(Occasionally, other events do occur and so I will from time to time go off-topic to discuss another railroad related project or event that is going on currently – we will get back to our regularly scheduled programming…)
It seems that I am doing a lot of other projects these days. One of the latest is a signal project for Bob Folsom's HO N&W Model Railroad. Bob had purchased some 2mm LEDs and had figured out how to wire them up to create his signal system. What he was lacking was a viable set of signal heads for his railroad. That is where I came in and designed and 3D printed a set of heads to his specifications.
I printed 6 different round head configurations with block-out plates over any unused holes, and 3 different single row configurations. In addition, I designed the finials for the top of the signal poles and built them into test assemblies. These went out to Shapeways for fabrication in black PA13. The test prints came back and looked pretty good.
Round Signal Prototypes.
Single Row Prototypes.
The holes are just about perfect for the selected 2mm LEDs, generally forming a solid press fit.
Round Heads with an LED installed.
View from the back. Once painted the back of the LED should resemble the mechanical components at the rear of the signal.
There were a few minor printing flaws int he prototype signals that need to be resolved, and Bob has identified a still smaller LED that should fit even better into the back of the signal head. But, the first prototype has been constructed and is working.
Prototype Signal Head showing Clear.
Approach Clear.
Restricting Signal.
Diverging Clear Signal.
So, a few more tweaks, and my side business, the Model Works at Otowi Station will have a set of new products and Bob will have the parts to build all the signals his layout needs. Come to think of it, I have some other projects to finish for that business.
I did not get much more accomplished last night, but I did spend a bit of time trimming the last fascia board, painting the backdrop sky blue, and doing a bit of detail painting on some of the other layout elements. Here are some pictures. First up is the tunnel portals. They needed a light wash to bring out the brickwork, and some of the concrete to be painted. Then some weathering. All of which I did with acryllic paints.
You can see in the picture, that I need to hit a little more of the concrete edge on the left and at the bottom right. And, since someone asked - just how big these are, here is the tunnel portal with a dime in front...
Yep, the dime does not even pass through the portal.
The other tunnel portal was also done, although from its location it is much harder to see.
Next up was the bridge over the road.
It's okay, I feel like it is quite weather beaten, but it captures the effect I was after. I have decided not to completely install it, as I still need to do the road scenery, but I will come in with a little brown paint to cover up the pink foam exposed on the left. I may also try to touch up the paint a little with a proper microbrush. I tried doing it with a small paint brush last night, and don't think the dried result is as good as I want. Behind this bridge will ultimately go the pedestrian overpass, with a mirror hidden underneath.
I also did some washes on the concrete bridge to bring out the concrete color variations a little. Here is where the layered effects of 3D printing can work in my favor, as they do lead to patterns that can mimic the effects of poured concrete.
I like the effect here. Looking at the pictures, there is still a lot of weathering that this bridge should see, but this isn't bad for a start. Like the other bridges, I am going to defer final installation until after the show. The backdrop is simply a piece of polystyrene sheet. Previously, I have always picked sky blue colors that ended up looking too blue. this time, I picked a sky blue color and then went one shade lighter. I'll have to see it in better light - but maybe not blue enough?
A good pit of the painting effort has gone to the final major bridge. The light tan coat of paint over the grey primer came out great. A really nice stone effect.
I have cleaned out the alignment holes between the sections, and have now also painted the details. They appear to be copper plated, or at least they have an aged copper appearance, so I mixed up some green acrylic paint to a suitable color, and painted all the details on the spurs. The details I printed appear at different positions on the sides of the viaduct, and generally, there are drainpipes that run down the center of the piers. For these I am going to use small pieces of polystyrene square stock. Again, here is a dime alongside the detail parts.
I am quite pleased with how this bridge is coming out. So, that is the progress I made last night. I did a little more painting of the stone bridge this morning, adding a red brick color to the bricks exposed on the undersides of the archways. Tonight, I need to finish the assembly of the stone bridge by installing the alignment pins and gluing the two halves together, and then fit it to the layout. I will probably defer installing the details until perhaps the show. After that, I will temporarily fix the track down for the show, finish a little bit of wiring, and install the backdrop and fascia.
