Some Railroad You've Never Heard Of

Price Check: Styrene vs. Wood

2016-09-05T18:26:00.003-06:00

From a passer-by's point of view, it might seem that scratchbuilding is a cheaper endeavor than purchasing a kit. After all, it's quite a sticker shock looking at craftsman kits whose prices reach into the $200's and $300's. However, having done some scratchbuilding over the years, my general experience is that it tends to come out the same, or more, once you add in all the detailed parts, paint, decals, and tools.

The only scratchbuilt structure which has been any significant amount of cost savings was the El Gato Negro pool hall from several years ago, and the cost savings here could be attributed primarily too the walls being built from foamcore and spackle, and the roof from painted tissue paper.

When it comes to scratchbuilding, the choice of materials arises. For larger scales, O and above, there is an additional concern, the under-structure and the superstructure. As things get larger, the need to have a firm, rigid supporting structure arises. Regardless, this choice of materials for the super structure often comes down to wood and styrene, with paper making a strong showing in 3rd, and cast plaster a runner up. Plaststruct also sells ABS plastic materials as well, but somehow this has never worked out well for me except in specific structure detail cases.

Clever Models has taken paper scratchbuilding to an extreme, with all-paper superstructure type kits. Many other models are starting to use colored printed paper to add a touch of texture or hard-to-paint to key areas of things. I suspect this latter hybrid approach is going to have a strong showing in the years to come, particularly in areas that have traditionally been hard to reproduce in existing materials.

I was browsing the Evergreen Styrene website today and wondered, "What is the overall cost difference between styrene and wood when scratchbuilding an entire structure?"

When scratchbuilding a structure one will need both sheet and strip (dimensional) material.

Plain Sheet

It's tricky to price compare wood to styrene because Evergreen keeps a consistent price for each bag of sheets, but changes the quantity of sheets they give you. To get around this I'm just going to, somewhat arbitrarily, pick 1/16" or 0.040 as a reference thickness on which to compare.

Evergreen sells 0.060" styrene for $4.19 for a 6"x12" sheet. They have dealer packs and economy packs too. The economy packs are $12.99 for 2 of 8"x21" sheets, or $0.038 per squared inch.

Mt. Albert Scale Lumber sells 1/16" basswood sheets 2 of 4"x12" for $4.95, or $0.051 per squared inch.

Midwest Products offers a bulk pack of 1/16" basswood sheet as well. They offer 15 sheets 2" x 24" for $22.35, or $0.031 per squared inch.

Architectural Sheet

Evergreen sells architectural sheets (clapboard, board and baton, etc.) for $6.59 for a 6" x 12" sheet or $20.49 for a 12" x 24" sheet. That's $0.071 per squared inch for sheet material (it's 2 cents cheaper per squared inch buying the large sheets).

Mt. Albert Scale Lumber also sells architectural sheets for $6.85 for 2x 4"x12" strips or $14.65 for 2x 6"x12". That's $0.10 per squared inch.

Midwest also offers clapboard siding sheets. It's $21.92* for 10 of 3"x24", or $0.030 per squared inch.

* = this was the current price on Amazon, which may or may not reflect indented retail and may or may not be more expensive because of the "free" Prime shipping.

Strip

Again, using 0.060" or 1/16" as a reference dimension.

Evergreen sells styrene strips in 14" and 24" lengths. The smaller strip sizes like 0.010, 0.020, etc. aren't offered in the 24" length. They sell 0.060x0.060 strips 10 for $3.59. They also have an economy pack of 50 for $14.59. That's $0.025 per linear inch.

Mt. Albert Scale Lumber sells basswood strips in 24" lengths. They offer a pack 7 of 1/16 x 1/16 for $4.95, or $0.029 per linear inch.

Midwest products offers a bundle of 60 basswood strips for $17.40 of 1/16 x 1/16 x 24, which comes out to $0.012 per linear inch.

Applied

Let us say we're building an average size structure in O-scale. It's a single story slapboard building, 10'x20' with a 45 degree (or so) peaked roof. The size walls need 12.5 in² and the front/back walls need 9.375 in², meaning in total the structure will need about 44 in² of clapboard siding. Let's say plain 0.040 sheet is used for the roof (25 in² more of plain sheet). We'll use some square strip for the corners of the building and some thin strip for the eaves. Let's say, 20 inches of strip material.

Clapboard siding: 44 in²
Roof: 25 in²
Strip size #1: 10 in
Strip size #2: 10 in

Raw Cost for Styrene: $3.12 + $0.92 + $0.50 = $4.54

Raw Cost for Basswood, Mt. Albert: $4.40 + $1.27 + $0.58 = $6.25

Raw Cost for Basswood, Midwest: $1.32 + $0.77 + $0.24 = $2.33

It should also be noted that the prices above represent the raw materials cost. In reality one must buy a whole pack, regardless of if the rest of the pack is needed for not. For example, in the case of Midwest, the basswood lots come in lots of 1440 linear inches and only 20 are needed for this project. So while it might be the cheapest on the price of materials actually used, it certainly won't be the cheapest for the first few projects where each new dimensional strip size represents another $17 bundle. Clearly, if there is a commitment to scratchbuilding and certain sizes are commonly used then the Midwest offers represent great economy.

Pack Cost for Styrene: $6.59 + $6.59 + $4.19 + $3.59 + $3.59 = $24.55

Pack Cost for Basswood, Mt. Albert: $6.85 + $4.96 + $4.95 + $4.95 = $21.71

Pack Cost for Basswood, Midwest: $21.92 + $22.35 + $17.40 + $17.40 = $79.07

The styrene comes out a bit more expensive because the sheet size width of 6" is just slightly too short to account for the peaked roof of the front and back, thus 2 sheets are required. It's a quarter inch too short, so it might be possible to just fudge that extra space with solid sheet and not need an additional pack of clapboard.

