Wordless Wednesday #338 - DERS-2bs on the Airline Local!

 

Wordless Wednesday #333 - The Airline Local

 

Wordless Wednesday #325

Airline Local, eastbound at Portland, CT

Throwback Thursday - Railfanning the Air Line Local

I've noticed something about layout owners, especially those that host regular ops sessions. . . They seldom operate their own layouts. And I'm no exception. Between setting up sessions, and maintenance between sessions, and wanting to make more progress to have something "new" to show at the next session, I can count on the fingers of one hand how often I've truly operated my own layout.

But once way back last February 2019(!), I'd set up for my normal full session (4 local freights, 2 mainline crews, agent/operator), but ended up short-handed. So I annulled the Air Line local for the session.

Bonus for me: All the paperwork was already done, and the train was staged and ready to go. Fortunately, my car forwarding system doesn't require that all the work be done during a session. But I took advantage of the opportunity to make a small pot of coffee, put on some period-correct big band music, and ran the local.

Follow along as we catch up to it in the town of Somerset . . .

By the time I shot the first photo of the local, it had already completed its work in Somerset and was pumping up the air in preparation for its trip northeast to Mill Hollow and, eventually, Middletown for interchange with the Valley Local. Here you can also see the ops paperwork laid out on top of the west end staging box.

Climbing up on top of the hill above Somerset, we get a better view of the over all scene. The setouts have been done and the pickups destined for Cedar Hill Yard (where our train originated) are set out on the siding for pickup on the return trip home.

The local has just arrived in Mill Hollow and has stopped short of the grade crossing so as not to foul it for longer than the 15 minutes allowed by the Rules.

The crew has to go up to the station to find out what work it needs to do in town - which is indicated on the switchlist left in the bill box. DERS-2b #0510 was just recently delivered to the railroad and hasn't even had a chance to get dirtied up.

Air Line local arriving in Middletown. This is where it exchanges cars with the Valley Local, which is seen here switching Middletown yard. The 0510 will head south on the Valley Main, then back north into the yard to drop off/pick up.

After all the switching is done in Middletown, and the hack is on the south end of the cut of cars, the local backs south out of the yard, past the tower and across the diamond.

Once south of the switch, the local can proceed northwest around the quadrant track to head back to Cedar Hill yard in New Haven.

Return trip coming south (railroad west) into Mill Hollow.

No work here on the way back, so continuing south/west.

Back in Somerset, we have to pick up the empties we set out this morning. Note that the rest of the train was dropped short of the grade crossing to avoid blocking it.

Once the train is back together, time to pump up the air and get ready to go.

Just departing Somerset - next stop, Cedar Hill yard, home, and dinner.

Hope you enjoyed railfanning on the Air Line a bit. Now, admittedly, the photography isn't great, so let's just say that I've set the bar low here and plan to improve (especially now that I have a fancy new photo gadget). Heh - I can only get better from here!

Also, the Air Line local traverses two 2x8' sections of railroad that host structures from a dear friend and represent my first-ever attempts at scenery. So, while "finished," the Air Line is neither prototypical nor up to the standards that I'm setting for the rest of the layout.

But boy is it a hoot to operate! Just goes to prove that even poor scenery is better than no scenery at all. There's just nothing like the immersive experience that even a rudimentary setting can create. And this area of the layout also proves that you don't need complicated trackwork to operate prototypically and have a blast while doing it.

I hope you've enjoyed a day on the Air Line local, no matter the shortcomings or how tardy. And that you'll look forward to chasing another local on the Valley Line sometime soon!

(For more on "Somerset" and "Mill Hollow" click here and here.)

A Few Words about Wordless Wednesday #230 - East Wallingford

I have to be careful I don't start wanting to model East Wallingford, CT on the New Haven's Air Line. Yes, yesterday's Wordless Wednesday was yet another shot of this evolving-into-iconic location. This time, the photo is taken from the other side of the tracks, looking southeast rather than southwest, and was lensed by the inimitable Kent Cochrane.

Click here for the previous blog post on this location, including a present-day modelable industry.

As always, you can click on the image for a larger view. In addition to the Star of the photo - J-1 #3022 & 17-18 cars (love the "skyline" on these early-postwar freight trains), you can easily make out the outline of the feed mill, a shed (freight house?) that was hidden in last month's post, as well as a nondescript building and then the raised passenger station in the far background. But perhaps best of all, especially for us model railroaders, is how clear the track layout is. Nothing too complicated, and easily modelable - but a great amount of detail from this height and angle.

Super-observant folks will even notice that the saplings in the foreground have been recently cut. Could it be that ol' Kent had a handsaw with him to remove any impediment to such a great shot?

