The Very Last White River and Northern Railroad

[garethashenden]

Is this just the lead-in to functioning figures of the operator standing at trackside hooping up the orders and crewmen in the loco cab and caboose snagging their copies of them?

Yup. It tells the crew they have orders waiting for them and that they need to stop/slow down a lot to pick them up. They can also be used at small passenger stations to tell the crew they need to stop to pick up a passenger, that’s technically a flag stop but I believe order boards were used for that purpose too.

[Cajonpassfan]

Brilliant, in concept and execution.
Would you please clarify how the blades are pinned/attached and how they are powered by the Z wire?
I need to build a couple of these, one upper and one lower quadrant signal some day...
Your work could be just the inspiration I need...
Thanks,
Otto

[peteski]

Micro-Mark generic mini drill press, which I've equipped to use optionally as a mill. Sherline lathe with microscope attachment.

I did not use either of them for this project; I tend to prefer doing everything by hand. Anyway, the Sherline has been offline for the last several years, owing to damage suffered while in storage.

I'm even more impressed. Driling the index pin holes perpendicular to the gear's surface would have been a perfect job for a drill press. Quick, easy and accurate. But you eyeballed and hand-drilled!

[DKS]

I did this today strictly for sh!ts and giggles...

[Philip H]

Your barber is not wearing appropriate PPE.   

[Dave V]

Your barber is not wearing appropriate PPE.   

[DKS]

OK, no more wacky animation today. Instead, I'm always looking at the layout critically, and often I'll see better ways of arranging things. I'm also painfully aware that, in order to make improvements, occasionally I'll need to give up favorite things. And so today I shuffled a number of structures around; they're highlighted in green below.



First, I removed the printing company from the lower right corner because the three-story building wedged into the slice of land was a major view block, and I also didn't care for having two of the building's four walls chopped off by the layout edges. I was going to relocate it to where the excelsior plant ruins were (behind the brewery, 14), but it just didn't work, and I removed the ruins as well to gain a bit more "negative space."

In the printing company's place I put the coal silo from Haber's Lumber, Coal & Oil (17), which happened to tuck in there nicely. It did mean dropping the lumber yard and oil part of the business, but at least the office and weighbridge still fit. I instead split the oil off entirely and made it Schmuck Heating Oil (27), which sort of reverts back to a very early version of the layout.

In the coal silo's place I put a freight station I'd scratchbuilt some time ago (15), and removed during the track plan revision. Finally, I swapped Josh's house (18) and the Davis Inn (28), and also restored Ed's luncheonette (19) as a building instead of a trailer. Oh, plus I shortened the siding on the left and added a little side street to reach the heating oil dealer.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I'm movin on up!

Please tell me it's gonna have smoke pouring out of the kitchen... lol.

[davefoxx]

I'm movin on up!

Please tell me it's gonna have smoke pouring out of the kitchen... lol.

Haha!  Does Josh's house (18) have a murder room in the basement? 

DFF

[DKS]

Please tell me it's gonna have smoke pouring out of the kitchen... lol.

I may have need for a Seuthe smoke generator after all. And some scent additives, too, like burned bacon...

[chicken45]

Haha!  Does Josh's house (18) have a murder room in the basement? 

DFF

The real reason he moved Josh's house (18) is to isolate it from nearby houses because of the screams coming from the basement.

[wm3798]

Plus, you know... that list he's on....

[DKS]

Brilliant, in concept and execution.
Would you please clarify how the blades are pinned/attached and how they are powered by the Z wire?
I need to build a couple of these, one upper and one lower quadrant signal some day...
Your work could be just the inspiration I need...
Thanks,
Otto

Thank you. I attached the blades to the pole with miniature straight pins. You can see them in this image of (most of) the ingredients that went into the project:



After I soldered the square tubing to the mast, I drilled it out so that the pins would gently press-fit into the hole.

   

The blades are moved via 0.01" brass wire, which was bent into a Z shape and inserted into holes drilled in the blades:

   

The wires descend under the station platform through holes drilled in the base:

   

The ends of the actuating wires are bent into V-shapes to allow fine adjustment, and they're raised and lowered by the levers on the mechanism.



I did not bother disguising the actuating wires since most train order signals at stations are operated manually, and everything is there for all to see.

[jpec]

Nothing short of amazing.

Jeff

[Cajonpassfan]

Yes, very slick! Thanks for the writeup and pics, DKS. Quite impressive.
I’d love to get my hands on two of these kits somehow...who made them again?
Thanks, Otto