2018-19 Annual Progress Report

I can't believe the layout is six years old now and it's come a long way in that time. So let's get to it.

Track 100% complete to the original plan, plus industrial sidings in Johnstown.

Wiring 99% Complete, no I still haven't done the engine yard at Altoona. Now quit bugging me about it.

DCC Conversion: System install 100% complete, PRR Fleet 100% complete, NS Fleet: 60% complete. (Yeah, I copied and pasted this part from last year).

Scenery: 98% complete. Johnstown is in the detailing phase. After that, Altoona is the final frontier.

Last year, my goal was to get all the scut work like rail painting and ballasting done and over with. I came close. Altoona is the only part of the layout requiring these now.

My other goal was to finish Johnstown. I know, this part of the layout is taking a long time to finish. Frankly, I haven't been very motivated to work on the layout lately, as evidenced by the lack of blog entries. Right now I have a lot of other things competing for what precious little spare time I have.

On top of this, I have quite a few locomotives in need of repair and the list just seems daunting. But I'm not giving up. I guess my goal for this season is to get my fleet back in operation, finish Johnstown and formulate a plan for Altoona.

I am a Lineman for the County

After months of inactivity, I started a project I've been dreading, adding wires to the high-voltage towers. Started at the Johnstown substation and worked my way towards the outer edge of the layout. The procedure is dead simple, wrap some black thread around the insulator, squirt it with some CA, utter a few curse words and presto! High voltage lines.  Now I just need to do a set leading toward the wall.

Finished the Stormwater Catch Basin

Well, this project certainly took a while. Anyway, I started off by digging into the foam with my hot knife and then filling in all the "oopses" with patching plaster. When that dried, I painted everything raw umber.

After the paint dried, I applied turf to the slope and planted varying shades of Woodland Scenics field grass.

I also thought it would be funny to have drums leaking toxic waste. The drums came with one of my old Alloy Forms kits. I painted them Floquil "coach green" on the outside and "rust" on the inside. The leaking toxic waste is some luminous pain I got down at Walmart.

I painted the culver Testors "Flat Light Aircraft Grey" and stuck it in. My original idea was to place another culvert on the other side of the tracks and have it connected to a drainage ditch. However, I noticed most catch basis simply have an inlet pipe and that's it. So I eschewed the drainage ditch.

Lastly, I added some Woodland Scenics Talus to the culvert, used masking tape along the sides and poured some Mod Podge Gloss Medium for water.

All in all, I think it turned out pretty decent. All that's left for Johnstown now is utility poles and a few more trees. I am bound and determined to have it done by October.

A Garden Railway at Long Last

Longtime readers of this blog will know I've been chomping at the bit to build a garden railway. Well, this past February, I purchased an LGB Mogul at a train show. I've always wanted one. That seemingly innocuous exercise dumped gasoline on my smoldering enthusiasm.

I don't have the time or money to build an extensive garden line like I had when I was a kid. But I have the Pittsburg Division to satisfy my need to run multiple trains at once, so it's cool. Anyway, I was able to sell my wife on the project by proposing a raised vegetable garden that just happened to have a railroad in it.

I started off the festivities by purchasing some 8' landscape timbers from Home Depot. I spent the next day sawing and nailing them into the walls of my raised bed.

With the walls built, it took two trips to Walmart to buy 20 bags of "manure and humus" to fill the thing. Talk about going to Walmart to buy some crap!

For the track, I used some old Aristocraft sectional stuff I salvaged from my first garden railway. It forms an 8' x 5' loop. I used screenings purchased from a local stone and landscape firm. I dug a small trench where the track was to go and filled it with screening, then laid the track on top, ballasting it just like the prototype.

I finished things up with a few building from my old railroad. I planted some tomatoes, bell peppers, oregano, basil, and some other stuff.

All in all, it's a nifty little railroad. I learned long ago that with garden railways, the KISS principle needs to reign supreme.

I;ve dubbed the layout the "Ulster and Delaware."

Finished Painting the Backdrop

Not a whole lot to report here. Mixed up two shades of green poster paint, slathered it on the wall and it cooperated by drying. Not too shaby if I do say so myself.

I also finished building the high-voltage transmission towers. The next project is painting and installing the remaining utility poles in Johnstown. So after nearly three years, this end of the layout will be done.

More Streetlights for Johnstown

Now that we're most certainly in the postseason here, I went and knocked a huge item off my to-do list. I installed about 18 street lamps I bought from a Chinese seller last month.

