Good Enough!
Every model railroader has a point where the work they're doing is good enough to move on. And it varies greatly. Some modelers may be content to staple some track to the floor, crack a Bud, and watch Jupiter chase his tail. For others, good enough might be taking a photo of their layout and taking a photo of the corresponding prototype, showing it to the Yard Master and the yard master guessing wrong 90% of the time.
I'm somewhere inbetween.
And I'm ready to be at the good enough point, so i can move on to something other than track work.
Today is the second day of trouble-shooting the recently installed main. I hooked up a 2-6-0 to three 50" passenger cars and started looking for problems to solve. Careful what you look for, is all I gotta say.
There have been two perplexing problems.
The first is that one of my 2-6-0s is picking an open-side point. At least I think that's what's happening. None of the other locomotives make so much as peep rolling through the turnout. The 2-6-0 makes a click like it ran into a rail wall.
Every piece of rolling stock goes through just fine.
I took out my HO gauge and measured the pilot. Perfect. I measured the rails. Perfect. The loco shouldn't be able to touch the point let alone jump over it and take the scenic route.
So when I got done trying to figure that one out, I switched to another 2-6-0 and dragged the 3 passenger cars on my journey.
All three cars jumped the rail in the middle of a turn, nowhere near a solder joint or rail joiner. I've been pulling those cars all morning with the other 2-6-0 working on the picking problem and they never came off once--going in either direction.
I watched the passenger cars and as they got near the jump point. They'd raise up the right front wheels and drop them outside the track. I looked for something that they ran over, but found nothing.
What I figured was happening is the truck, or rather the extension the coupler was mounted on, was hitting the chassis in the turn and that was pulling the far side up. What was wierd is this is the largest radius turn on the layout and the passenger cars were doing fine on the others.
So I figured there were two approaches I could take. I could change the track, or I could change the car. The coupler was designed to be constrained, but I easily could have taken out an eighth of an inch off the chassis and increased the coupler's range of motion greatly. Of course that increased the likelihood that the car bodies would bump corners.
Or I could change the track. ME flex track bends, but only a little at a time and once you get it where you want it, that's where it stays.
Atlas flex track bends but then bends back when you release it. This can be good when laying track because it seeks the easiest path to get where you want to go, and that easiest path includes the best natural easements.
So what I did was pull up all the track nails and let Atlas pick a better trail. The pliers show where they derailed.
And it worked. The passenger trains stopped hopping rails. I tested 5 times.
And they started derailing at the next turnout, something that they hadn't done before.
Anyway, I now have to move the roadbed under the track. I'm hoping the caulk will be forgiving.
Once I get the derails settled for everything that runs on the track, I'll start checking the hops. You know, when the wheel bounces but stays on the track.
Then hopefully, it will be good enough to lay the staging tracks and start testing them.
Did I tell you how much I like track WORK?
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
Turns out I just needed to replace 3 knuckle springs.
Talk about instant karma...
...just this morning I kidded Sheldon that I had the attention span of a knuckle spring.
rrinkerEvery brand of locomotive and rolling stock they ever provided a suggested coupler for.
Perfect. Turns out it's just #5.
https://www.kadee.com/hocc.htm
Every brand of locomotive and rolling stock they ever provided a suggested coupler for. One level up, you can pick the scale, if looking for something other than HO.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Thanks Dave.
I got a chance to put the 55 foot coaches behind a 2-6-0 and drag them around the track. They seemed to do okay but there was a hick-up in that the couplers on the passenger units were of varying heights and they had problems coupling, and they decoupled every time the engine hesitated for any reason.
Then it occured to me that I got those passenger cars since my last layout and I've never run them. More importantly, I've never installed Kaydees.
As luck would have it, once I was at show where someone was dumping their Kaydee inventory and selling them for rediculously cheap--Needless to say I have a bunch of different kinds of couplers, and mounting systems. As well as a bunch of magnets I'm not going to use.
If you happen to know which Kaydee goes on these MDC old-time 55' passenger cars, it would probably save me a bunch of time trying to find out. I have to fix them before I can continue testing the track for flaws.
Great progress Chip!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
She caught The Katy,
left me a mule to ride.
I'm singing and doing a happy dance because for the first time in 15 years, I have a roundy rounder. The trains make it all the way around the main and are still on the track when they get back.
I came close once before. I started a layout based on my then home town of Indiana, PA. The trains had a branch line operating the the middle of downtown. I got the track laid, but not good enough to run trains.
Now I just hijacked someone's post and told this story, so if you heard it already scroll down the pictures till you see something new.
