabs did not adequately capture their curves. I replaced the factory horns with some Overland 5-chime forward Nathan M5s as the factory horns were either incorrect or oversized. For unit 100, I scratchbuilt the antenna conduit and base from brass wire, eye bolts, and styrene with a DA whip antenna on top along with a scrap round cab-top vent from the scrap box. I also scratchbuilt the oil cooling coils under the right side (long-hood forward) from wire and styrene, and a piece of styrene rod completed the piping along the right side of the hood. The L&N units also had a rectangular hole below the third step on all corners, so I carved this out of the shell by drilling holes and cutting out the rectangle with a sharp X-Acto blade.
Step 1 of canvas sunshades is to bend the rod and attach a piece of tissue paper
One fun detail was the cab sunshades. The L&N used simple canvas sunshades that rolled around a bracket. My friend Stuart Thayer showed me years ago a canvas radiator cover for a switcher he made from tissue paper, so I tried that here. I bent the bracket from .015″ wire with the horizontal section about 5 scale feet wide. I cut a strip of tissue paper (Kleenex brand, to be exact) about 4 scale feet wide and very long for the canvas. There are 2 windows on the engineer’s side of the RS3 and 3 on the fireman’s side, but the bracket and sunshade appear to be the same size. To adjust for the window spacing, I centered the canvas on one bracket and shifted it toward the rear of the cab for the other to cover the third window. After attaching the end of the “canvas” to the bracket with CA and letting it dry, I rolled the tissue tightly around the bracket a few times, cut the end off, and secured it into a roll using CA. A little black paint for the bracket and sand-colored paint for the canvas finished the project.
In-progress shot of L&N 100 showing pilot details including copper-wire MU hoses and scratchbuilt pilot steps
The pilots on the model are very bare with grabs in the wrong spots and no MU detail. The first detail upgrade was to scratchbuild some simple MU hose boxes and the angle on top of the coupler box from strips of styrene. This left the footboards too short, so I made new footboards from some brass roofwalk material and styrene. For the MU hoses, I decided to bend my own using one of my favorite modeling materials, copper wire from some old Cat 5 ethernet cables. I simply drilled holes into the pilots, bent the MU hoses, cut them to length, and glued them in with the ends in the hose boxes except for a few hanging out which I cut a little longer and pinched with pliers to simulate glad hands. The coupler cut bars are also a first for me. Rather than the U-shaped bracket over the coupler I’m used to, the L&N’s RS3s had a single long rod extending from the pilot with an eye bolt on the end. I scratchbuilt an impression of this from eye bolts and bent .012″ brass wire. Some formed wire and an eye bolt also formed the safety grab across the top of each pilot. The final pilot details were an MU cable receptacle (scrap box parts from Proto GP7s/9s) and scratchbuilt drop steps. The drop steps on 108 are solid pieces of sheet styrene cut to shape and rounded with a file. The see-through steps on 100 were made from brass roofwalk material.
For the underbody, I added the equipment boxes on the fireman’s side next to the fuel tank. For 108, I scratchbuilt this detail using several pieces of sheet styrene. For 100, I recycled a piece I’d cut from an ancient Athearn U33C shell when I’d narrowed it to make an L&N U30C. For the trucks, the biggest detail was the speed recorder on the fireman’s side. I scratchbuilt this detail using a piece of sprue for the main cylinder, styrene rod to attach it to the truck (after pulling off the journal box and exposing the square hole), and styrene rod filed to a rounded point for the center piece. The cable is copper ethernet wire bent to shape and held to the sideframe with an eye bolt.
The tight quarters inside an Athearn RS3–the decoder is under the cab to the right side
Perhaps the most challenging detail modification was the end railings. The factory railings have MU stands that were easy enough to trim off, but the L&N used squared-off outer railing supports instead of the angled versions on the factory model. Engineering plastic is notorious tough to work with, so I hemmed and hawed over just leaving the factory angle before deciding that the squared look was distinct enough to warrant the effort. I started by using the corner of a file to notch out the 135-degree angle I would need to bend to 90 degrees to make it more pliable. Next, I cut the lower attachment spot of the angled support and cut the angled piece slightly shorter so it would bend to 90 degrees without overlapping the stanchion. Next, I roughed up the side of the stanchion so it would better take CA and glue (it doesn’t really “take” glue well even with roughing, but it does still better than leaving it slick). Finally, I cut a small piece of styrene to wedge alongside the stanchion and hold the angled piece at 90 degrees and secured everything as best I could with CA and liquid model cement.
On the inside, the toughest thing was adding sound. There is hardly any room at all inside the shell, so I had to make several compromises. I chose a 21-pin Soundtraxx Econami decoder because it’s very small, and the Alco 244 sound it produces is pretty decent. There is only one ideal open spot inside the shell, so I decided to use it for the speakers, a pair of LokSound 11x15mm “sugar cubes” wired in series with the small LokSound baffles installed. This meant the decoder needed to go in the cab section. This required me to cut away the center section of the body within the cab to allow the decoder to sit on top of the truck assembly and extend into both the long- and short-ends of the hood. This is not a 21-pin model, so I made a custom 21-pin harness by soldering short bits of wire that fits snugly into the decoder holes onto the locomotive wires.
