Finished Cornerstone's Reefer Icing Platform and Ice House and Started the Johnstown Industrial Track

 

The title kind of says it all doesn't it?  The Cornerstone Ice House and Icing platform is a pretty simle kit and took maybe half and hour to put together. I went with Krylon "Meringue" for the walls, Floquil "Roof Brown" for the doors and wood work and Floquil "Grimy Black" for the roofs.

The ice house itself has no windows, so there was no need for lighting. However, the guys on the platform would probably want to see what they're doing at night, so I installed a pair of LEDs under the platform roof.

Now, in case you're wondering what this structure is used for, here's a little history lesson. Back in the days before mechanical refrigeration, reefers had  bunker at each end of the car that was packed with ice, loaded through hatches on the roof. Periodically, the cars would have to be re-iced. This will give the crew of the Johnstown Local something more to do.

 

Work has also begun on the Johnstown Industrial Track. It forks off the inside loop just after the crossover at the beginning of Johnstown. It serves the aforementioned ice house, Water Street Freight Terminal and will serve Superior Paper. Between this, the yard and the South Fork Branch, The west end of the layout should keep several crews busy for a while.

Illumination!

I took on yet another project I've been dreading, lighting the buildings in the along the wall section from Cassandra to Johnstown. Longtime readers of this blog know of my distaste for wiring, so you'll understand the foot dragging.

In terms of procedure, there's nothing special to report here, just drill the hole, feed the wires and hook them up. All the lighting is LED.

In other news, I've ordered a bunch of flex track and turnouts for Johnstown, so I'll hopefully get going on that by the end of the week. I realized I had room for one more big industry, so I decided to include a kit I'e always wanted but never had room for, Cornerstone's "Superior Paper."

Making a Scene in Johnstown

 

This afternoon, I got lucky and both kids went down for their naps at the same time, leaving me a nice chunk of modeling time. In that time, I decided to finish the beginning of Johnstown. The fist thing I did was stain the rocks (I painted the mountains the previous night). Once that was done, I applied the lichen.

The the mountains themselves finished, I ballasted the main lines up to the crossovers and the short remaining section of the South Fork Branch. The latter is now ballasted for its entire length. I finished things off by adding some turf and talus to the bases of the mountains. Not bad for two hours.

I supposed my next step is to start finalizing the track work in Johnstown and finishing the scenery.

Phone System Upgrade, Scenery and the V&R Railroad

With summer over and the craziness of Thanksgiving behind us, I finally felt ready to get back to work on the layout. I know I haven't been posting nearly as frequently as I used to. Part of the reason is the demands of having a two-year-old and an infant. On top of that, I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo this year and as such spent all of my spare time in November writing. But now, I'm finally back in the saddle.

The first thing I did was upgrade the phone system. As mentioned previously, you could pick up two phones and talk but there was no way to make them ring. To solve that problem, I ordered a device called a Private Branch Exchange or PBX. I got it for about $60 off Amazon. It allows you to connect up to eight phones. Now you pick up the phone, dial the extension you want and the phone rings. If you're looking for an inexpensive way to add a phone system to the layout, this is the way to go.

Another project I'd been dragging my feet on is building the mountains at the entrance to Johnstown. Plaster is a lot of work, I just didn't feel like doing it. I finally sucked it up and did it. I then used patching plaster to create rock outcroppings.Now the mountains need paint and the rocks need stain. A friend of mine (Hi Jess!) told me I should "Bob Ross it up," so in that spirit I'll "put some happy lichen trees" on there. Once all that's done, I'll ballast the track.

 

One more reason I've not made much progress on the Pittsburgh Division is, it's no longer the only layout in the train room. I brought some of my old O-Gauge equipment back from my parents house and whipped up the V&R railroad. It's name for my kids, Victor and Rosalie. 

The layout consists of two loops of Lionel tubular track. The curves on the outer loop are O-54 and the O-31 on the inner. The O-54 is great for my son whose idea of operation is to hurtle the trains around at top speed. The train on the outer loop and can hold the rails while the train on the inside usually goes careening off.

Scenery was dead simple, a few cotton snow blankets from the dollar store, some snow trees and ceramic houses I had laying around and that was it. Right now the layout is on the floor, which works  for my kids at the moment, but ultimately, I'd like to mount it on plywood. 

So that's all for this update. I'n the coming weeks, I'll be building a Cornerstone Ice House and laying more track in Johnstown. Stay tuned.

2016-17 Annual Progress Report

It's that time of year again folks when I regal you with the past year's accomplishments. It's hard to believe I've been at it four years ago, and even harder to believe the layout is now, mostly seniced. But there's still a long way to go.

Before I dive into the recap of the past year, I'll drop the bombshell. I've cut the number eras on the layout from four to just two. Originally, I planned to have a fleet of 1956 Pennsy equipment, a fleet of 1996 Conrail equipment and a fleet of contemporary Norfolk Southern equipment. I decided to add Penn Central to the mix as well. Then I went and switched to DCC and bought some great, road-specific PRR power. As a result the other equipment largely became dust collectors.

