West End Extension Continued: Trains Running and Next Steps

In the last post about the west end extension, I decided to keep it simple by focusing on it being a "scenery break." With that decision made, I have progressed on my to-do list over the last few weeks. In the listing of the steps, I will provide links to the initial "how-to" posting of my approach to that step. After attaching the plywood top and creek bed to the grid frame, I painted the underneath with white primer and ran the DCC bus. Then I positioned the west end extension, now to be referred to as the James Creek Canyon, in place. I drew a center line for the track on the plywood and glued the cork roadbed in place. In attaching the legs with carriage bolts, I found that I needed to use a Forstner bit to recess the bolt heads to later attach the four foot staging. With the James Creek Canyon extension bolted in place, the track and feeders installed, and the staging C-clamped in place, a five-car eastbound freight left staging and headed into Willow Springs.

Now that the James Creek Canyon section is operational, the scenic challenges and some "infrastructure" (as Mike Hauk calls it) questions remain. By notching and tapering the end of the valance hardboard I was able to bend it into a parabolic curve and tuck it into one of the sloping roof rafters. I now have a concrete tunnel portal and a Micro-Engineering girder bridge kit to start the scene. Extending and bending the existing backdrop into the scene and creating realistic terrain with the benchwork up against the ceiling remain as a challenge.

The attic trap door and stairs are the "infrastructure" challenge that initially started this whole extension project. Renee, my wife, has made several suggestions to make the train attic safer. One is to create a drop-in floor panel or cap for the top of the stairs. Another is to, in addition to replacing the rope in the pulley system with wire cable, add a second safety cable that clips in place when the trap door will be open for a while. I am also thinking that some form of warning or caution paint could be applied to the upper edges of the trap door. Unexpectedly stepping backward into the abyss of the stairs, having the heavy trap door slam shut, or just banging into the trap door with an elbow are all events I would like to prevent for myself or guests.

Workbench Tool Caddy

I am a “spreader,” and when I get going on a project my workbench is full! Tools, different stages of construction, and different steps all spread out and cover every square inch of the work bench. I desperately needed a way to corral all my small hand tools in one place. In the photo above, one can see the new tool caddy doing just that.   

I saw an article in the July 1998 Model Railroader by Lionel Strang, where he built a tool caddy in a convenient size with scrap wood he had on hand. He built it in tiers with a 2" X 10" base and a 1" X 6" flat on it with a 2" X 2" in the back and then a 1" X 2" in front of the 2" X 2". He built his with holes all the way through, a removable hardboard base, and painted white for a professional look.

I followed his basic concept with what I had on hand, but with two additions. My scale rule had no home and I wanted a place for the ruler to live to be included. Also, I had a Styrofoam block that I could use to store sharps, such as hobby knives, by slipping them into the foam.

Seen from the end, the construction can be easily understood. I started with a piece of 1/2 inch plywood that fit on my workbench conveniently. I glued (using wood glue) and nailed a thin strip of plywood as a stop on the back and glued a 2" X 4" flat on the plywood forming a tight sleeve for the Styrofoam to press fit into (allowing it to be rotated as the blade slots wear it out). In front of the 2" X 4", I glued a 1" X 2" forming another shelf and back of the mini-shelf/slot for my scale rule. Then I glued and nailed a strip of trim along the front forming the other side of the scale rule “slot.”

 After the glue dried, starting with the 2" X 4", I drilled holes of the appropriate size into the surface of the wood to hold the pliers, tweezers, small screwdrivers, files, and nail set that were in use, cluttering up my workbench, without a specific place to live. Larger tools had homes on the pegboard and some specific tools had homes in mini-kits in drawers. But these small frequently used tools now had a home.

I am still a spreader, but with a place for everything, everything now had a place (other than where I last set it down).  While my caddy doesn’t have the professional look of a final paint job, I have room to add more holes in the caddy to add any other tools that start collecting around my work surface.

West End Extension Continued: Scenery vs. Operations?

Now, with the open grid benchwork clamped in place, travel around the top of the stairs is definitely more convenient than it was with the fold-up staging deployed, the problem discussed in the last few posts. The solution is tight, but better.