Finished L&N RS3 108 from the right side
Once all the details were in place except the handrails, I touched everything up with black paint on 108 and gray paint I mixed to match 100. For 108, I was weathering to pictures of 108 on the CV Local in 1964 (see Ron Flanary photo here)–the fading on the roof is apparent, but the paint is otherwise fairly intact. I weathered 100 to pictures of it at DeCoursey Yard in Cincinnati in 1972 (see Brian Woodruff photo here), and it’s filthy! The first thing I noticed was 100’s factory paint was too dark. To “fade” it, I used a lighter gray and airbrushed it to lighten it up significantly. I wish I’d taken a picture of this step so you could see how much lighter it was–the weathering darkened it back up again, so I’m really glad I lightened it beforehand! I also sprayed a little dark gray onto the top of 108 to simulate fading, and I sprayed a little dark rust color onto both roofs and in front of the stacks and drybrushed some streaks under the battery boxes. Next, I gave them both a good black wash to grubby them up a bit. 100 also got some “oil stains” along the bottom of the carbody and in some of the hood door louvers. I’m happy with the lower oil stains but not the louvers–in retrospect I should have continued more layers of wash rather than using a thicker (but still watered down) black as it didn’t wipe off cleanly… my story is someone tried to wipe off the oil, and it just smeared… This model’s weathering is actually “backed off” a little from prototype photos to represent ~1968-70, believe it or not!
L&N RS3 100 left rearL&N RS3 100 showing cab details including engineer and canvas sunshade
After the washes and oil stains, I put the handrails on and added liberal sprays of tan and flat black to weather the pilots, trucks and fuel tanks. I also used tan lightly on the lower sides and top, and I used flat black liberally around the exhaust stack and lightly on the rest of the roof. At this point, all that was left was to reinstall the windows, add wipers, and paint and insert the engineers (two bicyclists from a Preiser kit) which required amputation of the left legs to get them between the cab sides and body sides. They add a lot of interest, and as these units always operated solo on the CV Local, it made sense to add them. The final details were headlights made from bits of fiber optic cable with the end melted into a lens shape and some cab wind deflectors, simple bits of leftover clear styrene packaging cut to size and painted on the back and edges.
So now between these RS3s and C420 1317, I’ve got sufficient L&N power to run the CV Local from about 1962-1977. I still plan on modeling a couple of PhIII RS3s at some point, to include one in boring spartan black (sigh…), but at least the L&N crew on the layout will have some nice-and-dirty locomotives to go with the gurgly and lumbering burble of the Alco 244 prime mover as they shift hoppers around the coal fields of southwestern Virginia!
L&N RS3s 108 and 100 illustrating how much more the gray scheme shows weathering than the black
L&N RS3s 108 and 100, highly modified Athearn RS3s in original black and cream and early gray and yellow paint shcemes
Finished L&N RS3 108 from the right front
Finished L&N RS3 108 from the right rear
Finished L&N RS3 108 showing cab details including canvas sunshades and engineer
Finished L&N RS3 108 showing underbody details including the scratchbuilt equipment box along the tank and the scratchbuilt speed recorder
Finished L&N RS3 108 from the left rear
Finished L&N RS3 108 from the left front
Finished L&N RS3 108 from the left side
Finished L&N RS3 108 from the right side
L&N RS3 100 right front
L&N RS3 100 left rear
L&N RS3 100 showing cab weathering
L&N RS3 100 showing finished pilot details
L&N RS3 100 showing cab details including engineer and canvas sunshade
L&N RS3 100 right side showing heavy weathering and oil stains
L&N RS3 100 left side
In-progress shot of L&N 100 showing grab irons and long-hood latches
In-progress shot of L&N 100 showing some of the pilot and cab details
In-progress shot of L&N 100 showing pilot details including copper-wire MU hoses and scratchbuilt pilot steps
In-progress shot of L&N 100 showing cab and antenna details
In-progress shot of L&N 100 showing scratchbuilt piping
Step 1 of canvas sunshades is to bend the rod and attach a piece of tissue paper
Step 2 of making canvas sunshades is to roll the tissue paper tightly and seal it with CA
The tight quarters inside an Athearn RS3–the decoder is under the cab to the right side
This Digitrax DCS50 Zephyr has served me faithfully for more than a decade on two layouts
***Update Oct 22, 2022. The Zephyr is not yet gone, and I may just keep it. I’ve figured out that I can still use it to turn track power on and off, even in booster mode, and the odd scrolling LEDs that come with placing the unit in booster mode aren’t quite as annoying as I remember. It also seems kinda handy to be able to quickly punch in a loco address and run a locomotive with the Z when doing things like speed matching… so, even though it’s no longer my command station, it may just stay right there on the fascia.***
This past Wednesday marked a milestone on the layout–it was the last time my layout was controlled by my venerable and dependable Digitrax DCS50 Zephyr! The “Z” is known as an entry level system, but it’s historically been my favorite to use as a command station because it’s very easy to operate and made a great stationary controller for creating consists and programming decoders. On both my previous layout and this one, I used a specially made box created just to mount the Z on the fascia in a convenient spot. The Zephyr’s 2.5A were never enough to power my entire layout, so there’s been an old DCS100 command station/booster serving as the booster behind the scenes, but the Z has always been the command station, and I’ve always had fewer than 10 locomotives on the layout at once, so the “slot” limitation has never been an issue.
