John Pryke, 1940-2013

While 2013 has been a great year in many ways, it's ending on a sad note.  On the day after Christmas, I heard that friend and fellow modeler John Pryke had passed away.  He'd been sick for some time, but I'd received a "test" email from him a little over a month ago (he was no stranger to computer issues) and I replied asking him for an update.  Unfortunately, I never heard back.

Any time I think of folks that have been a great influence on me in the hobby, John Pryke comes first to mind.  His was the first layout I saw that depicted the New Haven Railroad, and his frequent writings in Model Railroader magazine gave me, and other NHRR modelers, lots to be proud of and lots to (try and) emulate.  John's chosen era was September, 1948 and while my choice for the longest time was firmly in the diesel era of 1952, John eventually persuaded me that the Steam Era was far superior.  Due in no small part to his influence, I eventually backdated my railroad to October, 1947 (even further in the past, I enjoyed reminding him) and became an avid "steam era" modeler.

I always enjoyed hearing John tell the story of how his passion for the New Haven Railroad was ignited: he would tell me of a time in September 1948 when he was on the platform of the Old Saybrook railroad station and saw a double headed steam passenger train going by. When I moved to Old Saybrook a few years ago, I enjoyed letting him know that I would eventually be modeling the station area and would be including an HO scale version of him on the platform as a youngster.

John's influence in the hobby is long-standing and pervasive and I consider him one of the giants - up there with the best of them.  My condolences go out to his wife Sandy and the rest of his family. I'm so thankful to them for sharing him with us.

Announcement on the Model Railroader website

Obituary

Mind the Gaps

About this time last year, I went down to operate the layout and it wouldn't work - there was a short somewhere but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what had caused it and i couldn't track it down.

A panic email to Craig Bisgeier, who had just done a podcast on layout wiring, was a huge help. He said the likely culprit was that a rail gap or gaps had somehow closed. This can happen in at least two ways: in the summertime when the rails get warm they can sometimes expand, thereby causing intended rail gaps to shrink or disappear altogether. A similar thing happens in the winter when, due to the low humidity, wood will contract and thereby cause the same problem.

This is only an actual problem if you have either a reverse loop on your layout or require rail gaps for other electrical purposes. In my case, I have a reverse loop where I had gapped the rails to separate it from the rest of the layout. And sure enough, those gaps had closed. After a few short minutes with my cut off disc in the Dremel Moto tool and ACC-ing little plastic bits in the gaps to keep the rails from coming together in the future, my problem was solved.

Until this year that is… This time I don't have a problem with gaps closing - I've been having a problem with tracks humping.  Apparently, I soldered too many of my railjoints and the rails were too tight everywhere else. So when the inevitable shrinkage of wood occurred, the rails had no place to go - but up.  Thankfully, another session with my Dremel cutoff disc solved the problem. I just cut a couple of gaps here and there to relieve the tension on the rails and everything settled back down to normal.

The take away? If you tend to solder your rails together, be sure you're leaving gaps somewhere to relieve any tension on the rails that might occur. I, for one, will never solder turnouts to the adjoining rails again in the future (this also makes it much easier to remove a turnout for maintenance or repair). Also, where you have to have a gap remain open for electrical purposes, be sure to glue little bits of plastic in the gaps to keep the rails from coming together.

Just remember to do what the British Underground riders do and Mind the Gap(s)!

Hot Glue Lessons

As anybody that's been to a work session at my layout knows, I love my hot glue gun. it's such a versatile and handy tool. But today, I learned a few things I almost wish I hadn't...

1) Be very careful using a hot glue gun above your head (this rule applies to soldering irons as well), or any time the gun is pointed "up" - you risk having hot glue drop back onto your fingers/hand.

2) If you get hot glue on you - especially a large amount - do NOT wait for the glue to cool. Get it off as quickly as possible (preferably not with another unprotected hand).

3) Hot glue that is allowed to remain on your skin will remove a layer (or two) of skin. This is especially true as you try to peel off the hot glue.