Final Remarks

I must admit that I was a bit surprised by the results. I had no idea the price of basswood varied so much between vendors. The fact that Midwest sells in such a bulk size lends to their lower price. Just casually glancing at the Midwest product lineup it also seems they have less sizes and target fractional sizes. It would seem that if one were planning to "get into" scratchbuilding in basswood, making a large up-front investment in Midwest products would be a cost savings over several years.

For someone looking to have a more casual entry into scratchbuilding, the price difference between Evergreen styrene and Mt. Albert basswood seems to be somewhat of a wash. It probably comes down to a difference in building style, whichever one a builder prefers cutting and gluing better.

Opinion: Model Railroading, Media, and Trends

2016-04-04T17:27:00.000-06:00

What model railroading used to be, and what it is today, is already on it's way out. It's time to embrace change. The next generation of model railroading will probably look something like...

Casual -- People need to be able to occasionally dabble in model railroading without needing to make huge up front investments in time, space, tools, or supplies. The step between, "I bought a train set" and "I'm going to build a shelf layout" is still quite large. How to Build a Switching Layout by Lance Mindheim was almost ahead of it's time in this regard because it does a fantastic job of eliminating a lot of the overhead of woodworking and scenery layout tools that people often infer are pre-requisites to building a layout. A household drill, a paint brush, a hobby knife, and you're pretty much good to go.
Nomadic -- Both space and portability are concerns. Personal layouts bolted to a house or that fill an entire den or basement are out. No one wants to spend $1000 on a shelf layout just to toss is out when they have to move a year or two later. Likewise, no one wants to install permanently mounted lighting, and screw a fascia to the ceiling like many MR magazines show. On the flip side, if layouts are built truly portable there should be a market for shelf layout resale.
Approachable operation -- There are more people that love playing board games than there are people who love operating model trains. However, operating model trains is near identical to playing a board game where the board just happens a 3D miniature world. When model railroaders say "operation" they are really just talking about "playing" by a set of "rules." On the flip side, the rules need to be approachable by someone casual. No one likes to play board games that take an hour to understand the rules.
Whole package over individual pieces -- The old guard of model railroading is decrying how people now days don't build rolling stock kits and there isn't as much scratchbuilding. That's because the nature of model railroading has already shifted from a focus on individual pieces (ie. rolling stock) to a focus on the whole layout. That we have train shows which have rolling stock build contests and awards is probably just a left-over relic from that time which will eventually fade away. There might be the odd cottage industry that makes this work for some reason, but by and large, going back to the "casual" aspect, even so far as rolling stock that comes pre-weathered, I think these things will become more popular because they decrease the amount of crap you have to own and things you have to learn.
Personal software+machine based manufacturing -- Cricket, Glowforge, CNC routers, 3D printers etc. Drawing a building in software, hitting print, having a machine cut all the walls precisely out, doing a little assembly, then glueing on some details like window frames or shingles: that is what I think the very near future looks like. The learning curve on the software will decrease, the price and accessibility will increase. This probably won't affect the core model railroading industry, as, if high-quality track, rolling stock, and engines are available that will be much preferred over a 3D printed one for most cases. But for scenic details, the home-manufacturing approach will probably start to take over.

I also think that the media consumed by the next generation of modelers is also relevant too. Magazines, print or digital, are probably dead. Forums too. As are email groups. Bottom line: No one wants transient media that is primarily text. And yes, that includes this blog as well.

Just to be clear, I'm classifying transient media as the kind of here-today-gone-tomorrow stuff that is consumed in a psuedo-informational but mostly entertainment focused way different than more permanent media like a reference book which would be consumed more out of the intention to gain knowledge of a particular topic.

Videos are obvious. Model Railroader and Model Railroad Hobbyist both have video offerings. At around $2/mo I can tell you I'd rather pay for that than a magazine subscription. The content is more interesting, interactive, entertaining, and it's easier to understand watching a motion picture than reading about it in a magazine.

What's more, and I think this is equally as important, is the comments on the videos posted to MR Plus and MRH's videos are overwhelming positive compared to their own forums. Going into model railroading forums is often like walking through a septic tank. On the flip side, the comments on the videos are always very supportive, positive, and just a much more pleasurable community to be a part of. I might hazard a guess that this is because the slow adopters who are often the cranky complainers aren't watching the videos, but that's really just an approximation.

Personal video is important too. It doesn't seem to be getting much use by model railroaders yet. Are there any individuals with a model railroad focused YouTube channel that have over 10,000 subscribers? Even some of the more niche hobbies like home CNC machining have channels with almost 100,000 subscribers. It would seem like there's a lot of growth potential here.

YouTube is the obvious target, of course, but upcoming sites like Twitch are also relevant, maybe even more so. Twitch got it's popularity becoming a site where people could stream video of themselves playing video games. If you're above the age of 35, that probably sounds like the most ridiculous thing you could think of. Consider, however, that as of March 2016 Twitch is the 88th most popular site in the US, averaging 40 to 50 million views a month. For comparison all of Kalmbach's train related websites (trains.com) of which Model Railroader is only a part are ranked 10,415th in the US.