Well, I reached a milestone. The first train ran over the layout last night. Below is the link video.
A few things to note. The train running is a combination of a four car HST set, with the two powered units from a Hanku9000 set. Don't worry about the anachronism. I previously started with the HST set, but found that the motorized units ran very poorly. When I examined them under magnification, it became apparent that they had been cleaned with something that had wrapped fibers around their axles. Despite my attempts, I have not yet been able to detangle the axles. So, out came the Hanku power. Everything ran fine, although the radii of the curves on the layout, 132.5mm, at the minimum really is pushing it with the long passenger cars in the HST set. They make it, but do not look very good while doing it. And, as a consequence, they periodically behave like long cars do, and either uncouple or derail.
Most T exhibition layouts use a much more generous minimum radius, often 7"+, and on these radii they work fine, but I have concluded that 132.5mm is just too tight for reliable operation. Just like you can make an 85' N scale passenger car go around a 9.75" radius set track curve, but it doesn't look that good or work that well. So, after some further experimentation, I have decided to primarily use the Hanku9000 four car set, and probably some of my J103s for the weekend. Eventually, I will replace the locomotives with British Sprinter type sets, but there just is not time before the weekend show. These are typically one, two or three car trains (although I have seen pictures with multiple sets lashed together), and will look better on this layout anyways.
Okay, with the first test run done, let us look at the layout progress. First up was the tunnel portals. They still need a bit of paintwork, but I wanted to try them out in position first. So, after placing them on the layout, doing a little fitting and adjustment work, here they are.
Here is the bridge side. I will need a little rock work on the right side to fill a small gap.
And the Station side, which is very difficult to see or photograph. It too will need a little scenery on the right side.
Also fitted into the layout is the bridge over the roadway. It too needs some paint work to finish it up, before it can be installed. And, I probably need to put the road in place. I found that this bridge is very fragile, so I will need to be careful not to damage it (and I have a minor repair to make to it as well). However, both abutments went in, and there is just a little scenery to patch on the left abutment where a little bit of pink foam got exposed.
You can see, that the fascia supporting the backdrop is also in place - or at least close to it. I cut and fit 5 of the six sides last night, as well as cutting the frame members to stiffen the backdrop. The front three fascia pieces are intended to be individually removable - at least for the moment - I will affix them after the water is poured, but the rear three pieces are intended to be removed as a unit with the backdrop. Hence, the concern for the attachment to a frame. I painted the frame pieces black last night, so that they match the fascia and will help form a proscenium arch like in a theater for the final layout.
Finally, the stone bridge is being painted. The Ribblehead Viaduct that inspired this bridge is fairly tan, so I went with a similar paint color for the base.
What is perhaps most exciting, is now with a bit of paint, the stone work is popping! There will need to be more than just a base coat of paint applied to finish the bridge, but hopefully tonight it will be fit to the layout as well.
The show starts on Friday...tick tock - tick tock.
Yep - the last two nights have involved splattering scultpamold on the layout. What was pink, is by-in-large no longer pink as this photo attests.
There are a few patches of pink styrofoam left, notably around the joint for the removable hill top over the tunnel, and along the edges of the layout. The edges will get a coat of paint soon, and the tunnel will need a little more work later tonight.
I laid down two batches of sculptamold, one colored brown for the flatter, dirt areas of the layout an another tinted gray for the rockier spots. Some of the brown areas have even had a little dry brushing, which has produced a pleasant color variation. The rocky areas have some initial rocks cut into them, but more needs to be done as the sculptamold sets up a little more.
In addition, as I mentioned before, the last of the buildings got a primer coat, so here is the castle, sort of in place.
Its stonework is quite a bit lighter than that of the surrounding rock, but hopefully a little painting to both the rocks and the castle will improve things.
