Wordless Wednesday #443: Valley Local Northbound through Dividend

 

General Layout Update - An SW1, A Coal Trestle, and Some Scenery

As I mentioned in my last post, I was a little surprised to realize I haven't done a substantive post on the layout/projects since the end of August. And if you don't follow the Valley Local Group on Facebook (and, let's be honest, why would you want to get on FB during an election season anyway), you may not realize that I've actually made some decent progress these past couple of months.

So by way of catching you up - and by way of my documenting that progress - here's what I've been up to:

B&M SW1 #1109

If I'm a devoted New Haven prototype modeler, why am I doing a Boston & Maine SW1? If you don't know - and are curious - click here for the story.

The last time I posted about the 1109, I'd just finished disassembling and stripping it. Since then, I chiseled off all the door handles & lift rings, and added some additional detail - including my first-ever foray into stainless steel details.

The Walthers model I'm using didn't have any molded-on grabs, thankfully. Unlike the P1k RS-2, they don't supply any NBW detail, but they do provide some dimples to help locate the holes. In the photo above, I've added the hood grabs and removed the radiator screen from the body shell. The plan is to replace it with the KV Models stainless steel parts you see here. I also removed the bell casting and filled in the hole.

Strangely, not only does the model not include grabs on the sandbox, but there are no locator dimples either. I used a dead-on head shot of the prototype, as well as some engine diagrams, to help me locate and size the grabs. Here they are installed, along with NBW detail added.

Here's a view of the rear of the cab with grabs added - also a nice view of the door handles I'm using.

This is where things stand at the moment... All of the door handles were replaced (I'll install the front two after decaling), the lift rings were replaced with finer detailed parts, and I reinstalled the stock handrail.

Next step will likely be to install the radiator screen (which has three separate parts to laminate(!)) and then primer. Oh! And I have to add pilot detail as well (coupler lift bars, air & signal hoses). Also want to see what ChrisZ has cooked up for a suitable replacement horn (there's no Leslie A-125 in HO scale that I know of).

Dickinson Witch Hazel Power Plant Coal Dump

Sometimes the best thing for keeping up your layout motivation is to work on what you're actually in the mood to work on. I'd been getting pretty intense at the bench with the SW1, so as I was driving home from work one day, I decided to make a quick stop in Essex for some inspiration. I got it in the form of the old coal dump at Dickinson's. . .

On my layout, this portion of the Dickinson complex (which includes the distillery, thus the need for coal to fire the boilers) is literally right at the aisle. . .

Above is a mockup of the area, with the fascia removed in anticipation of . . .

. . . creating the pit and terraforming the area.

I decided early on that the pit itself, as well as the piers and track, would be best built at the bench (move over 1109!). The pic above shows the start, with the track dry-fit in place: foam base, foamcore walls/piers, and Code 55 rail CA'd to a support structure of I-beams, resting on steel plates.

As you may have noticed from the prototype pics, the real rails are attached to the I-beams with small plates of steel, bolted in place. The pic above shows 1/2 of the 120 of them that I needed(!)

And the pic above shows the start of my adding NBW castings, per the prototype. Yes, these first had to be cut off the mounting pins - no way was I going to drill 120 holes to mount them in. They're just glued in place. Unfortunately, I'd already added them on the inside of the rail before realizing that they wouldn't clear wheel flanges on such small rail.

So that's where the coal dump project stands. Next step is to remove the remainder of NBWs from inside the rail that didn't already get knocked off(!). I'll likely replace them with drops of CA to at least represent "something" there (rivet/NBW - the viewer will decide :^) Then I think it'll be time for painting, final assembly, and placing on the layout!

SCENERY!

Yes, with a little help from my friends, I've even had the temerity to dive into a bit of scenery over the past bunch of weeks.

Believe it or not, the photo above is of "scenery." Well, the foamboard version of it anyway. Long-time readers may remember that I'm not much of a fan of foam base for scenery, preferring the naturally-occurring contours that result from traditional cardboard lattice & plaster cloth. But Essex is fairly flat, so it made sense to use foamboard here - but I needed help figuring out how to add the undulations. Thankfully, Bill (who, IIRC, uses foam board exclusively) agreed to come over and help me create the mess that is foamboard terraforming.