Two things have happened recently that precipitated a change away from the Zephyr. First, thanks to my adoption of sound decoders and their braking features in all locomotives, I switched from “universal consisting” (command-station consisting) to “advanced consisting” (decoder consisting) to be able to control functions in all decoders simultaneously, so I can do all my consisting in JMRI instead of in the command station. While this method takes up even fewer slots in a command station, it also eliminated the need to create consists using the Z, one of its greatest strengths. Secondly, my old DCS100 has been getting more and more finicky over the years, often being disagreeable and “forgetting” its a booster. This never created any operational problems, but it was a constant source of angry beeps from the DCS100. I had a few options. First, I could just revert to using the DCS100 and upgrading to a newer advanced throttle (it came with an ancient DT100), but the DCS100 was starting to show its age. I also played around with a new generation Zephyr Express (DCS52), but I found the screen and buttons too bright (I want to run night operations), and the DCS100 REALLY didn’t appreciate working with the new Z, and it was more difficult than I’d hoped to get them to play nice together. Ultimately, I decided that the best answer would be to just upgrade the whole command station/booster combo.
The new DCS210+ in its spot on the staging level
I ended up going with the Digitrax Evolution Express (EVOX) which includes a 5A DCS210+ booster, 100-slot command station, a USB interface, and an a DT602 advanced throttle to control everything. It’s plenty of power for the layout, and I’ll never need the additional capacity of the top end command station. I splurged on the duplex radio version because I figured it would be worth it to upgrade my 2-way radio system to the newest receiver (UR93), and I wanted to preserve the ability to use the DT602 wirelessly, even if right now it’s serving as a glorified power button. Installation of the new system was easy, and everything works like a champ! I’ve also now got a spare command station, spare 5A power supply, and spare duplex radio receiver if I need them. I’ve also got a backup method for connecting my Digitrax to JMRI, even though for now I’m sticking with my old PR3 rather than using the DCS210+ USB port… it’s working well, don’t mess with it!
Anyway, I didn’t want to let this moment pass without giving a big shout-out and thanks to my Zephyr for the many years of faithful service on the layout. I don’t know many who use a Z as the command station for a good-sized, serious layout, so I was happy to be a long-time advocate! I already miss one simple thing: the ability to just push a button on the Z to turn the track power on and off. I’ll say farewell, though I have no plans to actually get rid of my Z any time soon… maybe I need a stand-alone programming station… hmm…
One final thing. If you’re trying to turn the track power on or off using a DT602 super throttle, and you can’t get the soft keys for track power to stay there long enough for you to actually push them, you need to press on the LEFT side of the power button and not in the middle. Might just save you a help-desk ticket with Digitrax… not that this happened to me.
Here’s the updated functional diagram of the Digitrax system on the layout
These two were my first consist of Tsunami 2s and taught me a lot of lessons on speed matching
First, beware someone with 6 months of experience offering you advice… ok, if you’re still reading, I like your sense of adventure! I steered clear of sound decoders for years because I knew as soon as I started, I would need to upgrade the whole fleet to be happy, and it was going to be a huge investment in money and time. Other than a one-time fling with a Digitrax Soundbug many years ago, I really dipped my toe in the water when I picked up a couple of locomotives sound equipped from the factory a few years back, an Athearn GP38-2 with Soundtraxx Tsunami and an Atlas C420 with ESU LokSound v4. I tried installing one cheap drop-in sound decoder in an Athearn/MDC RS3, and that was not a positive experience, so I stopped for a while. Finally in February, I decided it was time to figure this out, so I did a bit of research and dove in! Here are a few things I’ve learned in the first 6 months and 12 sound decoder installs.
It’s not as tough as it looks. Not gonna lie, I’m the adventurous kind of person who doesn’t mind taking a hacksaw to a $200 locomotive, but I was SUPER intimidated by installing sound! What I found is once you’ve got a few basics down, it’s only a little more difficult than installing a standard decoder (which isn’t that difficult). The toughest part is finding a good space inside the locomotive to mount the speaker(s) while still leaving room for the decoder and other vitals. I’ve only destroyed one sound decoder in the process (more on that later), and I have gone back and redone some of my first installs based on lessons learned over time–extra time but no biggie.
You get what you pay for. Big surprise, this maxim applies to sound decoders too! I tried to go cheap at first and found a “great deal” on a one-piece drop-in decoder for an Athearn RS3. It even came with a speaker on-board–what a deal! Installation was very easy, but to me it sounded like a screeching lemur with its tail caught in a coffee grinder… the horn was tolerable, but the rest of the sounds were painfully inadequate and unconvincing. I tried building a baffle around the thin piece of plastic acting as the speaker, but it only improved the bass performance slightly with no improvement to the actual sounds. In the end, it was a waste of money and time, and that decoder spent most of its short life with the sound switched to “off.” If you love the screeching lemur decoders, I’ve got two more I’ll sell you cheap!