Despite Twitch being built for gamers, it now has a growing based of people using it to stream "creative" activities like drawing, painting, or woodworking. Having produced YouTube videos myself, I can attest to the overhead of effort in doing model railroading solo, vs. doing model railroading and filming the whole thing, not to mention the editing afterwards. Twitch allows model railroaders to start streaming without the extra work of changing camera positions, editing, and all that. It would be really interesting for some modelers to start streaming on Twitch while working on their layout or a project. (As an aside, I'm not at a point where I can work on my own layout right now, but when I get back to it I plan to try Twitch streaming when I do)

Pictures have value as well because often they can have a comment attached to them. Most of the blog posts I put on this site would fit into that format. Instead writing blog post and inserting pictures, all the pictures could be uploaded to an album, which each picture having a small-ish comment that explains that step or the progress at that point. It's the same content, but in a format that people probably already skim the blog post doing.

The word "instagram" might be foreign or it might conjure up an idea of thousands of "selfies" with all matter of extreme photographic effects applied to them. While early on that was the case, instagram is beginning to mature into a platform that people can share a stream of pictures about something. Maybe it's their day to day life, their travels, their hiking or climbing, or their hobbies.

Here's a great non-model railroading example of an instagram account: Thomas Heaton. He's a landscape photographer and most of his shots fall into one of three categories: a.) pictures of how he's taking a picture, b.) the final product, c.) pictures of himself during his travels. This translates to model railroading extremely well. His stream isn't filled with a bunch of selfies or other ridiculous stuff. It's a really nice stream to follow. There's no reason model railroader's couldn't emulate this, posting a combination of pictures of their work in progress, and the final result.

Instagram might be the newest thing out there, but Flickr is well established too. The best example that comes to mind is Ferd Mels flickr account. I would be willing to bet that at least a third of the people doing 7/8n2 today are a result of seeing one of Ferd Mels gorgeous pictures and being wooed into the idea they could do that too. I mean, look at those shots. It's really hard not to like them.

The point here isn't that Twitch and Instagram are the next big thing so jump on those bandwagon blah blah blah. The idea is that model railroading will ultimately change because society is changing. In addition, the changes to how society consumes media as a whole will affect model railroading too.

I for one am happy with where this all seems to be headed.

Constantly Improving

2015-09-27T18:02:00.000-06:00

The Maine Central layout I've been working on for the last year or so is the closest I've gotten to a fully fledged model railroad layout. It's the most of a room I've filled and it's the longest run of track I've got working. I tried a few things I hadn't ever tried before and repeated a handful of things I had done.

However, mistakes are always made and hindsight is always 20/20. Here's a short list of what I feel are some of the biggest areas it could improve.

Roadbed

If there is anything I regret the most, it was skimping on the roadbed. Modelers have long used mainly two materials, with the recent introduction of a third: cork, homasote, and foam (notably Woodland Scenic's product line). Well, I decided I'd use a different material: foamcore. In retrospect this was a bit of a 'skimp'. I had a bunch already and it was a lot simpler than driving an hour round trip to the train store to get cork or whatever. I needed to cover a huge area under the yard and thought this would be a cheaper route.

Bad idea. I glued down the foamcore originally with straight white "school glue". In part 4 you can see it looks like there aren't any problems.

However in part 6, which was filmed just 2 weeks later, you can already begin to see it peeling up around the corners. After I painted the ground with latex paint the curling was even more pronounced.

This ended up being both an operational and a scenic problem. Throughout the yard the tracks on the outer edges were no longer perfectly level, they canted up a bit. This meant that the cars sitting on that piece of track had a slight lean to them which looked really bad.

New rule: Don't use foamcore for roadbed.

Module Breaks

For some context, I had just come from working on a small shelf layout which was centered around a single industry. When I dismounted that layout from the wall for the basement to be finished it had easily come apart because when I had built it, I had been careful to cut the track at the break between modules.

However when I started building my Cobbosseecontee branch layout, I didn't give it the same attention. A key reason for this was that I built the modules to fit the space that I had, then I worked out the track plan. This pushed me to end up with a mismatch between the benchwork and the layout, and caused things like turnouts to be on the break between modules.

So lesson learned: The benchwork needs to be designed with the layout to avoid these types of things. This basically means if either of these modules ever need to be moved that turnouts is probably going to get destroyed and some major work will need to be done. Which might be another way of saying that module isn't re-usable at all.

New rule: Plan the benchwork with the layout.

Lighting

On the Norfolk Southern layout I had created a shadowbox by adding a hollow core door above the layout and hanging the valance with industrial velcro over the front.

The end effect of this was a far better presentation of the layout. The layout felt more finished and more inviting. Compare for yourself.

VS.

Even though the previous layout was in an unfinished basement, look how much more completed it looks.

I think there are two reasons for this.

First, the lighting is much closer to the subject. In case of the shadowbox effect, the lighting is about 18" to 20" away from the trains. In the "whole room ceiling lighting", even with track lighting following the entire layout around the walls the lighting was still a good 4' to 4.5' away. The net effect there to me is huge. My last blog post I mentioned that I missed the valance. I think it was really the change in lighting that I was noticing.

Second, I know there countless model railroad magazines have said this, but I'm starting to think it's true: The dark valance and fascia almost disappear and the contrast to the brightly lit scene pulls you in enough that you almost don't even notice whatever else is around you.

The lighting I had used on the NS shadowbox layout were just under cabinet lights from Walmart. I bought about 5 or 6 of them. They weren't dimmable, but who cares? They looked good when on and that's what counts.

New rule: Use lighting close to the subject, and get the fascia and valance painted black early on in a project. It makes a big difference.

Shadowbox Style

2015-07-02T10:12:00.003-06:00

I think I miss the shadowbox style that the previous shelf layout had. It changed the feel of the layout and made it like you were peering into a portal of a real, miniature world.

