On December 28, 2018 Tolga Erbora caught Y120 working The Downtown Spur in full daylight and filmed it’s entire switching sequence in an outstanding YouTube documentary.
One of the biggest advantages of modeling the present is that research information is so easily attainable. For example you can make site visits to measure and photograph structures, streets, or rolling stock.
It also makes having all of your answers relatively easily answered in terms of how operations unfolded. Case in point, yesterday Tolga Erbora filmed an outstanding documentary of the local working the Downtown Spur. The film starts as the train enters the spur, follows it’s operations, and concludes with it leaving the line. Not only does this tell us which industries were worked but how many cars were involved, their type, and number. The film also shows the exact sequences used and how long the entire process took.
With respect to how long the entire sequence took, Tolga wrote: ” They left the yard around 8:50, worked FPT between 9:15 and 9:45, then we got O721 for Homestead and breakfast. Caught up with the train at 11:20 at 12th Ave. Followed west to Sun Gas which was worked between 11:30 and 11:50, then they got to Hialeah at 12:20. “
The beauty of all of this information is that I could model the prototype session exactly on my layout.
This week I finally finished and released my latest book, Model Railroading As Art. Of all the books I’ve done so far, this was by far, the most challenging. Articulating the subjective, artistic concepts in this case, is no easy task. About half way through the project I took a hiatus and went to night school at The Smithsonian to gain a stronger background in art theory. When all was said and done the page count came in at over 140, almost a third longer than my previous efforts. Before I started over a year ago I seriously considered tackling subjects with a more known market appeal, structures for example. In the end I had to follow my heart and do something I felt hadn’t been done before and filled a void. Time will tell how helpful it ultimately becomes to the hobby at large. You can purchase it through Amazon HERE.
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.
Here’s how things look at the beginning of the mini session. All of the cars on the warehouse lead are empty and get pulled. If you wanted to add length to the session you could set it up so a few cars were still being unloaded and needed to stay in place. The cars in the yard need to be classified by spot but the fact that the yard is otherwise empty makes sorting easy. Again, you could add length to the op. session if you filled up the yard with other cars you needed to work around.
Begin by classifying the cars in the yard by spot order. Again, since the yard is empty this involves a simple sequence of pull/push moves.
Pull the empties on the warehouse lead and spot them on the parallel holding track to get them out of the way. Pull the inbound cars up to the run around track and run the switcher to the other end of the cut.
Shove the cut of inbound cars into position in front of the respective doors and then take the empties back to the yard. (see lead photo at beginning of blog)
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.