Following that experience but still wanting to save a LITTLE money, I tried out the “Econami” decoders from Soundtraxx. These were about twice as much as the screeching lemur decoder but still only 2/3 the price of a full-fledged sound decoder, so it seemed like a good place to start. The Econami was lightyears ahead of the screeching lemur in terms of sound quality (same basic sound quality as the Tsunami 2 series), and it had all the features I thought I wanted. After I equipped a few locomotives with Econamis, I splurged on my first Tsunami 2, mainly because the Econami didn’t have the EMD 567 turbo sound I needed for a GP30. Once I played with the “extra features” I didn’t think I cared about, I found that those features were worth the extra cost, at least in my “lead” locomotives. So what’s the difference? First, I’m very happy with my Econamis and would still highly recommend them for “in the consist” locomotives that use the prime movers available on the decoder (Alco 244, EMD 567 non-turbo, EMD 645 turbo, EMD 710 turbo, GE FDL-16). The prime mover sounds are, indeed, the same as the sounds on the Tsunami 2s. However, the Tsunami 2s have more noticeable depth and variety to the secondary sounds like valves, compressors, radio chatter and even toilet flushes. The biggest difference I’ve found is how the sounds correspond to the throttle and loads if you take the time and effort to really configure them which I’ll talk about later.
The tight quarters inside an Athearn RS3–the decoder is under the cab to the right side
Sound decoders are tough, but you can destroy them. I’ve found sound decoders to be tougher than they look, but they’re far from indestructible. They’re designed with either wires or soldering points that make them easy to connect to your locomotive, and I haven’t destroyed one with a soldering iron yet. However, sound decoders pack a LOT onto a little board, so the individual components can be small and fragile. I found this out with an Econami decoder I installed (poorly) in an Athearn RS3. I got everything to almost fit, but I needed just another millimeter of clearance, so I pressed the decoder down. Well, because of my poor choice of installation location, it forced a metal protrusion of the frame into one of the board’s components, and that was that! No more blue light, no more sound, no more movement, lots of heat where there shouldn’t have been… toast. So, be gentle with them, and don’t do anything to make direct contact with the frame or to put pressure on any single component. Expensive mistake but valuable lesson!
Take your time arranging the components in the install. The one decoder I fried was a victim of poor component placement in the locomotive. Usually the decoder sits above the motor like any other decoder, but it doesn’t have to–I’ve placed the decoder in the cab of a couple of RS3s because there just wasn’t room above the motor. The tougher trick is finding a good spot for the speaker(s). Most locomotives currently in production will leave a good spot for this, but many of my locomotives were purchased well before sound was much of a thing. I’ve crammed speakers in the long hood, the short hood, in the cab, on top of the decoder, you name it! A couple of times on some old Proto units (they filled every last inch of those shells with weight), I’ve had to take a hacksaw to the weight and carve out a piece of real-estate in the nose. I find that mounting the speakers to the frame assembly is more convenient and practical than mounting them inside the shell, but you can do either. Just make sure the speaker is sitting on something reasonably solid like a piece of the frame, or in some cases, a thick plank of styrene cut to go across the top of a truck. For attaching the speakers, I like to use 3M double-sided foam tape because it holds well while still enabling a little movement from the speaker so it doesn’t rattle its mount. The 3M tape is tough to remove if you want to change things, though, so I know others have sworn by servo tape.
Sound installations require a LOT of wires, so I’m careful not to make the wires too long, and I use liberal amounts of shrink tubing and electrical tape to keep the wires from making a rat’s nest inside the shell. I’ve found my wiring has gotten a lot neater over the course of a dozen installations, so expect a little trial-and-error here.
Basic mapping of a 21-pin connector for DCC (use at your own risk)
You can, indeed, hardwire a 21-pin decoder without a harness (but it ain’t fun or recommended). One of the downsides of the Soundtraxx Econami is it’s only offered in two sizes, the larger “plug-n-play” (ECO-PNP) board and the much smaller 21-pin version (ECO-21PNEM). The PNP is a drop fit for many locomotives, especially locomotives from the previous generation of factory DCC or “DCC ready” units. But it is kind-of long. The 21-pin is about 1/2 the footprint, so it’s the perfect size for smaller HO-scale locomotives where the PNP won’t fit, but… surprise, it needs a 21-pin harness which is only found in newer locomotives. I tried to buy a 21-pin harness, but they’re expensive enough that it effectively makes the Econami install the same price as a similarly sized, full-featured Tsunami 2 TSU-2200 series decoder. Hmm… could I hard-wire the 21-pin decoder? Turns out the answer is “yes,” but it’s definitely “off label” use that will probably void your warranty, and I would only do it in dire circumstances. For me, “dire” happened to be the cramped quarters of an old Proto 2000 GP7 and an Athearn/MDC RS3 (once I removed the screeching lemur). There are two tricks to this process: 1) know which pins do what. This was surprisingly difficult to figure out, and I ended up translating a diagram from German (the translated diagram is included for you here). 2) use solid wire that fits firmly into the socket to connect the wires. I bent the pin wire in an “L” shape, soldered it to the locomotive wires, and covered the wire-attached half of the “L” with a piece of small shrink tubing to keep it insulated from other nearby wires. This has worked great in 3 installs and has held up to >3 months of use! But again, not ideal… do this at your own risk.
