once more with feeling…

October 2013

October 2012

Look how far I’ve come since October last year!  Or not, depending on your point of view.  The 2012 plan was for a spare room, whereas the current plan is for a 14′ x 8′ shed.  Of course, allowing for the structure of the shed gives a maximum inner footprint closer to 13′ 6″, so there’s some linear squeezing going on.  The plan now reflects the actual turnouts I own, so the yard is completely ‘right handed’, and uses a compound ladder rather than a simple ladder.

The unanticipated outcome of this is four yard tracks of equal length which is impossible with a conventional simple ladder.  I’ve deliberately omitted a run-round in the yard itself, but have an option to use the double ended siding as a run round if needed.  I imagine the lead off the yard tracks will hold a pair of switchers that will back onto a cut of cars, pull them round the curve and the switcher set that was trapped at the end of the yard tracks is now free to run ahead into the lead.  On the return trip, the switcher sets will be reversed, and the operation continues in that fashion.

So it’s coming together via tiny incremental steps.  And I’m still waiting for the shed…

zone 4 mock up

In what I can only describe as a predictable cock-up, the contractors managed to lay the base shorter than it should have been.  This means that instead of a 16 x 8, I can now only fit a 14 x 8.  With an internal dimension of around 13’6″ x 7’6″…  Words fail me.  Although they didn’t when I first found out.  Lots of short, Anglo-Saxon words…

Anyway, I have to live with it.  I spent a quick half an hour knocking up a mock up of Zone 4 to fit the new shorter space.  I had to leave off two spurs, but it’s livable.  It also frees up two additional turnouts for the staging area, which is actually a bonus.

 

A little tinkering in Photoshop to indicate the principle buildings and the layout of the staging tracks.  Doesn’t look half bad.  I still don’t have an optimal set of either 2 x espee GP38-2s or santa fe GP38/GP30 combos to actually switch with yet…

 

fine tuning…

Well, the base is in and I’m just fine tuning the specification of the Outdoor Prefabricated Model Railroad Room.  So in turn I fine tuned the most likely trackplan to be built.  This takes account of the actual number of turnouts I have, the rolling stock I’ve already got and my most stable interests.  Given that the OPMRR itself is eating up large (and growing) chunks of model railroad cash, I’m not really in a position to build anything that requires a big outlay in more track and more rolling stock.

I also realised that a 16′ x 8′ building actually gives an overall interior dimension closer to 15′ 6″ x 7′ 6″ – enough to shave a surprising amount off one of the earlier iterations of Zone 4.  So here is a more ‘accurate’ version.  Current thinking has this supported on five Ikea Ivar shelving units.  Layout framework and shelving… neat.

The staging yard has shrunk to a simple loop.  And that’s because I don’t want to buy any more turnouts at present.   This may actually be constructed in the next couple of months – I’m hoping that the arrival of the shed will be before my month-long vacation, which would give me a reasonable shot at finishing the shed and building an actual pike before the September restart…

what does, and what does not…

actually fit in 16′ x 8′?

Lubbock Zone 4 clearly does…

Thurso does too, and both of them are pretty much full scale, full size and therefore lovely.

Wirksworth doesn’t – it needs a least 19′, and even then is a little compressed.  In order to fit it into 16′ some of the distinctive trackwork has to be sacrificed, and that and the linear compression to my mind at least is a compromise too far.    An interesting exercise in planning, and quite revealing.  16′ x 8′ is a lot of real estate to fill with toy trains and woodwork, electrics, and so on yet it doesn’t actually accommodate much railroad.  Damn them for being so linear!

 

 

 

how fast is fast?

Not very fast it seems.  I’ve just had a conversation with a man who, among other things, will be clearing the site for a nice new purpose built outdoor railroad room.  Otherwise known as a shed.  This development was previously mentioned in March 2008, leaving me to wonder just exactly how much slower can I go?

So, perhaps by the fall of 2013 I will finally be constructing a physical version of one of the many virtual pikes that have passed this way… maybe a little premature, but it feels like the first tangible step towards the next phase of the hobby.  I’ve never had a purpose built space before, it’s thrilling and alarming at the same time.  A blank canvas in 3D, but one with actual physical constraints.

My beloved Coast Line won’t fit, not even half of it – so that’s out of the window.  I guess I’ll be building some version of the many shelf switchers,  but at least they will have a decent amount of staging which was never possible in their spare room iterations.

There are some dangerous siren voices trying to distract me… I was rather taken with Dapol/Kernow JIAs and Silver Bullets for example, and a Scottish BLT, and I’ve always fancied a banger blue Wirksworth…

Perhaps I need one staging yard that supports several pikes that can be swapped in and out according to whim!  Now that’s not such a daft idea at all…

are we nearly there yet?

It’s only taken 13 years, but in a rare burst of synchronicity between inclination, parts to hand and time, I actually got the S1a to a reasonable level of completion.