More important will be the fascia to frame the layout. I cut those six pieces over the weekend, and they have a coat of black paint. I like the effect of black fascia to frame the layout. Right now, the front pieces have not been trimmed to match the terrain, and the rear pieces that will ultimately support the backdrop need a little bit of adjustment, but I am waiting for them to dry first.
I did a couple of other things to move the layout forward as well. I got a deal on bump chenille. I ended up with enough for 3840 small pine trees for about $28. As a test, I prepped 8 that will probably find homes on the layout. They need a little final trimming, but I think that they will look good. Each one represents about a 60' tree, with a diameter of 24'. Small trees in T will be a challenge.
I'm also looking at some skewered furnace filter trees, and have prepped 1300 skewers by staining the trunks brown. They still need some grey dry brushing, and then I have a box of furnace filter squares. Right now I have skewers that are about 2.5", 4" and 8" in the mix. Many of these will be for my home layout in N and not this layout, but I will probably make a few smaller ones for the T layout.
So for those that are counting, I now have 5140+ trees in progress for the current and future layout. Definite progress. And I am glad that I have almost finished the scultamold, as I will soon have to go back to clean up the water where the sculptamold got a little wild.
Per Shapeways, the concrete viaduct is printed and in packing. The other items have yet to go into printing though. I'm eager to see the bridges in my hands and installed on the layout. I've also made a bit of progress on the pedestrian overpass of the road. Soon, it will be time to worry about the harbor, and the station platform. But in the meantime, I am also eagerly awaiting delivery of scenic cement - which still has not arrived even though I ordered it more than 3 weeks ago.
Well I have been busy work out bridge designs. There are two large viaducts on the layout as I mentioned before. One based on the famous Glenfinnan Viaduct, which turned out to be simpler, as it is simply concrete. It is composed of two modules - a curved module and an end module. There are 7 curved pieces plus the two ends. Here is the completed CAD model.
I've got this bridge ordered. I'm printing it in PLA - while it will show layering, I am hoping that this will ultimately have the affect of looking like layers of concrete. We will see. Worst case, I can print it in a higher resolution, finer layer material. But it should be here for the show.
The second big viaduct is based more on the Ribblehead Viaduct. This is a stone arch viaduct, and in it, I have modeled the individual stones in the viaduct. It took a long time to get them all in in a reasonable pattern. The bridge has three modules, an end module, a straight module and a curved module. A total of 8 parts make up the bridge, but I was able to order it built in two halves.
You can see the detail down to the individual stones better in this view.
In a moment of minor insanity, I did do things to randomly vary the size and spacing of the individual stones, although I did take care to try to mimic the patterns on the existing bridges. These stone should each print, and some of them have different 3D bulges. You may not be able to see them, but I know that they are there. Of course, this means a finer, high quality printing process using Frosted Ultra-detail Acrylic. Each layer should be about 20 mil thick.
On the actual viaduct, there are several (copper) plates at various locations. Some are round, others rectangular. But they are small - I designed them at about 2-4mm so that they were both printable and visible on the bridge. I modeled these as a set of details, also printed in frosted ultra-detail plastic. Each has a small diameter rod, which I should be able to drill a hole for and mount on the bridge after they are painted.
Thinking about it now, they are almost certainly too large - but they will be very small on this bridge. so even if they are out of scale, the effect should be good.
That leaves one bridge to carry pedestrians across the main road - and hide the top of a mirror - and the wharf area to design for printing. Unfortunately, those are not done yet, and would not likely be printed and delivered in time for the train show. They are still on the to do list, but now I am looking at what I can get done before the train show. Since the wharf is not done, I cannot pour the water prior to the train show, although I may apply a gloss medium to the area, just as a temporary measure. Instead, I am going to focus on other scenery elements. The road bed is all painted, and I continue to work on the bottom detail/coloring of the water. Sculptamold is next.