Poor picture, but this shows the homemade pins connecting an Athearn RS3 to a 21-pin sound decoder
When in doubt, try 2 sugar cube speakers (and call me in the morning… no wait, don’t call). There are some real sound artists out there who have a lot of intelligent things to say about speakers… I am not one of them. If I had to boil down everything I read about speakers into 2 things it would be: 1) use the biggest speaker you can fit, and 2) use a baffle (the housing that goes behind a speaker). First-generation locomotive speakers were variations of the traditional paper cone design, but more recently, smart phones have ushered in a revolution in small speaker technology, and we benefit from tiny but impressive speakers nicknamed “sugar cube” speakers. Two sugar cube speakers take up about the same room as a traditional oval cone speaker, but a pair seem to provide clearer sound and slightly more bass, so I’ve settled on a pair of sugar cubes as my basic, minimum speaker requirement in most locomotives. I use the LokSound sugar cubes because they come with a nifty little baffle kit that includes options for a shallow or deep baffle and options to mount one or two speakers to the base. If they’ll fit, I like to pair the sugar cubes with the deep baffles on a single base, but the shallow baffles sound almost as good if you don’t have the room for the deeper sides. I’ve seen some 3D printed baffles to go with sugar cubes as well, and I’ll definitely be giving these a try soon.
Impedance mismatching is a thing, but it isn’t the end of the world. Impedance, a form of resistance, is measured in ohms like a resistor. Those real sound artists of whom I am not one have written a lot of great articles on impedance and why it’s good to match the impedance of the decoder to the impedance of the speaker. I can’t explain it, so I’ll take them at their word! A typical sound decoder impedance is around 8 ohms (like the Soundtraxx units I use) as are many speakers, including the sugar cubes. But wait, I remember from somewhere that if you run two identical resistors in series or parallel you change their resistance by either double (series) or half (parallel). No worries! unless you’re running your decoder at max volume, this is not likely to be an issue. For example, LokSound recommends using speakers between 4 and 32 ohms, so there is a range. Just stay safe in the 1/2 to 2x range and don’t get too crazy. For reference, I wire my 2 sugar cubes in series.
Tsunami 2 PNP installs on an Athearn Genesis GP38-2 (left) and Atlas GP38 (right)
When it comes to volume, less is more. Speaking of volume, I’ve found that on a layout with multiple sound locomotives, less is more on the sound volume. I usually set my master volume around 10-20% of the max output. I like to hear it in my ear at the volume I would expect to hear it if I were standing at the same vantage point (about 150 scale feet away) as an HO-scale person. I also take the time to tweak the levels of individual sounds to avoid letting any one locomotive dominate the room and to focus on the main sounds like the prime mover, horn, and bell. I keep the horn and bell pretty muted, though, as not everyone in the train room needs to know every time a train comes to a crossing. I set them just loud enough to be heard clearly over the prime mover by the crew initiating the horn or bell (to everyone else it’s an annoying distraction from their train).
Also, listen to the engine for a while and see what secondary sounds you like and don’t like and adjust them. For me, the poppet valves of the Econami decoders sound very loud and sharp and express themselves a bit too often, so I set the decoder to make these sounds more quiet and less frequent. On the full-featured Tsunami 2s, there are a myriad of secondary sounds. Most add well to the symphony, but I didn’t appreciate all of them. For example, the sound of a socket wrench is not something I’m used to hearing when train watching, so I turned the volume on this “extra” to zero for most of my locomotives. Other sounds like the radio chatter, doors opening, and toilet flushes I turned down so they’re barely audible. Again, I want the prime mover to shine and the background sounds to be in the background.
Configure each locomotive a little differently. Speaking of the extra sounds, decoders will come from the factory with a default setting for volumes and frequencies of sound. If you don’t tweak these, you may end up with decoders with “random sounds” being synchronized with other locomotives… not very realistic. I make sure each locomotive has a slightly different rate for sounds that can be rate-configured to avoid this and make the sound of each locomotive slightly unique.
JMRI Decoder Pro makes programming sooooo much easier. Decoder programming is all about configuration variables (CVs), and sound decoders have a LOT of things to configure! Soundtraxx uses a ton of CVs (like 500 for their Tsunami 2). LokSound has fewer CVs, but each CV can be used to configure multiple options by adding together the numbers associated with the options you want and entering the sum into the CV (it’s math, but at least it’s pretty simple math). You can skip a ton of this math and programming CV by CV by using JMRI’s Decoder Pro–it’s seriously awesome, and I never appreciated it more than when programming sound decoders! It turns programming into a set of selections on conveniently grouped tabs and uses plain language descriptions of variables instead of CV numbers. This is particularly helpful with Soundtraxx programming because each CV only controls one or two options, so its easy to separate them. It’s a little more complicated with LokSound because the decoders are “blank” and the sounds loaded separately after manufacture, usually by a dealer. They’re loaded as a “sound project” into the decoders “slots.” While there are some conventions on what sounds go into what slots, it’s really up to the person who designs and loads the sounds, so instead of sounds being conveniently labeled as “prime mover volume” and “horn” in Decoder Pro, you have to work with labels like “slot 1” and “slot 2”–still easier than manually programming each CV. JMRI and Decoder Pro are free software, and all you need is some kind of computer/DCC interface which most DCC systems offer. While you can use it with a stand alone programming track, I’ve found “programming on the main” to be a much better option for sound because you can hear every change in real-time.
