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Track crossover

Rob’s been in touch with a missive on his track crossover problem:

“My Far Moor Junction has seen a lot of traffic over the years.

In fact, the double-slip switch that makes it all happen has had a lot of hard use. It needs to be replaced.

Sometimes a locomotive will come through that is not quite all on the rail and hit it pretty hard. When that happens things can get bent. That is what has happened.

While I have things torn up, I decided to move my freight to down main crossover away from one of the super-elevated 180-degree curves. These are on all the express passenger lines on the 180-degree curves. The one that feeds into the crossover is too close. The rail traffic coming off the super-elevated rail needs time to settle before going through the point. Moving the crossover should accomplish this or I hope so.

I use this crossover when there is a train parked on the down main line between Howe Street Station and Far Moor Junction.

Passenger trains can still run at a reduced speed of course, but there is no disruption of service.

Anyway, it was time to renew this area and improve it incrementally. That is what the video is about, the physical track changes needed in this area.

Here is a final picture with everything put back together and ballasted.

After putting the track back together, I ran a number of locos and trains across the double slip. I noticed that my most troublesome locos were still having some difficulty traversing this new one.

I decided to take a deeper look.

I got my little level out and went over the double slip switch with it and discovered it was out of level by as much as half a bubble or more in some areas.

To fix this, I got some thick 1 mm card and cut it into 6 mm wide strips and cut those into small squares. I then inserted these under the sleepers on the low side until the double slip switch was as level as possible.

When I was done I leveled it until the bubble was between the lines. After doing this, I sent a number of locomotives and trains over it again. This time, everything ran smoothly. It is amazing what a difference it made.

I think that is why some equipment ran so rough over it these last few years. I should have checked it a long time ago but didn’t.

The funny thing is, when I installed the new cross-over, I did level it as a matter of course. Why I didn’t do it on the double slip is anybody’s guess. I think since it is such a rigid unit, it never occurred to me that it might twist a little or not just lay there level. The problem is no doubt the track coming into it and leaving it. That is level too now by the way since I didn’t stop at the double slip switch, I leveled all the way to the beginning of the superelevation in both adjacent curves.

It pays to check for level on your track and turnouts/points when you are laying your track and now and then if you are having trouble thereafter.

Rob”

“Hi Al,

Just completed a small N-Scale project over the holidays. 2X4 platform, a simple oval, paper houses, foam mountains. It’s my first N-Scale so nothing fancy just getting my feet wet on this one.

Best,

Mike”

A big thanks to Rob for sharing his thought on his track crossover – and to Mike too (who has made great use of the printable buildings).

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you stop dreaming and start doing, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

Painting backdrop

If you’ve every thought of painting your backdrop for your layout, Cameron has some good tips that he has used for his shunting puzzle:

“Dear Al,

This is my final instalment on Lanarth.

Scale 1:76 00 scale
Track Peco Code 100 HO
Region – English, Southern, South West

The final parts of the layout were the scenics and backdrop.

There was a grassy foreground to the prototype that I wanted to capture on the layout. As a rough base for this I used old carpet underlay. The underlay is normally brown so I bleached it with some household bleach.

To lay I smeared a liberal amount of pva on the layout and positioned clumps of the underlay. Following this I coloured it with some watered down acrylic paint. It looked good at this point but not 100%. To improve it I applied some static grass with spray adhesive.

The backdrop was more of a challenge. In keeping with the theme of this layout I decided to paint my own. One of he biggest challenges of a good backdrop is getting a realistic perspective. I wanted a station building in the foreground of the backdrop so the perspective needed to be spot on.

I use CAD software at work so I put this to use for the backdrop. I modelled the background in 3D, generated perspectives at different angles then printed them out on paper. I could then test the prints against the rest of the model to pick the angle that looked best. The final backdrop is painted with acrylic paints.

The rest came together in the box and is working well. Being quite small I can keep it in our dining room on top of the side board.

Visitors like to try their luck at the shunting puzzle. Hope you all enjoyed the progress and posts.

Bye for now.

Cameron”

And now on to Rob, with his pics of the Big Boy loco:

“Hi Al,

The wife, Michelle, and I decided to chase the Big Boy locomotive as it crossed from Cheyenne, Wyoming (it’s home) to Omaha Nebraska where the UP Headquarters is located.

The run was June 7 to July 3 and it went to Omaha and then back to Cheyenne.

Michelle and I saw this great example of steam power a few years ago when it had just completed getting rebuilt and put back in operating condition when I came through Laramie, Wyoming on the way to Promontory Point for the 150-year celebration of the continental railroad completion.

It was exciting to see it coming into the station there, being serviced, and then pulling out.

This time, however, I wanted to see it at speed. We chose a spot along the Union Pacific’s mainline and waited.

Before the main event came through, one coal train stopped in front of us on an adjacent track and another one came rocketing through ahead of Big Boy going the other way. When the biggest steam locomotive in the world finally came past us, I was not disappointed, it was accelerating and was already running very fast.

75 miles per hour is the published top speed of this heavy monster and he was closing in on that rate when he passed us. Seeing something that big moving that fast is a sight to behold.

A few weeks before, there was an open house at the steam shed in Cheyenne where Big Boy and UP 844 are stabled and we went there. I am including a few pictures from that trip as well.

Rob and Michelle”

A big thanks to Cameron for his painting backdrop tips and to Rob.

There are lots of backdrop posts on the blog, but the one that always springs to mind for me is Jeff’s: Model train backdrops.

That’s all for today folks.

Please do keep ’em coming.

And if today is the day you stop dreaming and start doing, the Beginner’s Guide is here.

Best

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.

HO scale loop

Ken’s been having a lot of fun with his HO scale loop – have a look at Godzilla!

“Hello Al,

I like you decided recently to get back into model railroading. After all, I’m retired now and it’s only been 50 years since my last layout!

Boy, I wished I had a photo of my little goofy layout. With raising a family and building a career, it’s almost inconceivable that I managed to keep anything leftover from my childhood layout, but somehow I did manage to hold onto 3 little shack buildings that were on that layout. I’ve got them placed in my new layout for sentimental purposes.

I’d like to show you some photos of what I’ve done so far on phase 1. I’d love to hear comments good or bad on what I’ve got so far.

This layout is proof that not all train layouts have to be prototypical, nor do they have to be “point to point” switching layouts in order to have fun with them.

My layout is an HO scale that has evolved since its conception around the holidays last year.

This first phase is built on a 5-1/2’ x 10-1/2’ table. It does raise some challenges if an issue does arise that is out of my reach, but nothing a “reach extender” can’t handle.

My original design was going to have three or four small industries for me to putz around with. But I found Woodland Scenics Built-up structures and my mind started going in all kinds of directions.

Out of nowhere a little town that I call “Willougby Junction” (named after my favorite Twilight Zone episode) was born. It is modeled in the 50’s – early 60’s time period.

Phase one has only one small fueling depot in the upper right corner, and a train depot at the left to stop and pick up people from the neighboring towns.

Phase two will have more industries to monkey around with.

It is basically a freelanced double oval with an added “town loop”, and an arrival/departure track that leads to and from the yard.

I have 11 turnouts all controlled by Tortoise switch machines and my homemade control panel.

The entire track was laid with code 83 Atlas Flex-Track. I have about 8 or 9 bus feeders supplying ample power all the way around. It’s taken me since early January to get to this point.

I think the beauty of a continuous running track is when you get a couple trains on opposite ends that are speed matched at say 15% power, you can sit back have a glass of wine (or your favorite beverage) and enjoy the movement and listen to the clickety-clack sounds as well as the prime mover sounds when they go up and down the grades.

I’ve only had a couple people come over and see it, but they are amazed at not only the trains, but the town, the landscaping and all of the small hidden things that takes a while to find.

For example, I was looking out at the back of the layout and there’s a place where I have a couple deer hanging around. I wanted to a have an eagle perched on a tree. I found some eagles online that were printed with a 3-D printer.they’re not much higher than 1/4”. I had to paint them of course, but they came out beautifully.

There is also a “Bigfoot” up on the mountain near the cabins. But you have to search to find them. The pond was quite ambitious. It took 5 separate pours of epoxy (almost a gallon) to complete it! I practiced with the epoxy by adding a swamp at the upper left side. I have some deer down by the swamp too.

I grew up in Flint, MI and the only trains running there were Grand Truck Western trains. So it was natural to pick up a Grand Trunk locomotive and some Grand Trunk rolling stock. I even added some Hobo’s to a 40’ box car with a sliding door.

All in all, I’m enjoying my new found hobby and wanted to share my story.

Ken

P.S. Try to guess who this VIP is with the 1st Lady? The presidential limo and security detail might give it away! LOL This was as close as I could get to him with my telephoto lense. The crowds were quite large in Willoughby that day!