Hey look I did something!

Well, it’s been awhile. Again. As is my wont, I suppose. You should be used to it now. I’m worse than Matt from X-Entertainment.

Looking at my last post, I had just attended the Temple Train Show in September. Fast forward 6 months, and I haven’t made all that much progress.

Funding remains my primary issue. I estimate I need at least 4 more turnouts to get the inner loop laid out and operational. At $14 a turnout, that’s rather expensive.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on buildings. I now have four buildings and a water tower pretty much “complete” (save for weathering/detailing). I’ve discovered that I really enjoy building wooden laser-cut kits—Somehow they just look more real than the plastic buildings (at least, if the building is meant to be made of wood).

Here’s my latest project that I finished. It’s a Northeastern Scale Models kit called “Valley Hardware and Plumbing.” Personally, it looks a bit big for a hardware store, so I’m not sure what it will be on my layout yet.




Anyway, it went together easily enough. I painted it a light grey, then when I went to paint another coat I used a darker grey by mistake. I was going to just sand it off, but I realized that by sanding lightly I let the lighter grey shine through, and it gave nice “aging paint” effect.

The shingles provided was just a graphic on a piece of light grey paper, and I wasn’t sure how to color it and preserve the shingles. I asked the folks on Trainboard, and they said to use chalk, so I broke out the chalks for the first time in a LONG while. I’ve forgotten how messy it is. Probably shouldn’t be doing it over carpet, either, but oh well!

I also found these great new paint brushes called “microbrushes,” which are basically one-time use brushes meant for tiny detail work—like the white cornerposts on the model here.

Building these wood kits takes lots of time and patience, but I think the end result is worthwhile.

Now my problem is that I’m almost out of structures to build. Oops? Guess I need to buy some more!

I’ve got a new locomotive on the way, so hopefully there will be another post soon. If not, see you in 6 months.

I'm the worst Blogger EVER

I guess I'm not doing a very good job at keeping this blog updated, am I? Well, my hobbies tend to go through phases, and I haven't really been into Model Railroading very much in the last couple of months.

I did make it to the Temple train show yesterday, however--maybe that will provide some inspiration. I've got some structure kits to work on, and I have some track to lay, too.

Anyway, here are some photos from yesterday. Mainly to give me something to shoot for!











Maybe in the next week or two I can actually get some work done! Time will tell...

Building...Buildings..

This past weekend I spent a little bit of time working on some structure kits. Mainly painting. Having insufficient funds to procure the amount of turnouts I need for the next phase of track laying, there’s not a whole lot I can do besides work on these old structure kits.

After doing some painting I decided that I would drag out the umbrella lights and take some nice pics (well, actually I got the lights out to take some pics of my Macs, but I digress).

Here’s the first building, very much a work in progress. It’s basically a little shop. It’s molded in brown, which I must say is a ridiculous color to mold things in. However, this may work to my advantage.



I’m trying to paint it a brick red color. I chose a dark red acrylic. I’ve been painting over the brown and finding the brown shines through a little bit, making a mud-brick look. I’m not exactly sure if I like it or not…will have to think about it.

The second building is one of Grandt Line’s “Company Houses.” It’s intended to represent the company-owned homes that were everywhere in the Appalachian country.



One thing I have learned is that macro photos certainly make all your blemishes stand out like a sore thumb! I clearly need to do some touching up with the paint on the edges of the roof and the foundation. I wasn’t exactly sure what color to paint the roof. It’s clearly made of wood shingles. If I had any, I would use some stick-on paper shingles. But I don’t, so I opted for a dark brown. You can still see the brush strokes, but I think with a little weathering chalk it will look fine.

Next on the to-do list is to install window “Glass” in all the windows and glue the entire thing together. I will probably come up with some sort of interior, too, so that when you look into the windows you actually see something—and not just out the other window.

While I’m on the subject of structures: I’ve realized that building structures is one of the FIRST things you should do when planning a model railroad, rather than the last. I suppose I first realized this by following Spookshow.net and his layout builds. He always builds all the structures first. I’m quickly finding that this is the way it should be done.