When using lots of momentum, it’s important to know where the brake is–a bright red sticker makes it easy
Put the most used functions in F0-F6. Most newer decoders, including the Soundtraxx and LokSound decoders, allow you to “remap” the functions from the normal DCC convention to wherever they’re needed. Sound wasn’t a common thing when DCC conventions were set, so it’s not surprising that the conventions may not allow for convenient access to sounds. Also, the number of buttons on a throttle is limited, so you want to make sure the ones easiest to access (single push) are the ones you need most often. DCC is amazing, and I’m so grateful for those who made it happen for the hobby–they were brilliant! However, there is one unconscionable omission in DCC that I do not understand: braking. All decoders allow the programming of acceleration and deceleration (momentum), but some have no braking function so there’s no way to slow the locomotive down except to “e-stop” (ouch) or wait for the momentum to bleed off. The combination of momentum and a sound decoder is AWESOME, so I knew I wanted this and a way to easily control braking via the throttle. The sound decoders I’ve played with all have braking options, but the braking is implemented differently in each decoder. With enough tweaking, I was able program braking that feels right into both the Soundraxx decoders (Econami and Tsunami 2… not so much on the Tsunami in the Athearn GP38-2) and LokSound decoder. While sounds like couplers are cool, I decided easy access to a “brake” button was more important, so I had to remap my functions. As I use Digitrax UT4 throttles, all the important functions needed to be programmed into F0-F6, the only “one push” functions on the UT4. Here’s how I mapped them:
F0 – Headlight on/off (standard)
F1 – Bell (standard)
F2 – Horn (standard)
F3 – Short horn (standard on Soundtraxx)
F4 – Dynamic brakes (sound only, no braking action)
F5 – Light effects (gyralight if equipped, dimming if not)
F6 – Brake (complete with a nice stop-sign sticker on my throttles)
You need to play around to really make them sing. To get the most realistic sound out of a decoder, you need to really play around with it and make lots of tweaks (there’s a reason there are so many CVs). On a real locomotive, the sound is not tied to speed as much as load and demand. For the economy decoders like the Econamis, you get what you get, and the prime mover pitch is tied to the throttle setting. You can use function buttons to increase and lower the RPM sound, but who wants to have to control their throttle AND RPMs separately? Some might, not me. What you REALLY want is for the decoder to sense the load and other factors and change the pitch according to the load. The key to this is the decoder’s use of Back EMF (BEMF) which essentially allows the decoder to sense the load on the motor. With the LokSound decoders, the use of BEMF to control the prime mover sound appears to be native in the decoder’s function. For the Tsunami 2s, it took a bit more work to configure this, but it is SOOOO worth it! Soundtraxx calls this “Dynamic Digital Exhaust” (DDE), and it requires the tweaking of a few CVs, two to tell the decoder your idea of “low speed” and “moderate speed,” one to control the prime mover based on the difference between your throttle setting and current speed (this is where building in some accel/decel really helps), and one to tell it how sensitive to be to the BEMF.
By 1) adding in a good bit of momentum, 2) turning up the “speed differential” CV to full blast and 3)upping the BEMF sensitivity to about 30% of max, I get a locomotive that sounds very realistic to my ear. When I move it from idle, I crank the throttle up immediately to where I want the speed to be. The prime mover howls to life with a roar because it senses a difference in its current speed (zero) and the desired speed. The locomotive, still belching sound, then begins to creep slowly up to speed, and the prime mover quiets a lower level as the actual speed closes on the desired speed. After that, the BEMF helps it know if it’s under load or not, so it’ll drop back to near idle going downhill, and it will notch up if moving uphill, especially if its moving a lot of cars uphill with it–perfect!
Another tweak I highly recommend is the dynamic brake setting which can be done even on some of the economy decoders. For most model applications, you don’t actually want the application of dynamics to slow the train. You’re going to control the train speed with the throttle, and the “dynamics” are just ear candy as they’re presumably helping you keep the speed in check going down a grade. Soundtraxx has a CV you can select that will drop the engine sound to idle if the dynamic brakes are applied. I like this because when I’m heading down a grade with a loaded train, a single function button push allows me to drop the prime mover sounds to idle and bring up the dynamic brake whine while still moving the train at a realistic speed. Cool!
Speed matching is really important for the cool features. I’ve always been a “close enough” guy for DCC locomotive speed matching. This has served me just fine until now. I was so excited when I figured out how to use DDE to make my locomotives sound amazing in response to throttle inputs and loads, and then I put two of these amazing locomotives together in a consist. When just the the two of them were creeping along together downhill and their prime movers were screaming at “notch 8,” I knew something was wrong. Turns out, if locomotives aren’t perfectly speed matched, one is always pushing or shoving on the other. The BEMF in the decoder translates this as “load” and adjusts the sound accordingly which means notch 8 sounds for notch 1 action. I spent hours painstakingly speed matching locomotives to a single locomotive I picked as the “pacer” using 28-step tables and trim for each locomotive. This was time well spent as multiple locomotives sound far more realistic now that they’re not fighting each other.
Advanced consisting is a big help. Before sound, I used Digitrax’ “universal” (command-station) consisting almost exclusively. Now that I have sound-equipped locomotives, I’ve switched to “advanced consisting” (decoder-aided consisting). Advanced consisting has a couple really useful features. First, you can configure the locomotives on the ends of the consist to only use their headlights when the consist is moving in a particular direction–this is crucial for my layout where switching is common and the consist changes directions all the time. Also, you can configure most functions in any locomotive to respond to either the consist address or only the locomotive address. This allows you to pick a single locomotive in the consist to respond to horn and bell functions–I wish this could be configured to respond based on direction as well (the lead locomotive’s horn and bell are used and switch based on direction), but alas, this doesn’t seem to be a feature yet. Most importantly for sound, this allows me to program functions like dynamics and braking to respond to the consist address in ALL locomotives so they work as a team in both sound and braking.
