Colorado Midland Railway Engineering Report

[Dave V]

No pics, but started the truck conversions on the old Roundhouse stock.  With MTL short shanks, they couple nice and closely.

I also started painting that stock car.  Per best guess, it'll be oxide versus the black that MDC used on their HO CM stock car.

Best part is no one can call me out on it since there are no color photos or surviving samples!

[Dave V]

MB Klein order placed for the remaining bridges/trestles...

I had an idea.  I have nice cut stone veneer sheets I picked up at a train show way back in 2005/6-ish.  Here's some of it on the far right:



Anyway, Fine N Scale makes "footings" for the Micro Engineering viaduct kit I have coming from MBK:



Now, the Midland used cut stone for its footings and piers.  I have Chooch abutments for the steel bridge, but in order to do stone footings I ordered the Fine N Scale footings with the intent to "veneer" them in stone to match.

The Chooch stone has far more relief, so clearly there's a compromise, but they'll be matched in color and in weathering.  Additionally, there'll be some amount of brush around the footings.

[Dave V]

I did something two nights ago I'm not sure I should be proud of or not...  It worked, though, so here goes:

I was disappointed in the pulling power of the 4-6-0.  Somehow after I lettered and weathered it, it seemed to pull even less; struggling with 4 free-rolling cars on the level on an 11" curve.  Clearly this will not do for a layout that will have 10" curves and 3% grades.

I broke out the bullfrog snot.  At first I sacrificed the rear driver's pickup by applying straight Bullfrog Snot on a toothpick using wire brush leads and spinning the drivers full speed against the toothpick.  I put the engine back on the layout and its pulling power was much better, but it wobbled and stuttered.  Turns out that the Bullfrog Snot wasn't as even as I'd hoped (it had "lumps"), and clearly I'd given up some electrical pickup.

So, scraped it all off.  Then I tried "snotting" the traction tire.  I figured "what the hell" since the traction tire seemed slicker than I thought it should.  Once again, the snot went on too thick, and I was forced to remove it.  While doing so, I ended up accidentally popping off one of the traction tires.  Turns out Bachmann had the foresight to account for the fact that sometimes traction tires need to be replaced, and that driver is not physically connected to the side rod.  After 30 maddening minutes of trying to mount the traction tire behind the valve gear, I gave up and opened up the journal cover.

The traction tire driver pops right out with no muss.  So I remounted the tire and then had a thought.  Bullfrog Snot is liquid latex.  Latex is water soluble.  So...I painted thinned Bullfrog Snot over the traction tires.  This gave a thin, even coat that increases traction and holds the tire in place.  Lo and behold, once dry, the locomotive pulls my entire Colorado Midland roster through 11" curves with no slippage or telltale wobble that would indicate "lumps" on the wheel tread.

So maybe I stumbled onto something...or maybe I got lucky.   

[Rich_S]

Dave,  I think you stumbled over a great idea, thinning the Bullfrog Snot. My question, during painting / decaling / weathering, was the locomotive disassembled? Did paint end up someplace it should not be? Is something slightly out of alignment?   

[Dave V]

Dave,  I think you stumbled over a great idea, thinning the Bullfrog Snot. My question, during painting / decaling / weathering, was the locomotive disassembled? Did paint end up someplace it should not be? Is something slightly out of alignment?

Actually, no...  Nothing was disassembled during lettering and weathering.  I didn't really paint anything.  One thing I did notice, though, is that the screw holding the forward tender truck had backed out somehow, so it's quite possible that it was pushing up on the drawbar and causing some loss of contact between the drivers and the rail.  Maybe.  I discovered and corrected that as I was putting the journal cover plate back on after the Bullfrog Snot application, so it's not really a controlled experiment.

[mcjaco]

Interesting idea, Dave.  I've been trying to get my Bachmann Lt. Mountain some more tractive effort for four years.  Seven heavyweights is pretty pathetic on the relative flat expanses of Modutrak, with our broad curves. 

I have Bullfrog Snot but haven't decided it that was the way to go, or add more weight....somewhere.

[Dave V]

Light bulb!

I've been struggling to come up with mine structures for this layout.  I have a Micro Engineering "Poor Boy" mine with headframe, and I'l probably either scratchbuild or kitbash a stamp mill to go with it and call it the Smuggler mine from Aspen.

I also have a pair of Walthers Vuclan Mfg Co kits whose square smokestacks look an awful lot like the square smokestacks seen on turn-of-the-century smelters around the state.  Aspen had just such a smelter with a square stack that was served by the Midland.

I can add some wooden outbuildings to a single Vulcan kit and call it the Aspen Smelter!  I just need to cover the area with lots and lots of mine tailings.

