002 Mammoth Cave RR - Cutting Wood With Blaine Holbrook

Meet Blaine Holbrook!  I'm working on my new On30 portable layout, and I decided that since I can't get Luaan Plywood here in Utah, that I'd just make it out of standard plywood.  My friend Blaine is a member of the local NMRA here in Salt Lake.  He volunteered to help me saw the lumber.  What I didn't know was that he has an amazing wood shop and is a master carpenter!

Here is Blaine feeding wood into his saw to make 3" boards for the layout.  The shop has every tool you could ever want.  Mr. Holbrook is a friendly and helpful fellow with a lot of skills.  I got the chance to tour his house and saw all the amazing woodwork and cabinetry that he's made over the years.  Wish I had that talent!  Thanks for the loan of your saw, Blaine!

I got the chance to peak at Blaine's train room.  He's about ready to start building the benchwork it appears.  This cabinet was of particular interest in that he had modified it...

Wow!  The flat drawers slide out and it is used for storing rolling stock and locomotives.  What a clever idea!   They are easy to see and find, and the cabinet holds hundreds of HO scale items in his collection.  I can't wait to see what he does with the layout!

To me, model railroading is about friends...and helping each other.  Thanks to Blaine, I'll have layout pictures for you soon!

001 Mammoth Cave Railroad - Trackplan

We are changing our mind on the Skeleton Crew layout.  The swamp just doesn't have enough trackage to keep people interested.  It needs two trains.  So we are moving the venue to Kentucky and its enormous Mammoth Cave.  There was a real Mammoth Cave Railroad with cool little dinkey porters.  Just screams to be modeled.

Our railroad is mostly in the explosives business, and shall be processing saltpeter which is also known as potassium nitrate.  Saltpeter is used in gunpowder, and also makes a powerful fertilizer.  More on the commodity later...

 There isn't enough grade for an over and under layout, and I do want to run two locomotives at a time for spectator interest.  That leaves one solution, two loops of track, one higher than the other.  I start with the first track plan and its 10 1/2" radius curves.

 My first try is to copy the lower level and paste it on top as an inverted loop.

 The plan of the railroad is to take guano out of the cave, Take it to a processor, then load it into railcars to be shipped to the river and loaded on ferries.  In order to do that there has to be a material exchange from the top level to the bottom.  That means the lower level needs to be outside the upper level and on tangent track for a short period of time.  I change the top loop and add a siding on the inside of the loop for the cave/mine.

The two straight sections on top will become a transfer station for bat poop (technical term!)

The beauty of On30 is that you can get really silly with the scenery.  I'm putting in a steep canyon with a fast moving river, a small but navigable river and dock, and the cave itself higher up.  The left hand side will be dual tunnels so that we can make the mountainside look bigger.

Tunnel portals have been added, including the cave mouth.

 I've added the hopper/dumper transfer station up top, a small mine manager's office high on the mountain, and a very small station for passengers to get on the railroad.  The two curves over the gorge will be spanned with steel trestles and a ton of rust!

Tight On30 layouts give rise to really weird track arrangements like this curve directly over the lower track.  While it would be very odd to see this in real life, it just gives me a great opportunity to build some interesting steel supported track and add more rust.  Add this to steep cliffs, rushing rivers and lots of gray boulders lined with thick, deciduous trees and you have a wonderful layout!

Time to make some benchwork!

Sketching a Portable On30 Layout

We know that the 10.5" radius, while not optimum in On30, it is usable.  Now we need to start designing a layout that will fit in my workshop.  My daughter wants me to build a swamp layout again, which would be easy since I have most of the equipment and molds available.

Taylor helped me design a very simple layout.  While the track plan is quite simple, the scenery effects will be complicated and make it very viewable.  

 We started with an oblong oval, and added a spur and a off-line main.

 We put a few trees and the swamp onto the 3D view and ran a train.  Taylor enjoyed running the train.

 While the real feel of the dense overgrowth is not felt here, I've sketched swamps enough that I have a good feel for it.  We have the wood we need to make this over the course of next week.  Still, I'd like to build a mining layout.

Sketching For The Skeleton Crew

A couple of us decided that in November, when the Division has their annual train show, we should have an On30 layout display available.  I have very little room for building a large portable system so it has to be very compact.  For this I'll need a very tight radius.

For the radius experiment I'll need the help of my two assistants, Taylor and Katie.  We are going to test a tight radius for On30 that will fit in a two foot wide space.

 The girls marked off a two and a half area of the card table using masking tape.

 Next, the girls marked off another two and a half grid.

Using a small On30 locomotive, a stretch of track and a DCC system, we'll test a 10.5" radius curve.

  I've added an 18' ore car to give us a feel for the coupler swing.

  I had not put the car on the track correctly, so Taylor assists in getting it back on track.

Bump! Bump! Bump!  What the heck is that?  We looked and looked, and discovered that the locomotive has a gear bind that is making it operate problematically.  The radius at this very tight 10.5" radius does work, so we can build a tight layout.

001 Franke Furniture & Coffin Shop Kit - Getting Started

Train shows aren't much fun for me in Utah because there is virtually no On30 products on the tables.  Occasionally I find an O scale item that I can use.  Recently I saw this laser kit from Wild West Scale Model Builders at http://www.wildwestmodels.com/.