I'll leave it to the experts to explain how best to treat flesh where the skin has been melted off. I ran my finger under cold water, daubed it dry, and applied Neosporin & a bandage to cover it. We'll see how that works out.

In the meantime, I'm discovering just how important that middle finger is (and not just for flipping off rogue hot glue guns). Hopefully, it won't be too much of a pain when I'm firing the steam locomotive tomorrow...

Status quo ante

Well, mostly....

Here's the Ballantine warehouse area at the north end of Wethersfield after removing all the scenery base I installed last week. As I mentioned in a previous post, the resulting topography - especially the steep slope that was necessary to connect the subroadbed to the bottom of the backdrop - was just unacceptable. This area of Wethersfield is relatively flat.

So, out came the cardboard webbing. Boy, it sure did come out quicker than it went in! Next step will be to "extend" the backdrop lower and redo this area.

Stay tuned - hopefully I'll have some progress to show soon.  In the meantime, here's hoping you and yours are enjoying this holiday season!

Wordless Wednesday #10 - Merry Christmas!

Scenery Base Started!

Looking north toward Hartford (staging).  Engine is about where the Rt. 15 overpass will be.

 

Here's my First Cardboard Webbing Strip!  It's like the Golden Spike, except it's done at the beginning, and it's not track.  But it's a milestone nevertheless.  This strip is at the location of the Route 15 overpass that marks the beginning of the "on stage" portion of the railroad.  As such, the resulting slope is no problem and, in fact, has to be there.

But as I mentioned in my last post, I'm much less confident that continuing this slope southward will be a good idea.  There's no such slope on the prototype, but the height of the bottom of the backdrop makes such a slope necessary (you have to attach the strips to something).  Since I won't know how much of an actual problem that is until I can see it, I decided to just dive right in...

First strips hot glued to side of subroadbed (to keep terrain profile/slope as low as possible)

Strips hot-glued to back of backdrop - again, to keep slope as low as possible.  Also showing base for Silas Deane Hwy.

Once I got the strips installed far enough south to get to the Ballantine site, it started getting real - you can see below where I've mocked-up a flat base & the Silas Deane Hwy...

And you can see how steep that slope is going to have to be to get from the flat industrial area to the Hwy.  Here's a current-day comparison to give you an idea of what the prototype looks like:

This is Jordan Ln. looking west toward Silas Deane Hwy. from the RR crossing.  The self-storage facility is on the Ballantine site

So you can see that this slope is all wrong - what I've got is more in tune with Appalachia than the flat CT river valley.

To try and get at least the Ballantine site flatter, I hot-glued some foamcore board to the bottom of the strips and to allow me to press the strips down as much as possible - and to not cause the Silas Deane to tilt at the same time - you can see that I temporarily installed a strip of masonite on edge to support the east side of the Hwy. (see it clamped in place below the webbing). Problem is, I don't know whether I'll be able to remove that masonite and expect the terrain to stay in place.  But you can see where I've started installing the "horizontal" strips to the north to create the hopefully-sturdier basketweave.

So this is where things sit at this point.  It's not a bad looking scene, but it looks all wrong to me considering the prototype.  I figured I'd live with it for a bit and see if I'd feel any better about it, but I'm not optimistic. I'll probably rip this all out and rework it.  Pieter and I have been kicking around some different ideas, but so far I think the best approach may be to just add a 3" strip of masonite to the bottom of the backdrop, to give something lower for cardboard strips to attach to - and thereby make this whole area as flat as possible.

While I'm at it, I'll probably also install some more plywood to provide a solid, flat base for Ballantines.  As I mentioned in my last post, I should have anticipated this need and provided for it when I planned & cut the plywood for this area.  Fortunately, the L-girder benchwork I used is pretty easy to modify when necessary, so this should just be a matter of installing some additional risers to support some additional plywood.  Then I can do the cardboard lattice again.

At least now, I've got some experience doing that so it shouldn't take as long the next time....

Wordless Wednesday #9: Another Snow Edition

Looks like #3022 somewhere on the AirLine, but I'm not sure.  Photographer unknown.