Catch Up

I have not gotten much done on the layout lately. The weather was pretty cold and the train room was not as inviting but, really, I was just being lazy. I did complete the apartment and I really like how it looks. I envision little in the way of an interior - may a person or two - but most of the shades will be pulled on the windows. Some light and maybe some forced shadows.

Complete apartment building in East McKeesport

Bruce came over last weekend and we talked about several projects we have been bouncing around. The corner left (west) of East McKeesport, past the trestle bridge, has been an area of major conversation and deliberating. He came up with the idea of a couple of hills - one in the corner and another in front of the mainline coming from hidden staging for the major elements in this section of the layout. I had bought a different Woodland Scenics rock mold a few weeks ago and made some castings that I laid against the stacks of insulation pieces to give us a visual representation. We talked about the area to the trestle and a tunnel for the trains on the trestle to disappear into. I decided we needed to add a sluggish pond or creek in front of the new hill sides (there are no bodies of water on my layout) and he thought that would work.
Although we did not get much work done, we did discuss a lot of ideas and have some plans for the next working train session. We also pretty well proved his theory that the oil in the electric motors is thickening up in the winter and that's why they take so long before they run smoothly. We cleaned several sections of the track which improved performance but was not the culprit.
Another interesting point this week was reconnecting with my friend, Vic. For those who have been following my blog, Vic's Bait & Tackle was the first completed scene on that last layout and this layout. It's named after a co-worker who lives in the Boston area and loves fishing. Doubt he would be terribly excited by the fishing in Keystone Lake which is where his mythical store is located. None the less, it was great catching up.

Vic's Bait & Tackle, named after a co-worker I had a chance to see this week

A Near Perfect 10

Engine 7046 was idling next to Clancy's Tavern, waiting for engine 9205 leading the east bound UN-2 Uniontown Trick. The traction motors of 9502, a sleek F3A, were digging into the slight grade out of East McKeesport. When it reached the crossover, instead of heading straight as it should, it suddenly lurched into the curve....someone had left the switch open! The men standing around Vic's Bait & Tackle Shop were witness to the most spectacular sight as the nose of the F3 drove straight into the broadside of the Heinz 73 pickle car. The force sheared the couplers off the adorning cars and sent the pickle car into a death spiral down the steep raven.
But wait...all was not lost. The spectators, now Olympic judges, were amazed as, in those final moments before complete obliteration, they witness Heinz 73, the ungainly and awkward pickle tank car, execute a near perfect 360 with half twisted, pulling out as it was reduced to the individual nuts and bolts that created it.
It only took a few minutes of discussion before the witnesses scored a unanimous 9.9!

More Hills

In my last post, I talked about how Bruce and I were collaborating and bouncing ideas off each other. In particular, we were focusing on the far right corner of the layout that is relatively bare and I had no idea how to scenic. Bruce later emailed some thoughts:

• Use a different color of ballast on the farthest track to make it look like a separate right of way (like track from a different RR company or a branch line). 
• Extend the E. McKeesport backdrop to curve around the corner in front of the farthest track, with the scene changing from city to country - may require removing the elevated track on the bridge
• Shape a piece of foam about 2" high to fit between the two rearmost tracks and also between the farthest track and the corner (as you did on the opposite corner of the layout) and scenic to simulate a cut & fill. 
• Put a road in front of the farthest track and use a series of closely-spaced Burma-Shave billboards to hide the rear track (Maybe this idea is a little goofy).
• Build an embankment or a hill in front of the rear track about 6" high; tall enough to hide the trains. Leave the top open for access.

I thought all the ideas were rather creative. I did not want to remove the bridge (I love the trestle bridge there) and since the track is curved with hand throws at either end I did not want to cover it in a tunnel or below an access hatch. So the 3rd bullet, the track hidden in a cut really appealed.

Initial mockup to hide the corner

I cut some of the remaining insulation foam that I had lying around and ended up with hills 3" high in front and behind the "cut in the hill" next to the bridge. In fact, I think there will be a lower cut in front of the closest hill to add more shape to the scene. I placed the only background scene I own behind this and really liked how its starting to look - although I want the background to show cut rock faces.

Stepping back (to Uniontown) to take in the scene

Looks like Bruce will be other this weekend so I expect this scene to really get fleshed out.

Compromise or Collaboration

Since the holiday break, I did not get much done on the layout, just a few little odds and ends like creating a couple of coal loads for the hopper cars and touching up a couple sections of scenery. There was some serious activity over the Jan 9-10 weekend though. First, I made a trip to Pittsburgh to see my Dad which meant I needed to stop at TK Hobby Shop in Bridgeport OH. I love this store and while I don't find everything I was looking for, I always find a few things I can use at great prices. Since this trip was an out-and-back (round trip 520 miles in one day), I was only going to stop in for 15-20 minutes. I had a list of what I wanted that I checked against their website inventory. I walked into the store at 10:10 AM...and called my Dad at 11 when I realized what time it was! And yes, I walked out with some new stuff for the train including a test background scene and Parkview Terrace building for East McKeesport.

The new background temporarily placed

I was only about 15 minutes later than planned (I padded my estimate, I was not speeding!), so I still managed to spend a few hours with him before heading back home.
The other thing that weekend was Bruce coming over Sunday afternoon. Last time we got together was before Christmas and we ran an operating session to see how it worked. Lots of fun and seemed appropriate for the session - play with trains rather than building. This time we had a working session. We always start by catching up on family and work activities, then talk about any changes I've done and bounce around some ideas. This time, I was able to show Bruce the new stuff from TK - background, apartment building kit, and a couple of '54 pickups. On the layout, I had rough in some initial scenery in the corner between the Irwin Yard and Untiontown as well as the section between Herminie and East McKeesport.