The kit that I chose was the Franke Furniture & Coffin Shop, which you can see here http://www.wildwestmodels.com/products/franke-furniture.html.  I liked the lines of this model.  It is very interesting on the deck/smokestack side.  It is also a multi-function building that can be easily modified.  I paid $148.99 for the model.  That was a bit more than I would pay for a small laser kit, but I liked it and there was nothing else interesting in the show.

Lord Bentley of The Shetland Islands has appeared to inspect my work.  Good boy!

Inside the sturdy box there is a large assortment of parts and a big surprise....

Wow!  This is probably the best set of instructions that I've ever seen.  Its a book, a thick one, I believe strongly in reading the directions BEFORE you start.  The book has been in the car with me for several weeks and I've read it cover to cover several times.

The book is mostly in black and white, but the drawings are crisp and clean.  There are great ideas included.  Ok...let's go see if they work.

Before I get started I spend time figuring out what it is exactly I want to build.  Yes, there are instructions and a pretty cover shot on the box.  But I can guarantee you, I NEVER build a kit like it is supposed to built.  There are two reasons for that.  The first is that I just don't like seeing the same kit on every single layout, with all of them looking the same.  I've seen the Atlas barn (probably under another name now) about a billion times.  It always looks the same.  The second is that when I build a layout I have a theme, a date and setting, and each structure has an age.  Each of those and other factors gives the structure a unique look.  For instance, let's look at setting.  This building, built at the same day, date and time, would look amazingly different if built in Colorado and Kentucky.  The Colorado building would have brownish red streaks and less weathered.  The Kentucky building would be a silvery blue-grey with heavier weathering due to more humidity in the air.  Time spent figuring out what you are trying to make will show as quality when you put it on the layout.

The next thing I do is look at other modeler's interpretations of the same building.  I do this not so much to steal ideas but to force me to look outside the box to see what new ideas I can bring to the table.  Wild West has a page with their customer's model shots, so I started there, on page #2.

http://www.wildwestmodels.com/gallery/customer-photos.html

My decision is this will be an eastern building, built in Kentucky, with moderate weathering and use wear and tear.  It may be used on an upcoming demonstration layout for the Skeleton Crew.

Next, we start work.  The instructions say to color (I never say paint because that implies paint instead of other coloration techniques) so I start preparing parts for painting.  There are two types of people in the world; those that divide the world into two types of people, and those that don't.  For those of us that do divide the world into two types of people, there are two types of people.  There are those that put nail holes into boards because they think you can see them on the prototype, and those that think it is a waste of time.  I'm a nail holer.  To do this I use a pin vise and a needle.

With the needle in the pin vise I carefully put three nail holes on either sides of where the two boards join.  This takes time, so have the TV going in the background.  Right now Captain Jayneway is taking the starship to warp....

The pin vice is pointing to one special board.  Boards have a finite length.  While board separations are prevalent on the model.  However, a close eye shows this board to be 27 feet long, which is highly unlikely.  Therefore, using a SHARP hobby knife I cut some extra board separations to make it more realistic.

After cutting the boards I emboss the nail holes into the boards and we are good to go.

Next I send all the edges of the piece.  Laser cutters do not cut at a 90 degree angle to the surface but a few degrees off of 90, which leaves an angle on the side of the piece.  I sand it and any sprues down with a fine grit sanding block.

I keep moving on to the next piece.  With this type of plywood the sprues are VERY TOUGH.  You have to be careful cutting them so as to not break the piece.  I keep the blade in my hobby knife very sharp.

While removing the scrap material I keep the pieces in a bag marked "scrap."   I do this because, should I break something, I have the same thickness wood to make a repair piece.  The extra wood is also used for structure modifications.

On long piece cuts I worry about the board breaking.  To reduce the risk I use a steel straight edge to prevent the knife from slipping.

Some of the pieces are lasered on BOTH sides so that the inside of the building can be detailed as well.  Naturally the inside and outside of the building don't weather and get painted the same.  My trick is to figure out which is the outside and to put a bright yellow dot on that side.  I keep a pack of these on my workbench, along with a glass of Jack Daniels on ice.  I put a yellow dot on the instruction page for the piece as well.

Enough for tonight.  Give me some time to get back into the swing of blogging!  Questions are welcomed.

The Abandoned Sinclair Gas Station in Elberta, Utah

Hi train fans!  Yes its been a long time since I've posted.  Lots going on in my life with several new businesses, wife and children.  Yet, I'm going to try again to get back on the blog!  Let's start here...

I recently went on a trip to central Utah, taking the road less traveled, when I stumbled across this little gem.  My brain is failing, but I knew in my photographic memory that I had seen it somewhere before.  Slamming on the breaks, I grabbed the trusty Cannon and started shooting.

I think what caught my eye is that it just looked like a model.  Its sitting on top of the dirt, not in it, as many models do.  It had really interesting door features, and it was abandoned and old which will catch a narrow gauger's eye in a heartbeat.

It is sitting on flat farmland with too very old cottonwood trees guarding it.  The building area is very well kept for an abandoned structure.  I so wanted to peak inside!

Here you can see the unusual doors straight on.

I took this to make a decal with it should I choose to build one.

After I got back the little building kept haunting me.  I knew I had seen a model or a kit of this structure.  Finally after a photo search on Google I came upon the site of my friend Chris Brimley of TrainLife fame.  He had built a model and published it in Rail Model Journal.  Here is a link to how to build this wonderful structure.

http://www.trainlife.com/articles/5/scratchbuilding-a-sinclair-service-station?hc_location=ufi

I took several duplicate photos, so I only posted the best ones here.  Have fun!