Buckled Track Repair

 

Although I thought that track work (and track wiring) was complete here on the first phase, it turns out that I was mistaken. Gremlins appeared. In my last post, just a few days ago, I mentioned that the track had buckled on the passing track at Nooksack. After further review I suspect that the cause is not exclusively rail expansion, but at least partially benchwork wood shrinking with the low humidity of our house with the furnace blasting this winter. In addition, the turnout to the left of the buckled track has twisted and no longer lies flat causing derailments. 

At first I considered what I thought to be the easiest solution: unsolder the rail joiners, cut off a bit of each rail, and resolder the joiners. I wouldn't have to make any changes to the wiring; the existing feeders would still be adequate. However, what might happen in the summer when the wood expands? I decided to take a different approach.

I got out my Dremel and using the cutting disk, cut a new gap in the buckled track. After filing the ends of the rail flat, the flex track straightened and the turnout flattened down. The cutting disk left an appropriate gap. I removed some of the ties, filed the rail ends, and slid rail joiners onto the rails. With everything back in place after gapping the rails, both the track and the turnout were realigned. By not soldering the new joiners, the rails can move with the changes in humidity/temperature through the seasons. But. . . now we have a possible electrical gap, as loose rail joiners are notoriously untrustworthy.  

Needing to add a set of feeders to ensure connectivity, I fetched my electrical toolbox. Knowing that this approach entailed dropping feeders, I had plugged in my soldering iron as an early step.  A hot iron, having all materials gathered (yes, literally in a toolbox), and tinning the rail and feeders before soldering the feeders in place made for quick work. I tested continuity between the feeder ends under the benchwork and the rails with my multimeter before joining the feeders to the DCC bus wires with suitcase connectors. Cleaning up and putting the track tub and wiring toolbox away left only a repeat of replacing several ties as tasks in the basement. 

While writing this post, I remembered that I needed to add the new gap and feeders to my "Propulsion Circuitry Diagram" in the three ring binder that I have started towards the Electrical Achievement Program should I chose to attempt it in the future. It is good practice to document what is going on down under the model railroad in any event, NMRA AP or not.

Moving Forward With Nooksack -- Continued

Revised distant hills line

I mentioned in my last post that I was not satisfied with the distant hills that I had painted. I thought that they were too dark. Renee, my wife, noted that the pencil lines that I had sketched in to guide the painting were visible in places, and she thought that they distracted from the illusion. I was also unhappy with the bushes or trees that I had painted in the foreground. They appeared to accentuate rather than hide the right angle joint between the benchwork and the backdrop.

I decided to repaint, basically changing my approach while applying a second coat. First of all, I added some more white primer to the small tub of paint that I had mixed up and saved. Using a #6 round brush I painted over the first coat and any foreground that I had attempted. With a bristle #2 flat, I carefully applied a subtle tree texture to the top of the hill line by dragging the brush up into the sky. In this in-progress photo, the difference in apparent value of the hill and dirt colors between whether they are on the flat plywood or the vertical backdrop is quite noticeable. This phenomenon is probably caused by the reflective quality of the paints on the flat tabletop with the LED lights directly overhead. This will be a complication to work around as I add any painted foreground details or work to hide the right angle joint. 

With buildings and rolling stock cleared off for backdrop painting, I noticed that ties are missing at a number of the rail joints here in Nooksack. So, while thinking about it I found a tub of ties and got to work. Apparently saving little bits of everything is planning ahead rather than hoarding! Using a chisel blade in the hobby knife, I sliced off the tie plates and spikes. This is a technique where it is important to pay attention to the relationship between finger location and blade direction. After the replacement ties were prepared, I painted them with a random mix of rail tie brown and Americana Slate Grey craft paint. In slipping the replacement ties in today, I noticed a section of flex track and a turnout that are buckled from rail expansion: another task to take care of while moving forward with Nooksack. 

Over the last few days I did some thinking and decided that with my desire for one lighting system for structures on the model railroad that I would go with a 12 volt system. I ordered a regulated 2 amp 12 volt power supply and some of the LEDs from Evan Design. With that I will be able to include the couple of buildings that have incandescent bulbs built in already in one lighting system. Having made a decision, I can return to the structure building projects new and old. 

Moving forward towards the goal of visitors in April with a rough to-do list:

• Repair buckled track (trains must run smoothly)
• Steady progress on structures and mockups:
• Cannery complex
• Packing house complex
• GN Station
• Others?
• Big picture of roads and terrain
• First layers of scenery on several mini scenes:
• Team track area
• River and trestle scene
• Declutter the basement and continue train-room and presentation prep.