Future farm in the corner, brick streets in Uniontown

 I spent the session trimming some brick paper for the streets in Uniontown that go around the city park next to Isley's and then disappears into the background (above). Bruce added ground foam to the area next to Herminie (below).

Set Bruce up with a variety of "grasses" for the Herminie/E McKeesport scene break.

 We had a good time and while the changes we made were small, it's an incremental step to a complete layout. Afterwards, I was thinking about how different this time is from my day job. During the week, I spend much of my time finding an acceptable compromise between two people or two groups. Yes, there is some collaboration but seems like there is more compromise. Out in the train room, when Bruce comes over to brainstorm ideas and offer suggestions - now THAT is collaboration!

Creating coal loads

Here are the results of my first efforts to create removal coal loads for my hopper cars. As I've said, I only need to create about 5 since most of the fleet were kits that came with prefabricated plastic molds. I created 3 bases using bass wood with some random pieces stacked on them to simulate some depth to the coal pile. Then I glued a steel washer on the bottom so I can use a magnet to more easily remove the loads for cars that are supposed to me empty (written as -MTY- on the waybills). I painted these a flat black and once dry, painted on a thick layer of white glue. I had 3 different types of "coal" - scale coal from Woodland Scenics (I think, got it a long time ago) and 2 sand art materials from Michael's Arts & Crafts. One of these was rather fine and the other more coarse.

Three experiments creating coal loads

I covered one based with the fine and the second with the coarse material. The third I first sprinkled the coarse material then dusted it with some of the fine to fill in the gaps. These are in the photo above - but right to left so the fine one is on the right. Once they dried, I tapped the loose material off and decided that the two with the coarse material are pretty good but the fine material is too fine - you can see the layers of basswood. Maybe another couple coats of the material to hid the sharp corners of the stacking material.

Plastic, my homemade and purchases homemade coal loads

In the next photo, three cars are showing the coal loads I have - left is the modeled plastic that came with this hopper car, the middle is the better example I created, and the right is a model I picked up at a show with a homemade coal load. Based on this, I think my experiment went pretty well.

Closing out 2015

The last couple of weeks have been pretty fun with Christmas, time with family and friends and time in the train room. Yesterday, Lisa and I took Nicholas, Adam and Angie to the Cincinnati Museum were we saw The Art of the Brick exhibit but also the year round Cincinnati train display, the seasonal holiday train as well as a look out Tower "A".

The display of Cincinnati is open year round

Quite the inspiration. I was looking at some of the details and determining how I could use the ideas on the PRR Irwin layout. Today, I spent some time tweaking some scenery in Herminie but spent the majority creating coal loads for the hopper cars. I have 4 or 5 cars that do not have coal loads which is confusing While in principal, I know how to do this - I've read enough articles - I've never done it before. Also, I am trying some materials from Michael's Arts & Crafts to simulate the coal in various sizes. As the glue is till drying, we'll have to wait until the New Year to see how things turn out.

The Holiday train exhibit is more toy train but very exciting to watch

Another task I finished today was creating a backup of the blog. While this website allows you to export and XML file of the content, there are no photos so I used a custom Lotus Notes database to log all the entries. Maybe I'll publish it in book for someday! Reviewing the entries, I started 2015 with the trains more-or-less running and very basic scenery. As I look to the New Year starting tomorrow, I have most buildings in place (although some are mockups), the two tunnel areas and about 70% of the basic scenery completed. There are now trees, bushes, people and cars bringing the scenes to life. And, of course, real operations based on a a published freight schedule. Not too bad.
Wonder what 2016 will bring?

Cables and Fast Clock

About a month ago, two of the Digitrax UP5 panels stopped working completely (under the P&LE Interchange in Herminie and under Vic's Bait & Tackle in Keystone Lake) and the infrared panel between these two was intermittent. Strangely, the other UP5 between these worked fine. This was a puzzle since the panels are daisy chained Uniontown -> Herminie -> Infrared -> E McKeesport -> Keystone. I checked all the cables to ensure they were tightly connected but still no luck.
Not sure if  I wrote it before, but  I created all the cables myself using a couple of telephone crimpers I had laying around. The challenge was the LocoNet cable is 6 wire and the crimpers were not that good. Still, I tested all the cables before installing and only used the ones that passed the test - meaning about 1/2 of what I made! I spent a week trying to figure out what went wrong and doing some research before I decided to buy the Digitrax LNCMK LocoNet Cable Maker Kit that comes with 50' of DCC tested cable and, more importantly, a good set of crimpers.
I ordered from DCC Train and it took a couple of weeks because it was on backorder. It came in right before Christmas but I did not get a chance to try it out until last night. I decided I would replace the cable between Uniontown and Herminie and see it that resolved the problem After I created the 3' long cable, I tested it and for the first time got all 4 lights solid green, instead of the flickering light or two on my original fabricated cables. Feeling good about this, I replaced the cable and now ALL of the panels are working again. YES! I plan to go back and replace all the wires with new ones.
Also yesteday, I remembered the that Digitrax throttles have the ability to set and display a fast clock. I was curious if I could run the schedule based on a fast clock and use that to build the time table. It worked really, really well and I may have to see about getting a Logic Rail Tech LocoNet Fast Clock to mount on the sky fascia above the peninsula.
Wonder if Bruce is ready to run trains on the clock?