I might have to make some changes now.

More Progress

2014-12-16T20:19:00.001-07:00

I'm continuing to work on the street running. I'm making progress but it's slow.

Back In Action

2014-12-04T07:05:00.002-07:00

With the holidays here, and with it holiday vacation time, I finally set aside some days to get things going again. After spending a lot of time considering Sn3 and HOn3 I've decided to stick with HO standard gauge because I'm finally willing to acknowledge that with my current state of life (father, career, etc.) it's just not within the realm of possibility for me to get the momentum on a narrow gauge layout. Between the kit assembly, the high prices, the large radius required, and the general lack of on line industries in narrow gauge I decided to move on.

On to bigger and better things. As I've said before, a layouts theme is much less important than the time and money on hand. A working layout that you can interact with and enjoy is better than a theoretical layout that exists only in plans.

So with some renewed direction in HO, I invested a solid 2 days straight over Thanksgiving in getting the shelf layout up and running with a new direction and working track! I had previously built a small section over my work bench to be a staging track. I removed this benchwork section and replaced it with a wider one which is now a yard.

An Update: Layout, Snow, Books, and Wireless DCC

2014-07-19T13:37:00.003-06:00

It's been over a month since I've posted any real update about modelling projects or any kind of progress. For starters, I have been making some progress on the layout room. The challenge is that being a father of 2 now it's harder to find time to squeeze this kind of thing in. As a result a lot of the work gets done in bursts with no work happening for long distances in between. That's not a preferable scenario but sometimes you just gotta make it work with life.

I now have the track light setup enough to cover the interchange/storage track above the workbench and going down the long wall of the layout room.

The big big biggest accomplishment (really, it was a ton of work), was getting the backdrop piece over the window. The backdrop is mounted to the benchwork and is an almost perfect fit, within 1/32"! The backdrop is 1/8" MDF with 1/2" plywood vertical supports, similar to how I did the Texas City Terminal backdrop, but this time it's just screwed in and not removable. The "perfect fit" part of it was achieved by pre-drilling the holes for the mounting screws two r three times as big as necessary. I used 1 inch fender washers with the screws and screwed in the backdrop. Once I put the benchwork in place on the shelf brackets I loosened the screws on the backdrop and the over-sized hole gave me enough wiggle room to move the sheet into perfect position. It sounds easy but it took me a few tries to figure out a system that worked and then get it into place.

You might have noticed I set my test scenery module up on the left of the photo, and you might also have noticed it has some white stuff all over it. I've been doing some experiments with snow. Snow is hard to model, but I feel I'm getting a bit closer. I did a little project to attempt footprints in the snow down the middle of the track. It actually came out I think.

However, I got a slight dose of reality with some of this. Baking soda has been one of my key ingredients and it apparently causes corrosion to metal... I learned after the fact. Well that's why you do stuff on an experimental module and not the layout, right? I've been looking at Woodland Scenic's snowflakes and I think they might be a good non-corrosive substitute, though maybe a bit more expensive.

I also finally picked up a copy of New York Harbor Railroads in Color, Volume 2. I founded it at a fair price on eBay. This is a book I've been thinking of getting for years and so far it's really great. Thomas Flagg has documented above and beyond what many railroad books do. I read in some of the reviews people complaining about too much coverage of boats and ferries. There is a lot of that but overall I think the book is great.

Lastly, it was my birthday a few days ago and my wife got me a much-needed upgrade for my DCC system: NCE's RB02! If you aren't familiar with NCE's lineup, the RB02 lets you take the entry-level PowerCab (which I have) and upgrade it to allow wireless throttles. Of course, what's a transmitter without a new Cab06R? Since I was monkeying with the system I figured I'd upgrade to v1.65 of the software as well. This is a chip you order from NCE and it just drops in the PowerCab unit.

First off, the most important thing and probably what everyone does when they get this system is see how far away they can be and still drive a train. I'm here to report this system does *not* work in a completely different room. Hah. Good news is it pretty much works everywhere in my 11x16 room so long as your back isn't turned to the antenna (more on this later).

One thing I noticed quickly is that the height the RB02's transmitter is at makes a big difference in the chance of a command succeeding and the speed at which it the engine responds. I ended up setting the RB02 at around 36" off the floor which is just slightly lower than the height I'm holding the throttle at.

I'll need to play around with the positioning a bit more. The starting location will probably be in the center of the room. I might also try sticking it on the ceiling to see if that helps. NCE does sell a repeater so if push comes to shove I can always have the RB02 in one corner and a repeater in the opposite corner making it impossible to never be facing an antenna.

Sometimes Things Haven't Changed Much

2014-07-14T22:55:00.000-06:00

If you see a railroad photo, and there is a street in the picture, there's a good chance you might be able to figure out exactly where that photo was taken. I found THIS PHOTO on NERail from 1984 of an Alco RS-1 crossing a street in a small town. The only clue as to a location was the noted town, "Chester, Vt."

After a bit of looking around I was able to find the exact place the photo was taken and not much has changed.

Blog 5th Anniversary

2014-07-01T11:08:00.000-06:00

I've been model railroad blogging for 5 years now. My first post was 5 years ago today, Introduction & Layout Plan. On one hand it's easy to look back over the 5 years and be a glass-is-half-empty kind of guy and think about what I haven't accomplished.

On the other hand it's hard to be where you are today without having gone through the experiences of your past. While I can look back and see neat projects along with big failures, the reality is that model railroad requires one to get their feet wet before they are able to know where they are going.