When the structures are built first, you have something tangible to put on the pink foam plains, which helps with track design. You can plan out how you want a city or industry to look and design your track to fit it—rather than vice versa.

I suppose it’s more prototypical in some cases, as well. Industries, etc, may have already existed, and tracks were laid around it.

Clearly, then I have a lot of structure buying and building to do. Considering I’m broke and have no hobby shop locally…maybe I should give scratch building a try?

As a child of the internet, I spend a lot of time browsing the web reading forums about my favorite pastimes. Right now, there are 9 tabs open in my browser, including a video game site, a Macintosh site, and two Model Railroad sites. It is suffice to say that I sometimes suffer from information overload—posts get skimmed instead of read. Topics that I might enjoy engaging in conversation over are skipped because I simply don’t have time to write a response—some other post on another site needs my attention.

There was a post on Trainboard.com today, however, that really got me thinking. The “OP” (original poster, the person that started the topic) inquired as to how many layouts you had been through. In other words, how many layouts you had constructed and completely scrapped.

The answers were rather surprising, at least to me. Most people responded that they were on their 3rd or 4th layout. To me, that’s rather encouraging.

Oftentimes, this hobby can be intimidating for the inexperienced. The industry’s main publication, “Model Railroader,” has long been criticized for showcasing only “finished” layouts from modeling gods which the average person can never hope to match in quality and size. Internet forums have lessened this somewhat, but the quality of work shown on the “Weekly Photo Fun” and “Sunday Night Photo Fun” threads (at Tainboard.com and the Atlas Forum, respectively) can often be intimidating in its own light.

So it was encouraging to hear that most everybody else had screwed up their first layout royally, too.

Myself, I’m on layout number 3…of the N-Scale variety, anyway. My first layout was far, far too big and far too ambitious. I bit off way more than I could chew. Of course, that was compounded by the problem that I only had about 2 years to work on it before I moved away to college. Lesson number one: Make it portable, because you never know when you might have to pick it up and move it.

Layout number 2 got me all the way through college. Looking back, it was a great learning experience. I think I’ve already recounted that here on this blog, so I won’t dwell on it.

As for layout number 3, well I’ve already hit many stumbling blocks. I guess the question is this: When you hit a stumbling block, do you continue on (often with a compromise), or do you tear it up and start over?

The responses in the Trainboard thread seemed to indicate that most other people follow my way of thinking: When I get stuck with something or it doesn’t turn out exactly the way I planned, I just keep on going. I’d rather not take the time to fix it if it means tearing up a lot of work in the process. Instead, I can file away that knowledge for future use—the inevitable layout number four.

I guess that almost sounds like you can settle for mediocrity, which is not exactly what I mean. But given the choice between spending hours ripping something up and re-doing it and just living with it (as long as it is not a show-stopper), I’d rather just live with it.

I’m don’t think I’ve really communicated my idea very clearly in this post…I will have to give it some thought and re-visit this topic in the future.

Swat. Swat. Cough. Oh! Hey there! Don’t mind me, I’m just dusting a little and sweeping away the cobwebs.

I see my last post was in June? Huh. Well, anyone that knows me at all shouldn’t really be surprised by this. I have too many hobbies, and my interests tend to ebb and flow like the tides. I lost interest in trains for a while—partly because I just wasn’t sure where to go next. Partly because Roswell reared its head and I got into VWs again for a bit. And partly because that’s just the way it is.

Anyway, in December, Baylor’s Mayborn Museum hosted their annual layout setup (mainly composed of Temple’s excellent “Centra-Mod” modular group). On one of the last weekends before Christmas, I made the trek out—camera in tow—and I’ll be damned if the bug didn’t bite me again.

(You can see my pictures from that event here. )

Reading over my older blog posts, I see that the last challenge I was concerned with was legs for the layout. That problem was solved thanks to my parents, who brought down the last remaining piece of my Dad’s old bedroom furniture, a triple dresser (solid maple). So now the layout rests on that, and I have storage in the drawers below for modeling junk and other assorted odds and ends.

