And Then There Were None: Long Live Dunes Junction! Long Live Old Line Corridor!

Just like that, the Dunes Junction and the Old Line Corridor layouts are gone.

Our house is getting a new family, renters with young children from overseas who are coming to Washington for medical training for a year. We’ve spent the past few weekends decluttering and clearing out the place for our new guests. Among the personal junk that needed to go were the Dunes Junction and Old Line Corridor layouts. 

We knew the layouts would need to be disposed of back in March, so I started making inquiries among model railroad network, and you like likely read about it here on the blog. I sought the advice of a few of our old heads in the Washington DC modeling community, who to a man wished me luck and told me to prepare to take a bath recovering layout building expenses. 

One option was to transport the layouts to our new home in Delaware. Realistically, we could really only accommodate one of those layouts, but after much soul-searching, I decided that any model railroading I would do in Delaware would be a clean sheet, all new project. I’m already plotting a modular European prototype project either N scale or possibly HO narrow gauge. Look for a future post on this topic. 

Dunes Junction getting ready to ride to Michigan. It stood up well to man-handling off its shelf brackets and into Greg’s car.

The announcement to my network didn’t yield the quick sale I had hoped for. I formed a backup plan to donate the layouts to clubs that had expressed interest in accepting them. A module group had its eye on the Dunes Junction for incorporation into its collection of show modules. An N-focused group thought it might be able to use the Old Line Corridor as either an exhibition layout or as salvage for its trees, structures, and catenary poles.

Ebay did the trick to motivate some buyers who had been lurking in this blog and on the Facebook groups to which I had been posting.

Dunes Junction sold first, to Greg, a modeler from Michigan. He was very excited to receive the layout, and he did a two-day road trip to come pick it up. He drove straight back with it and sent me pictures of it temporarily set up in his train room, complete with some of his own South Shore equipment running on it!

Dunes Junction in its new home, complete
with South Shore rolling stock.

A week or so later, I sold the Old Line Corridor to Ryan Thoman, one of the owners of White Rose Hobbies in York, Pennsylvania. I was thrilled to learn that the OLC’s new home would be a public display at a hobby shop! A back-of-mind ambition for OLC had been exhibition, UK-style, and it pleases me immensely to know that kids and aspiring model railroaders will be able to enjoy and take inspiration from the layout. Ryan is a veteran of the Norfolk Southern on the Keystone and Northeast Corridors, and he looked forward to having an N scale re-creation of his former professional stomping grounds. 

The Old Line Corridor loaded up and ready for transport to White Rose Hobbies in York, PA.

York is a couple of hours away, and Ryan wasted no time in putting the OLC back to work. In less than 24 hours, NS and Amtrak trains were rolling through the OLC on White Rose Hobbies’ YouTube channel. It was truly a thrill to see the layout in action on line!

I expected to somewhat sadder about the departure of these two layouts than I actually was. I’m already thinking through the possibilities for my next model railroad project, which is likely to be N scale modules depicting European or possibly Northern Indiana prototypes. Watch this space…

The Old Line Corridor is for Sale, and I Mean It (It’s On Ebay)

We’re getting down to the wire on moving the Old Line Corridor out of the house. Lots of interest, no takers. I succeeded in finding a buyer for Dunes Junction on Ebay, so I’m following suit with the Old Line Corridor.

Here’s the link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/294177977458

Tell your friends! As some wag out in the social media universe remarked, the price is less than the cost of the catenary poles alone.

…And the Old Line Corridor Needs a New Home (For Sale)

A change in real estate circumstances has occasioned disposal of the ‘Old Line Corridor’, which is difficult in view of its recent feature in the May 2021 Railroad Model Craftsman. 

It’s 3x7, DCC-ready, does not include any rolling stock or vehicles, and is themed around the Northeast Corridor. It is transportable via a van, trailer, pickup, or large SUV and located in the Washington DC area. ‘

I’ve added some photos below, never before seen on this blog, to give a complete picture.

If you’re interested, please reach out via the comments or the Facebook Old Line Corridor page.

