Wellsville Addison & Galeton in 1:29: Shortline Road Switching Layout Outdoors

[TiogaTracks]

This week was a big week for the layout!  Facing a deadline, I put every free minute I could into layout construction, and while I fell short of my original goal, I still loved the busy week and was proud of what I had to show for it.

As part of a local railroad history conference, a neighbor and fellow model railroader was inviting a group of local rail history lovers over for a cookout, and wanted them to see my project.  I decided to get it finished enough to run a train, but to do that, I would have to build the ENTIRE raised bed garden, AND lay the track, AND wire it up.

I started the week’s work last Saturday, with an outline of the future garden walls drawn in dirt, and only a handful of cinder blocks to work with.  By Sunday, I placed the first few:

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Tuesday saw a bit more of the same:

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By the end of Tuesday, this is what I had done, and I again ran out of blocks.  This day’s work included carefully digging, placing, and leveling some shorter solid blocks to fill in a low spot.

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But thanks to some family help and the good old parental pickup truck service, I had plenty of blocks to place Wednesday.  Adding two courses of blocks stop the solid block foundation looked great!  And once I used matching bricks to fill in the wide gaps between the blocks on the outer edge of the curve, it looked even greater:

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I worked well past dark, using the same photo floodlights I originally got for taking product photos during my high school and college days writing for Model Railroad News.  The pace of progress was increasing rapidly!

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By Thursday, pretty much all the materials were on hand, totaling 75 oversized cinder blocks, about 2 dozen solid foundation blocks, and around 80 brick red capstones.  5 tons of gravel had been delivered, and I still need more.

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Friday was my deadline, the cookout would start around 6.  I had to borrow some capstone blocks, leaving gaps, but I could lay the entire loop on the raised bed garden.  I moved three or four wheelbarrow loads of sod and dirt that day, to finish rough grading of the straight track between the loops.  I recycled some 4-conductor phone cable and some 2-wire alligator clip test leads to temporarily wire up the railroad with DCC power through 3 feeders, but no auto reversing.  As I went in and out of the house, I always brought 2-4 train cars out with me all afternoon.  By cookout time, I had just connected the two loops, and the old Wellsboro Junction loop was packed full of trains.

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I made it to the cookout just a little late, and we decided to start the evening with the tour of my layout.  I switched the trains around to put all 17 cars and the caboose behind U25b 2504.  After a little oops where I ran the wrong way through the loop switch and nearly clipped my own caboose, I backed the train clear, my neighbor threw the switch, and 2504 led the very first train down the length of my garden railroad.

The train arrived at the new raised bed garden loop without incident, and unsurprisingly lost electric contact on the bridge (probably gravel dust all over the railheads).  I knew it was going to stall soon for lack of another feeder wire in the isolated reverse loop section, so I count that as a win.  It wasn’t done, but it DID run!  Here’s the train after that first run.

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I’m excited to continue making progress!  Next steps are to design the staging yard atop the raised bed garden, fill in the garden bed, lay the yard, and begin permanent wiring in conduit.  Dare I hope I can have the railroad operating as designed by next weekend?  Either way, I think I’ll enjoy the next steps of the construction journey!

-Steven

[TiogaTracks]

The sudden transformations of last week have given way to slower, sometimes invisible improvements.  The garden bed hosting Penn Central’s staging yard will require one more delivery of gravel to complete, but it’s looking better and better.  And the first continuous run of the roughly 240-foot dogbone loop happened!

Here’s my test vehicle, the motorized toy trolley.  Its onboard battery let me skip waiting for the reverse loop controllers!

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I was able to get a dozen more tan capstones, so I’ve gotten to work re-laying the top layer of the garden walls.  Also, I planted the first herbs and decorative plants in the garden a bit over a week ago.

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Operations planning is going on also.  I took this beauty shot to help get more eyes on a question I posted to a social media group about the prototype.

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I don’t think I’ll get to the point of actually interchanging cars this year, but I’ll enjoy just running trains for now.  There will be ample buildings, locomotives, cars, and even historical paperwork to work on over the colder months.  And next year ought to bring great things!

-Steven

[Ed Kapuscinski]

So I forget, where in the world are you located again?

