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. 

Finished the Rail Painting and Ballasting at Johnstown

As stated in my yearly progress report, one of my goals for the season was to get done with all the scut work. In service of that goal, I painted the remaining rails and ballasted nearly all the track in Johnstown.

Since the track in this area is visible from multiple angles, I had to paint both sides of the rails, essentially doubling an already tedious task.  I just cracked open a beer, put on an Alan Keller video and got on with it.

As for the ballasting, well, you've already read enough blog posts in which I bitch about Woodland Scenics ballast, so I'll spare you. In all honesty, it wasn't so bad this time around. I don't know what I did to make the gods so happy but hey, I'll take it.

 In other news, I decided to add some elevation to one corner of Johnstown. I laid a few pieces of white styrofoam packaging and cut it to shape with my hot knife. And yo, with the window open, the fumes from the white beaded stuff are nasty.

With the foam layers cut, I glued them together with some Elmers and painted everything raw umber. I decided the top of the hill would be a perfect place for my Model Power "Victorian House" kit. This was one of the first structures I built for this layout and for a while, it seemed like I wouldn't find a home for it. It just looked out of place to me, which is mind-boggling since this style of architecture is found all over this part of Pennsylvania. 

I'm toying with the notion of adding a sign reading "Historic Floode Mansion." Hmm, no if I recall correctly, there's some significant event in Johnstown's history that might make that in bad taste. We'll see how it shakes out.

With this done, I have some more mountains to build and a bit more ballasting at the far end of Johnstown.  Stay tuned.

Team Steam is Back!

I finally got around to getting two of my mainline steamers up and running again. For the past two years, my Kato/GHQ L1 has been sitting idle in the Altoona locomotive shop. The darn just didn't run right after conversion to DCC.  After a little detective work, I found the problem lay with the tender. Its wheels provide most of the power pickup and they weren't making good contact with the rails.

The solution turned out to be dead simple. I went to Hobby Lobby, bought some Pinewood Derby car weights and packed as many of them as humanly possible into the tender. And that was the ticket! The locomotive ran smooth as silk after that.

You may recall that a few months ago I ran my brass I1 into a turnout set the wrong way, shorted it out and cooked the decoder. I purchased a new decoder back in August and over the past few days have been working on installing it.

Now, as delivered, the locomotive's drivers pick up the right rail current and the tender wheels picked up the left. This arrangement was okay but not optimal. There were a handful of turnouts on my layout that were impassible obstacles for this loco. My solution was to swap out the stock tender trucks with Bachmann trucks, which draw current from all eight wheels. This would prove far easier said than done.

The tender chassis had to be modified to accommodate the new trucks.  For the forward trucks, I fired up my Dremmel and proceeded to cut two slits in the chassis. Believe me, taking power tools to a $400 brass locomotive is not for the faint of heart! I successfully cut said slits but in the process obliterated the screw holes for holding the shell on. What's worse, I cut right through the end of the chassis! Once that happened, I knew it was time to fight my Greek genes, go downstairs and take a break. After having some lunch and taking some time to cool down and think rationally, I arrived at a solution. I reinforced the front of the tender with a piece of styrene.

For the rear trucks, I decided cutting slits wasn't the way to go.  Instead, I opted to cut off the vertical tab on each truck contact. Using a pin vise, I enlarged the holes on each side of the bolster to accommodate the wires. This worked beautifully.  With that done, I soldered the wires to the truck contacts and the decoder.

The final hurdle was mounting the trucks. The mounting holes on the Bachmann trucks are considerably larger than those of the stock trucks. After scavenging the local hardware store for washers, I came up empty-handed. My solution was to take two small pieces of styrene and drill small holes in them. These act as retention plates for the trucks.

With the decoder installed, I put the loco on the tracks and it ran perfectly. It moved through the turnout that had once stopped it dead with total confidence. So, the effort paid off. That said, I would sooner endure a root canal without novocaine than do that again!

While we're on the subject of steam, Broadway Limited delivered their long-awaited T1 shortly before Thanksgiving. While not quite as good as their M1, it is a fine locomotive. In terms of steam, we sure have come a long way in the last five years.

2017-18 Annual Progress Report

Well, folks, it's that time of year again. The layout has been under construction for five years now. I can hardly believe it; time flies. There is very little of the layout left to scenic at this point.

Let's have a look a the progress, shall we?

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.

Scenery: 90% complete. All that remains is about a quarter of Johnstown and all of Altoona. Scenery should be done by 2020.

Last year my primary goals were building of staging yards, adding new industries and sidings at Johnstown and finishing the scenery at Johnstown. Funds didn't permit the staging yard construction. However, the switch of the main line and lead were installed.

I added three new rail-served industries to Johnstown and a new industrial spur to serve them. This should keep several operators busy.

I didn't finish Johnstown but I am close. I should be able to knock it out this year.

My goals for this year are to finish Johnstown and go around a redo a few areas. As you all know, I took a trip up to Altoona this summer. And boy did that show me everything I got wrong! So I intend to address this.

Another goal is to try and knock out all the tedious scut work. I'm talking about wiring, rail painting, and ballasting. There's not a lot of it left, so why not get it done already?

So that's it for this progress report. I am participating in NaNoWriMo again this year so there won't be much work done on the layout until December. See you then.

Finished Rslaserkits' Outhouse

I picked this kit up at the Hub City Railroad Museum for $2. It comes with a trio of outhouses. I figured the folks visiting Horseshoe Curve could use some kind of facility for, in the words of Bachmann Turner Overdrive, takin' care of business.

I started out by hitting the kit with a coat of Minwax "Special Walnut" stain. Once it dried overnight, I cut the pieces from their sprue and proceeded to glue them together. This was my first laser-cut since Branchline Trains "Tower House." (Link)  That kit was a total knock-down, drag-out slug fest. This kit wasn't nearly as bad, but it did remind me of why laser kits are challenging.

The glue kept wanting to stick the pieces to my fingers and not each other. It ended up demolishing the damn thing several times before getting it put together. So that explains all the glue shmootz on the walls. But since this thing will be viewed from about five feet away, nobody's going to notice.

So that's that, a lot of blather for a four-walls-and-a-roof kit.