I wanted to get one of the water scenes in as it takes away some of the guesswork as to what the overall composition is supposed to be. Aerials indicate the bay is essentially a teal hue which I created using a 50/50 mix of blue and green acrylic craft paints. When that dried, I applied gloss medium using a gentle vertical stabbing motion to add texture. The pier face is a mix of styrene and stained strip wood.
When adopting standards that are going to be fairly time intensive to implement, it’s always good to think through your motivation before investing significant amounts of time. There should be at least a rough correlation between the agony behind adopting said standards and the payoff. Ego or a manhood measuring stick doesn’t constitute a good reason because, well, nobody else is going to really care one way or the other. If a standard is going to a rough road to implement you have to be darn sure you want the end result and want it badly.
Deciding to go with code 40 rail and the associated scratch built turnouts was one such decision. Let’s face it, hand laying and scratch building N scale code 40 isn’t something that goes quickly so if you go that route there damn well had better be a payoff. In my case I’d gladly go with code 55 if it weren’t for one aspect of the hobby I particularly enjoy, close up photography. Viewed with the naked eye code 55 is more than just fine, it’s totally workable. Unfortunately, when viewed in a close up photograph it’s oversize dimensions really stand out. That put me in a position of biting the bullet and going through the grind to end up with rail that is more photogenic, the code 40. Since no commercially made turnouts are available in code 40 you’ll have to make them yourself.
My current project is detailing the waterfront scene adjacent to the three warehouses. Between the warehouses and waterfront is a crossover and siding so that’s where I started with the code 40. Since I had some Peco code 80 track in place temporarily, I decided to remove the Peco crossover, run it through a photocopier, and use that as a dimensional guide. I then scratch built the crossover on top of the photo copy using the traditional method of soldering the rail to PC ties from Clover House.
Once the crossover was completed, I took it off the workbench and placed it on the layout. Note the nice look you get by using wood ties (stained with India Ink/alcohol).
The track bending around the curve to the right is ME code 40. Large flange locos, such as my steam switcher, will ride up on the spikes of the code 40 track so that had to be modified as well. I removed a flex track tie every two inches or so and soldered a PC tie in it’s place. Then, I took a number 11 blade ran it along the inside rail flange cutting off the inside spikes. If you don’t put the PC ties in first, the rail will essentially fall apart with the spikes holding it in place.
Certainly, there are many reasons to feature rail served industries on a layout beyond the operational aspect. If you’re modeling a section of a specific prototype, and the industry is there, you’d probably want to include it on your layout just to be accurate. You’d do so whether you care about operations or not. If your primary interest is structure building, you may want to include a structure whether you care about operations or not. You’d do so simply for the enjoyment that building it provides. That’s all fine. However, if you are adding structures and track primarily for the operational play value, then it’s important to be conscious of how little it takes to spin out an op. session or you run the risk of building in a lot more capacity than you’ll ever use.
Case in point is the mini session shown below. I’ve written many times that I enjoy running a lot of short, thirty minute sessions on my own in the evening as opposed to longer formal sessions. With that in mind, when I plan a layout for myself, once I know I have enough track/industries to run a few half hour sessions, I stop adding capacity.
Shown below is a simple sequence involving classifying cars in the yard and spotting them at the BT warehouse complex. I intentionally made the movements relatively easy but even so it timed out to a half an hour op. session length.
So, there you have it. We only used five of the layout’s turnouts for this sequence. There were no operational obstacles built in and what we end up with was a relaxing half hour running trains.
With the warehouses taking shape, I decided to see how things played out with a mini op. session involving moving cars over from the yard and spotting them in the warehouse district. I didn’t time it but it sure seemed to “take quite awhile”. A reader recently asked me how many cars were on the layout. At this point, only thirteen. The float holds twelve. That car count can be misleading as it doesn’t take many to keep you pretty busy. My guess is that anything more than twenty cars on the layout and things are going to start getting too crowded. Studying the scene composition I decided to move the warehouses down a bit and add a team track at the end of the layout.
Time to start replacing the temporary Peco flex track with the permanent hand laid code 40. Once you get the hang of it, scratch built turnouts aren’t that hard to do. They also give you more flexibility in terms of shape, cost less, and are ultimately more reliable. I started by photo copying some Peco turnouts and the adjoining Unitrak and glued the sheets to a board. Using that as a guide, I then cut the PC ties to length and glued them to the paper with white glue. I’ll build the crossover as one piece on my work bench and then transfer it to the layout. By going with metal frogs, tapped to a Frog Juicer I’ll get some much needed electrical continuity.