Once you pick a manufacturer, stick with them. I’m not here to tell you which manufacturer to pick, but I will say, its a lot easier if you pick a manufacturer and stick with them! I heard this advice from others, and I now wholeheartedly agree! It’s far easier to make your fleet act in concert, especially when M.U.’d, if things like momentum and braking are implemented the same in all the decoders. While it may sound appealing to have a smorgasbord because you like one manufacturer’s Alco sound and another’s first-gen EMD sounds, it will limit your ability to implement consistent features and “feel” across the fleet. Having said this, I still use (and love) the one LokSound-equipped C420 I have even though everything else is Soundtraxx. Thankfully, the L&N train it powers is usually run by a single locomotive, so I just had to tweak it to feel and act more like the Soundtraxx equipped locos, but it doesn’t need to be a perfect match because it’s never M.U.’d.
My only LokSound decoder is in an Atlas C420 that runs solo
Every manufacturer has their pluses and minuses, so pick the features that work for your operations (aka “why I picked Soundtraxx”). You really can’t go wrong with the leading manufacturers, and you’ll find zealots and haters for each. They all do things differently, though, so ultimately you have to figure out what your priorities are. I hear great things about TCS WowSound, but I have no personal experience to share. I wanted to jump in, so I evaluated the LokSound and Soundtraxx locomotives I had on hand to see which I wanted to use on the fleet. When just listening to the sound, especially as it changed based on how I was operating the locomotive, I prefered the LokSound. However, when I began playing around with things like braking and tweaking CVs, I found the Soundtraxx was far more intuitive to configure, and now that I know how to use DDE in the Soundtraxx decoders, I’m able to get a lot of the same sound dynamics out of my Tsunami 2s that seem to be pre-programmed in the LokSound. I can live with complicated programming, so what it really came down to for me was one simple thing: Soundtraxx has a reasonably featured “economy” line that works for many of my locomotives. Interestingly, as I’ve gained experience, I’m still happy with the Econamis, but I will probably invest in full-fledged models from here on out because their extra features enhance my enjoyment enough to justify the extra cost. The Econamis will still have a home in B-units, mid-consist units, and units that only see service occasionally.
If you’ve stuck with this article to this point, good for you for listening to a rookie! I hope some of my learning points will help you as you make decisions and jump into the world of sound decoders. While I won’t encourage a battle of which manufacturer is best, I would encourage those of you with experience in this area to add some of your own lessons in the comments. If you’ve learned nothing else from this, I’ve hoped you’ve at least learned that it’s not a good idea to use a sound decoder that sounds like a screeching lemur.
The Louisville and Nashville served the end of the Southern’s St Charles Branch via trackage rights, and the train that did the honors in diesel years was known as the Cumberland Valley Local or “CV Local” for short. This train, which also served the mines near Middlesboro, Kentucky, was usually meager in terms of tonnage, and a single locomotive was sufficient for the task. For my eras, the CV Local was usually handled by a single Alco RS3, and after 1974, a single Alco C420. Due to weight restrictions on the “Old CV” where this train roamed, the favorite C420s were 1316 and 1317, two ex-Tennessee Central units that happened to be the lightest C420s on the railroad. Needless to say, modeling one of these units has been on my list since I started building the St Charles Branch. So, meet ex-TC C420 1317 in HO scale!
LN C420 1317 pre-paint wheel slip sensors
This model started as an Atlas Phase 2b C420 in factory-applied TC paint (why not?). While the Atlas details are pretty good out-of-the-box, there were a few things the model needed to be an accurate representation on this particular unit. Most noticeably, the TC units had very narrow, rectangular fuel tanks (part of what made them so light). I simulated this by removing the rounded sections of the Atlas fuel tank, separating the air reservoirs (I’d need them later), and patching the holes. The tank is still about 18″ too wide, but it gives the impression created by the narrow tank and makes this C420 stand out in a line of round-tank Alcos. The drain pipe on the left side is just a piece of Cat 5 ethernet cable with the insulation intact and a few bits of styrene for the bracket.
A few of the details are commercially available detail parts including a DW brass horn and DW air filter (added just before weathering where the bell was previously). Most, however, are homemade from bits of styrene, brass wire, and one of my favorite modeling materials, copper wire from old Cat 5 ethernet cables. The most challenging details were the wheel slip sensors that go over the four truck journal boxes on the left side of the locomotive. For mine, I used bits of sprue filed into a conical shape for the base. Next, I drilled a hole through the center big enough for the copper wire (stripped of insulation). I bent the copper wire so it extends through the truck sideframe to help prevent the assembly from being broken off. From there, the wire bends up and then toward the middle of the sideframe where I bent it into a sagging shape per photos. Next I used bits of styrene to frame the wire on top of the conical housing and then to cap the frame to simulate the portion where the wire comes into the housing. Similarly, I bent bits of copper wire into the shape of sand lines for the pilot end of each sideframe (there’s not enough room on the fuel-tank end).