[TiogaTracks]

So I forget, where in the world are you located again?

Not far from my prototype’s home turf, Tioga County, PA.  It’s a shame not too much is left to see if the railroad in person, but thankfully there are a few people who know where to find what remains.

-Steven

[TiogaTracks]

Progress has been a winding road this past week.  Need to wire the railroad, so need to install reverse loop controllers (NCE’s AR10 module), so need to build something to protect them outside… so time to do some structure modeling!  But wait, I have this set of windows set aside to build the little station at Gaines with… better do that first, THEN do the freelance structures to protect the auto-reversers.  It makes sense, I swear!

I don’t know when I last scratchbuilt anything, let alone a structure, so I started simple with the clapboard sided Gaines station.  It’s simply JTT and Evergreen styrene with vacu-formed windows and doors.  I still need to figure out the roof, but the important part was picking out doors and windows that fit the look.

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Needs much more work, but it should turn out well.


This is the station long before my era.  Windows got removed over time, and the platform vanished after passenger service ended in the late 1940s.

With that distraction at a good pausing point, I dove into the two structures to protect the auto reversers.  One would be at the edge of a staging yard, so a small tower is in order.  The other is in the middle of nowhere next to a switch.  So, I went for a signal equipment shed look.  A bit of JTT corrugated siding and a flat roof are all I used.

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Then I got to work weathering it with rust-colored spray paint.

A fine mist of orange:
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Holding the can closer and making the nozzle spit unevenly to get larger uneven spots:
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Some fine mist and larger spots of a darker red:
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More red and orange spots, brushed downward to imply streaks:
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And now we’ve taken the structure from this:


To this:
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The whole idea is that the shack can be screwed down to this outlet box which I sealed up and installed pipe connections in.  Old garden hose will serve as conduit for the wiring, and this signal shanty will be both an auto reverser and a junction box.
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I put it where it will go, and it should look great and provide a good sealed home for the electronics.
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I hope to get the tower done while it’s raining the next couple days, and get the railroad ready for continuous running on DCC this coming week!

-Steven

[TiogaTracks]

I’m getting back to work on the outdoor road switching layout, and I could do with some good ol’ RW peer pressure.  So hello again!

Not much changed since my previous updates… until last week.  I added gravel and dirt to level the garden space and railyard with the mainline around the block walls.  I also laid a course of bricks along the garden edge, to give me space to ballast the track.

Before, the dirt compressed a lot (note the exposed ends of the capstones at the top of the photo):




Work is in progress here, gravel added, ready to add soil:




And, all done, track roughly reassembled!




I did some yard switching without cleaning or really properly fixing up the track, and I’m encouraged!  I could switch the yard well, thanks to the keep-alives in the TCS 501 decoder.




I heard there are fans of Conrail in winter around here, enjoy!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I'm assuming you've seen the recent John Pechuls videos on the WAG, right?

If not, you've gotta check em out.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Oh, also, you gotta paint the walkways of that pup black or lose your Canopener Card. lol

[TiogaTracks]

I do need to order that DVD series, I saw the YouTube samples the moment they released!

And yeah, 9245 also needs better couplers, so I can paint the walkways during that.  Penn Central is my core focus, but I gotta have a little bit of Conrail!!!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I do need to order that DVD series, I saw the YouTube samples the moment they released!

And yeah, 9245 also needs better couplers, so I can paint the walkways during that.  Penn Central is my core focus, but I gotta have a little bit of Conrail!!!

It's tough not to love the worms too.

I only made a point about the walkways because it's a thing I've spent lots of time trying to figure out.

I eventually got word directly from an ex-Con on the story.

The actual spec was 100% that the walkways should be black. However... They were painted black AFTER they first got a coat of blue Imron. The Imron was REALLY good paint. But the black they used?

I think he said "it was applied from a bucket with brooms".

So it quickly wore out exposing the blue below it.

It's funny the stuff you learn while volunteering with a Historical Society.

[randgust]

When I first saw the WAG - which was the summer of 1974 during a 'cross Pennsylvania' trip my dad wanted to do, which had Wellsboro and Galeton on the stops as he had friends there, the WAG left a permanent impression.  It was my first long-distance drive doing a loop around the entire state in my fathers massive 1972 Buick Electra, just got my drivers license.