Since this is a 5th anniversary post it should probably be all big and epic, but I only have one small bit of news: I've started building the new basement layout.

It will be an HO standard gauge layout focused on shortline operations and switching, set in either the Shasta area of northern California or central/southern Oregon (to be decided) in the either late 1980's or early 1990's (to be decided).

Without getting too ahead of myself I have enough of a track plan sketched out to start building benchwork. Once the blue foam is in place I can start doing some more serious planning and drawing of specific track locations. The one thing I do know is that it will feature a woodchip loader with an as-close-as-I-can-be length spur (capable of holding 12-15 cars).

This layout is yet unnamed.

Industries

2014-06-28T21:26:00.000-06:00

It amazes me a bit how much free access to information we have now. Google Earth/Maps/StreetView is a huge resource to model railroaders. Even for those who don't model the modern era, things of the past can still be found (though they may need some back-dating). As I've been virtually flying around in the sky lately, here are a handful of industries that are visible both by satellite and by street view.

Woodchip Loading

City of Prineville, OR

Satellite | StreetView

Anderson, CA

Satellite | StreetView

Resin

Valley Park, MO

Satellite | StreetView

Plastics Manufacturer

Brea, CA

Satellite | StreetView

Beer/Alchohol

Redding, CA

Satellite | StreetView

Carson, CA

Satellite | StreetView

Food

North Kingstown, RI

Satellite | StreetView

Team Track

Denver, CO

Satellite | StreetView

A Bit of Photography

2014-06-14T08:14:00.002-06:00

I've been working on my practice scenery module a bit more, this time dabbling into a bit of snow on the left hand side of it. One skill I've always wanted to be better at is model railroad photography. If you've tried it you know it's a lot harder than it looks! Last night after putting some more scenery down I spent sometime just rotating the module and trying different shots. After 20 minutes I finally had one picture I actually liked...

In looking through all my pictures I'm starting to make some notes for myself about things I could do in the future. Hopefully this is a skill learn-able like all others.

Playing With Scenery

2014-06-11T22:52:00.003-06:00

I've been playing with scenery lately and made a video about it:

Echos

2014-04-26T08:41:00.003-06:00

I've both ridden a number of steam engines and watched many videos of steam engines. Here's a good example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlhY0J5-ftg

There are two distinctive features of steam whistles that most model railroads don't capture well. The first is whistle quills. As I understand it, PBL's foreground sound system had a whistle quill feature in it. There are some DCC manufacturers like NCE who are adding a "playable whistle" feature that are beginning to appear on the market. Some decoder manufacturers like TCS include a pre-recorded quill on their sound decoders. So it at least looks like there is some direction towards making quills a reality for model railroaders even if they aren't quite there yet.

The other distinctive feature is the echo caused by the whistle. There are a couple good examples of this in the video I linked above, one in particular towards the end (here: http://youtu.be/QlhY0J5-ftg?t=4m21s). He hits the whistle and an echo can be clearly heard around a second later.

I was originally wondering if this was possible to do with a second DCC sound decoder, similar to how Lance Mindheim used an off-train decoder with headphones. The more I thought about it however the more I began to think this might be achievable by having a computer simulate the echo of sounds that it hears.

This is the idea: Have one or two microphones located somewhere in the layout room connected to a computer. Whenever a sound is heard, the computer plays back that sound back a second later on speakers located around the layout room, creating an echo effect that surrounds the whole room. The software should filter out anything that isn't in the pitch range of a whistle ideally avoiding having the system echo voices and other noises of a lower pitch. Another tricky part of this idea is if you listen closely, the echo keeps repeating as it bounces off of different mountains and such.

The difficult piece is finding the software to do this. I've started looking at "live DJ" software. Most of those allow input via microphone and have built-in echo effects. No hits yet, but I think this is a solid idea.

Resource: Rio Grande Track & Maintenance Crew Safety Video

2014-04-24T10:46:00.000-06:00

I have another YouTube find, a vintage 1950's safety video for track and maintenance crews put out by D&RGW. There are slow sections of course that talk about wearing goggles and steel toed shoes, however there are a lot of interesting little tidbits about maintenance crew operations. The vintage footage is interesting to watch as well. I was also a bit surprised that they do stunts and try to re-create accidents. Both steam and diesel are present in the video, most of it is standard gauge. The film is around 30 minutes long.

Part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvYHrwI6Xls

Part 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b6fii3vbKs

Battery Trial

2014-04-12T17:00:00.001-06:00

I happened to come across a PBL Foreground K-27 at an amazing price which I scooped up. I spent Saturday afternoon converting it from DC/Sound to DCC/Sound/Battery. This was actually my first full conversion over to the DSR1 + TCS Wowsound.

Overall reaction: mixed feelings.

But first, here it is running on it's own power.

Being completely "self contained" is really cool. And the Wowsound decoder is top of the line. There were two things I noticed however:

The batteries are really packed in there and I have no idea how they would be removed for charging. Yes, batteries plural. The Wowsound is a beast and requires a decent amount of power to run. Right now charging the batteries would invovle removing the tender trucks, removing the tender shell, disconnecting all electronics in the tender in order to unplug the batteries.
There was a couple times where the locomotive either continued doing the previous command even though I had stopped it -OR- it didn't acknowledge that I had sent a command. Well, that's not good. I'm not sure if this was the DCC system, the radio system, or the decoder. I suspect the radio system. I haven't modified the antenna and the receiver is inside a brass tender.