To wit, one of Durango's smelters:



EDIT:  Now I'm no so sure...  It would probably completely overwhelm the layout.

[Dave V]

A great big box o' bridges arrived today from MBK!  So, in addition to the big timber trestle kit from Heljan, I have:

1.  Micro-Engineering 200' steel viaduct

- I plan to build this at 4.5" high and with one full tower and one single bent, so one 40' bridge panel shorter.   Struggled to come up with what color to paint it.  A color video of a Midland Terminal train crossing the CM's Ruxton Avenue viaduct in Manitou Springs in the late 40s shows it as an oxide red.  This was the original color for this bridge under Colorado Midland control because the video still showed its ornately-lettered advertisement for the CMRY and its connections.  The Maroon Creek bridge at Aspen still stands, but it had been repurposed as a highway bridge in the 20s and has been repainted many times.  No color photos exist of the steel trestle over Hop Gulch north of Buena Vista.  Other CM modelers (like Sam Posey) have gone with red or maroon too.



Oxide red it shall be.

The other two...  Hop Gulch:



Maroon Creek at Aspen:





2.  2x Monroe Models Branchline Trestle


This will be the bridge at the end of the mine branch.  I bought two because it will span two tracks; the main and the start of the mine branch.  There will be a double bent between the steel spans.  The rest of the unused bents will be part of the other trestle on the mine branch.

3.  Bar Mills lowboy trestle.  Would have preferred the Blair Line trestle per Chris' suggestion, but all I could find was the pile version.  This is a frame trestle.  It'll be on the main.

4.  Got the FNS footings.

The main change from this plan is that the Micro Engineering trestle will be straight and have only one full tower and one single bent.

[Chris333]

Let the construction begin! 

[Dave V]

Let the construction begin! 

This weekend...  Expecting a snowstorm, so will spend time tearing apart the existing Apex, NC layout and then test fitting track in order to determine bridge locations, length, and curvature.

[Dave V]

Just hit the eBay jackpot on Fine N Scale Models truss-rod car kits!

4 boxcars, 2 reefers, 4 flats, 2 sets of gon sides for the flats, 2 tanks for the flats (not gonna use these), 2 sets of truss rod 40' underframes for MTL cars (not sure if I'd use these or not), plus assorted arch bar trucks and Z scale couplers.

I have more than enough decals to do all of these (except the reefers).

Everything's coming up Millhouse Midland!

[Dave V]

Construction will commence this weekend.  Tonight I'm headed over to Home Depot with Jacob to pick up the extruded foam sheets that will form the base of the layout.  I order to accommodate the bridges I have planned, the base level will be 4.5" with the main at 5" above the tabletop.

Also ordered two packs of Arizona Rock and Mineral N scale Cumbres & Toltec ballast.  I may mix in some cinder and local dirt with that.

And soon again will the lonesome wail of the steam whistle echo down the Frying Pan River gorge as the first standard gauge railroad to cross the rooftop of the Rockies carries the commerce of the Centennial state.

[Dave V]

Tonight before the snow starts I liberated over 4 pounds of Colorado dirt:



It needs to be sifted, baked, and de-ironed (running a magnet over it to remove ferrous metals).

Also bought and cut all of the extruded Styrofoam tonight.  The plan was to have the mainline at 5" above tabletop, but I might up that to 5.5" to make the bridges more dramatic. The wood trestle on the branch line would then be roughly 7" above the surface of the Frying Pan River (table surface).



Yep, it looks like this thing might actually happen!

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Congrats on the Fine N Scale model score!
Very groovy kits.
Those tanks for the flats actually make some pretty nice backwoods tanker / water car:



I just put a small wood frame around the tank base to hide the seam.
You can also use one as a partially-buried storage tank next to a shed.

The white reefer in the photo above is also a Fine N Scale kit with custom ink jet decals.
I used Eric Cox / Panamint wood-truss and California arch-bar trucks: http://www.shapeways.com/shops/panamintmodels?section=N+Scale&s=0
The trucks are a little brittle, but look and run very well.
Food for thought.

Looking forward to seeing some more Vollmer magic soon!

[Dave V]

MC, thanks for the kind words and tips!

Standard arch bars work for CMRY prototypes.  CM didn't have any standard tank cars or water cars that I know of, but I'm not exactly going balls-deep on proto fidelity.  Maybe I can work a CM MoW water car into the roster...we are prone to forest fires in these parts!   

Oddly, they did have a "domeless tank car" #7001 built in the road's own shops here in Colorado Springs in 1908 they called a "gas transport car."  It was built on the frame of a former PFE reefer the CMRY managed to wreck.  It was apparently used to transport gas for passenger car lighting.  I've not found a photo, but I bet it would make a neat model!