Well, since last time, I have been able to do a little more carving of the foam to remove a few trouble spots, followed by some sanding and finally a good vacuum. Before I put down the sculptamold, I removed all the track and buildings, and decided to do a little painting of some areas that would likely not be completely covered with sculptamold, including the tunnel and the bottom of the loch.
I painted the tunnel black with acrylic paint, including the mating surfaces. The top of the mountain is designed to be removable in case I needed to access the track. I went ahead and brushed the paint out along the roadbed, even though this too will be painted again later.
The loch I painted a dark blue - but it doesn't look dark enough to my eye for the deep water I wanted to show. Easy enough to fix with more paint, but at least there is an initial coat on it. I really thought I had picked a dark enough blue paint, as the chip was even darker than I thought it should be - but clearly the results are not what I wanted. However, at least there is now an initial coat of paint down, and the sculptamold can go in along the banks even while I color the water more to my liking.
Next up on the list is the sculptamold, and to pain the track sub roadbed. Since the ballast is grey, the sub roadbed will also be grey so that anything that shows through will still look like ballast. In addition, CAD work is proceeding on the bridges. I started with the bridge over the road. I picked a bridge with some character from Glasgow.
Searching online, I found this bridge in Glasgow. The deck girder bridge is surrounded by a blue and white truss (resembling the Scottish flag), which I thought was near perfect for the scene. In my case, the bridge is straight at one end, but then begins to curve. Since the curve isn't much, I built the bridge as a single skewed section. Here is my creation:
The skew is not very apparent from this view, but from above, you can see it, even though it is only a few 16th of an inch.
I also got a start on the design for the harbor, with its docks and boardwalk, which I will show in a later post. But at the moment, my CAD time is being spent on the two large viaducts. After laying both out carefully, I was able to model them with a total of six modular pieces, 3 ends (one of which is used on both ends), 2 curved sections, and a straight section. One is going to be a stone arch bridge similar to Ribblehead on the Carlise and Settle line, the other is a concrete bridge based on the Glenfinnan Viaduct famously seen in the Harry Potter films.
Ribblehead Viaduct
Glenfinnan Viaduct
Glenfinnan Viaduct in Harry Potter
I haven't decided if I will include the flying car or not yet. But it is a thought. The Glenfinnan Viaduct will be on the left side of the layout (as seen from the front). I am hoping that the resulting scene will resemble this view of Glenfinnan.
In my case, the loch will pass under the viaduct, but I love this view. The bridge modules are still being worked on, but here is a shot of my progress on the straight section needed for the Ribblehead inspired viaduct on the front of the layout.
A lot of effort with the stone work, but I hope it will be worth it in the end. Ultimately, several of these projects will also make their ways to ModelWorks. Anyways, back at it, with the train show only three weeks out, there is a lot still to do...
Well, it has been a month since the last post, so I am well overdue for another. Since last time, I have been slowly filling in details to the Tennessee Pass Plan. But also having some doubts. More on those later.
Below is the current Deck 2 Plan. Let's look at it in detail:
Click to see full sized graphic
Since the last version, I have worked in the roads and bridges. The line emerges from staging (on loop 4 of the helix) and crosses over the Gore River on a deck girder bridge, before ducking under I-70. I-70 is arranged so that mirrors reflect both ends of the highway, and the combination of the highway and curving around the hillside with a backdrop on the front as well as the back, prevents anyone from actually seeing the train come out of the helix. The line curves around the left end of the layout crosses a county road at grade and swings into Minturn.
I completely reworked the west end of the Minturn yard to make it more functional, but also included the Minturn station, used for MOW storage, and both the Crew Hotel and Turntable Restaurant. Each should be close to scale size, as I took the measurements from an aerial photograph. I have also included a lumber yard and a warehouse at this end of the yard. I continued to allow for the possibility of modeling the wye - which I probably would not put in place in this location (too constricting) but if the layout were to be shown, a separate module could hold the tail track.