While the NS fleet largely accepts drop in decoders, the same could not be said of Conrail and PC. Those fleets required decoders that are both difficult to install and quite costly, in some cases costing more than I paid for the locomotive. With that in mind, the Conrail fleet went on eBay. Now onto the progress report and goals for the upcoming season!

Track: 100% Complete to original plan. However, extensions are planned, more on this later.

Wiring: 99% of original track wired. I still haven't done the engine yard.

DCC Conversion: System install 100% complete, PRR Fleet 100% complete, Conrail and PC fleets: Sold, moot point, NS Fleet: 60% complete.

Last year's goal was to scenic from Cassandra to Johnstown. I managed to not only do that but Made some inroads into Johnstown itself. I also set a goal of working on operations. To that end, I've created printable Form 19s for time table and train order operation. I've also installed a phone system on the layout.

That brings us to this year's goals. I've come to the realization the layout lacks sufficient staging for operation. So, it's time to expand! I will be adding a new staging area at each end of the layout. One will represent Pittsburgh, the other, Enola (Harrisburg). This will free up the existing yards for switching and classification work.

I'm also planning to add some industries in Johnstown and am planning to finish scenicing it. Also on the scenery front, I've been going back over other parts of the layout doing touch-up. I want this layout to grace the pages of Model Railroader some day and in its current state, that just ain't going to happen.

We'll see how this shakes out. My enthusiasm for working on the layout has been lacking lately. Most years by he time summer is over, I'm ready to get back to work. But this year, not so much. For one thing, I have a new baby, and she saps most of my time and energy. Secondly, with most of the layout sceniced now, I'm getting to where I spend most of my time running the trains and enjoying the fruits of my labors. Hopefully when I get into the fall some more, I can dive back in.

H16-44 Repaint

Enough blather about hobby, it's time for a post about an actual modeling project. Once of the first locomotives to join my fleet was an Atlas Fairbanks Morse H16-44. I started out life as an undercoated shell. Long story short, I was never happy with how it turned out. It had wrong handrails and looked like it was lettered by a bunch of drunks.

Vis a vis:

 

At any rate, I decided I'd lived with it ling enough and chucked the shell into bath of 91% propyl alcohol. About a day later, all the paint was stripped off. Once the body was completely dry, I installed the correct handrails, which was no easy task. I'd get one end seated, the other would pop out. But I persevered. On the subject of handrails, I managed to lose one despite my best efforts.

I repainted the body, much more carefully and patiently this time, Floquil "Brunswick Green." The ends of the handrails and edges of the steps got Testors' yellow. The decals are all Micorscale. The last bit will be Dulcote and weathering.

The "Right Way" to Build a Layout

Okay, I know I've gotten up on my soap box these last few posts, but this is something has to be said. One biggest pet peeves about model railroading or any hobby in general is people who think their approach is the only right way. As far I'm concerned the "right approach" to model railroading is to build a layout you're proud of and provides you enjoyment. It doesn't matter if it's a super-accurate recreation of a prototype or a loop of Lionel tubular track on a sheet of plywood painted green.

How'd I get on this topic you ask? Well, week before last I had to have a medical test done and the doctor performing said test is notorious about being late. So I brought a copy of Sam Posey's book Playing With Trains. At one point in the book the author visits the layouts of Tony Koester and Malcolm Furlow. The two are both famous modelers whose approaches to the hobby are 180 degrees apart. Mr. Koester a staunch prototype modeler while Mr. Furlow was a freelancer who saw the layout as a form of artistic expression. There's nothing wrong with either approach.

While I'm quite familiar with Tony Koester since I always enjoy his Trains of Thought column in Model Railroader, I was very curious about Mr. Furlow. So I Googled him. What I found was a blog post that infuriated me.  Another model was wondering about Mr. Furlow and reached out to him. Here's what he had to say:

"I quit the hobby because most folks in it that I knew except for the likes of John Olson, and the work of John Allen, everyone else seemed a bit too tight-minded. I could not believe the anger that was associated with my participation in the hobby. I had a lot of admirers of my work in trains but the bombardment of hate mail just got ridiculous."

Hate mail? Really? If you're so perturbed by another modeler's approach to the hobby you'd write hate mail, I have to know, who the hell do you think you are? You need to get over yourself. Your way works for you and Furlow's way works for him. Just because you do model railroading a certain way does not make you God's gift to the hobby and being dogmatic about your approach to it does more harm than good by scaring off potential new hobbyists.

I've seen some spectacular layout that are strict models of prototypes like Jack Burgess' phenomenal Yosemite Valley (link). I've also seen some exceptional layouts that are purely freelanced yet operate in prototypical manor like Allen McClelland's legendary Virginian & Ohio and Dick Elwell's Hoosac Valley. And then there are folks like my Dad who just wants a place to run and display his childhood Lionel Trains and accessories.

As for me, my approach is somewhere between that of Tony Koester and Malcolm Furlow. I try to follow a particular prototype in a set time period. But, I do take some creative liberties. My intent is not to make a 1:160 scale carbon copy but rather to capture the basic flavor of places like Gallitzin, PA. This works for me, but it may not work for you and that's fine. After all, at the end of the day, we're just, as Sam Posey put it, playing with trains.