Boston & Maine Ashuelot Branch - 1939

[ednadolski]

The next step is to press the axles onto the wheels.

What do you do to ensure that they press true onto the axles?

Ed

[garethashenden]

What do you do to ensure that they press true onto the axles?

Ed

I let them find their own way. The wheels are a tight 1.5mm, the axle is exactly 1.5mm, I wasn't too worried about it. I did put a couple back in the lathe and they ran true.

[Chris333]

I while back I had some Nn3 wheels that wobbled. I made a cup in my lathe to hold the wheel. Then I chucked the axle into the tail stock to press them into the wheel.

[garethashenden]

That's the proper way to do it.

[garethashenden]

Well its been a while since I updated this. There haven't been massive moments that have made me need to post an update, but a fair bit of steady progress. Since last we saw things, I have started on the background hills. Initially using the same brown latex paint to quickly sketch in the shapes, then I've gone back and added tree blobs along the ridges in a few fall colors. I need to add some shadows to them now, they're a bit monotone at the moment, then do another layer on card in front of the backscene. Then a few more layers and start blending in modeled trees. I've also been working on the ground contours, smoothing things over with sculptamold. There are a few spots that are a bit rough, so I'll deal with those before I paint it all brown again.



In between layout work I have been working on a couple of boxcars. The second on is a FineNScale kit for a PRR X29, and its built mostly as intended. The first one got a bit complicated and has been on the go for about 9 months. Starting with a Walthers double door single sheathed 50' boxcar kit, I attempted to make a model of the Texas & Pacific group of end door automobile cars they purchased in 1929. The prototype has a radial roof which rather complicated things. I took a big file to the stock roof and did my best to form it into a smooth curve. Then I glued a piece of 0.010" styrene over the roof and shaped that a bit more. It was kinda mediocre and the project languished as a result. After moving it around the workbench for a few months as I did other things, I decided to see what was up with it. It wasn't as bad as I had remembered, so a bit of filler here and a bit of sanding there and the radial roof was good enough. Adding the seams across the roof that are clearly curved helped with the appearance of things too. The next thing I tackled was the door supports. The T&P cars have a bunch of individual supports, rather than one nice long door guid. After a few failed experiments with styrene I 3d printed them and glued them on one at a time. They're not perfectly straight. Maybe I should have printed them all properly spaced as a single piece? I printed the door stops too. These are the bit I'm least happy with. Sometime after the model was painted they've all warped and look awful, I'll have to revisit them at some point. After this much work on the body the diecast underframe wasn't up to standards, so I made a new one. Its all styrene, aside from the Atlas sourced K brake and brass wire brake lines.






Most recently, today in fact, I finished wiring the track. I had a section wired and running, but last night I got the other half wired up. I was quite careful separating red from black droppers, but still had a dead short when I plugged in the controller. After checking a few things I went to bed, as morning is wiser than evening. This morning I started methodically undoing things to find the short. I suspected I hadn't fully gapped one of the turnouts (and I was correct) but I couldn't see any problems visually. Started by disconnecting the bus at the new section, and then did droppers one by one. After disconnecting the third dropper the new section no longer had a short, but the old section did. Hmm, it had been running before...
There are two turnouts at this point in the layout as the single track line adds a passing siding and a track for the freight house. I took another long thorough look at these two turnouts and found the problem. A sliver of copper had rolled over the edge when I was gapping the ties. It was nestled between the tie and the throwbar and once I removed it everything worked! Reconnected the wires I had removed and there were still no shorts!
I thought about taking a video of the "first train", but that presented problems. I didn't have any DCC equipped Boston & Maine steam engines. The K7 2-8-0 that will be the main resident of the railroad is not yet running. I elected to do a quick DCC installation on a Model Power 4-4-0. Its a nice little engine, although there are things to improve. I quickly found that all the wheels were tight to gauge, but once that was corrected it runs rather well. I will need to address the tender wheels at some point, after fixing their gauge issues they're now too tight in the trucks to rotate on their own. Model Power numbered this locomotive 950, which puts it in the A41 class. It looks broadly like an A41, but they could have picked a better number, maybe one of the ones that lasted until after WW2, rather than one that was scrapped in 1926. Easy enough to fix, when I get around to it.

