Switching Layout underway

All of us who are "layout space challenged" wrestle with how much of our imagined empire we can actually build in a way that is satisfying and keep our interest.  I have to confess I'm a habitual layout builder and over the past couple of years started and pulled out more layouts then I want to admit to.  Thank goodness for Homosote and track nails :)  Learned early never glue anything down. 

In my quest I looked at and considered hundreds of ideas.  In a way I pined for the old days in the 1970's when I was a kid, having access to almost not information or the Internet.  Layout decisions were pretty easy back then, no second guessing, no new web blog that pulled you in another direction...  Oh well.

I think there's a sweet spot between the usual "Rat's Nest" switching layout and some of the anemic shelf designs that Lance Mindheim has.  The former is a product of wanting to cover as many options as possible in a small space the the latter a more "dioramic" approach where the scene seems to take over operations.  Both have their place and I am in no position to criticize folks who actually get things done.  Just an observation folks.  Every one has their sweet spot.  I think if I had an outside corner I would have totally ripped off Keith Jordan's "The Patch" and called it "The Patch Too"  lol.  Really, an outside corner really helps block two sections so they can be operated separately and more realistically.

Imaged borrowed from the internet :)

So not having this set up I decided to go ahead and keep my layout more rural than urban and save the Brand Blvd theme until I had a larger place to build it right.  A few years ago I mocked up a layout using the Pike City Layout featured in a hobby mag I had in my pile.  This seemed to have all I wanted given the space I had and things looked good until life got in the way...and a move back to an apartment.  SAD I was.

So this is the Pike City Belt Line drawings and the area I ended up utilizing almost exactly is outlined.  Because this became a shelf layout, I got rid of the structures in the center and will eventually have transfer docks here and there so as to not block the view or operations.  Along the back wall will be the obligatory huge warehouse with a number of businesses  in place to offer spotting challenges.

Here is a rough sketch of what I have built now:

I've begun landscaping on the left side as shown in past posts and will start on the other side soon.  Keeping it basic is the plan here, I just want something to operate on, show off modeling projects and eventually, be able to build this into a home layout.  This is built on two 18" wide bi-fold doors placed end to end and covered with acoustic ceiling tiles.  I'm currently trying to figure out a good way to possibly make curved ends and a staging yard in the back so I can use this like a display layout utilized so much in European trade shows.  That discussion is for later.  

So far, basic operations have been successful...two yards on the right give me both storage and industries to switch to...freight coming out of the right side of the layout are spotted on the run around (which is larger than shown , 2 cars will fit nicely and then pushed into place.    The back long track will feature several spots to place cars making movements out of the Sunkist packing plant a challenge. 

Industries are still in flux at the moment.  I have this ongoing love affair with tank cars and I think I have room on one of the short spurs in the center of the layout to put a small smudge pot oil depot and two cars can be spotted there.  Packing plant in place and shipping and receiving along the back wall to the right.  I have started working on the small gravel drop off installing a Tyco coal unloader in between the rails.  A hole has been cut and a lid for a jar screwed to the underside of the layout to allow collection of the gravel dropped by the operating cars.  These are talked about in an earlier post.  Nice thing about these cars is the opportunity to actually load and off load something.  Per Bruce Kelly, a trip to the coast to get round sand will be a must since normal sand and ballast have sharp edges and tend to bind when off loading. 

I have been researching ways to do operations, car cards, rules and regs and I figure that will be a huge project.  I will need to dedicate at least 20 cars to the layout to make this work.

Planting Trees

Three Iconic Southern California trees; Palm, Eucalyptus and Citrus and modeling any one of these presents a challenge even for the most seasoned micro botanist.  I've been to a lot of layouts and you see some amazing ground work, structures and working signals, but the trees seem like an afterthought.  I propose that they need as much attention and forethought as any industry might require...maybe more.

I've posted before about fabricating Palms and thanks to having a Laser at my side, making them is more an issue of finishing ground work and structures to figure out how many and what size I will need.  I've made a few dozen, some given away to John Signor and Bruce Petty, others stashed away in the magic closet of  "not finished yet" projects.

Eucalyptus trees are very distinctive and will require a good long weekend to figure out the best way to represent the twisted branches, multi colored bark and unique canopy's.  But that headache is for another day.