 

Dunes Junction Layout on EBay

 It’s up for sale here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/294146510618

Now It Can Be Told: Old Line Corridor in the Pages of Railroad Model Craftsman

Now it can be told: the Old Line Corridor is featured in the May 2021 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman! The article has been in production for most of the past year, and is a contributing factor to the inactivity here on Up Dunes Junction. It is a gratifying relief to finally see it in print.  Go buy a copy if you aren’t already subscribed, and let me know what you think!

Coming Soon!

Look closely, and you’ll see where the Old Line Corridor has been for the past year or so...

 

Wordless Wednesday

Focus Stacking Experiments

These are my first tries at using focus stacking for photographing the Old Line Corridor. The foreground marsh is in as good focus as is the background. I've also got my new light set going here as well.

Another focus stacking experiment-again, everything appears to be in good focus throughout the image. I used the focus stacking feature built into Photoshop. There are other software solutions for focus stacking, such as Helicon Focus, but for this initial test I used what I had at hand, which was Photoshop.

New Year Old Line Corridor Video

Testing out a new light set, running trains, thought I would shoot some quick video on my smart phone.

What's new on the Old Line Corridor

Junk and vehicles add life to the big factory

Signal heads and right-o-way clutter

More signal heads, dumpster bodies and a port-a-potty

Piles of stuff 

More stuff

And even more stuff.

Old Line Corridor on Facebook

Facebook users, I've set up an Old Line Corridor Facebook page. I will be crossposting over there, and also sharing interesting and relevant Facebook-based content. Hope to see you over there!

Quick Snaps: Finishing Touches on Old Line Corridor Scenery

More trees, weeds, vegetation, signs, vehicles. Hard to believe I have finally reached this level of completion on the Old Line Corridor.

More trees and vegetation, plus signs and weeds. 

Looking down the road on the street side of the substation. Trees and weeds and a railroad

 A weedy, swampy area under an embankment, instead of just scrubby lawn

Under the expressway

Another view of the cattails and swampiness under the expressway

Renewed Man-Crafts Campaign

The Old Line Corridor needed another couple of dozen trees, so I made a few dozen Supertrees. (Some rules of model railroad trees: you will always need more trees than you think; your trees are probably too small) The weather has been particularly nice, so I worked outside. I also used matte medium to bind the foliage instead of 3M spray cement--much neater and more pleasant smelling, as the spray cement seems to get everywhere and is extremely difficult to cleanup and deodorize. The Aqua-Net super duper hold is a final coat to mitigate the inevitable "shedding," and imparts a vaguely hair salon-like whiff to the undertaking.

Old Line Corridor Progress and New Photo Lighting

With trackwork and catenary in a relative state of completion, it was finally time to add trees and vegetation to the corner southwest corner hill of the Old Line Corridor in the upper lefthand corner of this photo. The 'canyon of trees' effect is similar to the Stemmer's Run or Odenton areas of the Northeast Corridor in Maryland. I used a new photo lighting set and backdrop for this photo; this photo was a kind of test shot taken with my smart phone. Will try some similar photos with my 'serious' cameras in the near future. 

Over in the northwest corner of the OLC, structures and associated parking areas are finally installed. Not particularly loving the big factory building; may be replacing it with something better but not sure what that might be. Final scenery details--shrubbage, weeds, road signs, etc.--are next up. Will need to whip up a few dozen new Super Trees to fill in these edges and marginal areas. Note also the backdrop and lighting.

Another view of the new structures and parking areas. Lots of opportunities for weeds, shrubs, and other scenery details, as well as man-made detailing to add life and character.

Especially enjoyed building and finishing the tractor supply in the rear and the grungy fence in the foreground. That hillside behind the buildings will be covered with vegetation and shrubbage.

Things You Don't Realize About N Scale: Vehicular Slim Pickins

What does every vehicle in this photo

have in common? German prototypes,

including the Siemens ACS-64. That

might work for the contemporary North-

east Corridor Region, but probably not
for Appalachia or the rural midwest. 

Vehicle modeling is an important hobby-within-a-hobby in model railroading, and I'm learning fast that vehicles might be among the final frontiers of successful N scale modeling.

Last summer, while wandering around Chicagoland, I visited Desplaines Hobbies, which has a large selection of S scale and also die cast vehicles in 1/64 scale. It occurred to me that the selection S scale vehicles must be one of the attractions of that comparatively rare scale. My favorite S scaler, Trevor Marshall, confirmed to me that vehicle modeling is part of the fun of that scale, and that vehicles provide an excellent visual queue for setting the era and mood of a layout.

