Cumberland Station TTrak and Other Adventures

[DKS]

I have the walkway solved, but I think I'm going to have to break down and get some Plastruct railings... it's right on the front of the module, and I'm not sure I want something hand made and fragile that close 9 year olds with wandering hands, and 50 year olds with beer guts they can't see around...

Use steel music wire, and sharpen the ends...

[John]

Goog [ Guests cannot view attachments ] le ..

[wm3798]

Thanks for that image, John.  I have enough of the grate material to do between the rails as well. 

Well, as usual, my local Hobby Town never lets me down when it comes to letting me down.
No Plastruct handrails, but he can order them for me with his next Walthers order, which might be in September...

But he did have some Evergreen strip stock, so a small investment was made, and I'll have the railings fabricated this evening.  Yes, they'll be fragile, but I'm taking solace in knowing that I paid less than I would have for Plastruct railings, and still have material leftover for other projects...

I also may or may not have engaged in a conversation that might have me committed to starting a TTrak group out of the Hobby Town...  The manager is trying to find ways to keep trains in stock at the store at all...
(offering something off of retail list might be a first step, but apparently the owner prefers to have all of nothing rather than part of something...)

Lee

[wm3798]

All fabbed up.  Off to the paint shop!

[wm3798]

I'll have to work on the weathering.  Seems the CA I used filled in some of the see thru bits...

[wm3798]

Details details...


Bridge module still needs to be wired, but that will have to wait till after presentations...

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Makes me want to go slap WM on some GP30s!

[wm3798]

Makes me want to slap you!  (Although True Confessions:  The RWB GP30 gives me impure thoughts... )

Lee

[John]

I can't wait to run a train on that 

[wm3798]

I'll spike the tires.

[dmidkiff]

All fabbed up.  Off to the paint shop!

Looks great Lee.  Can you expand on little on how you constructed the railing?  Anytime I try to build something from thin sticks of styrene, it never has any stiffness to it.

Thanks, Doug

[wm3798]

I used .25 rod, a little thicker than I wanted, but it worked out to be fairly beefy, and once painted black, it looks fine.

I used some sheet tile stock...3/16" grid, I believe... to space the posts every other square, and glued them to the spacer.  This held everything in place vertically while I glued the horizontal bits.

The middle rail was next, a continuous length of .25 about 1/8" above the spacer strip, dabbing MEK glue to each joint for a good bond.

With that in place, I trimmed the verticals to a consistent height, about 1/8" above the middle rail, then glued the top length of .25 to the tops of the verticals.

With that secured, I trimmed the rail from the spacer strip, and glued a .40x.40 strip along the bottom to give me a mount for the tread way.  Once assembled, I sprayed it all black.  It was ready to install inside an hour of picking up the knife.

It's mounted to the bridge on a run of ME timbers gleaned from the junk box, but 40x40 strip would also work.  It is surprisingly sturdy.



And it's been inspected!

Lee

[wm3798]

Final update, and official entry photos...











Thanks for playing along at home!
Lee

[Chris333]

I have no idea how big T-trak is, but if there is some sort of home base for the place you should send them a few photos.

[dmidkiff]

Thanks for the step by step instructions Lee, that really helps. Great looking module!