The festivities started with running a new low-voltage circuit to Johnstown. From there, it was drill, thread, glue, and solder until the lights were in. Since the lights aren't ornate, I kept them to the industrial areas. Despite their size, I think they turned out alright.

Fixed the blasted Corssever!

Isn't it funny how minor problems can snowball into catastrophes?  Oh, wait, funny isn't the word I'm looking for. Infuriating is more like it. Case and point, I fired up the layout for some roundy-rounding the other night. ow, when the layout sits idle for a while, things can squirly when it's awakened from its slumber.

So, the first catastrophe, I noticed my T1 wasn't responding to the throttle. So, I placed it on the programming track and readdressed it. Unfortunately I forgot to flip the DPDT switch from the layout to the programming track! I suddenly found myself faced with the task of reprogramming every locomotive on the layout! This took me the better part of an evening.

With the decoder issue licked, I tried running trains. The trains on the inside loop stalling on the Peco double crossovers at the entrance to Johnstown.  After futsing with the point rails (the usual culprit with Peco turnouts) and getting nowhere, I dug out the multimeter.  I found the outside rail was dead as Dillinger. This was baffling since one of the two rail joiners was connected to a feeder wire.

I tried soldering the joint on the end opposite the feeder, something I'm always loath to do on a turnout. That didn't work. I soldered a feeder to said joiner. That didn't work either. So I decided to move the feeder to the turnout itself. So I drilled another hole through the layout, unsoldered the feeder wire and went to feed it through the new hole. It wouldn't go through. That's usually the case, so I grabbed a small dowel and pushed it through and "crack!"

I got out from under the table to see the crossover and part of the inside loop lifted into the air. I just can't seem to catch a break.  Long story short, I got the wire fed and solder, the track repaired and the ballast touched up. Thankfully, after all, that the trains are running fine again.

Done with the Crossing Signal

I know what your thinking, "crossing signals? What crossing signals?I don't see any crossing signals!" Well, you're right. I didn't get anywhere close completing the project, but I am done with it!

These NJ International signals were installed on my previous layout.  I tried putting them in this time last year. But I ran into a problem with the resistors. They simply would not stay sodered to the wires! After some frustration, I threw them in a drawer and forgot about them until today.

I dug the signals out, fired up my soldering iron and managed to get the resistors soldered back on. After a bench test, I set about installing them. Needless to say, on the first attempt at running the wires through the layout, a resistor came off. A bit annoyed, I calmly brought it back to the work bench and soldered it back on. Then I reinforced it with masking tape. It went in fine.

The trouble started when I tried installing signal number two. I tried running the wire and resistor came off. Okay, now I was getting pissed. I pulled the signal out and went under the table to retrieve the wires still stuck in the hole. I grabbed them and yanked. Then I realized I'd yanked the wrong wires. That was it; I blew a 50-amp fuse. I yanked the signal out of the layout, which I had just yanked common wire out of, and threw it across the room. I know, a very childish thing to do.

So yeah, total cluster @#$%.  But the sort of good news is, the common wire appears to be soldered to the signal itself, so it may very well be fixable. Maybe someday I'll be feeling sufficiently masochistic to try again. 

Finished With the Turf in Johnstown

This post's title pretty much sums it up; I finished the landscaping along the end of the peninsula. I brushed the area with a coat of matte medium, applied a line of cinder ballast along the outside edge of the layout. The I added a base layer of green fine turf, then patches of yellow fine turf and "burnt grass" course turf. I wet it all with 70% alcohol and droppered on more matte medium, which cooperated by drying.

With the turf done, I went ahead and added a few more high-voltage transmission towers. Intitially I planned to terminate them at the substation behind Water Street Frieght Terminal. But I really do love the look of the towers; they fit rather well with the industrial theme of the area.

I also decided to rethink the the whole drainage ditch next to supierior paper. I've seen many stormwater catch basins (or "sumps" as we called them on Long Island) in my area and most of them just have a pipe the empties into it and a tall intake structure.

Vis-

 

So yeah, I think just the basin itself is sufficient. That poject is nearly done. I planted a few more sprigs of Woodland Scenic field grass and all that remains is a few more details and pouring the water.

Repainted Johnstown Depot

A project that's been long on the Johnstown to-do list was is painting a Pennsyizing the depot. This building is a refugee from my last layout. It's a Model Power kit and obviously a knockoff of Lionel's Rico Station kit. The prototype is the former Rio Grande Southern Depot in Rico, CO.