What you see above was "all" that was needed - lower the board where the road will go and rasp down the contours to match.

I'm still not sold on foamboard construction, especially when stuff like the above is necessary. Yup - that's one of the joists (actually, they're more like slats under a bedspring) that had to be cut in order to allow the board to be lowered enough. Everything went back together fine with wood glue, screws, and some PL300, but I'm glad this was the only area needing such surgery.

Needing a break from foam dust, and having a rare opportunity to have Jim Dufour visit to provide some training wheels while I get my scenery balance, I decided to tackle this area between Rocky Hill & Dividend. As you can see above, I only had basic ground cover done here - static grass, chopped up leaves, and rock castings added over my usual ground goop, plaster cloth, and cardboard lattice.

With Jim helping me think through how I wanted things to look here - and then providing advice on what materials to try to get the effects I was after - we were able to transform the above scene to this:

We focused only on the space between the tracks and the backdrop, adding the following in order:

• Assorted talus, ballast, and cinders in the ditch along the track
• Fine ground foam and dirt on the top of the rock castings
• Random patches of static grass to break up the line between the grass that was there and the ground-up leaves
• Various colors of fine ground foam on the leaves to provide the additional color & texture of "undergrowth"
• Polyfiber, stretched as thin as possible, adhered in place with hairspray, and fine ground foam added on top (with more hairspray) to represent the brambles & thick growth leading to the treeline
• Supertrees, rattle-can sprayed gray, and various colors of SuperLeaf material added with hairspray to get a "late September/early October" look. The season I'm modeling is early Autumn - before peak color, just as the leaves are starting to turn (IMO, nobody is more effective at modeling peak color as Marty McGuirk - and I don't intend to try :^)

I don't mind saying I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It really looks to me like all the trackside hillsides I see around here.

One of the coolest things about it though is that it stands up really well even under close scrutiny . . .

Now, if I can just remember how I achieved this effect, I can replicate it at the south end of Dividend - along the hillside & cut that provides the scenic divide between Dividend and Cromwell.

And that, my friends, is a great reminder of why I'm going to double-down on maintaining this blog. How else am I going to be able to archive what's worked - and what hasn't - and be able to refer back to it and jog my memory? Hopefully you'll weigh in if you see me headed for disaster - or have some advice/guidance on how to do something better, or even a new technique to try.

In the meantime, I hope you've enjoyed this update as much as I've had fun putting it together. It's neat to see that, despite how I sometimes feel about the pace, I *am* making progress. Thanks for following along!

Preparing for Post-Session: Hartford Rayon Tank Farm

Now that DEY-5 #0604 is (almost) done*, I thought I'd turn my sights to something different. . .

Hartord Rayon receives chemicals by tank car - and those chemicals need to be stored in tanks where they're held for later use in the manufacturing process. For more about Hartford Rayon, click here and here.

I considered a number of different tank configurations . . .

Large Tichy tank, split into two smaller tanks

One of the Tichy halves, with another two smaller-diameter vertical tanks

Same as before, but with another horizontal tank

Based on feedback from the Valley Local FB Group (be sure to check it out & consider joining if you haven't already!), I decided not to use the large Tichy tank here at all and started playing around with different configurations of scrap tanks. By the time I got to the point of the above pic, I figured "all" I needed was some additional piping.

But while looking for piping at the always-fantastic (and often overwhelming) AA Hobbies, I came across these Walthers kits and figured they'd have everything I needed, all conveniently together in one (well, two) package(s).

Of course, it wasn't until I got home that it occurred to me that - if I couldn't rearrange the stock configuration of the kit components - everything may not fit.

So I did a quick mockup of the footprint dimensions on the box - whew! It'll all actually fit VERY nicely! 

And since a quick poll of folks over at the group concluded that I should assemble before painting, it looks like I can dive right in! It's been a LONG time since I've built a kit, having been driven to distraction by the DEY-5 project, but I'm really looking forward to this change of pace.

I'll have to wait a bit though - the 2022 legislative session doesn't adjourn until midnight this Wednesday and it's 18-20 hr days until then. But at least now I have a fun project to look forward to! Hope you do too!

