Wednesday, December 16, 2020

SR&RL models

I have been steadily accumulating freight car and structure kits for a future layout based on the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes, which is my favorite of the Maine two-foot gauge lines. Recently I started building some of them, starting with a few freight cars. The coal gondola is a resin kit from F&C, and the rest are laser-cut kits from Mount Blue Model Co. 


The side and end panels for the rack cars were scratchbuilt from strip wood using this simple jig. A bit tedious but the result was worth it!


I've also been working on models of buildings that were located in Kingfield, Maine, including the wood/tool shed, the hydrant house, and the car repair shop. All three kits were released many years ago and are out of production. The tool shed is by Chris Cardinal, the hydrant house is by Kennebunk Models with modifications to match prototype drawings, and the car shop (still in progress) was produced by Portland Locomotive Works. All are painted in the Maine Central color scheme that was used on the SR&RL following its acquisition by the MEC in 1912.


While these buildings are intended for my next layout I will use them on the current one as well, near the roundhouse which will be scratchbuilt. I still need to reinstall the turntable, which was removed when I moved this section back into the train room.

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

Ball signal

The ball signal is a B.E.S.T. (Bollinger Edgerly Scale Trains) model of the Whitefield Junction signal in New Hampshire. The signal is set to allow the narrow gauge to cross the Maine Central track.  The shack is from Portland Locomotive Works and is based on a structure by Sam Swanson. 


The final step on the crossing was installing the guard rails inside the diamond. Like the other guard rails on the narrow gauge track, it was made using plastic rail to avoid electrical shorts.



Saturday, September 5, 2020

Crossing the standard gauge

Track is now installed on the new section, including the broad 21" radius curve in the corner. I use yardsticks with holes drilled at 1" intervals to lay out my curves.  Here one yardstick is clamped to the benchwork to find the center of the curve in the aisle, and another is being used to mark the track centerline.  The shelf to the right is for the staging yard:

Since the Thomaston station is now located within the town itself, instead of outside of town as I originally planned, the railroad would have had to cross the Maine Central Rockport branch east of town. This could make for a neat scene, with a ball signal to control the crossing, so I decided to include it.

For the sake of reliability, I first glued down the narrow gauge track and then built the crossing in place using code 83 standard gauge track and rail. After laying ties made from styrene strip, the track sections were cut to fit and soldered to the narrow gauge track, and then short pieces of rail were cut, bent, and filed to form the guard rails and soldered inside the standard gauge rails. 



Next the flangeways for the standard gauge were cut into the narrow gauge track using a cut-off disc in a motor tool. Only the head and web of the rail were cut, leaving the base intact to conduct current across the diamond. After cleaning everything up with files and a track cleaner, I got out the rail bus to make sure everything still ran smoothly.   


The final step was installing guard rails on the narrow gauge. To avoid creating a short between the two rails (not an issue with the non-operating standard gauge track) I made these with plastic rail salvaged from the Walthers traveling crane kit that I turned into a stationary crane for the transfer track (see previous post here). After the track is painted and ballasted everything should blend together nicely. 


The ball signal and a maintenance shack are almost finished so I will post a mock-up of the entire scene soon.

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Extending the layout

The Thomaston section has been sitting on my workbench for nearly two years, but I recently moved it back into the train room after finishing the masonite backdrop on the first two walls.  The sky is blended using two Benjamin Moore colors: "aqua marina" at the top blending into "jet stream" at the bottom.  I applied bands of each using brushes and then blended them with a roller leaving a smooth finish with some streakiness suggesting wispy clouds near the horizon.  Later on I will add photo images of trees and other landscape details. 

The backdrop sits on the shelf brackets and isn't actually attached to anything, just sandwiched between the layout and the wall.  I glued 3/4" styrofoam panels to the back of the backdrop in between the shelving standards so that it stands an even distance from the wall all the way around. Screwing the layout sections to the shelf brackets locks everything in place.

Getting the first section back in place motivated me to work on the second section, which is a largely rural area with no sidings. The open-frame benchwork for this section had already been constructed using my usual technique of a 1/2" birch plywood frame and top covered with 2" foam. One thing I learned when building the first section is to avoid having corner curves cross a section boundary, so I added a small extension to accommodate the entire curve in this corner. 

Ultimately the layout will extend along the right-hand wall to a quarry and harbor scene, but for now I plan to install a staging yard to allow me to run trains in and out of Thomaston.

Thursday, April 9, 2020

Trestle construction, part 3

Here’s the finished trestle. The deck/stringer assembly was installed at the same time as the abutments, and the bents were then glued on from below. I used brown ballast as filler around the abutments and the bases of three of the bents, but it will eventually get covered by the final scenery. The last three bents will be “dirted in” whenever I get around to scenicking the creek.


The metal object between the rails is a RibbonRail gauge:



The abutments I made previously turned out to be too narrow for the approach fills. For the shorter abutment on the right-hand end, I was able to remove the top course from the taller abutment to substitute for the smaller one, but I then had to recast the larger (left-hand) one. The original larger casting was repurposed (upside-down) as a retaining wall, which is visible below the transfer crane in the last photo of the November 29 post.