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.

Model Railroading Items That are Slowley Going Extinct

As an add-on to my last post about attracting young people to the hobby, I think it's important to not the hobby is not dying. In fact, a podcast provided by a reader of this blog (Hi Joe!) provided some real insight into the state of the hobby. However, as model railroading evolves some elements of the hobby are dying. So here's a list of things I see as slowly going extinct. Again, I don;t have any stats to back this up, merely my own observations.

1. Brick and Mortar Hobby Shops:

Let's start with the obvious. Hobby shops are dying a long, slow death. The rise of mail-order firms in the 1990s and then online shopping in the 2000s have done them in. Model manufactures going to the "we'll make the model when we get enough preorders" business model hasn't helped either.

2. Rapido and Horn Hook Couplers:

It seems to me, at least in n scale that most new models come with some form of knuckle coupler. Most of the Rapido-equiped cars I've had to convert in the last few years have been train show or ebay purchases.

3. Brass Locomotives:

Model manufacturers seems to be introducing more and more road-specific power, eliminating the need for brass. The quality and detail level of plastic models has also improved considerably over the years.

4. Locomotives that don't support DCC:

More and more it seems manufacturers are coming out with decoder-equipped locomotives. DCC is becoming ever more popular. I believe in the next few years all locomotives will have either a dual-mode decoder or at least be DCC-ready. I believe we will also see an increasing number of Bluetooth locomotives in the more distant future.

5. O-Gauge Tubular Track:

Yes, it's horribly unrealistic, but nothing conjures up images of Christmas moring like this track. Lionel discontinued it in 2016. However, Williams by Bachmann and Menards are still making it. But with most hobbyists in 3-rail O-Gauge opting for either Gargrave or Atlas, I don;t see much of a future for the old track.

Attracting Fresh Blood

My son enjoying his Brio trains. Hopefully his interest continues and Brio can give way to Lionel.

A topic of many forum flame war is attracting young people to the hobby. Threads on this topic always get to be something of a broken record with such played-out hits as: "young people want everything ready made and don't want kits!" "The hobby is too expensive," "Kids can't put down their electronics," and so on. Then the young people on the forum more often than not start pushing back, things get ugly, the thread gets locked and nothing is accomplished. As a young-ish person (I'm 33), let me address some of the above points and offer my own two cents worth.

The first criticism that often gets heaped on younger modelers is we're impatient and we want things ready to run. We don't want to assemble kits or scratch-build. Baloney! I say! I love putting structure kits together and taking the time to paint them and make them look appropriate for the era and locale. I would love to scratch build more but my skills are sadly lacking. That brings me to another point, not everybody is good at scratch-building and having the ready-to-run stuff makes the hobby more accessible.

Then there's "the hobby costs too much." I know, model manufacturers aren't exactly giving the stuff away. But there are still affordable trains out there. When I was a kid in early 1990s, most toy stores still carried trains. A new HO freight car set you back $3. Adjusted for inflation, that's about $5.32 today. No the cars weren't super detailed or road specific and they had the old horn hook couplers. But you could buy them on a week's allowance.

As for the fact that kids can't put down their electronics, this might be a valid point. It's not so much electronics as it is other toys in general. Lionel found themselves losing the interests of children back in the 1960s. Railroads for a lot of the country aren't visible and children aren't aware of the role they play in everyday life. On top of that many local hobby shops have long since gone out of business.

We know what the problem is, now how do we fix it? My son loves Thomas the Tank Engine and Chuggington. When we get stuck at a grade crossing we couldn't be happier. My wife and I bought him Brio set and loves playing with it. If he continues to show interest, I'll encourage him .Same goes for my daughter.

Encouraging that early interest may very well be the key to getting more kids involved in the hobby. Shows like Thomas and Chuggington may create that initial interest but all too often, I believe parents think it's something their child will outgrow and they don't encourage them. So how do we reach out to these parents? I really don't know. I do know model railroading has a lot more offer than video games. It's great teacher. It taught me woodworking, electricity, how use tools and fostered and interest history.

I do believe things aren't as dire as a lot of the old timers make them out to be. When I volunteered at the Hub City Railroad Museum, I was the oldest among the sizable group of young people there. Some of them will hopefully become part of my operating group. Many parents brought young children through and they were enthralled by the museum and the chance to see real Norfolk Southern freight trains roll by too. I try my best to mentor fellow modelers and help them out anyway that I can. And there's still a lot I have to learn.

Whipped up a Phone System and Finally Finished Water Street Frieght Terminal

 

I seem to have exited my summer modeling doldrums a few months early and tackled a few projects on the layout.  The most exciting of which is the installation of a telephone system. It turns out, this can relatively simply. I read online that all you need is a 9-volt battery and a 300-ohm resistor. This will allow you to pickup the phones and talk. Unfortunately making them ring requires 90 volts 20-cycles AC current. 