Most of the extra stand-off detail doesn’t really show.  Ah well…

 

handsome…

is probably not the first word that springs to mind when looking at my latest motive power acquisition…

 

A rather nice model of Jian She 8057, one of the ‘B’ type built in 1987.  Which makes it more than 60 years younger than another beast which resurfaced from my stock drawer after the best part of a decade.

This is a rather ancient Rivarossi B&O S1a, and was part-way through a bit of sprucing up, mainly consisting of a decent can motor and replacing all the moulded on pipework with stand-off details.  I got bored before I stuck the new bits on, and it disappeared back into its box for a decade.   I had a vague idea that I was going to ‘modernise’ it, rather in the fashion of John Armstrong’s modern steam on the Canandaigua Southern.  I may try to finish it this weekend, it deserves its time in the sun.

What I was really hankering after of course was a small fleet of QJ 2-10-2s.  I’ve seen one that’s been ‘Americanised’, and rather splendid it is too.

Neither of these beasts has any place on my pike, but I rather like them.

 

zone 4

I was going to do some modelling this morning, then opened a few packets of turnouts and flex track instead.  After half an hour of twiddling about, I’d mocked up half of Zone 4 on the kitchen table.

 

Looks kinda nice… I think the tracks are too close together without adding a short tangent track piece between the Peco #8s as supplied.  A quick look at the UPRR Technical Specifications sheet for industrial track suggests that these tracks should be on a minimum 15′ centres, which would be around 2 and 3/4 inches.  In the photo they’re a little under 2 inch centres.

That’s the fun pf a physical mock up, I’m finally getting a sense of how the plans actually pan out for real.   What’s really weird is how I’m now seeing #8s and #9s as small, tight turnouts…

 

 

 

new kid on the block

A little reminder of happy evenings on the Pepper Avenue bridge, watching the Colton Switchers hard at work.  The real SD38-2s make a heck of a racket… shame about the busted handrail, and as it’s a Kato I have to fit all the grab irons myself.

The 2801 is perching prettily on another new acquisition.  I’ve had a bit of a track fest recently, and am part way through tinkering with some Proto87 Stores turnouts.  Actually, they are turning into a real smorgasbord as I’ve been snaffling up various extras and dress-up details, including manganese insert frogs, heavy duty guard rails, rail braces and on and on.  Hey, track is a model too, right?  It would help if I could get it all from my local box shifter, but every darn piece has to be researched, located, ordered and shipped.  It’s taking a bit of time just to get all the components together and it doesn’t help when Customs decides to take a cut, and then the Post Office decides to slap me for ‘handling’ charges.

I’m in the middle of reverse engineering a rtr model, and I think I’ve gotten the hang of what goes where.  I spent ages fretting about the point blades riding up the foot of the stock rail, and then as I was putting stuff away I came across an intriguing little baggy I hadn’t seen for a while.  Wouldn’t you know it, but it had two sets of 3-way machined 16′ 6” point blades…

So I won’t be faffing around filing any blades and notches in stock rails, no sir.  All I have to do now is buy a couple more sets.  Darn this planning.  As a respite from all this hardcore carry on, I also bought a bunch of Peco code 83 #8s.  Maybe in an attempt to get something moving a little quicker?  I don’t know, but inch by inch I’m getting closer to an actual pike.

turnout nice again…

Sometimes it’s good to do nothing and wait.  Being a bit of a track nerd, I couldn’t settle on a suitable track system.  However, in a rare outburst of rashness, four gorgeous #9s have been ordered from Andy Reichert’s Proto:87 Stores…

Which means I’ll have enough – two left hand and two right hand – for this little variation on a theme.

 

I was heading along the Peco Code 83 #8 route, especially since I saw a little video showing how easy it was to swap out the headblocks.  That got me past one bugbear with the Peco turnouts, but it didn’t solve the horrible looking frog, comedy guard rails and half-rail points.

For most users, the Peco #8s would be fine… but I really wanted my track to be as much a model as the locomotives and cars.  If there were none of those present, then looking at the track on its own should sustain the level of authenticity that, say, the Genesis MP15ACs have.

I realized I’d either have to live with the limitations of the Pecos, or build my own turnouts.  Not something I relished in HO scale.  Imagine my delight to find that the splendidly detailed and authentic Proto:87 turnouts were available ready assembled, and for a not too exorbitant price.  Seriously, compared to what I was anticipating paying for the Peco turnouts, a fair whack under double the price gets me authentic looking #9s with – and this is the clincher – proper manganese frogs.

Pretty aren’t they!

Now of course, I have to change out all my wheelsets to Proto:87 standards… adding $12.95 per freight car.  Darn. Oh well, I did find the end on view of HO scale rolling stock rather odd, with the wide treads and chunky flanges.

from the left:

• P2K code .110 wheels with Kadee #5 coupler
• Intermountain code .088 semi-scale wheels with Kadee #58 semi-scale coupler
• Proto:87 code .064 scale wheels with Sergent Engineering scale coupler

So now I can enjoy good looking wheel sets and  swish track.  The commensurate increase in price per unit of track and stock means there’s going to be quite a lot less of both, at least in the short term.  But less is more, if the less is better, right?