Inspiration Photos: Looking Up and Seeing Your Model Railroading Goals

Put up some prints of South Shore scenes and details--nothing too fancy--that help me visualize what's going on at Dunes Junction, and also give visitors a sense of the 'vision' of the layout . . .

Finishing Touches for the Mineral Springs Road Flag Stop

Here are two views of the more-or-less complete flag stop at Mineral Springs Road.  The shelter is scratchbuilt from Evergreen styrene siding and strips, with a photo-printed tar paper roof. The public phone is straight off the sprue from Walthers Cornerstone detail set. The guard rail posts are cut from Code 70 rail, and a Blair Line stop sign was the last bit added.

Everything You Ever Need to Know About Beer and Trains

Long-time and/or sharp-eyed readers of Up Dunes Junction have probably figured out that hand-made beer is the other great passion of my life.  Go check out this post at John Longhurst's CP Rail Manitoba & Minnesota Subdivision blog, which features his awesome layout and musings about things like beer and trains.

Catenary Pole Plantin' Progress Program

We've been planting painted Model Memories catenary poles at Dunes Junction. Here's a look at the tools, techniques, and some lessons learned from our pole planting experiences.

Drilling jigs cut from hardwood ready for action. Note the rail alignment lines on the jig
to the left. The 30-degree mitre cuts on the allow the jig to be placed into tight spots,
which resulted from my poor planning of road, structure, and catenary pole placement.

Positioning a drilling jig.  The pushpin on the left marks the spot. A #8
sheet metal screw and a fender washer secure the drilling jig

The drilling jig fixed into place for drilling. The DeWalt right angle adapter
is not only compact, but also allows quick changes between drill and screw-
driving bits.

Adjusting the poles before the 5-Minute Epoxy sets. The
gauge at right ensures a uniform height of 3 3/4". The square
in foreground is essential to ensuring the the poles are set
straight and square.

Poles fitted and epoxied into place. Note the two squares in the foreground.

Unintended consequences: the drill sucked
up Heki and Silflor fibers and jammed the bit,
which needed to be cleared with an X-Acto knife. 

Video of Amtrak ACS-64 Testing at the Pueblo Test Track

Feast your eyes: the new Amtrak electric at speed at the Federal Railway Administration's test track in Pueblo, Colorado . . .

Pole Paintin' Progress

Check these out . . . getting done with the painting of the South Shore lattice catenary span bridges. Can hardly wait to install these . . .

Base coats of Floquil Grimy Black (cross arms) and Rail Brown (poles) . . .

. . . And with some raw umber washes and yellow ochre dry brushing.

Gettin' Jiggy with HO Catenary Construction

Jigs and holders and gauges and whatnot are necessities for catenary construction. That thing with the plastic strip is a pole height gauge. The plain block is a wire height block/gauge thingy. The flat one on the track is a drilling jig that (hopefully) will guide correctly spaced and square mounting holes. The styrene sheet nestles the jig into the gauge of the track; the gauge will be held in place temporarily with a screw during drilling.

Cleanin' and Primin' Model Memories South Shore Catenary Span Bridges

The span bridges all primed with Rustoleum metal primer, which will dry for a week or two before further painting.  Hats off again to Oberleitungsbaumeister Don Silberbauer of Model Memories for producing these showpieces--
the bridges looked great in bare brass but they look even closer to real with this first coat of paint. The etched
brass lattice is truly delicate-looking, but still quite sturdy.

Model Memories South Shore Catenary Span Bridges prepped for painting. They were thoroughly
rubbed down with a wire brush, then with steel wool, and finally wiped down with denatured alcohol

South Shore Catenary Construction First Steps--Woo Hoo!

Siting the Model Memories catenary span bridges--the first step of many in my catenary construction adventure! One lesson learned here is to plan better, because it was starting to look like the grade crossing and Mineral Springs flag stop might need to be rearranged (as in torn out and rebuilt). but I think I worked it out so that the flag stop will actually look more interesting , with a pole right there by the shelter.

Workbench in a Rare State of Grace

Flag stop accoutrements almost ready for final installation at Mineral Springs Road on my cleaned-up workbench. If this blog had smell-o-vision capability, you'd be catching the sweet whiff of turpentine, as there was just some dry-brushing with artists' oils and subsequent paintbrush cleaning going on here.  Coffee in a Star Wars cup is a vital part of my pre-noon model railroading activity.  Porter (the beer, not the tiny steam locomotive) in a tumbler helps out with post-noon model railroading .