[garethashenden]

I haven't updated this thread since March, and there's a very good reason for that. In March I got a pair of kittens and they are a bit too enthusiastic about the railroad. Luckily I have managed to make some progress recently, hopefully that will continue. In chronological order, this is what I've been up to.

I scratchbuilt the coal trestle for Ashuelot Paper according to the B&M's standard plans. Its all Evergreen styrene.




The back of the backscene was explored. I'm kinda impressed he made it up, and he had no trouble getting all the way up.


Trees were inspected


I wasn't happy with the rock cutting. I had painted them too heavily and they'd lost the detail. So I replaced them all with new castings.


Which had to be inspected:


And with a thin wash


The trestle has now been painted and installed. Its floating for most of the length so I'll need to bring the ground level up a bit in places. But at least the track is level!

[peteski]

LOL, yes kittens and highly detailed model train layouts don't mix well. 

While those kittens and their photos roaming the layout are super cute, I suspect that it teaches them that this activity is encouraged.  My peteski logic tells me that it might have made more sense to start discouraging them from visiting the layout from when they were very young, which likely would have done a world of good in the future.  While not guaranteed to work, it would have been worth a try.  A spritz of  plain water from a squirt bottle to discourage the activity would have have been a thing to try and keep on doing. My GF uses this technique on her dogs (when they do annoying or "naughty" things), and it works pretty well.

[wm3798]

I agree with Peteski.  As the cat gets bigger and the layout gets more intricate, the problem of feline trespass will only be magnified.

Lee

[garethashenden]

Yes, I agree too. They’re kept out of the room almost all the time. Whenever I’m not working on the layout, and most of the time I am. Usually when they are in the room they get intercepted before they make it to the layout. I posted the pictures more as an illustration of why progress has been slow than as how I think things should be.

[garethashenden]

I have been slowly plodding along with this. Never enough at once to justify a post, but there has been progress here and there. Overall I'm pleased with what I've done, although I wish there was more of it. However, there is one aspect of the layout that needs to be changed. Its a major one, and luckily its not too late. I am not happy with my choice of season. It had chosen late October/early November, but having just lived through them I am reminded that it is a miserable time of year. Its cold and dark and depressing, and not what I want from my bit of escapism. So a change to late May/early June is in order. Luckily there are only half a dozen trees planted.




I have also started construction of one of the paper mills, Paper Services Inc. It is a complex building that was added onto many times over the years. I suspect that the concrete block section is later than my period, but I like the contrast in materials so I'm going to model it anyway.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

This looks great!!

[garethashenden]

I have gotten the yard complete enough that trains can originate there! So far its only one track and three switches, but it works! To celebrate I ran a train and switched an industry. The 4-4-0 was about at capacity with a fair bit of wheel slip pulling cars up out of Ashuelot Paper, but its not the correct power for the layout. I need to get back to the 2-8-0.

[garethashenden]

Well its been a while. I have been picking away at things gradually and failing to update the thread.

I had originally planned on modeling November, but have decided to backdate the layout slightly to late May/early June. Luckily I hadn't really started on trees. I repainted the backscene, or I started to anyway. Its at the same stage it was before, roughed in but no details, except now its green instead of orange and brown. I also have finished the landforms beyond the track, it will be almost entirely trees. So I need to figure out a good way of making good looking trees.




I have done some experiments with trees. So far I have not found a method I am 100% happy with. These wire and static grass ones are ok.


Unfortunately they are made from twisted florists wire, and there is nothing Butternut loves more than florists wire. I don't know how he manages to hear it from across the house, but he does and he wants to help. So this isn't a sustainable method.


I've been slowly ballasting, I like how its coming out.


I was also able to realign the curve at one end. By removing about 1/2" of track I eased the curve from a bit too tight to very gentle, which is a great improvement. A bit of fill was needed.

[garethashenden]

The other thing I have been doing is working on a B&M B15 2-6-0 scratch build project. I started this in 2015 and last worked on it in 2019. I've learned some things since then.