The East end of Minturn yard was also reworked a bit. I moved the engine house to the right, reworked the work and snow train tracks, and added a RIP track. There is now a dedicated fuel track, and I think the area flows much better. I also added a concrete plant and a spur which will host two as yet undetermined industries. This actually gives me a fair amount of switching for the Minturn Yard job (~8 spots), in addition to making up a couple of locals, and adding/servicing helper engines. Leaving Minturn, the railroad crosses Ballpark Road and Cemetery Road at grade, so there will also be a park with a baseball diamond (or at least part of one) and a small cemetery.
Rounding the right corner, I added in another stretch of the Eagle River, before the line crosses under US-24. US-24 actually climbs a steep switchback on its way to the town of Gilman (located above Belden. Meanwhile the tracks enter the Eagle River Canyon, crossing another deck girder bridge at Rex, before entering the Rock Creek Tunnel. Exiting the tunnel, I decided to freelance a pair of through truss bridges due to the geometry of the crossing of the Eagle River. The line curves to the left as the canyon narrows, and disappears from sight. Once again, the rock walls and backdrop restrict vision of this part of the canyon and hide the opening to the 8th lap of the helix. The bridges should help draw the viewer's eyes back tot he foreground, but another mirror will suggest that the canyon continues around the curve. There is still some topography to do on this level, but detailing the design has moved to Deck 3. So far, everything in the plan still works and works well.
I'd love to say that this sign is true, but several factors have created a few doubts in my planning. First, my space may not be what I once thought it would be. The garage part of the layout space is looking like it will be more difficult or further off from being available. However, the layout also may not be crewable either. This layout would probably need a Dispatcher, a Minturn Yardmaster, a Staging Hostler, and 3-4 road crews, including a helper crew. That is probably the crew capacity. Even with single person road crews, that is 6-7 people, and I am not sure where to find the operators. And if I did - would this make things congested? The Minturn Yard job would operate on the bottom side of the layout, and the Staging Hostler on the top side. The Dispatcher would be elsewhere. That puts the four road crews at various points around the layout - and conceivably, in the event of a meet, 3 road crews plus another job (Minturn or Staging) all on one side of the layout at the same time. Four bodies and some tighter than I would like aisles. I could operate with fewer folks, even just by myself, but part of the "fun" would be orchestrating the meets and passes on the hill.
So, if a less dispatcher intense operating layout more the preference? With that in mind, I have been thinking more about some alternatives, including a Salida based layout featuring the Monarch branch, or a protofreelanced version strongly based on that type of operation. That would give me the ability to consider other options for operations, but still allow me to test out some of the design/construction principles I have in mind. This alternate idea could also resolve the next doubt.
Another concern is the width of the modules. I originally set the maximum width at 42", knowing that I have a 44" wide sliding door that I can carry those through. What I did not think about was whether I would have a 44" door to carry them back into at the other end of the move. Unfortunately, with the layout running from 30" to 90", I can't even turn them on their sides to get through a narrower door - say 36". And unfortunately, the Helix is a 42" wide module without much hope for width reduction. So, I have been trying to think about whether or not I could make the wider modules split vertically, at least if needed to go through a 36" door. I do not yet have a good solution - but I am looking for one. The helix is the chief issue.
So, these are legitimate concerns. And I think that they will ultimately require some other plans to determine how best to proceed. But these doubts have been nagging, and have at least pulled some of my attention away from the plan. In addition, I've been putting time into my shapeways projects. I've gotten a number of designs back on line and available after the repricing for many shapeways materials, plus I have been working on plans for a T gauge layout for the Central Railroad Club (which I joined earlier in the year). I have to admit, I've had a recent spike in T gauge interest after seeing a new exhibition layout depicting the Firth of Forth Bridge in Edinburgh.
A link to the layout is shown below. More on these ideas next time.
All I can say is WOW! What a model in T! The real bridge is 8,094' long, which is 18 feet in T-scale. The layout is therefore on the order of 24' long. Quite the layout!
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