Is turning this into SMART goal format going too far into the weeds? Would it help or hinder progress?

 

Moving Forward with Nooksack

NMRA Scenery AP

I set a goal for myself of prepping the first phase (Nooksack and East Branch) for visitors aka "holding an open house" in April. As Nooksack is intended as a finished section of the 4th Subdivision I want it to meet some high standards. One set of guidelines for high standards would be the NMRA Achievement Program, in particular the Scenery AP which is made up of five categories: terrain, structures, background, lighting, and realism or conformity. The three that I will really be focusing on next here in the town of Nooksack are background, structures, and lighting. My intention is not to have phase one ready for evaluation, but to build a foundation ready to build upon. Earlier this month I posted about setting this goal as a motivational factor for myself. 

As I mentioned earlier, Nooksack is intended as a permanent part of my long range plan. The intended permanent backdrops have been in place with the sky painted for some time. After looking at some real estate photos online from Everson and Nooksack, I did a screen grab of a corner of one to use as a guide for painting a distant hill line. I mixed a color using my standard latex paints (primer white, my sky blue, and my earth brown) along with the addition of a little bit of a craft acrylic green. I am still debating whether it is a bit too dark; I may add some white to the saved batch and repaint.

I have also been exploring structure placement and future structure builds. Along with the possible buildings for the Nooksack packing house complex, I started fooling around with another screen grab, this one from one of the packing house sites from this earlier post. I have it printed out, resized, and flipped horizontally. I am considering either using the Paul Dolkos small photo with visual foils technique or a collage and mini theatre flat technique (or both?). In either case, I will need to deal with the issue of conflicting horizon lines created by using the photo which creates its own horizon line with its one-point perspective vanishing point. 

At the workbench, I started building a Fos Scale Model kit: the Juniper Freight House. I am not sure exactly where it will go, although originally I ordered it to be part of the cannery complex. On the one hand, it is a small and fairly simple build, but it is also giving me some practice with wood craftsman kit techniques that can also be applied to the scratchbuilt portions of the two industrial complexes in Nooksack. I am trying to do a little bit on the kit most days, while also working towards organizing the train room/basement. 

Lights on Ingleton

I want to actually finish the kit on my workbench rather than getting hung up on sonething and putting it aside so I don't mess it up. Classic fear of failure gumtion trap behavior! The one thing that I need to decide is how I will incorporate building lights in Nooksack. I used Woodland Scenics' Just-Plug over on the Ingleton plank, but they are quite expensive and not ideal in some ways. See my bail on interior lighting here. I definitely want to incorporate one system, not a mishmash. I am considering the system from Evan Designs that Doug Fos explored in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p17ODvYHKOM

  

It is relatively simple, not as expensive as the Just-Plug, and expandable. I'd better decide and if it is a go, place an order! 

Initial Operations -- Possible Infrastructure Solution

 

New role for the rolling cart

In one recent post I mentioned finding that I used the railroad surface itself as part of the operations work. Tools such as switchlists and pencils ended up on the scenery. Car cards were leaned up against cars on the railroad as part of the sorting procedure. In addition to impinging on the scenery, my initial operations scheme was not working with the agent desk scenario that I had originally set up. So much walking across the messy basement, only to forget exactly what car was where. I am not giving up on the agent desk, but with solo operations it wasn't really filling the role it was designed for.  

In my last post I discussed organizing and prepping the first phase of the railroad and the train room for visitors in April. I have started tackling the organizing, but I am finding it a bit daunting. While accomplishing some of the tasks, often one step forward leads to two steps back. However, over the last few days I did accomplish a bit of organizing that possibly solved a couple of issues. The orangish pink rolling work cart seen in that last post now serves a vital role in the initial operations on the 4th Subdivision.

This rolling work cart has a long history with me. Decades ago I built it as a chop saw stand while restoring our house in Seattle. Later I added the wheels and painted it to use in an art studio. In Meadville, I added another shelf and it became a work station in my model railroad attic. Now, after painting with my fascia color, it has become the "operations bench" with bill boxes, a desk top, and storage for paperwork, off-layout rolling stock, and kits to be built to complete the planned initial roster. When I am filling the role of engineer and conductor, it rolls under the East Branch staging. When I am taking on the role of industry clerk/agent the rolling cart can swing out and provide a place and tools to work. 