The building looks nothing like the real Johnstown Station which, is a magnificent brick building. Anyway, it was already close to Pennsy colors. I simply repainted the bottom trim, doors and windows Floquil Tuscan Red. 

When the outside painting was done, the real fun started. Since I plan to light this building with an LED, I painted the inside walls black to prevent them from glowing. Well, back when I built this kit, I noticed none of the pieces fit together quite right. As such, there were plenty of gaps through which the black paint could escape. And it took advantage of every one of them! So yeah, A lot of touchup.

With the painting done, I really upped the anty and decided to lop off part of the structure base. However, the freight loading docks are part of said base. The result was a lot of precision razer saw work and a whole lot of hair pulling, teeth gnash and bad words. Good thing my kids have gone to bed for the nigt!

I fashioned a new platform out of another Model Power structure base resembling concrete. No, the irony isn't lost on me. I finished things off by adding a few figures to complete the scene.

Aircraft Warning Lights for Superior Paper

Two entries in one night after a long dry spell, talk about a 180! Anyway, I'd been kicking the idea of adding aircraft warning lights to Superior Paper for a while. I have a bunch of 3mm flashing red LEDs laying around and used them for the same purpose on other buildings. However, in this case, adding them to the tops of the stacks would have been too obtrusive and also a monumental PITA.

My bright idea was to run fiber optics through the stacks and under the layout, where the blinking LED would be located. I started out with running the fiber optics through the stacks and CA'd them on each end of the stack. Them it was simply a matter of drilling through the table and connecting the fiber to the LED. That was no easy task, but I got at least one stack blinking.

The effect is pretty subtle but I think it works and the fiber is nearly invisible when the room lights are on. Now back to that drainage ditch...

A Long-Overdue Entry

Wow, two and a half months since my last entry! I know I pretty much dropped off the face of the earth after December, but life has been crazy around here. That said, I have made quite a bit of progress on the layout. I just haven't found time to blog about it. So brace yourself for an extra-long post!

 First and foremost, I completed the small mountain in the back left corner of the peninsula. It was the usual procedure of building up a mountain out of styrofoam, cover it with plaster-soaked paper towels, paint it "raw umber" and cover it with lichen.

What made this project a challenge was the lack of accessibility. There no way to climb up on the layout to get to it. On top of that, the left side of the peninsula borders the stairs. What ended up doing was balancing precariously on the half wall between the layout and the stairs. I had about eight inches to sit on and do the work. Nerve-racking for sure, but I didn't fall and break my neck, always a plus. 
 

 Next up, I finished off the house on the hill.  This project was dead simple. I brushed the entire hill with Mod Podge matte medium and applied the various layers of turf.

The next step was to add some Woodland Scenics trees. And this is where the trouble started. See, I've never had much luck using WS Hobby Tack to affix the foliage to the armatures and I decided to try something different. While browsing the craft aisle at my local Wally World, I ran across some Gorilla Spray Adhesive and thought I'd give it a shot. Well, I tried it out on one tree and ass soon as I stuck the armature in the bag of clump foliage, one of the branches broke off. Undeterred, I tried out a second tree. Again, several branches broke off. 

After having several trees lose branches, I had to stop and scratch my head. At first, I thought I'd gotten a bad batch of tree armatures. But just to be sure, I went ahead and assembled a tree with Hobby Tack and guess what. No issues what so ever. As it turns out Gorilla Spray Adhesive is not safe for plastics. Good to know.

As I near the end of the heavy lifting in Johnstown, I'm starting to get going on the detailing phase. This involved purchasing a bunch of cars from eBay seller "Chuckthprinter," who offers not only a nice variety of 1940s and 50s vehicles but also a bunch of other nifty N Scale details.

The cars I bought were five packs with some assembly required. First, thing I did was glue the wheels on with CA, always a fun experience. Three of the four wheels would go on without issue but the fourth? The wheen and car would repel each other like two magnets, usually getting my finger stuck together in the process.

Once the cars had their wheels affixed, I took a pencil and colored in the windows. Then I used a silver Sharpy marker for the bumpers and other chrome trim. This being 1956, cars can't have enough chrome, right?

I've been slogging through Johnstown for nearly two years now. I can finally see the light at the end of that particular tunnel. I have only one really big project left to finish, carving out a drainage ditch beside Superior Paper.