That's better--a railroad police Ford SUV--that most American
of vehicles--prowling the right-of-way for trespassers.

A few months later I visited John Sethian's O scale Pennsy layout. I raved about his catenary and fleet of O scale electrics on this blog, but another feature of his layout that impressed was the vast population of era-specific trucks and automobiles.

The importance of vehicles to a visually engaging layout isn't really new news to me--I have already put more than a few hours into finishing HO vehicles for my Dunes Junction layout, and I'll also point out that era- and region-specific vehicles in realistic poses were one of the impressive elements of Tim Nicholson's modeling, which I covered in a recent post.

* * *

With the Old Line Corridor nearly fully scenicked, I've arrived at the detailing stage. I've been thinking about signage, wayside details, weeds, and yes, vehicles. A recent visit to a New York area hobby shop with what counts as a deep stock of N scale vehicles yielded just under a dozen or so vehicles, which I immediately placed around the Old Line Corridor.

The long distance bus is a UK model with the steering on the

wrong side, but it represents one of the ways I casually railfan

the New Jersey portion of the Northeast Corridor,  which

is through the windowz of one of the cheap buses Rachel and I

often ride into New York and Connecticut. Also, that white
Rover Defender is something that would likely only ever be
seen in the Tri-State area, or maybe somewhere in Northern
California.

In the process of researching and then accumulating my small fleet of N scale vehicles, I came to realize that the overall smaller array of N scale products in comparison to HO is particularly exaggerated in the model vehicle space. The selection of N scale vehicles is small and focused on European and Japanese prototypes. For modelers of anything other than the modern era, there are precious few automobiles, with the late 70s through mid 90s particularly poorly represented. And for modelers who are focused on the rural midwest or the south--where foreign cars are still comparatively scarce--creating an accurate representation of the population of typical vehicles would be particularly problematic, with unpainted white metal and 3D printed offerings being the fallback options for most late 20th century North American vehicles in N scale.

Atlas markets some of the only 60s/70s era

vehicles, seen here in the lower part of the

photo, while that 70s/80s Herpa VW Golf

in the upper part of the photo hasn't been on

the market for some 15 or 20 years

About those white metal, 3D printed, and commercially available N scale vehicle models: assembling a fleet of N cars and trucks for even a modestly-sized layout like the Old Line Corridor requires a significant investment. I am loathe to hear and particularly make complaints about the high prices of model railroad products, but N scale vehicles indeed seem rather pricey to me. They are quite tiny, which creates, at some level, a preconception that they should cost correspondingly less than their HO counterparts. However, the German-manufactured N scale vehicles are particularly detailed and well finished, and probably require as much or more manufacturing effort as larger scale models, thus explaining the high prices. While the effect and appearance of vehicles on the layout adds significantly to the layout, I would ultimately be more pleased to spend that effort and money on something that adds even more to my hobby enjoyment. For the moment, however, I appreciate the life that my little cars and trucks add to the Old Line Corridor.

OMG, the layout is almost finished

With the near completion of the N Scale Architect curtain wall factory (an upcoming post will give a detailed review and lessons learned), the Walthers tractor dealership, and the Pikestuff warehouse, the Old Line Corridor is getting closer to completion. Already thinking of how additional trees and vegetation, right of way details, signage, and vehicles will give the layout a completed look.

A "drone" shot of the suburban Maryland-inspired industrial area with principal structures roughly positioned in. Next steps are to blend into the surrounding scenery and add some additional atmospheric details.

The purpose of that large-ish N Scale Architect factory is to block the view of the staging yard from the front of the layout, as seen in the background here. A fence and additional vegetation will enhance the blocking effect.