I'm not sure what to think of these two issues. There are ways I could solve either. I think these are my possible routes:

Give up on the DRS1 and Wowsound and go back to the S-Cab. This would allow me to use the BPS which charges the batteries from the rails so that they don't need to be removed.
Give up on the Wowsound and go with a Tsunami. This would allow me to use just a single battery. I could then make some kind of hatch or port by which the battery could be plugged in for charging.
Give up on the DSR1 but keep the Wowsound and just go with "regular" track powered DCC. Add a keep alive circuit to the decoder and call it a day.

I'm slightly leaning towards option #3. Battery control might continue to improve in the future and there's always the chance to go radio/battery later. Going S-Cab now locks me in to a certain degree.

It's a bummer because I was really looking to avoid wiring the track. However I had wanted to run a switcher diesel and I had no idea how that was going to be powered. I can always keep the DSR1 for a Galloping Goose and pair it with a ESU Loksound diesel decoder. Yeah, I guess we'll see. I need to think this over some more.

Update

2014-04-03T18:00:00.000-06:00

I'm still trying to figure things out. Have been reading a lot of books and magazine articles.

I started working on another Sn3 car, one of PBL's new 6300 series flatcars. These are the latest from PBL and they include a lot of really nice improvements on their kit like the 11x17 full color blow up of car assemble and other niceties like rubber brake hoses.

I think the combination of simplified parts and improved diagrams/pictures have made it possible for this to probably be the best I've ever assembled all the under-body detail parts.

I've been trying to do the "weathered wood" look on the styrene deck. Making plastic look like wood is tricky. After 5 layers it's still not quite looking right. It looks a lot better in the picture than it does in real life. In real life it looks both too dark and a weird green color.

I'm using some of the new colors in the "Model Masters" line that Testors brought over from the now discontinued Floquil and Pollyscale lines. The "Roof Brown" color seems to have a lot of green in it, so I might end up having to mix some custom colors to get it to look right.

In other news the basement is coming along. A major milestone was reached: the drywall is up!

Here's the shot of what it looks like as soon as you get to the bottom of the basement steps and look to the left:

And here's the view looking back at the stairs.

Standing in the space trying to visualize a railroad in it, in one sense it feels small but in another sense it feels really big. Big enough that I wonder if I will have the time to fill it with a narrow gauge layout or not. Narrow gauge is really my first pick, but I've yet to actually get a successful narrow gauge layout off the ground. The modern shelf layout was more successful in large part I think because of RTR equipment.

To be fair RTR is available in narrow gauge: Blackstone for HOn3, PBL for Sn3, and AMS for On3/On30. It's just twice as expensive (retail on a Blackstone RTR tank car is $65; a PBL RTR tank car is $70, and an AMS RTR tank car is $50). Contrast that to a Proto 2K or other detailed HO car which is in the $25 to $35 range.

As I've mentioned before, "A layout's theme is much less important than the time and money on hand." A built and working layout is better than a dreamed, plan, and not-built one. I know from experience it would be better to make a compromise earlier on and build something I enjoy, than to rigidly stay with something that never materializes. What I haven't determined yet is if I can stay with Sn3 and see it through to a successful and working railroad. I've still got a few months to figure that out so we will see.

I think the way for me to know for sure is to pick one or two themes I'd like to do, and build a really small module of them, trying to do all the trees and scenery for it. At least then I'd be able to see how well a concept would play out.

NCNG on Satellite

2014-03-30T12:00:00.000-06:00

A small part of the Nevada County Narrow Gauge is still visible on Google Street view [here].

The Grass Valley yards. The grass isn't growing where the 3 tracks through the yard were, and the cement foundation for the car/paint shop is still present, with a gap for where the track ran through it still there.

That is the 18' retaining wall that was behind the car/paint shop, still standing

The passenger stairs on Bennett St. The sign is still there!

This perspective would have been looking straight at the Grass Valley depot and freight house. Now, nothing remains.

NCNG #124: A Study In Boxcar Weathering

2014-03-29T12:00:00.000-06:00

There's a guy in Canada selling prints of Nevada County Narrow Gage pictures on eBay, some of which I had never seen before. This one in particular caught my eye. It's boxcar #124, one of the ones that came over from the F&CC, sitting on the spur at Grass Valley. Best as I can tell, this is the spur that was on the lower (south) side of the yard, the spur which followed Bennett St.

Anyways, I haven't seen many pictures of narrow gauge cars in worn but working condition. Most are in "abandoned" condition and that's probably not how they looked when they were in service. I spent some time studying the photo and made notations of things I saw. Included below is a clip of that picture with my notes. You'll probably want to click to see a larger image as it's a bit small as-is.

Florence & Cripple Creek #588

2014-03-28T12:00:00.000-06:00

I was really surprised (and happy) to see the Colorado Railroad Museum had a Florence & Cripple Creek boxcar. It's not one of the ones that went to the Nevada County Narrow Gauge, but it was still cool to see. I took a number of "detail" shots.

It's a cool logo. Also note the horizontal scrapes/weathering. Not sure what the small square hole is for.

Simple door on fancy hangers

Close-up of the door hanger. The track and wheel is visible. I'm thinking there should have been two wheels on this hanger.

Looks like this section was repaired at one time

The ends had a really interesting "side wall truss rod" (best I can describe it). You can see it right below the end door, coming out of the car, then going back in.

Safety grab on the bottom rung

Weird little hook for the coupler lift bar

The roof walk only sticks out about half of what the D&RGW 3000 series do

Colorado Railroad Museum

2014-03-27T12:00:00.000-06:00

I happen to be off for a few days this week, and this afternoon I paid a visit to the Colorado Railroad Museum. If you've never visited, you're missing out. The size of their equipment collection is far above the average. While they don't have a lot of placards, they do have a lot of variety in equipment, so be sure to take your nearest rail fan if you want a guided tour. Here are a few shots from today.