As part of the organization associated with repurposing the "operations bench" I updated my roster chart, adding a column locating the rolling stock on the railroad, in a storage box (now located on the cart), or on a shelf (now the lower shelf of the bench). I also added the reefer cars mentioned in the post discussing the produce packing plant. While the thirty-six cars are more than can be used at one time, having a variety of appropriate pieces of rolling stock provides variety within a role as Byron Henderson suggests in his discussion of Fun Ops on a small layout. This online article of his is one major influence for my approach to the operations here on the initial phase. By using the "operations bench" the conundrum appears at least temporarily solved of how to sort car cards and fill out paperwork without sprawling over the model railroad surface and cluttering up the fascia frame. A few details remain to be worked out, such as labels for the bill boxes, how to hold the small tools, and making the various rolling stock kits and holders secure. How I will operate the first phase of the railroad seems more settled and a few steps are underway for organizing the train room as well as presenting it to visitors. 

Resolutions versus Goal Setting

My New Year's resolution for the railroad, finish up a number of the projects that are already started before starting new ones, did not make it past New Years!

Planning for Port Gulick, Phase Five of TOMA

So, I went down a rabbit hole between Christmas and New Years. I have an MR flyer about 4' X 8' model railroads on my iPad which includes several by Iain Rice, One of them has always fascinated me: "Loleta & Mad River." It is a handsome, yet quite impractical harbor scene, designed for turn of the 20th century logging type railroading--too tight curves and too steep grades. Other issues with his plan included impossible reach in distances and the inner harbor being too small for much beyond a row boat to turn around. On the other hand, so charming, so evocative, so not finishing an ongoing project! Deep in this forum thread about the search for this plan, is a reproduction of the plan. Readers can view it with someone other than me breaking copyright laws.

But, what if I opened it up as an L-shaped plan instead and stretched it out a bit? One task was to get an accurate notion of the space that it might occupy. Somehow, in my long range planning drawings the space on this side of the stairs is a void. Beyond it is the laundry and utilities, but where exactly the wall might be was empty white space. Taking some measurements and doing some sketches, it turns out that stretching out the plan and still having a four foot pathway to the laundry was possible. Instead of a fixed bridge, what about a bascule bridge? Instead of a 16.5" radius curve, what about a 22" curve? It is still smaller than my minimum, but maybe possible? by stretching the length of the S-curve out to ten feet, the four percent incline might be reduced to something more doable closer to three percent. Using this plan for my Port Gulick harbor scene would potentially add to the mainline run and add lots of atmosphere, but come on, this is phase five of the plan. This armchair modeling is not finishing any of my many uncompleted projects or making actual progress on phase one. 

Instead of resolutions that are already broken, what if I focused on goal setting with a deadline? In my NMRA division, we have been planning our schedule for the year, and it includes a virtual meeting on Zoom in April where we are thinking of having modelers open their railroads for live visitors around the region afterwards. My goal would be to have the "train room" and phase one complete enough for visitors. 

The other side of the main basement is currently a disaster and a gumption trap. It needs serious organization and clean up. I still have half-unpacked train stuff and general basement clutter piled in the middle of the space. While the area around Nooksack and East Branch have been painted and had electrical upgrades, this part is in serious need of work. Beyond the pile of clutter is a "bar" scabbed in by previous owners of the house. I have removed the electrical line to it, but need to get help from my wife to tear out that section of wall. Maybe having a deadline will help me get motivated.

In looking back over the blog for 2024, I am somewhat disheartened at my slow progress on phase one. Beyond feeling behind with scenery and operations planning which obviously need additional work, I would like to improve the surroundings before opening up to visitors. A valance to hide the light tubes and create the shadow box look I prefer would be an excellent step. Again, a deadline might just be the motivation I need. 

I hope that my next post can focus on one area of actual progress.

Nooksack Valley Fruit and Produce Co.

 

Exploring ideas for produce warehouse

In my last post I discussed the idea of using a grain elevator for the 4th spur track or industry in the town of Nooksack. While I still think that a wooden grain elevator is a prototype proven to be appropriate, I don't like how it would fit in this location. As my model railroad grows, I plan to use the elevator kit and small feed supply building somewhere, just not here. In an earlier post about long range plans, I see several opportunities for planning for a grain elevator. As I am now skeptical about having a logging supply company here in Nooksack, what will the industry be?

Well, doing some research and staying in the agricultural theme, a produce warehouse or more accurately a local packing house might be an appropriate choice. My prototype for the town of Nooksack is its nearby sister town of Everson, and as seen in several recent posts I am also using Ferndale for some prototype reference. Everson did have a cannery as a major industry. It and Ferndale also had Carnation condensery plants. As I am planning on modeling the one outside Ferndale, I am omitting the idea of a second one here in Nooksack. One of the founders of the town of Everson planted fruit tree orchards after the immediate area was logged in the late 19th century. In addition to apples, other fruits were marketed such as prunes, pears, and cherries. Berries and potatoes were other agricultural products shipped from the area. By the 1950s, Eastern Washington was the major apple supplier, but agricultural goods would still be distributed from Whatcom county. 