Catching the White Whale: Amtrak ICE Trainset

Finally laid my hands on one of the reasons I started out on the Old Line Corridor in the first place: Fleischmann's N scale Amtrak ICE train set. This is a 'best of both worlds' model: an interesting European prototype that actually ran on the Northeast Corridor. It was second hand, in excellent condition, and as evident in the video, runs reasonably well.
It does have a few quirks. As noted by the encyclopedically tireless tester of all N scale locomotives, Spookshow, it has some tricky close couplings, which turn out to be simple drawbars with NEM coupler plugs and sockets.
Its early 90s production also predates 'DCC ready', so DCC installation will be either old school with lots of soldering and whatnot, or expensive, as Fleischmann's recommended DCC conversion is to remove the Amtrak ICE shells and install them on the drives for a separately offered equipped ICE loco set. That DCC-equipped ICE loco set, is, of course, even rarer than this ICE Amtrak set and usually fetches an even higher premium price. Nonetheless, glad to have this prize running on the Old Line Corridor.

Random Developments and Thoughts

First, that moment when 200 or so seemingly random and abstract parts transmogrify into something recognizable as a model. In this instance, the transformation was particularly rewarding because of the medium of this N Scale Architect kit--the parts are all cardstock strips and rectangles that were difficult to envision as a factory.

Second, it's time for another pontification about how the Europeans do DCC. I've done a couple of DCC installs on European prototype N scale models in the past couple of months, which used the Next18, AKA NEM 662, decoder socket. The decoder socket and plug --see above, 'Buchsenleiste' is one the locomotive, 'Stiftleiste' is on the decoder--is only a quarter of an inch or so across, making for a tiny little decoder. Which leads me to wonder why Atlas, Walthers, and Kato DCC installs still involve special replacement printed circuit boards instead of Next18 or another standard socket, like the NEM 651. Intermountain, for its part, does use an NEM 651 socket in its ES44 models. Seems like an opportunity for efficiency and reduced production costs that would benefit modelers and the model railroad marketplace.

Structure Making Weekend

This is four or so N Scale Architect curtain wall factory kits under construction, assembly line style. It is made up of a laser cut 'task board' (1/16" card) base layer with self-stick brick and task board overlays and Grandt Line windows. It will be formed into a large generic factory approximately 12' x 4" x 6", the main purpose of which will be to form a view block at the end of the Ivy Cith visible staging yard. This might be my first craftsman structure kit in decades and construction so far has been rewarding if not laborious. I spent most of the weekend prepping the wall base layers and painting the brick, concrete and window parts, which number (seemingly) in the hundreds. However, assembly seems quick now that the painting and prep is done; that end wall in the lower left went together in about 10 or 15 minutes. 

The Walthers tractor supply kit got some finishing and weathering love. The decal sheet is substantially different than what is depicted on the box art. Painting and weathering brought out the kit's excellent masonry detail. Next comes final assembly, including window glazing and downspouts.

I tried a new weathering product on the Walthers kit: Ammo by Mig Oilbrushers. These are oil paints mixed and thinned for  model weathering and finishing, in a fingernail polish-like applicator. They are easily blended with odorless thinner or white spirits. Not only is this an excellent weathering product, the most useful color in my Oilbrushers set has the truly awesome name of  'Starship Filth'. Luckily Starship Filth is a similar shade to Northeast Corridor Filth.

What’s Happening on the Old Line Corridor, January 2019 Edition

Smells like team spirit: Operation Lifesaver is in the house--this Conrail Operation Lifesaver GP15-1 was a gift to my wife, Rachel, who is Operation Lifesaver's national Executive Director. Finally got a DCC decoder into this gem of a model over a recent weekend so it can run on the Old Line Corridor layout.  

A tiring chore completed: this sound-equipped Bachmann GG1 in Congressional Silver threw a traction tire, which needed to be replaced. Traction tires are an unfortunate fact of life in N scale. Can't live with 'em because they interrupt good pickup and make rerailing a hassle, can't live without 'em because when they inevitably come off, the wheels are won't track or roll well because of the big ol' groove in the wheel profile. The model required complete disassembly to replace that one errant traction tire. This problem also afflicts Kato's otherwise excellent GG1 model as well. Would that some aftermarket manufacturer devise some ingenious method of replacing traction tires permanently with solid metal tires.  

And a fun structure build: this Walthers farm equipment supplier kit fits together especially well and is well engineered, unlike Walthers massive papermill kit which suffers thin, flimsy, translucent walls and confounding windows. Walthers could improve the instructions for all its current structure kits.