LN C420 1317 pre-paint cab details
The next most challenging detail was the antenna conduit. Photos are clear that the L&N added a long antenna conduit from the nose to the roof along the cab face. I couldn’t find any roof shots of 1317, so I inferred the rest from other units: 1) conduits are usually paired with a box under the antenna on the L&N, and 2) firecracker antennas in the center of the cab roof are the most common. The conduit was carefully bent from .012″ brass wire and held in place by eye bolts (these happen to be homemade as well from .010″ wire). The base is a cube of styrene, and the firecracker antenna is just a piece of copper ethernet wire with the insulation partially removed (thanks to my friend Stuart Thayer for teaching me this trick). Rounding out the initial cab details are some sunshades out of the spare parts box and a couple of headlight deflectors made from bits cut from the “ears” of a Kadee coupler box.
The roof of the model has molded-on lift rings, and I decided to shave these off and replace them with wire. I used .010″ wire bent around a thumbtack to create candy-cane shaped lift rings–only the long end is actually inserted into a hole, the other side is just pressed into the body a bit. For the pilots, I reused most of the Atlas factory parts including the MU cables, coupler cut bar and long grab. I also used the factory drop steps but added a piece of thin styrene to make it solid instead of a grate per prototype photos. The train line hose, like my freight car hoses, is – you guessed it – a piece of copper ethernet wire bent into shape and crimped at the end to form the glad hand. Finally, just before painting, I noticed that the L&N had removed the hand brake from the front of the cab, so I did the same, replacing it with a square-shaped length of styrene and a hole.
LN C420 1317 painted left front
Before painting, I sanded the TC paint lightly to remove some of the sheen and “3D” nature of the striping, but I left a little of the raised paint so at certain angles you’d be able to still see the faint lines of the TC paint (again, why not?). I still have a lot of Testors Model Master acrylics, so after examining photos, I decided on “light ghost gray” for my base color and “insignia yellow” for the nose. I primed the whole locomotive with black and then masked the pilots before airbrushing the gray. The nose was easy because it’s a separate piece, so all I had to do was spray it gray, mask the rectangle for the top, and spray the yellow. I used a combination of a black sharpie and brushed black paint for the window and number-board gaskets, and a little blue and red paint for MU covers, fuel fillers, and a couple other things on the gray that look red in photos. Marker and walkway lights are just semi-gloss black paint. The final step was spraying the painted shell with Rustoleum clear “high luster” lacquer to protect the paint and make a better surface for decals.
I used the Microscale set 87-823 “L&N Locomotives Gray & Yellow 1970-80” for most of the decals, using dozens of liberal coats of Micro-Sol and Micro-Set and a damp paper towel to help the decals settle in. The numbers on the number boards are from a Microscale SCL diesel set–they’re a little smaller and look better on Alco boards. One detail I added during this step was the cab wind deflectors flanking the side windows. These are just bits of clear styrene from an Intermountain wheel box. I cut a strip the width of the deflectors, masked a strip down the middle, painted the back the gray color of the body, and used a silver Sharpie marker on the sides and around the masking. After removing the masking tape, I cut the deflectors to length, added a little dog-ear, and used the silver Sharpie to hit the cut ends. A dab of CA on the cab secures them in place. This method models an otherwise delicate detail in a manner that’s resilient to routine handling on the layout.
LN C420 1317 finished wheel slip sensors
Weathering on this unit, as you can see, is substantial–these units worked the coal fields, and baths are few and far between. Besides, part of an Alco’s charm is it’s ability to spew oil and black smoke everywhere. Working from photos, I started with the oil seeps on the engine doors–these are mostly around the bottom, but in two photos from 1974, an entire door on 1317’s left side was covered in oil, so I modeled this. I used watered down flat black paint, alternately dabbing paint and water to get the consistency right and wiping in a vertical direction between coats. Next came several black washes of water with some black paint mixed in. I brush it on in a section, wait 30-60 seconds, then wipe in a vertical direction to simulate grime streaked by rain. The trick is to do multiple light coats until you’re happy. A little drybrushed sand color under the battery boxes finished the preliminary weathering.
LN C420 1317 working Mayflower on the CV Local
I left the handrails off until I was ready to airbrush. Airbrushing consisted first of some tan sprayed heavily on the pilots, trucks and fuel tanks (with the air reservoirs now mounted). Next came flat black primarily on the roof–moderate in most areas and thick around the exhaust stack. Finally, I used a little rust on the pilots and roof to give it just a bit of a rusty brown look. All that remained at this point was to reassemble everything, including the cab glass that had been removed earlier, and add a set of A-Line windshield wipers painted silver.
Overall, I’m very happy with how 1317 turned out, though I think I overshot the weathering a little. The unit was repainted in 1974, and I was shooting for weathering circa 1976. I think I nailed the weathering circa 1978, but it’s still a pretty realistic representation of how filthy these Alcos got in the L&N’s coal fields during the coal boom. This is also the first Alco I’ve ever finished, so I also enjoyed the challenge of making so many details from scratch. The unit came with factory sound by Loksound which does a great job of replicating the lumbering burble of the Alco 251 prime mover, so she’s a blast to operate! I’m just happy the CV Local finally has a finished L&N unit to head it up which should make the next ops session more fun.