A few research resources to remember moving forward:

• History Link Everson Thumbnail -- Everson History
• Yakima Valley Libraries Fruit Crate Collection -- Fruit and Apple Industry
• FoundSF Produce Market -- Detail Photographs
• Industries Along the Tracks by Jeff Wilson
• Fruit Shipping History

In terms of building a packing house complex, I have some ideas. First of all I have parts left from a previous kitbashing project on the Ingleton shelf layout. I have a front wall and other pieces that I could use to kitbash a brick structure. Many of the brick or masonry structures used as cold storage or produce warehouse buildings are painted white, so I could consider exploring reproducing that look.  I think that I might use the green roofed Walthers warehouse here instead of with the cannery. At least for now I can use it as a stand in. I would also consider scratchbuilding a simple structure here. Working out the tansition into the backdrop will be a challenge, but a challenge that I enjoy. 

Another consideration with adding an idea for an industry is adding or having appropriate rolling stock to partner with that industry. Although I didn't really need it, I recently ordered a Western Fruit Express Steel Reefer from the Great Northern Railway Historical Society. I also had on the shelf a three pack of wooden WFEX reefers. While none of these are in my original rolling stock roster, these would be worthy additions, matching the needs of a packing plant. 

Granted that neither building a packing house complex or a group of car kits is high on my priority list right now, I do feel comfortable with this plan for the final unknown industry in the town of Nooksack. For now, the plan is to finalize some of the projects that I have underway, and after the holidays get focused on making some progress!

Updates: Passenger Service, Initial Operations, and Nooksack Industries

After Dick Bradley commented last month, I went down the rabbit hole of learning about steam generators and clues to tell if a locomotive is appropriate for passenger service. The F7 that I have been using has no visible signs of having a steam generator, and F7 A units rarely had them. In GN passenger service A units were seldom used without being paired with a B unit, where the steam generator would be located. On the other hand, my GP7, seen above, does appear to have a steam generator in its short hood. The clues are the air intake dome and exhaust vent located among the short hood details. Looking at the prototype references mentioned in an earlier post and rooftop detail descriptions in this thread, my GP7 is much more applicable for use in passenger service than the F7 that I have been using. 

Since my last post, I have not made much progress on the combine, but I have gathered the parts I plan to use. Today I weighed the parts, the weights that came with the kit, the metal replacement wheels and the battery for the marker lights. Unfortunately I will need to add some additional weights to bring it up to NMRA recommended weight. As I configure how to wire the power switch into the underbody of the car, I will also have to figure where to add weight. I am reasonably happy with the weathering of the trucks, so I may as well start working my way upwards from there with construction of the car seen in my last post.

Whether they end up as passenger or freight power, both the F7 and GP7 need to be "broken in," so I have been using them in my first trial ops sessions. I mentioned before that I have struggled figuring out what my initial operations approach might be with Nooksack and East Branch as essentially a one-town approach. I am trying to work out a sequence system following the Fun for One approach of Byron Henderson. The first few sequence steps are working well for me, but when I transition to classification or small yard work I hit what my friend Mike Hauk calls "infrastructure" issues. As seen in the photo, the switch list ends up on the railroad. I need some sort of surface for writing the switch list. I don't know yet wether clipboard, shelf, or roll out desk is the answer. The agent desk approach that I discussed here and here may well work as the 4th Subdivision grows, but for this first phase it just seems to add an extra layer. To make up the switch list, I propped the car cards up against the cars and filled out the switch list before gathering and removing them. Now that the switch list is complete, I am set up to do some classifying and return to the sequence. After I work out some kinks, I will post with more detail on the sequence system.

Delving into the Ferndale Memories website for prototype passenger service ideas, I also reevaluated the industries that I am planning for Nooksack. The cannery, the team track, and the fuel dealer will all stay, but I am seriously considering replacing the planned Slease Supply with an elevator and a small feed supply building that I had started for my Meadville layout. In the arial shot and some photos of Ferndale on that website, a grain elevator and feed supply are located on a spur much like the spur here at Nooksack. As I work my way from rolling stock back to structure building, I am thinking that the grain company may better capture the atmosphere or feel of 1950s in Whatcom County.