I built a layout that fairly accurately represented the local area in 1950. The PRR had a branchline that serviced our area. My layout looked like this:
You'll notice, I loosely modeled it after Sanborn Maps...
and aerial photos.
Notice a pattern?
I went to the library and online and I looked for photos and artcles from the time period.
This is the train station which is along the bottom of the little mini-yard.
And this is Jimmy Stewart's dad's Hardware Store which is right at the yard's mouth.
Of course, Jimmy Stewart was gone long before I got there.
But he's still a big deal in Indiana, PA. There's a statue and a Jimmy Stewart Museum and everything. In fact, Indiana bases their entire tourest trade on Jimmy Stewart.
Now I'm not crass enough to say that anyone who even knows who Jimmy Stewart is, is either dead or has one foot in the grave. All I know is that I don't know of a single person who has " 42. Visiting the Jimmy Stewart Museum" on thier bucket list.
Anyway, you want to hear why I didn't get my trains running, right?
My wife and I had a disagreement.
I wanted to spend my sort of forced retirement after 2008, spending our money and building a layout. She wanted to be able to get paintings in and out of her storage racks, so she could make money in her on-going art business.
I even explained that if she tipped her paintings up and a little to the side she could get them out without scraping them if she was careful.
The upshot is I'm still married.
And the reason I'm building my layout today is that she felt bad about making take the layout apart all this time , and she sacrificed her "pouring table" which was about 6 x 6 foot where she layed her canvasses out and created her base layer, to make space so I could build another layout.
(Did I just hear some of you ladies say "Ahhhhh"?)
Okay, okay, you came here to hear about my progress on my layout.
The star of the show was this guy.
You may remember a while back when I was testing whether or not my geared steam could handle a 3% grade for layout planning, I ran my other locos as well, just to see how they would do. I'd never run this little 0-6-0 before and I wondered how it would do.
It as the worst puller of the bunch. He huffed and puffed and did manage to get a car up the grade.
In short, I had low expectations of Lil Huffy, as I began to think of him. I got him to switch the yard, but to do so, he'd have to be able to pull at least 10 cars. At least, that is what I was thinking in my head.
If you count around the curve, you can just make out the cuppola of the Gorre and Daphitid cabbose, coming in at number 10.
Now I should point out two things here.
1) It's not the Gorre and Daphitid you're mistakenly thinking of. It's owned by the very real G&D Ranch which in turn is owned by Al Gorre and Ben Daphitid.
2) I couldn't test Lil Huffy with more than 10 cars, because that's all I have built.
Tomorrow will be the big test. That's right the devil's own railroad car is coming out. Because if God wanted a passenger car longer than 54 feet, he would have built it in someplace sensible like Johnstown.
I'm somewhat trepidatious. For laughs and giggles I tried rolling it on the 2.25 grade turn you see above Lil Huffy. It didn't like the 16.5 inch radius turn and kept popping of the rails.
Granted, there's no reason why a luxury passenger car would want to go up to logging camp, so the test was moot.
But tomorrow, we're going t see how he likes a level 19-inch radius turn.
rrinkerInto foam you can use pushpins and hold the track in place and still be able to run across it, without anything permanently in place. Not those kind witht he big plastic knobs on the end, but t-pins like these:
I have some T-pins, but they are too long and won't penetrate the plywood. (I'm using 1" foam.) I have some 7/8" brads with heads I'm going to try.
The reason I'm doing the underground stuff first, is that a lot is affected in terms of landscape which affects where bridges are located, etc. Nothing is hard to reach now. But it will be when I put the second layer on.
Into foam you can use pushpins and hold the track in place and still be able to run across it, without anything permanently in place. Not those kind witht he big plastic knobs on the end, but t-pins like these:
https://www.staples.com/Staples-10819-CC-Nickel-Plated-T-Pin-100-Pack/product_436448
Put in either outside of the rail or midway between the center and inside of the rail, they are low enough to clear the underside of most locos, and the T head holds down the tie. I have been able to run trains over them with no problem, and then use them to hold the track in place after applying the caulk.
Don't be chicken. Just do it. It'll be fine. Though I don't think I'd start in the hardest to access place first.
DaveI would do a test with some spare track and roadbed, and with your NMRA Track Gauge handy, to see what happens. You might be fine.
As our friends at Oxford would say, "Not bloody likely."
SpaceMouseTechnically, I could shoot the track down...
Hi Chip,
I would be concerned about the brad nails bending the ties if they go in too far. If the center of the ties gets bent down, that pulls the rails closer together and throws off the track spacing. Another possibility is that the brads will break the center of the ties and push the rails further apart.