I started with revising the tender. I had originally followed the outline of the water tank, this left a notable intrusion into the middle on the tender, the place where I wanted to put the motor. With modifying the tender I started with assessing my choice of motor, would something else be more suitable? I also wanted to see if I could fit all the electronics I wanted in there. In the end I decided that the 7mm coreless motor I originally had was still suitable, and that an ESU Loksound Nano would fit, along with a speaker and some capacitors.



I had originally designed the tender with an 8 wheeled rigid chassis. The idea being that the weight of the front of the tender can be transferred to the back of the locomotive aiding traction. I have now rebuilt it with two trucks, both of which will collect current from all wheels.


To aid traction, I have made the boiler from almost solid brass. There is a hole running through the center which I will use for the headlight wires. I had rolled a boiler, but it wasn't very good. It wasn't round, or quite the right size, so I tried something different. Its a tapered boiler, and as with most tapered boilers the three sections are flat across the bottom. So you can't just use a cone in the middle. I turned a section for the smokebox and front of the boiler, that was easy. I included most of the smokebox door in the turning.
For the taper, I started with some 1/2" brass rod, drilled straight through and then turned a section down to 1/4". This was done in the Unimat. I then moved over to the Boley watchmaker's lathe and used its cross slide to turn the taper. The part was held by the 1/4" section, that's the largest collet I had.


To go from a cone to the not-quite-a-cone I held the cone on the workbench and ran a large file across the end until it cleaned up. Once there was a 90° angle at the end its done! A bit of care needs to be taken to make sure it doesn't roll too much, but otherwise its pretty easy if time consuming. Here are the front two sections held together with doublesided tape.


Unfortunately somewhere I made a couple of errors in dimensions and both the front sections had to be remade. Once I had two good ones I silver soldered them together. Putting the front section back in the lathe I squared up the rear of the tapered section. The rear section and firebox are just 1/2" rod. That was simple to cut to length, but my breakthrough was the cab floor and the walkways directly in front of the cab. I realized that instead of having a bunch of separate pieces I could have one piece of sheet, which would add some much needed continuity to this part of the locomotive. Here are the three boiler sections, the cab, and the walkways starting to take shape.




Earlier today I was finally able to test the drivetrain, and it works!! When I went a step beyond and fitted an old decoder I have a short, so that is the current issue I'm facing. Tomorrow's problem.

[garethashenden]

Slowly plugging away at this. Three staging tracks are now operational and a few trains have been run as far as Ashuelot. My initial plan was to get this half of the layout running and somewhat sceniced and then extend the line to Winchester. It is now time to do that.
Unfortunately bare benchwork makes a very handy shelf, so the first step was to clear off a year and a half's worth of accumulated detritus. With that done I made a revision to the trackplan and printed another copy. The prototype had four tracks at one point, I had drawn it as three. Three would be very challenging operationally. There's the mainline and a passing siding, and then two double ended industrial sidings. As there will be (eventually) passenger service that the freight will have to avoid, not giving up the passing siding seems like a good idea to me. There's plenty of space for it.


Today I carved out a bit of foam to form the river. I'm not sure why, but the river makes to 90º bends at this point. I'm only modeling one, the other is in the backscene.


Finally, I have a bridge shaped conundrum. This line has four identical lightly built through truss bridges, all 120' long. One between Ashuelot and Winchester, the other three north of Winchester. They were built in the 1880s and still survive. They are light enough that only certain classes of 2-8-0s could operate over them. They are "Interlaced Warren" trusses and rather pretty. I want the one bridge I'm modeling to be a bit of a focal point. I have been planning on using a TrainCat Lenticular truss kit, to emphasize the lightness of construction. But really its too long. I have the space set out for it, but it makes the river quite wide. The river at this point is about 100' wide, with a 120' bridge spanning it. The TrainCat bridge is 200'. I think I need to find a different solution.
The real problem is that I know too much about truss types and I want it to be right. The Central Valley kit is a possibility, it is a 150' Pratt truss. I think the most likely scenario is using the CV kit as a place holder until I get around to scratch building the correct bridge. If anyone has ideas of a solution or knows of more appropriate kits, please let me know.
We can see here the different length options. With both the prototype's 120' and the Central Valley's 150' marked on the upper piece of wood, the lower one being the TrainCat bridge.

And the prototype bridge: