A logging layout? Have you gone mad? No! I'm working on inspiration. Also, sign up for the Bay Area SIG meet!

It's been a while since I've posted and it may be quite a surprise to read that in the interim I have been making good progress on my logging layout!

What???

That makes no sense. This blog is about building the B&OCT in N scale.

Bear with me. 

The past year has been littered with a number of events that got me off my main thesis.

In November 2021, I had rotator cuff surgery. It was when I was spending hours icing my left shoulder that I took a dive down the Japanese railroad and model railroad rabbit hole on Netflix and YouTube. I have a layout plan in the works. 

I was making good progress in the shoulder surgery recovery, when in March 2022, I was hit by a car while riding my bike. That sent me back to the recuperation zone. I was not doing a whole lot of anything.

A cortisone shot in my right shoulder in early August accelerated my recovery. It opened the door for me to resume more than arm-chair model railroad activities. I participated in an ops session on the Central Vermont and discovered that my ops skills were horribly rusty. Nearly fossilized. I had to do something to rebuild those skills. It was embarrassing. 

Around this time, I started to work on the final testing of the Barr Staging. I was snake bit in that I could not find an Atlas locomotive in my roundhouse that could be used for that task. I had four locomotives ready at hand -- each one had some kind of problem. Fixing those turned out to be beyond my abilities. I needed some outside help. I got bogged down and lost momentum.

Concurrently, planning for the 2023 PCR San Francisco Bay Area Layout Design & Operations Weekend Meet was ramping up. I'm the clinics chair. 

With all this my the plate, the feeling was of shoveling sand against the tide and losing.

I needed a win. 

That's what brought me back to the long-idle HO logging layout. I originally pulled this 12-inch by eight-foot layout together in 2006 when living in an apartment after my first marriage fell apart. I have a thing for Shays. The pike would feature this locomotive engaged in slow-speed switching. Lots of fun to watch the operations and the locomotive do its thing.

The layout reached the final stages of track work. But, life interceded -- a new marriage, moving to a new house, raising kids, work, another layout (N scale), etc. 

The logging layout (seen on the lower right) once occupied the space where the shelves were installed on the far wall.

16 years later, the logging layout was occupying space intended for storage shelves in the garage. It had to be moved. It was put on shelving brackets that will not see B&OCT benchwork for years. That move brought the layout down to a more accessible level. And the lightbulb lit!!!

Here was my "WIN"! 

Could I get this in shape to host an ops session for the SIG meet? Possibly. 

My goal: create a good-enough layout that will be fun to operate. 

My favorite steam locomotive - the Shay - at rest on the locomotive service track.

I checked out the track and it was mostly working. There was one spot where the Shay regularly stalled and another where it regularly derailed. Both problems have been resolved. Check!

Looking down the length of the logging layout from the yard. This is a small, but busy railroad.

The hills are coming alive. A look down the layout from the log loading area. The aluminum foil tacked to the bottom of the above shelves will help reflect light from to-be installed valance lighting.  

How about the scenery? Initial landforms were in place and a first coat of Sculptamold was in place. This was a good base from which to start. I had plenty of scenery material on hand. Check!

How about structures? They need work. The basic forms are in pieces needing to be painted. Cold weather has temporarily shut down spraying operations. 

The ops plan? It was an idea in my head, not formally fleshed out. A couple of visits with Jim Radkey resulted in the creation of a challenging ops scheme. This should be a fun layout for one or two SIG meet operators. 

LET'S PAUSE FOR A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSORS:

The PCR and Layout Design Special Interest Group will be hosting a meet the weekend of Feb. 3-5, 2023. That will not interfere with the end of the NFL playoffs because the event will be held on the bye week between the conference championship playoff games and the Super Bowl. 

The meet will be hosted in person at the Golden State Model Railroad Club in Point Richmond, CA. On Friday, Feb. 3, 2023, the meet has a tour scheduled at the Richmond Pacific Railroad. That will be followed by a dinner featuring a presentation from Justin Fox, president of the Southern Pacific Retired Executives Club. 

Saturday, Feb. 4 will feature at day of clinics and a layout design challenge at the Club. This activity will be presented in person. It will also be available virtually for folks out of town or who are not comfortable coming to a large gathering. That will be followed by layout tours. Those attending in person will get a box lunch -- provided in the registration cost. 

Sunday, Feb. 5 is a day of operations.

The early-bird in-person price is $35.00 until January 1, and $40.00 after. In-person tickets include box lunch. Because of space limits at the museum, in-person attendance is limited.

The early-bird virtual price is $15.00 until January 1, and $20.00 after.

You can register here: http://www.bayldops.com/

Circling back -- how does this logging layout relate to the B&OCT in N Scale or the Takadanobaba in Alameda? I got some easy wins. The scenery is coming along. A number of easy detail projects are mostly done. The layout is workable. The model railroad juices are flowing. I'm more prepared to tackle those larger projects than I have been for a while. 

Hope to see you at the SIG meet.

Layout-ready rolling stock

The first two layout ready cars have been completed!!! Prepping them took longer than I expected as I reached a major fork in the road. That fork was the question as to whether I would body-mount couplers on my rolling stock. N-scale freight cars are commonly sold with truck-mounted couplers. They don't work particularly well when cars are shoved. As I have decided to step up my game with this layout and shoot for the highest quality of work and reliability that led me to decide to body-mount couplers. Enter Stephen Van Meter: A much-more experienced N-scaler in town. He offered to help. And I needed it. On November 10 I had surgery to repair my torn rotator cuff on my left shoulder. (Thank goodness I am a righty.) I'm currently in a sling and will be for a couple more weeks. The total recovery is six months. Anyway, Stephen and Bob Moore both offered to help with modeling projects as I heal. I can't do a whole lot. I asked Steve to help with couplers. Last week, I went to his house to see how the magic is done. The conversion job was not as hard as I feared. Earlier this year I decided that Micro Trains couplers and trucks would be the standard on my layout. For existing Micro Trains cars, I can cut off the coupler box from the car's trucks and mount them using itty bitty screws. That will save time and money. The other part of stepping up my game has included being more organized.

That's what the above picture is about. Not only is it the start of a rolling stock inventory, it helps me keep track of what needs to be done to a car before its ready to be put on the rails. The extra-long green rows contain the data for the cars pictured at the top of ths entry. Two down -- a couple hundred more to go!

Barr Yard Staging -- another step closer to completion

I'm trying to take a different approach to building a model railroad.  Speed of construction is not the goal. Precision of the finished product is.

As I have discovered in modelling N-scale -- the tolerances are more precise and there's less room for error. Much to my surprise I can work in this smaller scale. 

With this approach in mind, this summer has been consumed with putting the final touches on Barr Yard staging. This has involved hours of testing the track.

For the most part, the testing went smoothly. An eight-car freight train made more than 90 circuits of the staging yard. It found tight clearances with wiring drops, a turnout needing a guard-rail shim, a switch machine to switch linkage needing replacing.

The big fix centered around the entrance to staging track 9. As the train entered the track, I was mildly concerned about the freight cars snaking on to the track. 

I assembled a consist with full-length passenger cars -- and boy did I see the effect of an inadvertant S-curve.

The cars never uncoupled, but it didn't look good. This will be a covered section of layout, so I didn't want to leave any landmines.

A track re-alighnment was required. 

Cut out the right hand switch that created the curve , installed a lefty on an adjacent track. Carved out the cork to provide a channel for the throw rod. managed to correctly bend a throw rod on the first try, updated the arduino data file and things are back in action.  The white styrene rectangle covers the throw rod channel. (See photo).

The last issue, which seems to have been resolved is fixing a dead spot on the frog of the switch leading into track 0.  I shimmed the reverse route guardrail and painted a dot of fingernail polish on the frog. 

The takeaway lesson -- this will be the only section of the layout built with PECO track. I have had good experience with PECO before. I decided to use PECO code 80 track for the staging yards because it would be more forgiving.

The flex track does work great, but the turnouts have their deficiencies. I have solved most of the issues, but I know that I will not use this system going forward.

The plan -- to be discussed in a future blog post -- will be to have standards. From a track perspective -- it will be Atlas Code 55, FastTrack #6 minimum switches. 

Here are a few pictures as things currently stand. 

This photo is looking at the entrance to Barr Staging. The track on the left is the return loop track. This track that will lead from the bottom of the helix, loop around by the wall and approach the staging yard ladder. Note the wiring bridges and servos in the background. In the background on the right is the control panel for the servo routing.  

This photo is looking down the length of Barr staging toward the staging yard exit. The Pennsylvania passenger train (on the right) has been performing yoeman work testing the trackage. Note the wiring bridge. This was originally intended to supply power to that section of track. Originally Barr Staging was built in 3 sections that would come apart. That idea was abandoned. The wiring bridge will remain as a power distribution system. The plywood panel beyond it is temporary, for now. It is stabilizing the uprights holding up the benchwork.

Barr staging exit. This shot shows the track and servo arrangement at the exit of Barr staging. Note the wiring bridge carrying power and communication to the servos and servo activition boards. The routing control panel is in the middle background. The servos are friction fit into 1/2" aluminum channel, screwed to the benchwork. The servos are shimmed with 0.01 styrene.

All of this leads to . . . 

The double-tracked helix (yet to be built) that will bring trains up to the scenicked portion of the layout -- at 75th St. tower. The pile of junk in the middle of the photo is where the helix will rise. 

Why all the wiring bridges and surface-mounted servos? The below picture should help explain. This is the L-girder support system awaiting Barr staging. This will be about 20 inches off the floor. No way am I crawling under that to perform maintenance. Hence, the deliberate progress on this first section of layout. Access will be difficult. So, get it right. 

The next step is starting helix construction.  More to come . . .

Modeling the Model -- Thanks Vicki and Steve

The B&OCT in N Scale has been in the benchwork stage for as much as three years. That seems like a long time. To be fair, the project has dragged because of a design re-set. 

Steven Cox (collaborating from the Toronto, Ontario area) and I have worked on this layout design for maybe half a decade. I had started to build some of the benchwork for what had been the lower level. Before I got too far down the road, I asked for help from those who were likely to build this layout and eventually operate it. What did they see? What did they like? What did they not like? Any other suggestions?

Thanks to those who came over and gave thoughtful input. The main takeaways: the mainline could be longer, make sure there’s enough on-line switching and one staging yard occupied valuable real estate that could be repurposed as active layout. Steven and I created a “new” lower level to hold this staging yard — representing Barr Yard and the rest of the Baltimore & Ohio RR operating system. Moving the Barr staging yard opened up several opportunities. I got more mainline running length on what now became the middle level. The Brighton Park industrial area was moved from being under the active throat on Robey Yard on the upper level, the 49th St. interlocking tower was added (this one fully active on all legs). 75th St. tower was moved and has a better track arrangement. Last was the addition of a prototypical third main between 75th St. tower and 49th St. tower.

View of entering the layout area

According to Steve's track plan it looked good. But, I wanted a more three-dimensional view (rather than two-dimensional computer views of each level). A model would give me a better perspective on the space.

A view around the corner

I asked (conscripted) the Tuesday crew to help. In 2019, I decided to hold mid-day work sessions, rather than in the evening. Regular attendees included: John Sutkus, Ray Freeman, Steve Van Meter and Vicki Newcomer. I got a bunch of foamcore board and work started in November 2019.

Steve uses tomatoes as stand ins for operators 

The model showed me ways to build the triple-level section underneath the Belt Railway of Chicago’s 16th Street yard. It revealed in context the location of electric outlets, cabinets and windows. The model gave a chance to visualize operating crew placement and management. That’s what Steve Van Meter is doing in the nearby photo. He and Vicki were the primary contributors to this project.  

Not to understate anyone else’s contribution (thanks), but Vicki came over every time. 

Vicki Newcomer

She is a late convert to model trains. Originally a dollhouse builder, Vicki joined our model railroad build- and operating-group a number of years ago. She had a real talent for building structures. She built a small N-scale layout representing her hometown, Alameda, California. (The layout was sadly destroyed in a garage fire in 2019.) It was a fantastic showcase for her work. She shared her talents by taking on structure and scenery projects on other layouts. She was not single-minded. She had interest in all aspects of the hobby -- including operations. 

I got to know Vicki as we carpooled to work sessions hosted by other Tuesday crew layout owners. She decided to return to college to get an art degree. (Completed) She was building a glass (Crystal — as she called it) cottage in her backyard. (Completed) She rebuilt her garage after the fire, including a custom painted garage floor and pegboard wall. I helped with the wall. (Completed)

And she came over to help me build a model of a model. I had my ideas of how this would go, but I didn’t have the skills to pull it off. Vicki and Steve showed me the way. They deftly cut the foamcore boards, track plans that were glued onto the foamcore and we started to assemble the garage and each layout level. 

Vicki was more than a match to the task. Her artistic skills were barely challenged. She came up with an easy, inexpensive and creative solution to represent the layout's helixes. The layout will have four of them. The model only shows three, however. She got a couple of deli containers and cardboard coffee cups. We cut them to height, pulled out the hot glue gun and put them in place. 

Vicki and the completed model

I just reviewed some of the pictures of this project and found some that included Vicki. As I looked at them, her contribution became apparent. The whole project was more enjoyable because of the good conversation, patient teaching and a successful outcome. (See nearby pictures.)

Vicki died in January 2021 of a brain tumor. Because of the pandemic, the last time I saw her was in early 2020. 

Vicki, you really touched my life. You were a great friend. You demonstrated a great attitude. It was fun to spend time with you. Everytime I saw you, I smiled. Thanks for being a part of my life. I will miss you a lot.

The B&OCT in N Scale. An introduction.

The above is a clunky title for a model railroad. It is not snappy but it is descriptive. Guess what the layout depicts? The Baltimore & Ohio Chicago Terminal -- modeled in N-scale.

Many of my model railroad friends have been making great progress on their layout during the pandemic lockdown. I have moved in fits and starts. I just attended the Bay Area SIG meet (at the end of January) and a recurring message was to get working and hold myself accountable. One way I'm looking to do that is by publishing a blog. My goal is a post per month, two would be great.

Another goal -- put in at least an hour per day working on trains.

There's a groups.io related to the layout and there are a few posts about the layout there. That doesn't seem to be the proper forum for these personal musings.

First, a little about me: I'm 58 years old, living in the San Francisco Bay area. I'm a semi-retired business journalist. I've been a life-long train nut - model and prototype.

I've built a couple of previous layouts. This started with the obligatory 4'x8' plywood central hosting my first HO Tyco train set. The last operating layout was the Linden Park -- in N scale. I switched from HO to N scale this century. The switch was dictated by a lack of space, a desire for new challenges and a switch in prototype interest. The main driver was the lack of space. 

I started in HO with an interest in the Santa Fe passenger trains. In 1989, I moved from the suburbs of Maryland back to my birthplace, Chicago. There I met some like-minded model railroad friends. We worked on a friend's layout and railfanned at interlocking junctions on the southside. There, began my interest in belt line operations, industrial switching and yard ops. And the B&O was of primary interest. I had been exposed to it when I grew up in Maryland. 

My goal with the B&OCT in N Scale (nope, still doesn't trip off the tongue), is to re-create those belt-line operations. The layout will be much more prototypical than its predecessor, the Linden Park. I have to have some freelance elements because of compromises related to limited space in the 20'x20' garage where it is housed. I'm okay with the compromises -- in its planned state the layout will have three operational yards, four interlocking towers (two cosmetic), four represented railroads (Baltimore & Ohio Chicago Terminal -- B&OCT; Belt Railway of Chicago -- BRC; Manufacturers Junction Railway -- MJ; and the Pennsylvania Railroad's Panhandle Sub-division -- PRR) and hopefully a lot of Chicago flavor.  

Let's get to it: 

The layout is set on the Western Ave. corridor of the B&OCT and PRR Panhandle. The time is February 1971.

Why?

Henry Freeman has bugged me for a few years about my wishy-washy approach to location and era. There’s not much I can do about the physical plant available to me, so I can’t re-create the prototype – unless I build out into the garden. (I don’t want to go into that negotiation with management. We have a pretty good arrangement today.)

Then there’s the issue of era. My original era concept was sometime after Chessie was formed but before Conrail. That’s when I ran into problems. Chessie closed Robey Yard in 1974. So, traffic in my part of the B&OCT world died. I’m not building a model railroad of abandoned track.

I still want to run some scheduled name passenger trains on the railroads that populated Chicago. There had to be enough of them to interfere with freight operations. That pushed the timeline back to before May 1971 – the Amtrak creation date. That was also pre-Chessie. Maybe I could fudge running Chessie System equipment – nope. I'm not willing to make that compromise. I am more of a stickler for detail than I had expected.

It was when Rob Mantler referred me to the Bluford Shops railroad history timeline that my decision solidified.

So, I pushed further into history – February 1971. Here’s why.

1. Emphasizes the more of the purity of the B&O. The Chessie System merger is an idea but three years from execution. So -- bye-bye all Chessie System equipment. (See future post about re-painting locomotives and rolling stock).

2. Can still run B&O & C&O (Pere Marquette) passenger trains. Though at this time they are originating from the C&NW's Northwestern Station. I’ll have one Penn Central (Pennsylvania) passenger train – on re-route out of the north end of Union Station.

3. I’ll have more crossing passenger trains – on the ATSF, IC, Wabash.

4. I’ll need a lot fewer covered hoppers. More freight travelled in box cars – including grain.

5. February 1971 – is pre-Amtrak, post Burlington Northern and also at a time of year rarely modeled. There will be slush, crappy gray snow, poorly plowed streets. No green trees – they will be bare. No flowers.

6. In 1971, Norfolk and Western goes with NW herald. Grand Trunk turns blue (albeit in December), Bicentennial diesels start appearing.

This decision gives more clarity. Now on to the execution.