Whether you model the steam or diesel eras, you can see that this little Layout Design Element has a lot to offer - might even be ideal for an 18" by 8-10' shelf. Despite the strong temptation to model this scene though, I, for one, plan to resist - at least for now....

Wordless Wednesday #230

Friday Fun: Air Line in East Wallingford - Then & Now

While I focus on the New Haven's Valley Line along the Connecticut River, the Air Line - which intersects the Valley at Middletown, CT - figures fairly prominently as well. I don't model the Air Line as faithfully as the Valley (I've only modeled two fictional towns), but it's pretty close operationally in that the Air Line local provides the New Haven (Cedar Hill Yard) to Middletown traffic and swapping (interchange) with the Valley Local.

The Air Line itself, as the original & fastest route between New York and Boston until superceded in the late 19th century, is itself very interesting and modelgenic. Alas! - you can't model everything, but that doesn't mean you have to ignore the attraction of other lines.

Case in point: East Wallingford, CT. Typical of much of the traffic along the Air Line (and one of the reasons it assumed secondary status after the fast passenger trains left) is this little wayside local industry:

New Haven Local Freight (Air Line Local) at East Wallingford, looking southwest. Dick Otto collection

See what I mean? Isn't that a scene that just begs to be modeled? A couple of RS-3s, a local coal silo, and the boxcar is probably destined for the bulk track. This being farming country (in fact, if you panned left you'd see a major farm at trackside), my guess is that the boxcar either has feed, fertilizer or some other farm supplies. Since it looks empty, maybe it's being spotted there for loading. The Air Line main is at the far left, with the siding obvious in the weeds. The old station is in the far background, across the road. It looks like it's already been raised up on its new foundation (as it remains today).

And this here's a shot I took of the same location yesterday morning, looking back toward where the photographer of the photo above stood those many years ago:

East Wallingford, July 26, 2018, looking northeast. Chris Adams photo.

Different era, for sure, and not quire as "railroad-evocative" - but that's in the eye of the beholder (naturally, I prefer the older, more railroady look of 70+ yrs ago). As you can see, East Wallingford retains its modelgenic quality, but now for a modern-era modeler. Bulk track appears to be gone, as the covered hoppers are sitting on the old siding, now truncated at the road. But there's still a farm here - and farms in the surrounding area - so it's no surprise that feed of some sort(?) is being unloaded here for trucks to distribute around the area. This entire scene would make a quick and easy - not to mention operationally interesting - layout design element. And with the crossbucks, signal cabinet, and modern day conveyor, there's still enough "railroady" details to please the eye and scratch the model railroad itch.

Thanks to Dick Otto for unearthing and sharing the old photo. And thanks to anybody that saw me taking this picture for not calling the cops on me.

Hope you found this little "then & now" comparison inspirational - and, if so, I hope you'll let me know in the comments. Bonus if you share some of your own "then & now" inspirations!

Happy Friday & here's hoping you can get to some modeling this weekend!

Wordless Wednesday #217

Wordless Wednesday #203

Tuesday Tip: DC on a DCC Layout

Like many of you, I have a "few" (well...) engines that aren't yet converted to DCC and lately I've been on the lookout for out-of-production New Haven steam locomotive models which rarely have decoders already installed. So, instead of being limited to just a short test track to run these on, I decided to make the "Air Line" dual-mode: I can easily switch from DCC to DC and back again at the flip of a (couple of) switch(es).

Long-time readers will recognize the "Air Line" as two 2x8 modules/towns that I use, operationally, to represent the Air Line of the New Haven that started at Cedar Hill Yard and went northeast through Middletown, across the Connecticut River into Portland, through Willimantic, Putnam, and ultimately to Boston. By my era, it - like the Valley Line - was relegated to a not-so-lowly branch: it was a popular haunt of many late-steam-era fantrips, not to mention the famous Ghost Train.

But that's all a story for another time. Click here for a quick tour of the fictional towns of Somerset and Mill Hollow on my Air Line stand-in. Read on for my dual-mode switches.

Fist, it's important to note that the Air Line is an electrical branchline too - it's "dead-end" electrically. The main bus wires come from the command station under Middletown, run the length of the two modules, and then end.  So all I had to do was cut-in an on-off (DPDT) toggle switch into the bus. That was a simple matter of soldering four wires to the switch, cutting the bus wires, and joining the wires with wire nuts. Other than the wiring, the most important part of this install is to clearly label this switch so you know what it does - this switch cuts out the DCC (which I discovered was necessary even if the DCC/command station is off. Something about back-feeding electricity or something...).

The switch above was installed the same way, but it's in-line between my DC power supply (a Control Master 20 on that makeshift shelf) and the bus wires (incidentally, that smaller gold power pack supplies power to the turnout in the tunnel at Somerset. The AC terminals on the CM20 power the structure lights on the modules).