I would do a test with some spare track and roadbed, and with your NMRA Track Gauge handy, to see what happens. You might be fine.
"Bok, Bok, Bee-ok."
That's right. I'm a big chicken.
I got 2/3 of my 29 foot main on the roadbed and I was looking at my caulking gun all ready to go. But I couldn't do it. I have to get this part of the layout perfect before I can cover it up with the mountain grade and the upper levels.
Most of the main will be in a cave, or uh, tunnel--but it's going to be huge like Carlsbad Caverns. I can stick my mitts in there to rerail a car, but I don't want to have to fix trackwork in a hole.
To complicate matters, I am untested with Fast Tracks turnouts. Oh, I got 14 installed on a layout 15 years ago, but had to tear the layout down before I mounted the switch machines. I have those turnouts and 16 more ready for their debut.
So there's that.
The idea of gluing it down before I get a chance to fiddle with it is asking for trouble. And I want to test all my locos on it--all of which have been sitting for 15 years.
And three of those are on the bench.
I have to install a decoder in a DCC ready 2-6-0 that doesn't have room for a decoder. I'll have to rewire it. And just for laughs and giggles, the assembler's idea of color coding is, "if it's a wire, it's black."
Then I have to get a decoder and LEDs into my Climax A.
And I have to install replacement sideframes on my Shay.
I just couldn't glue the track down.
I thought I could nail it down with 1 1/2" 18 ga brads. That would put 1/4 inch into the plywood. I tried buying some, but all the stores just sell the coalated brads for nail guns. If I want something 1 1/2 long you pound, it's a 6d nail, and that's almost as fat as a tie.
Come to think of it, I have some 18 ga brad strips left over from when I reworked the lattice on my deck.
Technically, I could shoot the track down...
JohnEven though this is about Chip's layout, I'm fairly new to all this, and I'm taking notes for my own layout.
I'm always taking notes.
Truth be told, electrical work and trackwork are a lot like work for my liking. Now I do take satisfaction in doing it well, and I'm slowly getting better at soldering, but both electric and trackwork and benchwork for that matter, are about getting it done so I can get on to the processes that I enjoy doing, and of course, running trains.
I like decorating and creating scenes--especially when it adds to train operations, and other fun.
Today was an electric day. Actually it was supposed to be a couple days ago, but I got stalled for reasons I'll go into in a bit.
The turntable was looming. I had to set it into place and wire it so that I could put the plywood back on and run track into the town of Rock Ridge. It may be months before I build the final pit turntable, but the time to install the Atlas turntable that will power it is now.
While I was procrastinating, I noticed that my power supplies/ control drawer was stuck. I figured I better lift the plywood and fix it now, because I'm just going to add layer after layer on top of it from here on out.
Here's what it looks like.
And here's what it's supposed to do.
It rolls on drawer hardware. A couple of the wires were catching and blocking the movement.
What you see is a Bachmann EZ Track transformer, a Zephyr, and a program track. Transformer is supplying about 5-6v to the turntable and the 12vac to the LEDs.
What?
I guess two years ago I must have been young and stupid, because you'd think I'd know that I should be running 12v dc. LEDs (light emmiting diodes) are diodes and you can't run alternating current both ways through a diode.You only get light half the time.
So I spent the day refining and redefining how I wanted my accessories set up. Basically, I want to seal it and be done with it. I have it set up so that any additional wiring can be done from the edge of the layout. The reason it was delayed is I had to order a 12v dc power supply and pick-up a couple switches while I'm at it.
The first thing was wiring the turntable.
Of course, before I did that, I had to get it at the right height, get the center in the right spot and at the same time make sure its level every which way 'til Tuesday.
Then I wired it to a mom--that's a momentary switch and not someone's mother. I also wired the first piece of track to the bus--the turntable "bridge."
I made a mini-control panel.
This is temporary until I get facia. The switch on the left turns on structure lights, the center turns the turntable, and the one on the right turns on the street lights and a couple buildings that use grain of something lights. See, I found a use for the AC power.
This thing.
This is a board I mounted on the frame. You'll notice two busses (12vdc) with resistors mounted between them. Now when I install a structure, I can run two wires through one of the holes and solder them to the busses. Everything is right in front of you. It's currently prewired for 30 LEDs but I can expand to 30 more.
For those of you that noticed the two PCB strips on the small control panel, those are for connecting the streelights when they are installed.