To get to this point, I glued and nailed the framing together. Working out in the wood-shop in the barn, I set up on the bench. I used a pair of corner clamps after applying wood glue to the joints to hold them square before nailing with a pneumatic nailer. In one area, I clamped and glued a block of wood behind an angled joint to avoid nails poking through to the back. Using the air tool definitely sped up the process of constructing the frame, even with the "travel time" of moving back and forth from the barn to the attic.


When I positioned the plywood top on the benchwork in place in the attic, before cutting out a portion for the creek, I started having second thoughts about my plans for this new area of the railroad. Part of the issue is that extending the backdrop and/or the valance into this area is going to be tricky, at best, no matter what I do. I started thinking to myself, "What about using that area behind the existing backdrop as hidden staging?" This opened up a whole new possibility and a bit of a conflict: will the focus of this west end extension be on scenery or operations?

Snapshot of Iain Rice illustration

One might ask, "How could this tight little S-curve be a focus on operations?" Well, first of all, Iain Rice in his book, Shelf Layouts for Model Railroads, explains his concept of the "bitsa" approach. Three examples are illustrated on page 32 of his book and seen in my snapshot from the book. Rather than modeling the "whole of something," you include only enough to suggest the whole. In my case, I could have a junction turnout leading to an interchange with the logging railroad, the Puget Sound and Badger River Railroad, which hasn't yet made an appearance along the 4th Subdivision. This would be a line to say, Camp Three, disappearing behind the existing backdrop with the PS&BR having trackage rights westward over the GN. Mr. Rice's middle illustration shows a similar junction which opens up the possibility of signals and/or a "tower man" position. Adding another operating position and another train disappearing into a tunnel/nook are two of the main ways David Capron suggests in his video-taped clinic to achieve "Full Operations on a Small, Room Size Layout." Just as an aside here, if one is an NMRA member and has registered on their website, full access to a large number of video-taped clinics from past national NMRA conventions is an awesome benefit!

Despite investigating how a "bitsa" approach could add operating potential, I ended up going back to a scenery-based focus. Remembering why I am doing this, a tight squeeze at the top of the stairs, should remind me that this is not an ideal location for a "tower man" to be located. Also, yes it would be an additional train (or two: one out and one in), but really, it would travel four feet from staging to staging in this awkward location. Another consideration in making this decision is the overall mix of "empty" space or scenery-only space with operations-intense space. The first third of the eventual railroad, which I often call the initial U-shaped layout, currently has only one scenic break between track-work intense areas. Having a scenic break as this western
extension's focus will hopefully lead to more of the kind of balance recommended by railroad planners such as Lance Mindheim. A final fortuitous bit of research in my stacks (my wife refers to them as "those endless piles") of model railroad magazines led me to Reference Sheet No. 390  from the Great Northern Railway Historical Society: "The Tunnels of the Montana Central Railway." In a different section of the Prickly Pear Creek Canyon from the one with the pony truss bridge mentioned in an earlier post, Tunnel 5 is a prototype for a concrete tunnel portal, curved track, and a short girder bridge that matches the terrain planned for this west extension. A snapshot of a page from this reference sheet is seen here, suggesting how to include steep hillsides to hide the sloping roof. This is what Tony Koester refers to as a Layout Design Element or LDE with, in this case, a focus on scenery. I think that I will of necessity compress an already tight scene and change the location, but use a bridge kit and tunnel portal that are closer to the prototype than the ones I have on hand.

With the decision made to go with a scenery-focused extension, I cut out an area for the creek from the plywood top and a plywood creek bed below. I left the bridge area in place until I have a kit and have it started. I also have the two legs cut to length and drilled to install leveling bolts. The next steps in approximate order are to:

• Attach creek bed and top plywood pieces to the frame
• Paint benchwork with white primer and legs with black paint
• Run DCC bus and install European style terminal blocks as needed
• Order Micro Engineering thru girder bridge and "concrete" style tunnel portal
• Attach cork roadbed and track
• Drop and attach feeders
• Figure out curved backdrop, valance end, and terrain
• Bolt the extension to existing benchwork, mount legs, and attach the (former drop-down, but now permanently up) staging.