Mill Street: Boston & Maine Branchline

[garethashenden]

I think what I need to do is go back to school and rewatch some of those videos. Its been years since I've really built any track. Most of the track that I have built has had bullhead rail (British prototypes) and in a larger scale. I seem to abandon my flatbottom railed projects before they get to the stage of having working track, but this is going much better so far. This turnout is ok, it works, but it could be much better.

[Angus Shops]

Well, practice never hurt, but it looks like a pretty good start to me. And building them over a template rather than on a jig makes the process more difficult. Another observation if I may: you don’t need to bend the ends of the rails on the guard rails or at the frog. A straight rail with the ends filed at an appropriate angle will serve the same function as a bent rail, but will look neater. If you’re not already, glue your paper templates onto some solid surface (I used scraps of drywall board), and glue your copper ties directly onto the printed template so that nothing moves around during fabrication. And don’t get discouraged when you hear someone saying they can build a switch in some absurdly short time; it takes time.
I agree that the Fastracks videos are very helpful. I also use their rail filing tools; they’re pricy but the speed up the process and save your fingers from a fair bit of pain. They’re also heavy and square, so they serve a variety of other functions in the model building process.

[prr7161]

I'm using Elmer's ProBond Advanced (https://www.homedepot.com/p/Elmer-s-ProBond-4-oz-Advanced-Multi-Purpose-Glue-E7502/203619359) as a tie adhesive as an alternative to Pliobond, not so much because the Pliobond didn't adhere but because I couldn't take the smell, and also found it to be a bit tough to control coming out of the tube.  The Elmer's stuff works really well!  I stick down a few inches of ties at a time and weight them down with the FastTracks pointform tool for an hour or two.  I generally don't try to sand the tops of the ties after that until the next day to let everything finish curing. Very minimal problems with loose ties this way.

[Bob]

Garet - nice work - you don't waste any time!  Very cool to see your turnout coming together, and thanks Dave Foxx and prr7161 for the advice about gluing the ties.  I have Fast Tracks jigs and materials but have not yet bitten the bullet to start replacing my Atlas code 55 turnouts.  You all are inspiring me to give it a try!  Bob

[garethashenden]

I have rebuilt the turnout. The stock rails were reused, everything else was new. It came out much better. I'm still not super happy with Pliobond as an adhesive, but it worked better on this occasion. The droppers have been added and it is in position. Need to glue it down and then go on to the flex track on either side. Three turnouts left before I can run trains in a loop.

[Angus Shops]

I love the sight of a newborn turnout. It’s such a reward I almost hate to paint them. Nice work. Gaps n ties?

[garethashenden]

I have completed a loop of track! Wiring next. Some droppers are attached already, to the turnouts. But should be running trains soon.

[garethashenden]

I finally have a loop of track which a train can successfully circle. It was more challenging than it should have been. The biggest problem I had was throw bars. I drilled holes in them with a bit of wire coming off the point blade and going into the hole, Its a nice mechanical system, rather than relying on soldering the blade to the crossbar, but the holes need to be in the right places. And usually they weren't. They seemed fine on the workbench but when connected to the servos they proved to either be too far apart or too close together. I replaced three of the four. Then there were the droppers, which despite carefully installing one per length of rail, I somehow left gaps, and completely forgot about the lengths of flex track    Everything was eventually corrected except the caboose kept derailing. The wheels were out of gauge. With that corrected the three car train happily runs round in circles.
I've been rather feverishly converting rolling stock to TruScale couplers over the past few years without a way of testing them. I was initially concerned that they were the reason for my original derailments, but I was comforted by a brand new MTL boxcar also derailing. The couplers perform well so far, the curves aren't too tight, and they do look excellent.

[garethashenden]

I have starting forming the terrain. A mixture of foam and sculptamold. The foam is the base layer with sculptamold covering it and filling in the gaps. I hadn't use it before but its going well so far. A little course at first, but I'm getting better at applying it and I'll smooth it out once its cured in the places that really need to be neat and smooth. But I realized pretty early on that I needed to finalize the bridge location/dimensions before I went much further. So that's what I've done today. I have looked at lots of pictures of covered bridges, both railroad and road, and settled on a Town Lattice Truss covered bridge. This was a very common style and one favored by the Boston & Maine for a long time (well into the 20th century). My model is mostly based on the bridge at Contoocoock NH on the Claremont and Concord branch. The model is 160' long (12") with a central pier in addition to the two abutments. Because I'm crazy, I'm building this in the same manner as the prototype, two lattice trusses on each side. I don't really think the N scale 2x8s are up to the job of supporting the weight, so the 1/16" scribed sheathing will be the weight bearing component, plus the beams under the rails. But since the truss is visible I wanted to model it. I wasn't sure how much wood I would need, so I placed an order for what turned out to be about a third of the needed quantity, so a second order has been placed. I can continue in the meantime, just won't quite be able to finish this first side.





The prototype bridge is here: https://bridgehunter.com/nh/merrimack/contoocook-railroad/

[garethashenden]

The covered bridge is nearing completion. Few more things to do, but it is not a structure rather than a group of flat panels.

[garethashenden]

I printed abutments and a central pier for the bridge over the weekend. They are roughly in position, although the central pier is sitting a little high.



Need to clear the detritus...

[garethashenden]

I have moved and the layout has a new home. I bought my own house and there's a whole room that I'm dedicating to modeling. Its going to be great! There is going to be enough space for an around the room version of the layout I've wanted to build for a while. But that's a big project that's going to take planning once I'm settled. So for this winter I'm going to continue working on Mill Street. I think I have most of what I need to get it presentable, although I'm sure there's something I'll persuade myself to spend money on.

So far I have the layout set up on three bookcases. Its lower than I'd like when standing, but good when sitting. The things that need to happen next are connecting power and seeing if it still works, installing the bridge, and rebuilding a turnout that has suffered a bit of damage in storage. It didn't work perfectly anyway, so remaking it will be an improvement.




And I have a whole table for the big tools that only get used occasionally. This is going to be great!

[peteski]

Sweet setup!  So now you can machine, and grow your own parts, depending on which tools you use.   

How do you like that brake/shear tool?  I have an older version (from Micor-Mark) and it is just "ok".

[garethashenden]

Sweet setup!  So now you can machine, and grow your own parts, depending on which tools you use.   

How do you like that brake/shear tool?  I have an older version (from Micor-Mark) and it is just "ok".

I like it for the most part, but I haven't used it much. I wish there was a way to get the adjustable stop closer to the shear. If you want to cut anything less than about 1", you're on your own. And that's what I want to cut almost exclusively.

I am going to set the Unimat up as a mill. Its not a great mill, but one lathe and one mill is more useful than two lathes. I wonder if I can get a discount on the end mills that I help produce...

[peteski]

I like it for the most part, but I haven't used it much. I wish there was a way to get the adjustable stop closer to the shear. If you want to cut anything less than about 1", you're on your own. And that's what I want to cut almost exclusively.

Same problem with mine.

I am going to set the Unimat up as a mill. Its not a great mill, but one lathe and one mill is more useful than two lathes. I wonder if I can get a discount on the end mills that I help produce...

Not sure what you mean about the end mills.