So now that problem is solved, and I find myself wondering where to go next. All I have right now is a basic loop of track—the roundiest of “roundy-rounds.” I’ve debated for several months what I want the inside of the track plan to look like (track-planning in advance is certainly not my forte).

I’ve decided that I really want the ability to run two trains at one time, so there will have be an inner oval. I’ll likely have to use almost all 11 inch radius curves here—maybe a 19 in here or there. I think I have worked out that there will be an industry on the left side of the layout, and a city (possibly with a small yard) on the right. I don’t want to get too much going on in the middle to avoid the “spaghetti bowl” effect of having track everywhere.

So what’s next then? Saving money until I can afford to buy more turnouts. I think I’ll need another four for the inner loop, so that’s $60 right there. This is an expensive hobby.

In the meantime, I can work on structure kits that have been festering over the years. I’ve gotten half-way on a number of buildings, but I still don’t have any that I would call “complete.” Time to change that.

Finally, I went to the Waco Winter Wonderland trainshow this weekend. This show is always something of a crap-shoot. Sometimes they have tons of stuff. Other times, nothing. One year I didn’t make it back in town until Sunday, and the vendors had already packed up and gone!

This year I am happy to report that there was a good selection of vendors (for a Waco show, anyhow), and an excellent N scale modular setup all the way from Houston. Please visit Flickr to see my pictures.

I was really happy that the vendors were there. As I have recounted before on this blog, Waco’s model railroading selection just plain sucks. So very rarely do I get a chance to look at things in person. I was hoping to spend no more than $40. In particular, I was looking for laser-cut wood building kits. Unfortunately, no one had any of these. So I began looking at the other items available and walked away with some rolling stock and a locomotive for about $60.



First up: Micro-Trains 33’ Peaked-end hoppers, lettered for N&W. N&W had thousands upon thousands of these, and they are essential for anyone modeling the area/era. Unfortunately, not many manufacturers are making them. I bought a three-pack of Micro-Trains cars for $35, which I think is a very fair price (didn’t I tell you this was an expensive hobby?). I do wish the hoppers had coal loads, but what can you do? I’ll just have a string of empties.

I wish I could find a source for these that wasn’t so expensive. I’d like to have at least 20 on the roster. That’s $240. Go take a look at some of the coal trains running on the modular layouts at the train show. That probably represents $1000 or more. Crazy, isn’t it?

My second purchase was a Life-Like GP-18 for the low, low price of $27 after tax.





Some background here: I’ve wanted a small diesel for a number of years. I love steam, but it’s nice to have some variety. The N&W was the last Class One railroad to diselize, in 1960. They used mainly Alco RS-11s and EMD GP7s and GP9s. (the family of which the GP18 is a slightly later model).

So I’ve been looking for some time for GP9 or GP7. The models I found were too expensive (that money could go to turnouts!), or in a much later paint scheme than what I was looking for. So I was elated when I found the little GP18 sitting at the dealer’s booth for only $24.95, in black liverly. I was skeptical, of course. $24 for a locomotive? Loco’s in N Scale are usually in the $70-$120 range. Still, I thought I remembered reading posts on the Atlas forum praising this cheap locomotive. So I bit the bullet.

Arriving home, I sat the loco on the track and slowly turned up the juice. Nothing. So I cranked up the power a little more, and suddenly she started forward. I think part of the problem is that this is a fairly old unit—likely made in 1993 or 1994, and thus it might have been sitting in the box for a long, long time. After several hours of break-in (both forward and reverse) I am very impressed by how she runs. For $27, it sure is a winner. There is a slight wobble at times, but slow speed performance is pretty good (good enough for me, anyway), and it goes around the track very smoothly. If this is what a cheap diesel will do, I can’t imagine a nicer Atlas or Kato unit. As a steam guy who is used to finicky steam locomotives, you diesel guys sure do have it nice!