So all I have to do to change from DCC to DC power on the modules is turn off the DCC at one switch, and turn on the DC at the other switch (and turn on the CM20 of course). Easy!

Lastly, the CM 20 allows for walk-around operation using regular phone jacks/cords. Pretty innovative for the time. Only problem is that my NCE cab bus also uses phone-type jacks. There are only two CM20/DC jacks (one on each module), but a little bit of labeling keeps folks from getting confused (thanks to Roman for the labeler!).

So I gotta know - does anybody else these days even bother to have DC along with their DCC? If so, do you have separate layouts, or did you do something similar to what I did?

If you want to have your cake and eat it too, give this approach a try - and if you do, be sure to let me know in the comments!

Wordless Wednesday #151

Wordless Wednesday #126

Inspiration for a detailing project - NHRR DERS-2b #0503 on the Air Line Local.

Wordless Wednesday #114

Wordless Wednesday #91

(Special kudos to whoever can identify the location & orientation of this photo)

Extending the Air Line to New Haven: Superelevation and laying track

Now that the drop-down across the doorway is finished, it's time to lay track. I already laid the cork roadbed along the "easemented" lines I'd created (click here for how I did it), and the smooth, long S curve looks great. But I think the track itself would really benefit from some superelevation - it'll be cool to see a long Air Line Local leaning both ways around the long S.

A quick search of my library led me to a trackwork book that had a section on superelevation. The author suggests using styrene strips of .010", .020", and .030" thick to gradually raise the outside rail, but the first step is to mark where the outside rail will be...

Measuring from the centerline, I made a mark on the outside of the curve where the outside rail - and thus the strips - should go.

I used the styrene I had on-hand - all the right thicknesses, but dissimilar widths. Shouldn't matter. They're glued to the line with thick ACC to give me some time to position the strips (I think thin ACC would soak into the cork and dry too quickly)

While the recommended practice is to have each strip be a standard car length long (12" for passenger cars, 6" for 40' freight cars), my curves weren't that long, so I fudged it a bit and used (much) shorter pieces.

I don't think it'll end up mattering though - the elevated S curve came out great and works well. The only thing I'd change in the future is to go up to a .060" thickness. The .030" height doesn't make for as dramatic a lean as I'd hoped. On the other hand, considering how short these curves are, I wouldn't have been able to transition up to .060 quick enough without risking operational problems.

Tip: when you have a long curved section like this, you'll want to solder the track together first, even if it gets a little unwieldy. I tried to solder as I went along and found that to be even more difficult than handling one long piece of track. It might be different if you're working with a buddy, but working alone you just run out of hands. Add to that the fact that I wanted to glue the track down and things got really stressful for a bit, trying to do everything before the glue set up. As it was, I used track nails to hold things in place - most necessary when using Atlas flex (which is ultra bendy) rather than MicroEngineering (which you can bend to a curve ahead of time and have it hold). Another tip: if you're going to use track nails, pre-drill the holes and don't try to do that along with soldering and gluing. Save some stress!

After the S curve was done, all that remained was the simple matter of continuing the track across the drop-down bridge...

Hinged end: Lay the track right across the gap. Again, it's critical that the track remain rigid here - so I nailed down the four ties on either side of the gap AND applied a healthy thick dose of Aileen's Tacky Glue (my track fixative of choice) all around the area. That should hold the track in place after I cut the rails.

Drop end: I treated the other gap the same way - you can see the Aileen's still setting up.

I hate to give Randy the satisfaction, but after a lot of hemming and hawing I finally decided to take his advice and extend this track all the way to the corner of the room, behind the backdrop that's already there (of course, that required some deconstruction). I was worried about access, but discovered that I could still reach the end of the track from underneath. It's not easy access, but it's doable and considering how tight things are, it's unlikely that anything will derail back there. But I may put a rerailer there just in case. AND that little extension gives me another 40" of tracklength - enough to allow the entire Air Line Local to be staged without being on the drop-down bridge at the start of the session. So I think the destruction deconstruction change will end up being worthwhile.

Now I just need to figure out how best to wire all this. I'm considering attaching the wiring bus to magnets so that when the bridge is in place and the magnets connect so does the power. BONUS: when the bridge is down, there'll be no power to the tail track. At least that's my thinking at this point - but I welcome suggestions, as always!

Extending the Air Line to New Haven - Hinged Drop Down

Now that the subroadbed is to the wall & doorway, things get a bit more complicated. I'd already cut through the wall, so I routed the subroadbed through there, supporting it on a riser & 1x3 attached across 2 studs:

My preferred method of subroadbed support: 1x3 with riser attached allows for easy height and tilt adjustment.

But there was a slight problem with where I'd cut the hole...

Apparently, I'd cut it about a 1/2" too low. But that's easily remedied with another pass of the drywall saw.