All-in-all, I'm glad it's done. I can go back to running track tomorrow.
hon30critterTo do that, add some moderate hills and valleys that run perpendicular to the tracks, and then make cuts through the high spots and add bridges over the low spots so the track is not running through unrealistically even terrain.
That's a good idea -- I hadn't thought of doing that.
Even though this is about Chip's layout, I'm fairly new to all this, and I'm taking notes for my own layout.
York1 John
Dave If I can offer my worth about long straight rock faces, there is a way to add some variation to them. To do that, add some moderate hills and valleys that run perpendicular to the tracks, and then make cuts through the high spots and add bridges over the low spots so the track is not running through unrealistically even terrain. Dave
If I can offer my worth about long straight rock faces, there is a way to add some variation to them. To do that, add some moderate hills and valleys that run perpendicular to the tracks, and then make cuts through the high spots and add bridges over the low spots so the track is not running through unrealistically even terrain.
Exactly what I had in mind.
I don't, Chip, but I do take care to ensure it doesn't have any dips or rough patches that might cause it to be 'lumpy'. As you must know, lumpy is not good on curves, particularly with long-bodied diesels and three-axle trucks. At least, in my limited diesel experience, with a couple of Genesis SD-75M's, they don't do well on curves unless the rails are dead-even transversely, or if the curves are supered, the outer rails must be at an even elevation within any inch...no dips that will allow the lead flange to slide over the rail top and cause a derailment.
However, it's a good idea to place a straightedge over all your joints if you're doing splines and cookiecutter roadbed. Where you see the straightedge do a teeter-totter motion over the joint, you'll need to sand that flat.
I forgot to ask. Do you sand the top of your roadbed?
Today, I felt like I finally made progress. I laid the roadbed for the main. Twenty-nine feet of SP Main--all but 8 feet of which are in a tunnel. Here is the part you get to view.
Just to the right of the main is the 4-track, Rock Ridge Classification Yard.
Here's the part the part of the main that's in the tunnel.
To the right of the main is a 4-track staging yard. To the right of that is the beginning of a 2.25% climb up the mountain to the Ridge Mine and Rock Ridge Lumber's Logging Camp #1. Most of which is visable. Who doesn't love watching geared-steam climbing up a craggy wall.
Randall "Rock" Ridge heard that logging camps were numbered, so his Rock Ridge Lumber Camp is #1 even though it's the only one he has. The Ridge Mine (silver) is owned by Douglas "Duke" Ridge. Lawrence Ridge owns "Lucky Larry's" a dive saloon/ gambling house/ house of ill repute. He isn't nearly as rich as the other two.
Maybe with any luck, I'll have a roundy-rounder by the end of the weekend--ending a 15-year drought.
Well, not exactly - nothing says you screwed up like an 8" rock cliff between the trqacks around half the layout. A short section of 8" rock cliff says the railroad had to loop back on itself to gain altitude to cross the mountains. Once is a neat scenic feature - over and over is a scenic cliche. One spot with the railroad passing above itself on a cliff (so long as there is a mountain in the area) is completely reasonable and gives you a good place to try rock carving.
I changed the grade to 2.25% and I feel a lot better about it. I've been playing around in my head with different terrains, and a 6 inch separation between two tracks is a lot easier to deal with than 8 inches.
And, as Randy implied, nothing says "I really screwed up big time" like an 8 inch rock cliff between two tracks.
I also got most of the foam glued down in the tunnel. Staging and the first part of the grade happen underground and you can see everything that happens in the tunnel from the side. It will be fully lit and sceniced.
I would have taken a picture, but I felt more like popping a beer than showing you the contents of my wife's pantry spread all over my layout holding the foam down.
rrinkerWell, you CAN just put a sheer rock cliff in there - just don;t overdue it so it becomes cliche - I HATE that cliche!
I was thinking a tressel and maybe a shale slide.
Well, you CAN just put a sheer rock cliff in there - just don;t overdue it so it becomes cliche - I HATE that cliche! Or you could use them everywhere as sort of an insider joke about a specific cliche. Especially if there are no handy mountain passes - you'll need a different cliche anyway.
Today, I cut my cookies--sounds dirty when you say it that way--and put in my 3% grade.
Then reality set in.
Look back in the corner of the U near the highest point of the grade. The elevation difference between the grade and the track below is 8+ inches. The tracks are horizontally 1 1/2 inches apart tie to tie.
So I think I am going to try a 2.25% grade. That will leave me with a 6" differntial between tracks, and I think I can work with that.
But that also changes the elevation diffence between the upper level and staging. It drops from 10 inches to 7 1/4 in terms of sticking-your-hand-in-there-and-rerailing-a-tank-car kind of clearance.