One final little note on these: N&W used “High-Nose” GP-x models, which means the nose in front of the cab (the short side) extends all the way to the roof. Engineers often complained about visibility, so most railroads got the short nose versions. However, the N&W, being “different” as they always were, ran these locos with the long hood in the front! That’s right, the cab would be at the very back of the locomotive, with the extremely long hood sticking out towards the oncoming track. Supposedly, the reason this was done was that the N&W brass thought it would offer more protection in a crash. Personally, I think it was just another case of being stubbornly stuck on steam. With the long hood forward, the locomotive almost looks like some futuristic steamer, with a long boiler in front.

Anyhow, that’s where things stand today. I don’t make any promise of regular updates (I’m too smart to promise that!) but I will try to not let it go another 6 months!

A whole lot 'o nuthin.

My apologies for the lack of updates, which is in direct proportion to the lack of progress, which is directly proportional to my lack of funds.

Well, sort of. Here’s the situation as it is now:

As I may have reported previously here (I’m far too lazy to reread my updates!), the ½ in. PVC pipes that I got to form legs simply won’t cut it. The whole rig is far too wobbly to be of use. So it’s back to the drawing board. My new I idea is to construct a table-like uh…construction using PVC. Of course, this time, I will use a larger diameter of PVC pipe—perhaps even two inches. I should be able to build a fairly strong frame using this method that the layout will simply sit on.

If that method fails, I guess I’m going to buy a portable table. But right now, I can’t do anything, because I simply don’t have the funds to purchase either a table or the PVC. Other things have to come first. You know. Like….eating. And Air Conditioning.

In the meantime, I still haven’t figured out a track plan for the interior of the loop that I have completed. I have a few general ideas, but nothing concrete. I’ve kind of been holding off on working on anything until I get the base built. So it will be awhile. But hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day, as the cool kids say.

Anyway, I’m not too concerned about the lack of progress. Model Railroading is a long-term hobby. If you’re looking for instant gratification, this isn’t the hobby for you. It takes planning, time, effort, and money to build a model railroad. So when these are lacking, it’s time to sit back, read the most recent copy of MR, and dream.

Some ramblings

Well, there hasn’t really been any construction progress recently. I haven’t had any time or money, so I’ve just been watching trains go round and round. I have added two more sets of feeders, and plan to add two more. Everything runs pretty smoothly, save for a few trouble spots that I continue to work on. I think my steam locomotives are just a bit cantankerous. Which makes sense…a steam locomotive isn’t a machine, it’s a woman. And as we all know, they can be finicky creatures.

Anyhow, I though I would write down some thoughts about various things.

On the subject of DCC:

Earlier in the blog I mentioned that I was considering switching to DCC. Sense then, I think I’ve decided against it. But I thought it would be worth writing about exactly why.

I suppose I should begin by explaining just what the heck “DCC” is, for those not in the know. Essentially, DCC is another method of powering a model railroad. Our models are much too small to contain real boilers, fires, steam, etc. (at least in N scale—there is such a thing as live steam in HO!). So to make the train go, we use a conventional motor controlled by DC current. Turn the knob on your powerpack, the voltage rises, and the motor spins faster. Simple.

So what’s wrong with DC? Well, it’s great if you have one train on one piece of track. But what if you want to control two trains? Then things get a little tricky. All of the track has to be separated into multiple “blocks” of electricity. You can then use two powerpacks to control two trains. But of course you have to make sure you have the block switched to the right powerpack. And of course your trains can only be as close as your power blocks are. Not to mention that following the train and flipping all the correct blocks can be quite tedious. And as you can imagine the resulting rat’s nest of wires is quite a pain to deal with. Ne’ertheless, DC has worked well for decades. It’s fairly easy in that it doesn’t require a huge understanding of technical knowledge to do. And if you just have a power pack and some wires, it’s easy to set up.

But in a model railroad, we strive for realism. And DC operation just isn’t very prototypical. You can’t run locomotives right up next to each other as you can in the “real world.” And switching operations require a lot of fiddling of blocks that simply doesn’t exist in the real world. So although DC works well, it’s not the best solution.