I had a pocket list of Railroad Officials even then, so you knew where offices were.  I stopped in at the Galeton office while my dad was visiting his friends at the adjacent sawmill.  One nice lady in there, train was out of town, but I could walk around the yard and take pictures, which I did.   The out of service GE's were there, the plows were there, a nice assortment of wood and steel boxcars....

And the weeds.  You just could not see the track.  Anywhere, until you nearly fell over it. 

I went in the shop, there was a WP B unit teetering on ties, minus trucks, setting outside.   And inside, another WP A unit, and a distinctive noise of snoring coming out of the cab.  Door was open, I crept up the ladder and looked inside, somebody asleep on the cab floor, back down I went.

Later on, went out to Ansonia, expecting something like a station or something, found only a PC junction sign, and out in a cornfield.  Again, weeds so deep you couldn't find the railroad.   The crossings on the highway were equally invisible except in the pavement.   I remember thinking if I was the Roadmaster I'd want to have my name taken out of the Pocket List, this was BAD.

When we passed through Wellsboro, they still had a PC SW there, and at Wellsboro Jct., another unforgettable sight.  The ex-NYC wood station - and there was one there, had just been 'spray bombed' PC green, including all the vegetation around it, over the windows. parts of the roof, and only the parts that could be seen from the road, the back had been left completely unpainted.  And more weeds.   That was the PC in 1974.

So my recommendation is a healthy layer of grass seed and Scotts turf builder.   Your track is way, way too good!

This is 1978, but yeah, this is exactly the way I remember the railroad: 

[TiogaTracks]

Oh, also, you gotta paint the walkways of that pup black or lose your Canopener Card. lol

How’s this look, Ed?  Looking over many NW-2 photos, your description seems exactly right, the walkways faded and showed some blue early on.  I used some weathering pens to try to capture that neat-but-not-pristine look, and this felt like the right balance for that.








Also, I tested laying some ballast for these photos.  I’m still hoping to overcoat this with finer rock (likely chicken grit) mixed with quick cement mix, and lightly misted with a hose or spray bottle.  But I’ll let this test patch get rained on a bit, to see if it holds up at all to the elements.  I do expect to touch up ballast work in at least a few places each year.

-Steven

[TiogaTracks]

Again, weeds so deep you couldn't find the railroad.   The crossings on the highway were equally invisible except in the pavement.   I remember thinking if I was the Roadmaster I'd want to have my name taken out of the Pocket List, this was BAD.

When we passed through Wellsboro, they still had a PC SW there, and at Wellsboro Jct., another unforgettable sight.  The ex-NYC wood station - and there was one there, had just been 'spray bombed' PC green, including all the vegetation around it, over the windows. parts of the roof, and only the parts that could be seen from the road, the back had been left completely unpainted.  And more weeds.   That was the PC in 1974.

So my recommendation is a healthy layer of grass seed and Scotts turf builder.   Your track is way, way too good!

This is 1978, but yeah, this is exactly the way I remember the railroad: 

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You’ve described the look I’ll be going for very well, with just 2 differences: One, the section I have built is not the WAG yet, but the Penn Central/Conrail, and 2, I want this PC section to be extra well-built, as my JRTM section.  Ideally this single-track dogbone will be reliable enough to essentially “send it and forget it” and have a train reliably circle while guests are visiting or I’m doing yard work.

I really should update my track plan, but the actual WAG section may be changing significantly, so it’s hard to say!

-Steven

[Ed Kapuscinski]

How’s this look, Ed? 

It looks GREAT!!

Also, nice job removing those footboards. The FRA man will be pleased.

If you want to have some more fun with that pup, you can also add the rolled up canvas "blanket" that was often found hanging over the front radiator. I find those add lots of character too.

[randgust]

OK, well, in your defense I remember the PC 'main line' down the Pine Creek Valley (ex-NYC) as being in pretty good shape in 1974.   I was kind of disappointed that I didn't see a train on it, but when we went 'jeep trailing' around the Grand Canyon you could always see the tracks below.