Work Goose #6

They have about 20+ D&RGW 3000 Series boxcars. Note the weathering.

"A" end of 3000 series boxcar. The two-color paint was interesting. I think the museum painted the top burgundy coat, and the brownish under layer is the original color.

High side gondola, note the "reinforced" (split) stakes

Nice 3-way stub switch

Gauge bar. Never seen one of these before

Some weathering on the ties

Harp style switch stand

Long caboose!

Short caboose was open for looking around.

It must have been amazing riding in the cupola of this in it's heyday

Closeup of C-19 rods and drivers

The brick roundhouse

It's not all narrow gauge and steam-era

Such a classy era for steam

That headlamp is just awesome. Also cool: the link and pin draw bar on the pilot.

Back when steam locomotives were built with class!

Another shot of that great head lamp and spark arrester

The roundhouse and turntable

What? A 3 truck shay? You better believe it.

Can't ever go wrong with a shay

The UTLX/Gramps tank cars in the back were cool too

Though I don't model it, I do have an appreciation for 1950's era passenger equipment

A really nice restored "covered wagon"

The Denver HO scale model railroad club has a layout set up in the basement as well, which I got some pictures of.

Hobby Mags Go Video

2014-03-26T12:00:00.000-06:00

In case you've missed it, in the last few years several of the major model railroading magazine publishes have started going the "wave of digital". Model Railroader, Railroad Model Craftsman, and Model Railroad Hobbyist all have online/digital versions. For me that's a little bit of a yawn because if I wanted good train information on my computer, I would just go to other model railroaders' blogs or forums.

However, what I do like is it seems that Model Railroader and Model Railroad Hobbyist now both getting into video. Unlike making a digital version of their print magazine, video provides the extra dimension of time that text and pages can only struggle to portray. I've been buying more instructional DVD's in the past few years and I've found it really helps in me being able to visualize how I'm supposed to do something.

Video +

http://mrv.trains.com

Model Railroader's offering "Model Railroader Video Plus" has been around for about a year now. Their videos mainly fall into three groups, videos around a project layout, product reviews, and overall "beginner" level videos.

It doesn't say anywhere on their site, but I would guess they have around 150-200 videos in their library, maybe more. Video+ costs $4.95/month or $44.95 a year. You can upgrade to include the magazine in either print or digital for $62.95 a year total. I seem to remember getting promotional offer emails in the past with a cheaper price, so perhaps waiting for an opportunity will make it a better price.

They sent out an email today about a new project layout they are starting, an On30 logging layout. It's nice to see narrow gauge and logging getting some attention from MR.

TrainMasters TV

http://www.trainmasters.tv/

Model Railroad Hobbyist's offerings is newer with less videos. They have 82 at the time I wrote this. Many of them look like sections of the Siskyou Line DVD series.

A TrainMasters subscription is a stand-alone subscription at $5.99/month or $55.95 annually.

Subscribing

I have not yet subscribed to either, but I've been considering subscribing to one of them. Right now I'm leaning towards Video+ which despite being Model Railroader and becoming unpopular with the old guard modelers, still seems to have more interesting content and at a cheaper price.

The downside to the "video subscription" model is that as far as I understand, these videos cannot be downloaded. That is, once the subscription expires you have access to none of the content. At $5 for the month though what's there to loose in trying it for a month?

Prototype Scale

2014-03-25T12:00:00.001-06:00

Doing things at prototype scale: is it possible? As an interesting little project I took to figuring out the exact size of Grass Valley, then calculating what it would be at scale.

I did this by starting with a scale ruler. It doesn't matter what scale it is. On the drawing of all the track and structures is some kind of scale. I measured that scale using my scale ruler. The scale shows 200 feet and with a 1:64 ruler that came out to 14.25 S scale feet. I then determined the multiplcation factor by dividing the actual feet from the scale feet, 200 / 14.25 = 14.035. It will be different depending on what ruler you are using. Knowing that number lets me continue making measurements with the scale ruler, and I just need to multiple the measurement by that factor to determine the actual size in feet.

Once I determine the actual feet, I convert it to scale feet using this online scale conversion calculator. One thing to notice about that calculator is that it only takes in inches. So determining a measurement goes like this: Measure with the scale ruler, multiply by 14.035 to convert to actual, multiply by 12 to convert to inches, enter into calculator, have final number!

Grass Valley has the shape of the letter "C", entering from the east, curving north, then curving back east on the exit. From top to bottom is around 1125 feet or a fifth of a mile. The distance from bottom of curve to top of depot is 448 ft. The long leg of a yard is 350 ft. (meaning it had a capacity of around 9-10 cars + engine).

Scale	Total Length	Module Depth	Radius
Nn3	7 ft	10.5"	20"R
HOn3	13 ft	20"	37"R
Sn3	17.5 ft	27"	50"R
On3	23.5 ft	3 ft	6'R
Fn3	46.5 ft	6 ft	11'R

Nn3 and Fn3 are on there just for kicks. I was actually surprised that prototypical radii could be obtained in Sn3 and HOn3 scales though the 50"R of Sn3 is pushing it a bit. I can just imagine an order going through for a FastTracks jig for 50"R and the person filling the order wondering what the purchaser was thinking. 50"R is pretty hardcore.

French Cleat Benchwork

2014-03-24T12:00:00.000-06:00

A few weeks go I made mention of an idea I had to use a french cleat for simple benchwork.

Picture from Wiki Commons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:French_cleat.jpg

Why?