As of right now I have four phones, one at my desk, which will be the Altoona dispatcher. Another is at Altoona yard and serves Alto Tower. The next is at Gallitzin and serves AR tower. The final phone is in Johnstown and serves both J and SF towers. J Tower controls the main interlocking at the throat of Johnstown yard and SF Tower controls the interchange with the South Fork Branch.

Given the railorad will be operated via time table and train order, the dispatcher can relay order to the towers, who in turn pass them to the train crews. Just like the real thing. Of course, this means I will need a large operating group. Any volunteers?

To actually build the phone system, I used a buck converter to step the power from the lighting power supply down to nine volts, added a resister and soldered some two-connector phone wire to it. I crimped an RJ-11 plug on the other end, connected various spliters and ran lines. This essentially gives me an old-fashioned party line, which is certainly period appropriate. As mentioned above, I can't make the phones ring, so I will have to devise some system so the towermen and dispatcher know to answer the phone.

 

Basic telephony isn't the only thing I've been up to lately. In Johnstown, I went ahead and stained the rocks and planted trees on the small ridge between the main line and South Fork Branch. I also ballasted the main line and did a bit of landscaping.

 

Oh, and I finally finished Water Street Freight Terminal. Okay, I actually finished it a month ago and never got around to writing it up. I went with Floquil "Oxide Red" for the bricks, "Roof Brown" for the foundation and loading docks, "Grimy Black" for the roof. I used Polyscale "Penn Central Green" for the roof supports, Tamiya "Gloss Aluminum" for the roll-up doors and Testors "Flat Light Aircraft Grey" for the concrete parts.

FOr the brickwork, I used my usual trick of coating it with cheap grey poster paint and wiping most of it off to fill in the mortar lines. After that, it was weather wash, decals,the first round of clear flat finish, chalks and a finally round of clear flat finish. I'm quite happy with how he building turned out. It looks right at home in this part of Pennsylvania. Although the name Water Street seems a tad inappropriate for Johnstown. This will look perfect with a bunch of PRR merchendise service box cars nextto it.

Hello. Yeah, it's been a while. Not much, how 'bout you?

Wow, four months almost since my last entry. Frankly there hasn't been to post lately. In February, I changed jobs and have been working some long hours. On top of that, my wife and I have welcomed our second child, a beautiful baby girl. Also, as I blathered on in several previus posts this time of year, summer is upon us along with all of it's distractions. So yeah, a lot of time or energy for the layout.

Now all that said, I did manage to make some progress on the layout before all of the craziness started. I'm only just getting to write about it now. I managed to build a few structures. I also built some scenery and ballasted most of the South Fork Branch.

The first building I knocked out was Plasticville's Pink Lady Boutique. Unfortunately, I kind of screwed the pooch with my choice of colors. For the front wall of the building, I used Krylon "Meringue," which is basically Floquil's "Antique White." And just like it's Floquil counterpart, I ended up having to lay on coat after coat to cover up the base pink color. As a result I lost a lot detailing. The rest of the building, save for the roof, which is Tamiya silver, is Floquil "roof Brown."

I decided to turn this structure into a sort of seedy, run down bar that would sit in the middle of the Johnstown industrial area, giving the plant workers a place to grab a cold one after work. I weathered it heavily with chalks, added an Olympia Beer billboard and sealed it with clear flat finish.

Next up was Heljan's Bank Black. The architecture of this building just had Central Pennsylvania written all over it. I still don;t know it if will live in Altoona or Johnstown, but I'll definitely find a home for it. Floquil "Boxcar Red" for the walls, which I then coated with grey poster paint and wiped off to fill the mortar lines. I used Krylon "Meringue" for the doors and windows and with more success than on the previous building. The cornices are Floquil "Roof Brown."

For the roof, I decided to do something a bit different. Rather than paint the roof, I coated it with matte medium and dumped on some Woodland Scenics buff colored ballast. After letting it sit for a few minutes, I dumped off the ballast that didn't stick and I was left with a fairly convincing gravel roof.

Last up was Conrerstone's Brallick Building. I paint parts of the walls "Reefer white" while leaving the pilasters in their stock colors. The windows and doors are stock as well. The stairways are Testors "Flat Light Aircraft Grey." As for the water tower? The tank is "Roof Brown" and the supports are "Grimy black." I decided L liked the look of the gravel roof and repeated it here. Again, I not sure which end of the layout this building will end up on but I will definitely find room for it.

In addition to he buildings, I started building roads in the Johnstown industrial area, finished painting the rails between the Johnstown and Altoona yard limits and ballasted the South Fork Branch. Lastly I built a small ridge between the Main Line and the South Fork Branch to serve as a view block. I also installed lights in the structures.

Most of this was done in late February and early March. As mentioned above, time and energy for the layout has been largely non-existant at the moment. As of right now, I've had a Cornerstone Water Street Frieght Terminal sitting on my work bench for the past month waiting for me to finish it. Who knows when that will happen. Hopefully by the autumn, things will settle into place and I'll be back at work.

And in case you're wondering, yes, this entry's title is a reference to the Dan Seals & John Ford Coley song "I'd really like to see you tonight."