*Apparently, locomotives - like layouts - are never really done. In addition to weathering, I have a few minor things left to do on the 0604. I'll cover those, as well as share some lessons learned, in a future post.

Friday Fun - October Update

(just a heads up - this is a LONG post, but there are lots of pictures and I think you'll enjoy catching up, especially if you make it all the way to the end...)

I've often said it - when you have enough time to blog, you seldom have enough to blog about. And the corollary is even more true: when you have a TON you could blog about, you don't have the time to write!

Thankfully, I've been more in the latter camp than the former - though the posts here have suffered as a result. But I've tried to keep y'all up to date a bit with the "Wordless Wednesday"s - letting pictures do the work of thousands of words. And I tend to post small, very quick, items on the Valley Local FB group, But as Randy reminded me last night, sometimes it's not enough to just post pictures and a few words - sometimes you have to provide a bit more...

The skinny is - October has been a VERY busy month!

Right after my last ops session at the end of September, we started a MAJOR home improvement project . . .

Don't want to clutter a nice hobby blog with home remodeling stuff, but we're residing most of the house and are totally gutting/redoing the master bed & bath. Thankfully, all I had to do was the demo - the contractors are doing the rest.

While taking a break from demolition (and prompted by BillS, who'd been a sometimes-confused Saybrook Tower operator at my last session), I finally got around to changing the Saybrook Control Panel to reflect the changes in trackwork I'd done literally years ago. . .

If you've been following the blog regularly, you've seen the pics. If you haven't, click here. :^) Suffice it to say, this project was a bit scary (which is why I'd put it off for so long) since any mistake would risk totally screwing up the board I'd worked so hard on. Thankfully, it all came out alright - though inelegantly - at the end. . .

Even the prototype has to make such changes from time to time, so I'm just gonna accept how it looks.

I've also been efforting some engines - trying to make a DEY-3 and a DEY-5 out of a P2k S-2 and an Atlas S-2 - and finishing some freight cars (I've been sessions have been strangely short of cars since Bill needed his returned) . . .

Speaking of locomotives, my first-ever product review came out partway through the month:

Model Railroad News, November, 2021

And speaking of Bill, I was able to attend his first shake-down ops session on Oct. 6:

For more pics and a full report, be sure to check out Randy's blog post about it.

Just a few days later, Pete and I attended the NMRA's annual Northeast Regional Convention in Lowell, MA:

That weekend-long trip really merits its own post - or posts! - so stay tuned for more later...

The next weekend, The Missus and I made our way up to the Worcester Union Station for dinner:

As you can see from the pics, it's been beautifully restored and the restaurant has a cool 1920s/gangster theme. It's definitely worth checking out if you're in the area!

Back to some model railroading though, I found some time to decal a freight car:

It's been a LONG time (almost 4yrs?!) since I've decaled anything, so I was feeling pretty rusty. But as you can see above, the car came out pretty great. Since I'm sure I'm not the only one to be intimidated by decaling, I'm planning a separate post to go over how I did this car.

Someone (irritatingly) has said - "Embrace the Fear and It'll Disappear." Well, I still have a long way to go in that department, especially when it comes to scenery (despite what follows below), but I must've been in the right frame of mind since around the same time I tackled decaling again, I opened up one of my brass steamers to replace the capacitor.  

Apparently, during my ill-fated Shorting Session, K-1b #278 decided to die - at least partially. It would run fine, but the stay-alive didn't work at all. Consequently, it would die going across most of my unpowered frogs.

This is what I found when I opened up the tender - an old NCE keep-alive with (count'em) SIX capacitors! And, apparently, not a one of them working.

Now, I have on-hand a few Loksound Power Paks (ESU's brand of capacitor), but they require three wires to allow them to be easily turned off for programming. Thanks to a recommendation by KayleeZ, I got one of the new TCS KA2 capacitors which have only two wires (just like what I was replacing) and is actually slightly smaller than the PowerPak!

So it ended up being just a matter of cutting the two wires of the old capacitor, matching the wires, and splicing/soldering in the new capacitor. Now the 278 is ready for its next assignment!

As if all that weren't enough to do during a very busy month, I took a little inspiration from the remodeling project and did a little painting...