One of the nice things about using the shelf track system that my modern shelf layout did is that it was easy to take the layout on and off the wall. In Shelf Layouts for Model Railroads, Iain Rice uses the shelf bracket system, then covers over the wall brackets with a layer of masonite. That's more work and more materials and I wanted to avoid that.

In How to Build a Switching Layout, Lance Mindheim solves this problem by only mounting the brackets up to the point of the layout, then letting the layout sit on top of them. If one isn't going to build a valance or any kind of overhead lighting, that is probably a preferable solution.

However, I wanted to at least investigate if there were other options. From some of the wood working I've done, I knew about the french cleat. Here's how I designed it's use into shelf layout benchwork.

Basement Layout Room

2014-03-23T12:00:00.000-06:00

It's 2 weeks into the basement finish. The underground pipes for the new bathroom were laid and stud walls have started to go up. Colorado building code requires basement walls to be built as floating wall. It's a bit bizarre if you've never seen it before. However, because of that all of the base plates for the stud walls have been installed, and it's now possible to see the final dimensions of the "train room."

It's perhaps a little hard to tell from the picture, but the room is a slightly odd shape with a diagonal wall in it.

not to scale

Once at the bottom of the stairs, the room basically opens at a diagonal into the layout room. There is a short hallway leading into the guest bedroom, which is space I have but needs to be kept clear when that bedroom is in use.

With Sn3, the curve radius needs to be kept broad, so there's not a lot of room for interpretation about what space the layout will fill. I think my strategy will be to build it in phases of about 1/3 the size, leaving the most complicated phase with a free-standing peninsula for the end.

something to this effect at least

I've begun planning the basement finishes today as well. A trip to Home Depot rendered several swatches to mull over. My plan is to have the walls finished smooth (not textured) and to paint them a light sky color.

The color quality of pictures taken on my cellphone (where these came from) isn't quite up to snuff, so I'm sure it's difficult to tell the specifics of the colors, but I think I've narrowed it down to Behr "Airy" 550 C-1. My goal is to avoid something dark, and I want the color to be just a tad lighter than actual sky, without being an overwhelming blue.

Here's a preview from the Behr site.

It's just enough blue to imply it's the sky without looking like a little boy's room.

My goal would be to make it as backdrop-like as possible in order to have to avoid making a real backdrop for the entire layout. At some points a backdrop of some sort will be needed and I'd rather handle that on a case-by-case basis than try and do something huge and monster like I have in the past.

One of the other things I'm considering (as you can see on the swatch) is the flooring. I've never though about train room flooring previous to this point. It's certainly not something I'd spend the time, effort, or money to change if there was already a floor installed. But since it's being finished and I have to pick I'm confronted with the choice.

At the top level is a question: What flooring type, carpet or laminate? For moisture reasons, wood is usually a bad choice for a basement and basements aren't usually high enough traffic to warrant the cost anyways.

Carpet seems nice as it's warm, soft, and very comfortable. My concern with carpet is maintenance. While I think I'd enjoy the comfort, it's likely me who will be cleaning it and I don't want it to become a constant maintenance hassle.

Laminate is the other choice, being nowhere near the price or coldness of tile, but having hopefully lower maintenance than carpet, requiring an occasional sweeping with a once or twice a month mopping. I would probably choose a light to medium toned, natural wood finish, something like Pergo's Young Pecan.

Lastly, for lighting, I think I'm going to go with a combination of things. Room lighting will be done through recessed can lights, likely on a dimmer. I actually found dimmable, diffused LED can lights at Home Depot while I was there.

At 3000K temperature they're not quite "daylight" bulbs but they are slightly less yellowy than standard incandescent bulbs. I'm not 100% sold on these yet, but something like this, with a diffuser, is what I had in mind.

Depending on how the can lights turn out, I may or may not install track lighting to supplement and provide "spot" lights on key scenes. Though it sounds like extra work, I think primarily relying on diffused room lights with track lighting as supplement will be easier than doing a valance with fluorescent lights.

Perspective

2014-03-22T09:42:00.002-06:00

I've been doing a lot of thinking and pseudo-planning about the layout, as my most recent posts have indicated. One idea I floated was making a layout more achievable by decreasing the complexity of the benchwork and scenic "grading" (that is, making it more flat). I was slightly worried as to how this would turn out, as I'm sure you, like I, have seen layouts that have literally no change in elevation, all elements (track, structures, treets, etc.) exist on the same plane. It looks as though the layout builder used a sheet of foam, painted it brown, put all the elements on it, then sprinkled some ground foam around.

I had a theory that flat could still look good with subtle grading changes. I happened to stumble upon a photo in this Railroad Line discussion which proves that theory. The picture is of Jon Addison's "Silverton Central" in Sn3.

note the gallows turntable at the end of the line

To describe this photo, might be to say: "The structures of George Sellios with the scenic texture of Dave Frary, meets narrow gauge". The whole layout isn't like this. There is a deep ravine with a trestle. However, the point remains that for being a flat section of layout it's extremely effective. The subtle changes in grading, the layer-upon-layer approach, and the knock out structures make it a success.

It's given me hope that flat can look good.

Other things to note: The backdrop is extremely simple and the fascia isn't painted forest green. Neither of these really seem to have a bearing on how good the layout looks. Everything has been drybrushed white which ties it all together. Frary actually refers to this in his book when he points out that on his layout everything has been washed with earth color.

The take-away for me is that the complexity of a layout can be managed by having flat sections and selectively choosing sections of large grade change. This makes such elevation changes scenes unto themselves while making the remainder of the layout more approachable and easier to build.