I'll make a mock-up and see if 7.25 inches clearance is doable on the 4th staging track back (about a foot deep into the tunnel.) If push comes to shove, I can always clear the trains in front of the car.
I better make my staging track bulletproof.
On the other hand, all my geared steam will like the 2.25% grade better than the 3% grade.
I'm under 2 hours for a Fast Tracks turnout build. I'm going to run out of rail in 5 days at one-per-day. Yesterday I built 2. I'm going to be 10 short.
It's taken two days, but tomorrow I'm finally ready to cookie-cut the grade. The problem was that the lower loop came too close to the edge of the layout. When I moved back onto the layout, the grade is too close to the lower track. It is 3.7 inched difference in height, but I wanted to scenic the tunnel to look like a tunnel, and that proximity didn't leave me a lot of options.
So today I joined 4 pieces of flex track and let Grampa Atlas take over.
Who would have thunk it would take 4 hours to do?
Temperature is still hitting 100 as a high, but it gets down to low sixties at night. Still, by noon, it is oppressive. This is October. It's supposed to be low 80's for a high. This heat wave is getting old--5 months of 100+ temperatures. Normal is a month and a half. I digress.
But the upshot is that I got it done with all the perameters in place. I endied up sacrificing some turning radius. I went from 18 to 16.5. But the only locos using this spur will be geared steam and rolling stock will be short dogs--log cars and ore cars.
If you are wondering why there is 1 1/2 inches on the outside of the loop and 2 1/2 inches on the inside, that extra inch will give me a lot of scenic options.
Tomorrow, I cut out the cookie and the turntable. Then I can start working on the first level. I might just have a mainline loop soon.
P.S. As a side note, there's not a lot of places you can put a 12 foot piece of flex track that's not on the layout.
Dave Hi Chip, "It didn't come out as expected". Did you check that the printouts are actually the true size? Some printers don't print at exactly 100 %. The printouts may be slightly off. Check the printouts with an actual turnout, and maybe check a piece of straight track with a known length. Dave
"It didn't come out as expected".
Did you check that the printouts are actually the true size? Some printers don't print at exactly 100 %. The printouts may be slightly off. Check the printouts with an actual turnout, and maybe check a piece of straight track with a known length.
I've decided that it doesn't matter where the errors came from. The only critical turnout is the one on the lower right. It determines the entrance into the town and the angle of the yard.
If I can get that one, everything else should fall into place.
Mark Good progress, Chip! Tim Warris of Fast Tracks says you can make a turnout in about an hour, and I watched him do it once in a clinic at an NMRA national convention (he even gave me the turnout after the clinic!). But he's made probably thousands of them now, and could do it with his eyes closed. It still takes me between an hour and a half and two hours, and I've probably made forty or more by now.
Good progress, Chip!
Tim Warris of Fast Tracks says you can make a turnout in about an hour, and I watched him do it once in a clinic at an NMRA national convention (he even gave me the turnout after the clinic!). But he's made probably thousands of them now, and could do it with his eyes closed. It still takes me between an hour and a half and two hours, and I've probably made forty or more by now.
I watched him do one in an hour on video.
My biggest time suck now is getting the track to bend right for the curved outside rail and the curved point. Not getting it perfect creates a bunch of fine tuning challenges.
I had previously made 14 turnouts 12 years ago. I had them on a layout I had to take out, but I feel like I'm starting over.
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
It feels like I'm finally back working on the layout. Last night my wife printed out the XtrackCAD 1:1 scale layout plan and I taped them to the benchwork.
It didn't come out as expacted. Here were little variances between the plan and the benchwork. I have 4 extra inches in the Mill peninsula, which translates into making my town a lot easier to workout. But the outer loop of the big pennisula brings the tract to within a half inch of the edge. Luckily, my staging yard can easily donate an inch to get it back on the layout.
At least, I can do the next step, which is to cookie-cut the 3% grade to the mine and logging camp (inside loop on the near-side) and cut out a space for the turntable.
That 'll be tomorrow's project.
I'm managing to get out a Fast Tracks turnout a day. They are taking about 2 1/2 a piece right now, but I'm getting better and faster.
KevinThis all sounds good and exciting. I am looking foward to more updates.
My sentiments exactly.
DouglasYou could change the extreme lower left turnout from a LH to a RH and it would both eliminate the S curve and start the lower curve sooner, providing a more graceful flow and more space for scenery.
I got all excited and changed my plan. Unfortunately, the new geometry interfered with the upper level and the transition between them.