Now through the wall, progress slowed to a crawl as I figured out how to engineer a hinged drop-down across the doorway. Looking at the doorway, I spied the first part of the solution - a hinge! I'm not going to use the door there anymore, so I could just use one of the hinges that was there.

Standard door hinge mounted on a 6" length of 1x4 for solid backing and rigidity.

I screwed a short section of scrap L-girder directly into the stud/doorpost. The flange is up against the wall and the web sticks out to support the subroadbed. A shelf bracket could work also, but I think this set up is much more stable and rigid - which is the key. This area has to be bullet proof and rock solid - and it is. The 1x4 & hinge are placed on top of the L-girder and the subroadbed screwed through the 1x4 in four places - twice directly into the L-girder. Again, for rigidity.  

Close-up of the assembly

Once I attached the span to the hinge, I discovered that the span was slightly "off" - it went off at an angle when I wanted it to be straight. Unfortunately, I'd already screwed in the hinge and would have to turn is ever so slightly - but how?! How could I keep the screws from just going into the old holes and pulling everything out of alignment again??

Well, here's a PRO TIP I got from my carpenter father-in-law which he showed me when we were working on a doorway last summer...

Just fill in the hole with a dowel or something similar - here I'm using a bamboo skewer - and snip it off. You can then drill a new hole and screw in at a different place without having the screw "travel" into the old hole!

Once that was done, the span spanned the doorway just how I wanted...

And here it is in it's lowered state:

Detail of the "other" end:

I constructed the "other"/receiving end much the same way as the hinged end. I again used a scrap of L-girder screwed into the doorpost stud. But this time I added 1x1s on either side of where the span would come up - these act as a track to guide the span into place. I also customized the 1x4 "cap" (the piece on top of the L-girder) to fit around the door moulding and cut a slot to accept the end of the span.

I then attached subroadbed on top of all that. Note that the subroadbed goes over top of the slot to meet the end of the span. Also note the use of business cards to shim in a few places to get things perfectly level and tight. For now, I just place a piece of 1x3 in the slot, cut to the correct length, to support the span when it's in place.

Once the cork is dry, I'll lay track directly across the span and use my Dremel cut-off wheel to cut the rails where the need to be. I'm considering laying Atlas rerailers across the joints and cutting the rerailers, but I haven't decided on that yet. I'll let you know!

Extending the Air Line to New Haven - Final Lines, Cutting/Installing Subroadbed

As I mentioned in the previous post, I wanted to save that plywood 24" radius curve I'd already cut out as a template for cutting out a duplicate. But the new piece would need a nice 24" radius centerline. Hmmm... how to do that.....

Turns out, it was easy - just a matter of having someplace to anchor your trammel, and somewhere to position your subroadbed for marking. Incidentally, my trammel is just a yardstick with a screw at one end and a pencil-in-a-hole at my desired radius. I've seen variations of this where the pencil is guided by a binder clip clamped onto the yardstick (so you can clamp it anywhere you want).

My subroadbed curve needed about 6" of tangent to get to the doorway, so I offset my tangent line from the curve centerline and freehanded a short easement as above.

Next, I marked the edges of the subroadbed so I'd know where to cut. Normally, this doesn't have to be that precise, but I may have this track be on top of a fill, so I didn't want excess subroadbed "overhanging" too much, needing to be trimmed later. Based on some quick research, I determined that 2 1/2" is the correct width for the top of an HO scale, single-track fill. Thus, I needed to cut at 1 1/4" from either side of my centerline.

One way to do that is to use a compass - put the point on the centerline and the pencil 1 1/4" out. But I didn't have a compass handy, so I used my ruler . . .

Pro Tip - Turns out, two of the holes are spaced exactly 1 1/4" apart. So it was only a matter of putting my Sharpie in one hole and guiding the ruler along the line, using the other hole as a window.  Alternatively, you could just follow the centerline with any marking on the ruler to get a different distance.

Here's the subroadbed, ready for cutting.

Pro Tip: Cover any models & track BEFORE you cut - especially if your staging yard is in your shop. Ask me how I know....

After my nice S curve was cut out and spliced to my 24" curve (using a plywood splice that is 4x longer than the width of my subroadbed), I glued down cork roadbed following my centerline and tacked it in place to dry overnight.

Now comes the fun part - installing the subroadbed/roadbed. It's just a matter of placing it in place, leveling it out, and screwing it all together.

But be sure you know where your risers are going beforehand! I guess I could have just used a block of wood as a riser on top of the plywood here, but I like how easy traditional risers are to adjust. So I cut out a section to allow use of a traditional riser. Just remember to cut out enough so you can still screw it into the subroadbed from below!

Now that the subroadbed is up to and through the wall, it's time to deal with the doorway and dropdown. . . .