One of my (growing list of) Canadian friends, DeanT, has been on me for at least 7 years to cover up the pink foam with some paint. And I've just put it off, figuring it'd be a waste of time since I'd take care of it when I did scenery in the area. Well, it's been 7 years and there's still no scenery in these areas. It only ended up taking me a couple of hours and a roller to make Essex to East Haddam look SO much nicer!

So, speaking of scenery. . . .

It's been since January that I started (re)working on the scenery in Dividend, including my first-ever rock cut. And now that my ops session electrical issues have (hopefully!) cleared up - and since I'm staring down ANOTHER ops session, this time with some first-timers - I thought it'd be good to have some actual progress to show...

Here's where I'd left off:

I'd reworked the track here (back in July 2020?!), and added foundations to and pavement around the Hartford Rayon buildings, but the only scenery (other than a nice cut and some rocks) was green and "burnt grass" Woodland Scenics groundfoam, outlines for a house and garage - and a photo backdrop, covered in cellophane to protect it from what was supposed to be imminent additional progress.

And it sat that way for another 10 months :^(

But again summoning whatever motivation has taken hold lately, I decided to get out the static grass applicator and make some progress. ANY progress. I still have a long way to go before this area is complete, but the results so far are encouraging...

Here's an overall view for comparison to the photo above... I stippled a heavy coat of white glue over the groundfoam where I wanted the static grass, and applied the grass liberally. I let it set for a few minutes, then went over it with a vacuum to "pull up" the fibers nice and straight - as many of them as possible anyway (a stocking over the nozzle helps you retain the excess grass). The Missus helped me modify the color of my "field grass" mix to more closely match the backdrop photo.

A closeup of the area with Harford Rayon temporarily placed for the time being.

Closer view of the house & garage. The backdrop is actually only 2" away from the house (which is HO scale, despite how the camera makes it look).

I used a variety of chalks to color the road, which started out as a light gray. This end needs more work, but as you go up the hill you see where I'm headed color-wise.

Closer view of the foreground field and how it blends into the backdrop. PRO (& admittedly accidental) TIP: This area originally had the subterrain (cardboard lattice & plaster cloth) glued to the masonite backdrop. When I later needed to add a photo backdrop, I discovered - OOPS! - that I needed to cut the subterrain away from the masonite to create a slot to slide the photo backdrop down into. This was a blessing in disguise since the resulting gap created a bit of a "lip" between the horizonal foreground scenery and the vertical photo backdrop. As you can see, that little "mistake" really helps fool the eye into blending everything together.

Speaking of blending, I tried the same trick here I did over in East Berlin... had The Missus help me with color matching (remember I'm somewhat colorblind) and just kept working those different colors of chalks into the road until it matched the road on the photo backdrop. Be sure to click on the image to enlarge - I think it came out pretty nice (I've since patched, smoothed, and painted the gotchas on the masonite).

I'm certainly no Tom Johnson or Marty McGuirk, and setting them as my standard more often frustrates me into doing nothing rather than make even incremental progress. All too often, my reach exceeds my grasp. But if there's one lesson I'm learning this month - and RElearning over and over again - it's that you have to at least do SOMETHING in order to get better at it. The road to skill & progress is paved with practice. And you'll never get to where you want to go if you don't get moving.

So that's what I've been doing this month - moving, though in a LOT of different directions at once. The house project continues, my locos are improving, I'm adding more freight cars to my fleet, and I'm even - surprisingly - making some progress with my scenery. I'm in one of those rare modes/moods where I'm seeing opportunities everywhere I look and have enough variety of things to do that I can Always Do Something. 

Long-time readers know my natural bent is to work only linearly - one project at a time. And, unfortunately, like a malfunctioning Roomba, if I hit a wall, I'll just keep banging against that wall - trying to get through it, wasting time. Thankfully, I've discovered with all these project that I can always pivot to something different. If I hit a wall, I just take a step back and go at something else. Roombas work better that way, and model railroaders make more progress that way too.

But it certainly makes life busy - I'm always doing something rather than just sitting around. Right now though, after going over everything that's happened these past few weeks, I just want a nap. And if you've made it this far, you probably need one too.

Till next time...