Orange trees are pretty straight forward.  These are revenue producing and as such are taken very good care of.  You can't approach it like you were doing the edge of a forest, chaos will not work here.  I built a small layout in N scale several years ago and needed a small orchard on one end of it and found wood beads at the local craft house that seemed to be the right size.  I followed the technique that I will outline in this post and within a short afternoon, had more Orange trees then I needed.  They came in handy as trades a few months later.  :)

In HO scale I found your run of the mill Ping Pong balls seem to have the right size for a medium growth orchard.  They are inexpensive and easy to get, plus they are light.  Below is a shot of the materials needed to pull this off.

Here's the list:

Ping Pong Balls
Grey Primer
Gloss Hunter Green Spray Paint
Medium Green course turf
Woodland Scenics Oranges
2" Dry Wall Screws and a couple boards to drive them through
Super 77 Spray Adhesive
Clear Acrylic Flat Spray Paint
Short length medium green static grass and applicator.
Optional.  Practice Tee's and brown spray paint if you want to have some sort of root system.

So this is what we are looking for when we are done.  I've only had time to finish a few of these to this state, but you will get the idea.  I attache these right to the ground with white glue...if you are industrious you can attach pins or screws to affix them too.

The following photo's show the process.  Briefly, you drive the screws through some flat wood to make spray posts.  Drill small holes in the bottom of the ping pong balls and screw them in place.  I made up 4 sticks to keep things flowing.  Be sure to wear gloves and work outside if you can...it will get real stinky, real quick.  Once the balls are on the screws, give them a good coat of Hunter Green.  Working with one stick at a time, respray with another coat of paint and then sprinkle the green turf on all sides. If you paint is wet you will find the turf holds just fine.  I usually give it another coat of green and re-sprinkle to give the tree a bit more mass.  Next I give the trees a dusting coat of Super 77 and add the Oranges.  Set aside and work on the other sticks you have.  By the time you get back to it things have begun to set up.  I give the trees a coat of clear flat spray making sure to dust it at first.  The orange coloring on the scale fruit is water base and will run if they are flooded with paint or water.  A dusting coat keeps the colors intact.  When this is done I give it one more light coat of Super 77 and then using the Static Grass applicator add a little material to fluff things up a bit.  You don't need the applicator to do this frankly, I put it in a large shaker and sprinkled it over the trees and got the same results.  Next, set aside and let dry...usually a day or so before applying them.

Once your set up, these go really quickly.  I think I did 50 trees in two hours to this point.  They still require the last step, the static grass, but you get the idea.  At this point I spritzed on a little Super 77 and filled in holes and gaps where necessary.  These are pretty bright at the moment, once the static grass is applied, they will darken up a bit.

Here are some placed for spacing on the "production" end of my layout.  This weekend I hope to get the static grass on these and then plant them for good.  I also need to change the sign on my re-purposed Yard Master's office.  I scratch built this last year and I think this will work better near the grove actually.


 

Wrecking Crew

I continue to espouse the fun I am having building Tichy Trains kits as I work to fill in a few holes on my "need to have" freight car list.  I have in another post showed some work I started using their 40' flat car as a stand in for the F40 style flats and PE tank car.  While at a small hobby shop out of town that has a great supply of craftsman style kits I was able to pick up the Tichy 120 ton crane kit.  Pound for pound, this is a very challenging kit with lots of fussy parts and will require about three Model Rail Radio podcasts to finish assembly :)   I have become addicted to on line podcasts over the past year and find it fun to listen to folks talk about their modeling while I am doing mine. 

Anyway.  PE had steam crane kinda like the kit which given my time right now, is close enough.  I have the article out of a recent Model Railroad Craftsman magazine (will post once I get my hands on it again) that outlines the steps to make it more authentic.  I hope to give that a go some other time, but first I need a couple of cranes that were built in converted boxcars first. 

Here is the crane dry fitted together.  I learned a lot on this kit especially with the rigging...learned to read the instruction 5 or 6 times to figure it out.  I will be modifying a Tichy flat as a boom support car even though they offer the kit.  I need it to look more home built so this gives me the best option.  Brass trucks of assorted lineages were added for extra weight on the cars and two "fine" scale trucks on top of the flat.  Currently researching ways these were affixed to the car for transport.

The plan at the moment is to make a short MOW train with the crane, two flats, one take car for water and a converted boxcar to serve as a crew car.  I may even use a 90 ton depressed flat car to carry the Jordan Miniatures Steam shovel kit as part of the consist. 

Next, paint and decals...

Again, having spent most of my hobby model building putting aircraft and armor kits together, working with the Tichy products is like coming home again.  So much so, that I am gathering up most of my ready to run cars and putting them up for sale at the club to get more of these kits.

Here is the crane painted and ready for service.  

Hart Convertable Gondola for the PE

I was musing over the SP Hart Convertable Gondla model I picked up at a show a few years ago and lamented the fact that I was using a 40 year old Train Miniatures wood kit to stand in for a very important prototype on the PE.  While not common on the Orphan Spur I can surmise some made their way there to drop some fill or provided rock for a building project.  I was checking in on Robert Bowdidge's Blog Dry Creek to see how his Rapid Prototype projects were doing and like a bolt of lightning...Robert was offering exactly what I was needing.

This is an amazing example of what can be achieved with Rapid Prototyping today:

First, the kit parts.

I lifted this shot from Robert's site, I got so focused on working with the parts I didn't get a component picture.  As you can see, the printer did all the hard work for you...glue a few pieces in place and install grab irons and stirrups , paint and off you go.  As for surface texture, it is pretty smooth but there are a few bits of debris here and there and a quick swipe with a sanding stick and things clean up nicely.

Here is a picture from a CBC showing you how the gondola could be converted for different loads.

Out of the box pre-primed.  I drilled holes for brass grabs and stirrups and installed them.  Brass rod is not included with the kit.  I also installed the brake hardware at this time 

You can see some of the clean up on the deck, holes filled and sanded.  Ready to paint.

Finished...almost.  I primed the model and sprayed the model with Tamiya Nato Brown XF 68 which is pretty close to actual PE colors in that range.  I then did some highlighting with thinned washes.  Decals were applied over gloss coat, allowed to set and then recovered with more gloss to seal them and get rid of the film show around the markings.  The decals are stark white so I gave the whole model a very thinned down coat of the base color to age everything a bit.   I'll allow this to dry out a few days before doing washes.

Here the finished car is at the quarry picking up a load of ballast for some repairs.

Side view showing some of the weathering.  

Overall, a great kit and well worth getting a few on your layouts. 

PE Photo Prop

In the never ending struggle to actually figure out the particulars of my Orphan Branch Layout I've successfully spent more time thinking instead of actually building.  So, finally put down the tank car project for a few days and started working on a 12"x 24" photo prop that I can shoot finished projects.  Seems a great way to actually get something done in a short time that serves a couple purposes.

So, using 1x4 lumber and a sheet of 1/4" MDF I set to cutting and gluing.

Here is a basic layout of the photo prop.  The structures are salvaged from a layout I took down last year and they will require a lot of work to get cleaned up and ready for repaint and extra detailing. All the buildings will be modified to better represent Brand Blvd in the late 1950's.  

Here I've scribed the tracks in the road using a Plexi Glass cutter and some files to clean out the groves.  You have to work slowly using a long ruler and smooth passes to control the depth.  I was surprised at how easy this step turned out to be. Pads for the buildings were cut from card stock and placed where they will sit.

Overall shot, now I've laser cut the building pads out of .090" plexi glass I picked up at Home Depot.  This is a great height to simulate the concrete walks.  Sand using a medium foam pad and clean out the grooves in the side walks.

Close up of the scribed railroad tracks.  Once these are clean, the whole surface is sanded with medium grit sandpaper to open up the surface to better take the paint.  If you skip that step, the paint will float on the top and when you go to mask the details on the road you may pull up the paint.

Low level shot to get perspective.

Closeup of the sidewalk in front of the bank building.  I laser cut holes in the concrete so I can put some small trees in those spots.  I think this will be a nice detail and add a bit of green to the whole end of the module.

I painted the pads with primer and then Rust-oleum Satin Fossil for concrete.. The lines were accented using thinned down dark grey and oversprayed with an airbrush.  This detail adds a little life to what would be a cold mono tone feature.

Overall shot.  The base was painted with a few coats of primer, sanded and then two coats of black and set aside to dry.  One more light sanding and then the road was sprayed with Rust-oleum Satin Granite color.  I find this to be a great representation of asphalt and being able to use a spray can insures good coverage and paint density.  Here you see the pads, with holes for for screws to fasten them down instead of glue.  In the future if I decide I don't like an area I can detach it and add something else without having to destroy the whole model.

Jumping ahead a bit, I've attached the pads and put down street lines using Sharpie White Paint Pens, also something you can get at Home Depot.  I was surprised at how well these worked.  The track was washed with rust Tamiya and then using the Silver Sharpie,traced the track positioning the point of the pen in the grove.  A smooth steady draw and you have a very convincing track detail.  I chose not to put metal rail in to reduce the complexity and since this wasn't going to be worked into a layout, it would have been more work than necessary.  When I photograph an engine I'll just run some wires to the wheels on the hidden side.

Another overall shot. The triangle area by the red and green buildings is the site of a future service station and sign.  The bus stop will have grass pads and a palm or two to set the scene.

A quick shot at ground level to get an idea of what shots will look like.  Once things are finished then I can start working with stacked images to get better depth of field.

Next, the structures...oh my :)

The Tuttle National Bank was the first structure to be reworked.  This is one of those pre painted Walthers Models which on it's own is a pretty nice deal for the price.  I spiced it up a bit by cleaning up the seams and proceeded to repaint it. The base model is grey with a wash to hightlight the details.  I used Tamiya XF 71 Cockpit Green for the recesses.  Then I gave the model a coat of clear flat Lacquer from a Testors spray can to seal the masking. Then I sprayed Tamiya XF-63 Olive Green on all the window frames.  Another coat of clear and then masked the windows off.

Here you see the model ready for painting. I also masked off the brick sides opting to give it a series of washes and dry brushing to detail it.  Being pretty much hidden from view, it will not require a lot of time initially.  One more clear coat and then I sprayed the whole building with XF-60 Dark Yellow.  Two good coats were applied and then set aside to dry.

Below is a shot before and then a shot after.  A few hours and a couple jars of paint and you have something more visually striking and more period appropriate.

When you unmask, this is what the model now looks like.  Next will be detailing and some light weathering.  There's this nice molded in shield on the roof trim that calls out to be detailed.  I picked up some nifty LED's with a Resistor installed that I will use to illuminate the building.  At the moment the plan is to construct several boxes for the upper story to have individual rooms lit and group of LED's for the lower floor.  Clear thin acrylic will be used to represent the windows and behind those, different window treatments or window signs.  Thinking out loud, the lower level would be the bank and the upper leased office space. This way I can add variety to the view in the windows. 

The task at the moment will be to get it to a stage that it will look complete in a general photograph and then later go back and add details and accents.

PE Tank Car construction

The box from Tichy Train Group was still warm from it's ride over in the Mailman's truck and I had it opened and cutting parts from the sprue before it got cold last night.  Wonderful little model, and with some modifications you can make a number of different 40' flats thanks to the stake pockets being separate.   If you do the standard car you end up with about 8 extra pockets for other projects which is nice.

This is the general idea for this kit bash.  After reading and re-reading the ORER's of the day, PE had only 40' flats of all different manufacturers and these cars were converted using reclaimed tank cars for the load.  While this car doesn't have straight sides like the kit, I have some grainy photo's showing tanks installed on models like the Tichy kit we are working with.  It would be easy enough to add new sides to look like the photo, scratched out of .040" styrene sheet if you wanted to.  Since I am up against a show deadline and want to run this unique style of car with the rest of my tank train, a few liberties will be taken.  As a matter of discussion I am still on the hunt for more photo's and builder's drawings of these tank cars so that some day I can do more prototypical cars.  Until then, stand ins will work just fine for m.


First thing was to build up the center under frame and make sure it's square while drying.  I used a small metal weight to hold things down on the work surface to make sure everything set properly.  Glue I am using is Tenax-7R which sets lightning fast and really joins your plastic together.  You can't wet the mating surfaces like you do with a Testors liquid glue, this must be flowed into the joint between parts and left to set.

At this point I put the under frames aside and then cut the center out of the deck and then glued the Bolsters in place per the instructions.  Since most of these Tank Cars had their center decks removed to better attach the tank to the frame I did this before continuing with the assembly.  Deck sides will be used as is, but since they don't have stake pockets, I filled the holes with Tamiya putty and set aside. 

Next I glued the frame to the underside as shown and used a steel bar to plumb the sides to keep the model straight as it dried.  Deck endcaps were also installed and later the Draft Gear Box.

Once set I attached the kit side frames and this helped line things up as well.  I made up some small sand bags using a pair of kids socks with sand in zip lock sandwich bags inside for soft weight to keep things level on the table as it dried.  Small bags filled with bird shot will work too.

Now right side up and dry, the next step will be to build the tank from a older Life Like Proto 2000 8,000 gallon tank car kit.  The metal weight that is included with the Flat Car will be cut up and parts inserted into the spine a bit later.  I need to figure out how much weight the tank will add to the overall car before sealing things up.

Photo's Found on the Web

Here is a postcard of Brand Ave a little further East then I am modeling, but you can see what space it would
take to get this kind of effect.  Great color reference for vehicles and buildings as well as street markings of the time.