Marsland, Nebraska - Free-moN

[Mark W]

At the start of the New Year I decided to dedicate myself to a new module pair to satisfy my love of early steam.  After a bit of searching, I stumbled upon a small bit of history in Marsland, Nebraska.


From Wikipedia:

Marsland was founded on August 28, 1889. The town was one of many that was located along the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad. Aptly, it was named after Thomas Marsland, who was the railroad's general freight manager at the time. The post office at Corbin was moved into Marsland about the same time.
Originally, the town's economy depended upon the construction of the Belmont Tunnel, located some miles north of Marsland near Belmont.[4] The tunnel was finished in 1890,[5]the year that many new businesses were established in Marsland, including a newspaper, grocery store, and blacksmith shop. In 1895 a hotel was built in the downtown district, and the year after, two churches were established. Several economies that kept the community's workforce employed over the years included a flour mill and ice production.
Marsland's population peaked at 200 in 1910. In the years immediately following, a number of fires consumed a large portion of the town's business district. Over the next several decades, many families left because of drought and financial hardships, moving their houses with them. Today, only a minimal number of houses and several commercial building remain. [4] Although it is still occupied by a small number of residents, Marsland is largely considered a ghost town.[6]


Couldn't ask for a better history for a small town, early era theme huh?! (Especially for an guy in love with Astronomy, Marsland just sounds cool!) Plus that Belmont Tunnel is just begging to be a follow up module!

So, without further ado, I present; Marsland, Nebraska


The plan itself is based upon the late Wolfgang Dudler's HOn3 Free-mo module "Salina"

[Mark W]

The design was final and construction began about a month ago.  Here is the progress up until now:





(That's the Roca Dry Bulk Free-moN pair receiving base paint.  More on that one soon, in another thread)


Turnouts are handlaid, made SOOOOO much easier with the FastTracks PointForm tool.








Shaping terrain


Turntable construction begins:






What's that big ugly thing doing in the early 1900's?


That's more like it!


Balancing the table:













And that's everything up to today.  Now that stuff is getting serious, let's get the DSLR out and put those crappy iPhone photos to shame.


Picked up some Micro-slide switches at Radioshack yesterday. Actually had to clear out the City's stock and still place an order for 4 more.

These little guys are almost perfect. The throw distance is just barely over that of the points.

First, I drill out the side.


Then connect the post to the throwbar with some .010 rod and glue into place. Make sure to let the glue set good.


End with a bang. Love the Atlas 4-4-0!!!!!!!



More to follow.  Turnout control should be complete this weekend for an official "First Run" with the fully operational module!

So what do ya think so far?

[Philip H]

I think you've done well so far - and that turn table is a great adaptation of a time tested design.  Looking forward to seeing this come together.

[davidgray1974]

I agree with Phillip.  Definately coming along nicely.  Looking forward to future updates.

[LIRR]

Very nice work

[M.C. Fujiwara]

You gotta either:
1) put the wires in



or 2) move back to the SF Bay Area


or 3) both 

[or have you already wrangled up a Free-moN posse there in Lincoln so you don't... [sniff, sniff] you don't... NEED us anymore!!  ]

[dnhouston]

Great work so far, especially the turntable.

[Mark W]

You gotta either:

1) put the wires in

or 2) move back to the SF Bay Area

or 3) both 

[or have you already wrangled up a Free-moN posse there in Lincoln so you don't... [sniff, sniff] you don't... NEED us anymore!!  ]

Priority 1 is getting the rest of the turnouts operational via slide switch. 
Then comes ballast.  Then finish the turntable details while ballast dries.

I haven't been able to finish the turnouts since I was waiting for a new shipment of the micro slide switches, so I put my time to use in creating a preview of Stage Spur, which will be the one coming off the bottom left in the track plan above.

I created this preview diorama separate so I could enter it in the model contest at the Lincoln Area Railway Historical Society train show this weekend. 
The theme was "Special Loads".  Nailed it? 

[seusscaboose]

thanks for the updates... please keep them coming

[GaryHinshaw]

Beautiful work Mark!  How about some close-ups of your diorama while we wait for your slide switches. 

[Mark W]

As requested.

[mark.hinds]

<snip>
 created this preview diorama separate so I could enter it in the model contest at the Lincoln Area Railway Historical Society train show this weekend.
<snip image>

Excellent looking diorama!!   

MH

[Mark W]

Tonight I had a great time switching... with a 4-4-0 locomotive... on DCC.  GREAT time to be in N scale!

First I had to spend some time fixing and tweaking the slide switchs for turnout control.  Turns out I glued the switch for the turntable shut, so had to replace it.  In the process I disassembled the switch to inspect the inner workings.  Pretty simple mechanics.  To be honest, some glue got inside the housing of a other switches and prevented the travel. Now, understanding the switch assembly, I popped the tops off and removed any debris so that all switches now have full travel.

Additionally, remember how I mentioned a while ago that the length of travel was slightly longer than the turnout points?  Well, easiest solution was to just narrow the points so that they travel exactly the distance the slide switch travels!  Actually this is how they should have been in the first place, as the wider points got picked quite often. With these fixes, all turnouts are now performing beautifully.   

[Specter3]

Narrow the points? Sounds like a good fix, but show us the pix please.lol. Once you said it I kind of went "well duhh!" But i am interested in what you did specifically. I am hanging out waiting on the new track from Atlas to show up to re-track about 4 onetrak/freemon modules (ntrak height, freemon endplates). I am going slide switches for turnouts when I do and this sounds like a really good idea.

[Mark W]

Sorry, no pictures yet as the ballast is drying!

I don't have a very precise ruler, but the slide switch travels approximately 2.4mm.  The fasttracks turnout template puts the points at something like 7mm apart, making the throw bar travel about 2mm.  This works ok for precisely gauged equipment.  However reducing the distance between the points by just .4 mm, (subsequently increasing the gap for wheel sets to travel by .4mm, puts the slide switch and throw bar on the exact same travel distance.  Visible difference is negligible, the turnout works for a wider variety of equipment and the slide switches can snap back and forth more reliably.  All in all, everyone wins!

Ok, and since no update is complete without a photo, here's the Atlas 4-4-0 with on board decoder.  But where is it?!