Enter DCC. DCC stands for Digital Command Control. The idea has been around since the 70s, but it’s not until the last decade that it has really taken off. The basic idea is this: every locomotive has “decoder” placed in it, that’s essentially a computer chip. Instead of merely controlling the voltage to the rails, your handheld throttle sends a bunch of zeros and ones (computer code) through the rails. The Decoder decodes these bits and interprets them into signals: run forward at half speed, ring the bell, and so on.

With DCC it’s possible to control each locomotive individually, just like the prototype. It’s a far more realistic way of operating a model railroad. And it makes wiring much easier, too; there are no blocks to worry about and all rails are hooked up to one single power source.

So why am I not jumping on the bandwagon?

Two primary reasons: Cost, and decoder installation.

First of all, I would have to buy a DCC system, which would run about $150 right now. Then each locomotive would require its own decoder, which would be about $15 per locomotive.

That’s money that I simply don’t have to spend right now. So far I’ve spent about $200 or more just on layout building materials and track. So I’ve got to lay off the spending for awhile. Damn this economy.

But even if I had the money, I’d still be wary of converting. The decoders are not simple drop in installations—at least not for steam locomotives. They require lots of fiddling/soldering, etc. And since I run steam, they are all a pain in the butt to install. And that’s not something that I’m interested in.

If I were starting out for the first time with no legacy equipment, You can bet I’d go DCC in a heartbeat. But it’s pretty hard to consider spending all that time, effort, and money to convert right now.

In any case, what did you expect? I’m an old-fashioned romantic who’s stuck in his ways. Change!? Bah!

Speaking of romance, I wanted to touch upon another subject that I’ve been thinking about.

Last week I came upon this website: http://www.terrastories.com/bearings/

It chronicles an “urban adventurer’s” journey through the abandoned world. He breaks into abandoned properties and photographs them as they lie, dormant and untouched save for the ravages of time. There are some stunning photographs on his site of abandoned amusement parts, mansions, and even a Titan missile silo. I found it fascinating, and it made me think about model railroading and why I desire to create in miniature a world that is long gone.

I never got to see the golden age of railroading. By the time I was born in 1983, steam was long gone (at least in the United States) save for tourist railroads. Where I grew up, there wasn’t a huge rail presence. Sure, I’d see long Santa Fe (and later BNSF) Autorack trains on trips, but that was about it. My exposure to trains was strictly through the LGB Large scale trains that we had, and visits to tourist railroads (The earliest of which was a trip on the Durango and Silverton on which I have been told I acted like a complete ass).

So why am I drawn to model railroading, then?

I think the romance has a lot to do with it. A steam locomotive is by definition an element of romance. A steam locomotive isn’t a machine; it’s a living, breathing organism that requires tender care to keep her running well. In the early days, the railroad wasn’t just some nameless transporter of freight. It was the lifeblood of the community. The entire town revolved around it. Passengers coming and going, goods bought and sold. The friendly engineer giving the neighborhood boys a tour of the cab and bringing the younger ones a lollipop once a week, like clockwork. The wife of the conductor baking fresh pies for her husband’s crew, hot and ready-to-eat when they returned from a long and grueling day hauling coal over the Appalachians. And so on, and so on.

These scenes are gone from the visage of American History. The number of people living that now remember these times dwindles every year. I think this plays a large part of why I’m drawn to the idea of recreating these idyllic times in a miniature world of my own design. It’s a chance to not only remember and pay tribute to these bygone eras, but perhaps to somehow vicariously experience the very feelings and emotions of them, too.

So right now, I can only watch my trains rolling around the pink foam plains. But if I squint my eyes, I can see the green mountains, the black soot of coal; I can hear the chimes of the end-of-shift bell at the mine. I can smell the ocean air blowing in from the coast, the salt tickling my nostrils. The world that was once dead is summoned to life once again. As long as it exists in my own miniature world, it will never truly be gone.

I suppose this entry has gone on long enough, so lets call it the end for now…