Flag Stop Progress is Progressing

The Dunes Junction flag stop is coming right along. From left to right: the a-building flag stop shelter, scratchbuilt from styrene and temporarily held together with drafting tape; a painted and decaled Walthers Cornerstone public telephone held in the clutches of a clothespin; and guard posts fashioned from Code 70 rail and painted an awesome shade of dull orange from a Liquitex spray can. Good times!

Grade Crossing Progress

Mostly finished and scenicked in. I built some footings
 for the crossbucks  from styrene, which I then painted with
Floquil concrete. Aleene's Tacky Glue holds the crossbucks
 down on the footings.

Over the recent long holiday weekend, I was able to nearly complete the Mineral Springs Road grade crossing. The road and wood crossing had been completed for some time, but was missing crossbucks.

I decided to try my hand at some lighting effects to add a visual action to the scene. Busch 5934 US Crossing Signals had the look and the price I was looking for, plus they were 'ready-to-run' with a flasher circuit included in the package.

The Busch signals are pre-wired with hair-like magnet wire, and the circuit is in very small case around the size of large ice cube. Two leads connect to a 12-24v AC or DC power source.  The magnet wire terminates into the circuit via binding posts that are secured by press-fit plastic pegs. Have never seen anything like this, but they work.

I like to test electrical things, and re-test them, and then test them again during all stages of construction and installation. I test-ran the circuit and crossbucks off an old analog power pack, and ultimately acquired a Radio Shack Enercell 15V wall wart power supply, which will now serve as accessory power for the whole layout. These Enercell wall warts can be equipped with a variety of tips, including a plain old set of test leads, but I chose an actual plug-and-socket arrangement that can break away easily when moving the layout .

The flashing crossbucks are controlled via a miniature SPDT switch mounted to the front of layout adjacent to the road. I considered but rejected a detector circuit (too expensive, too hard to install at my current stage of completion, and probably would be annoying on such a small layout) and DCC stationary control (too expensive and kind of complicated compared to direct control via a cheap and simple ol' switch).  I wired it all up to easily accommodate an ITT crossing bell sound module, which will go in over the coming weeks.

The crossbuck flasher circuit from below. At upper left, the SPDT control switch. The black doo-dad with three yellow binding posts is the Busch flasher circuit; barely visible wisps are the magnet wire leads for the crossbucks. At the rear left is the terminal strip for the installation, which is ready to accommodate the addition of a sound module. Left of the orange spring clamps is the socket for the type 'N' plug fitted to the Enercell wall wart on the bottom right.  A cheap AA battery-powered headlamp was essential for me to see and complete all under-layout wire terminations.

Fresh Images From Rick Abrams' Awesome New Haven Under Wire

Go over to Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine's blog community and check out new shots of Rick Abrams' electrified New Haven layout--make sure to check out the comments to get the whole schmear.

Rick's work demonstrates what can be done with state-of-the-art heavy electric modeling--always a pleasure to see this awesome depiction of the heyday of New Haven electric operations.

Trains I've Seen Lately, Summer 2013 Edition

June has already turned out to be a busy month with travel and work, but trains keep turning up, no matter where we go.  We hiked the Inca Trail in from the outskirts of Cuzco, Peru to reach the breathtaking Macchu Pichu ruins, and then took the 3-foot modern narrow gauge PeruRail back to Cuzco to fly back home.  Back down closer to sea level (and home), some snaps of CSX mainline action from the parking deck in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Rails through the Inca Empire: A three-foot gauge PeruRail passenger train gets ready to depart Aguas Caliente, Peru, for Cuzco.  Aguas Caliente is the rail and road hub to reach Macchu Pichu and other Inca Trail ruins. Note the soaring, vertical terrain in the background. 

All of the PeruRail rolling stock, right-of-way, and facilities we saw evidenced a well-run, modern operation. These spiffy diesel railbuses provide local service primarily to Peruvians who work in the region's booming tourism industry. Inspiring scenery, short trains, dense operations, a mix of Euro and North American equipment: seems like an awesome modeling opportunity . . . 

Back at sea level, TOFC action in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

A long train of empty auto racks westbound through Gaithersburg.

Hot double-stack, eastbound through Gaithersburg.

NJ Transit Snaps From the Cheap Bus Window

Spotted from the window of the cheap bus from New York to Washington ($25 each way + Internet bandwidth enough to post this). Taken this trip many times, and still find this vista of New York and New Jersey as breathtaking as anything in the Western states. What an awesome country!