Ashuelot Branch 1939

[ednadolski]

The next step is to press the axles onto the wheels.

What do you do to ensure that they press true onto the axles?

Ed

[garethashenden]

What do you do to ensure that they press true onto the axles?

Ed

I let them find their own way. The wheels are a tight 1.5mm, the axle is exactly 1.5mm, I wasn't too worried about it. I did put a couple back in the lathe and they ran true.

[Chris333]

I while back I had some Nn3 wheels that wobbled. I made a cup in my lathe to hold the wheel. Then I chucked the axle into the tail stock to press them into the wheel.

[garethashenden]

That's the proper way to do it.

[garethashenden]

Well its been a while since I updated this. There haven't been massive moments that have made me need to post an update, but a fair bit of steady progress. Since last we saw things, I have started on the background hills. Initially using the same brown latex paint to quickly sketch in the shapes, then I've gone back and added tree blobs along the ridges in a few fall colors. I need to add some shadows to them now, they're a bit monotone at the moment, then do another layer on card in front of the backscene. Then a few more layers and start blending in modeled trees. I've also been working on the ground contours, smoothing things over with sculptamold. There are a few spots that are a bit rough, so I'll deal with those before I paint it all brown again.



In between layout work I have been working on a couple of boxcars. The second on is a FineNScale kit for a PRR X29, and its built mostly as intended. The first one got a bit complicated and has been on the go for about 9 months. Starting with a Walthers double door single sheathed 50' boxcar kit, I attempted to make a model of the Texas & Pacific group of end door automobile cars they purchased in 1929. The prototype has a radial roof which rather complicated things. I took a big file to the stock roof and did my best to form it into a smooth curve. Then I glued a piece of 0.010" styrene over the roof and shaped that a bit more. It was kinda mediocre and the project languished as a result. After moving it around the workbench for a few months as I did other things, I decided to see what was up with it. It wasn't as bad as I had remembered, so a bit of filler here and a bit of sanding there and the radial roof was good enough. Adding the seams across the roof that are clearly curved helped with the appearance of things too. The next thing I tackled was the door supports. The T&P cars have a bunch of individual supports, rather than one nice long door guid. After a few failed experiments with styrene I 3d printed them and glued them on one at a time. They're not perfectly straight. Maybe I should have printed them all properly spaced as a single piece? I printed the door stops too. These are the bit I'm least happy with. Sometime after the model was painted they've all warped and look awful, I'll have to revisit them at some point. After this much work on the body the diecast underframe wasn't up to standards, so I made a new one. Its all styrene, aside from the Atlas sourced K brake and brass wire brake lines.






Most recently, today in fact, I finished wiring the track. I had a section wired and running, but last night I got the other half wired up. I was quite careful separating red from black droppers, but still had a dead short when I plugged in the controller. After checking a few things I went to bed, as morning is wiser than evening. This morning I started methodically undoing things to find the short. I suspected I hadn't fully gapped one of the turnouts (and I was correct) but I couldn't see any problems visually. Started by disconnecting the bus at the new section, and then did droppers one by one. After disconnecting the third dropper the new section no longer had a short, but the old section did. Hmm, it had been running before...
There are two turnouts at this point in the layout as the single track line adds a passing siding and a track for the freight house. I took another long thorough look at these two turnouts and found the problem. A sliver of copper had rolled over the edge when I was gapping the ties. It was nestled between the tie and the throwbar and once I removed it everything worked! Reconnected the wires I had removed and there were still no shorts!
I thought about taking a video of the "first train", but that presented problems. I didn't have any DCC equipped Boston & Maine steam engines. The K7 2-8-0 that will be the main resident of the railroad is not yet running. I elected to do a quick DCC installation on a Model Power 4-4-0. Its a nice little engine, although there are things to improve. I quickly found that all the wheels were tight to gauge, but once that was corrected it runs rather well. I will need to address the tender wheels at some point, after fixing their gauge issues they're now too tight in the trucks to rotate on their own. Model Power numbered this locomotive 950, which puts it in the A41 class. It looks broadly like an A41, but they could have picked a better number, maybe one of the ones that lasted until after WW2, rather than one that was scrapped in 1926. Easy enough to fix, when I get around to it.

[garethashenden]

I haven't updated this thread since March, and there's a very good reason for that. In March I got a pair of kittens and they are a bit too enthusiastic about the railroad. Luckily I have managed to make some progress recently, hopefully that will continue. In chronological order, this is what I've been up to.

I scratchbuilt the coal trestle for Ashuelot Paper according to the B&M's standard plans. Its all Evergreen styrene.




The back of the backscene was explored. I'm kinda impressed he made it up, and he had no trouble getting all the way up.


Trees were inspected


I wasn't happy with the rock cutting. I had painted them too heavily and they'd lost the detail. So I replaced them all with new castings.


Which had to be inspected:


And with a thin wash


The trestle has now been painted and installed. Its floating for most of the length so I'll need to bring the ground level up a bit in places. But at least the track is level!

[peteski]

LOL, yes kittens and highly detailed model train layouts don't mix well. 

While those kittens and their photos roaming the layout are super cute, I suspect that it teaches them that this activity is encouraged.  My peteski logic tells me that it might have made more sense to start discouraging them from visiting the layout from when they were very young, which likely would have done a world of good in the future.  While not guaranteed to work, it would have been worth a try.  A spritz of  plain water from a squirt bottle to discourage the activity would have have been a thing to try and keep on doing. My GF uses this technique on her dogs (when they do annoying or "naughty" things), and it works pretty well.

[wm3798]

I agree with Peteski.  As the cat gets bigger and the layout gets more intricate, the problem of feline trespass will only be magnified.

Lee

[garethashenden]

Yes, I agree too. They’re kept out of the room almost all the time. Whenever I’m not working on the layout, and most of the time I am. Usually when they are in the room they get intercepted before they make it to the layout. I posted the pictures more as an illustration of why progress has been slow than as how I think things should be.

[garethashenden]

I have been slowly plodding along with this. Never enough at once to justify a post, but there has been progress here and there. Overall I'm pleased with what I've done, although I wish there was more of it. However, there is one aspect of the layout that needs to be changed. Its a major one, and luckily its not too late. I am not happy with my choice of season. It had chosen late October/early November, but having just lived through them I am reminded that it is a miserable time of year. Its cold and dark and depressing, and not what I want from my bit of escapism. So a change to late May/early June is in order. Luckily there are only half a dozen trees planted.




I have also started construction of one of the paper mills, Paper Services Inc. It is a complex building that was added onto many times over the years. I suspect that the concrete block section is later than my period, but I like the contrast in materials so I'm going to model it anyway.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

This looks great!!

[garethashenden]

I have gotten the yard complete enough that trains can originate there! So far its only one track and three switches, but it works! To celebrate I ran a train and switched an industry. The 4-4-0 was about at capacity with a fair bit of wheel slip pulling cars up out of Ashuelot Paper, but its not the correct power for the layout. I need to get back to the 2-8-0.