The first scene to be developed on the Brooklyn Terminal layout will be the corner of the layout near the freight house and interchange tracks. The freight house model is based primarily on the Bush Terminal Facility that existed on First Avenue. I was a little surprised that a scan of an image in the Flagg book was entirely usable for the photo wallpaper technique. I used .040″ styrene for the sides which is much thinner than I usually go…easy to cut but the consistency of leather so it needed to be fortified somehow. I had some 1/8″ thick aluminum bar laying around the shop so I cut that up with a hacksaw (hacksaw blade in a saber saw. Wear eye protection when cutting) and glued it to the back of the styrene walls with CA. Problem solved. The aluminum backing added the necessary rigidity and then some.
Recently David, one of my blog followers, wrote to ask how deep my foreground structures were (six inches to get to the point). David’s question made me realize that the spacing in the above photo is something I gave an enormous amount of thought to but never really wrote about. In terms of composition, the spacing was one of the more important artistic decisions to be made. There wasn’t a magic formula used to arrive at the above numbers but rather a lot of testing with mock ups and trial and error, in other words the “eyeball” test.
Clearly the depth of the structures is very compressed but because of the viewing angle it’s not that noticeable. Again, I did a fair amount of testing to see how much compression I could get away with before things started looking odd. As you look at the above photo the most important dimension isn’t the foreground, it’s the depth of the structures in the back (between the backdrop and rail). I settled on six inches in this case. There is a natural tendency in our space starved world to make background structures very shallow….from just an inch or two down to a pure flat. Unless you can hide the edge point where the structure meets the backdrop such a narrow treatment looks very “model railroady” Also notice that rather than running the street into the backdrop, which never really works visually, I made use of a “T” intersection (the road running back “Tees” into a road in the background running left to right). The background road running left to right road is highly compressed but because of the viewing angle that compression isn’t obvious.
Micro Engineering code 40 flex track with the spikes removed to enhance appearance and add clearance for deeper flange locomotive wheels.
The approach a modeler takes to track detail depends on a number of factors and personal preferences. Two of them are the volume of track that needs to be detailed and how far away you’ll be standing when you look at the rail. Obviously, if you have several hundred feet of track, hand laying with individual tie plates becomes pretty impractical! Secondly, if you’re only going to view the work with the naked eye, and possible from several feet away, any time spent on fine scaling things isn’t going to produce noticeable results. If, however, the amount of track you’re working with is a manageable volume, then spending more time detailing it becomes more feasible. If you plan to take up close and personal photographs, oversize rail and spikes, previously un-noticed from normal viewing distances, really stand out. In N scale, the extra heft of code 55 becomes pretty noticeable when you zoom the camera in. Flex track spikes also tend to be very large.
I’ve written a number of times on the advantages of getting a layout up and running quickly and, to that end, quickly tacking down some temporary flex track allows you to enjoy your layout while you’re detailing smaller sections. Since there isn’t that much exposed rail on the Brooklyn Terminal project to begin with, and I’m already operational with the Peco code 80 track I put down, I have the luxury of doubling back and detailing the rail one small section at a time.
Micro Engineering’s code 40 flex track does give a very nice look for the N scaler modeling secondary track. You run into two issues though. First, many locomotives, particularly older ones, have larger flanges that ride up on the spikes. Second, in a tighter angle photo, the spikes still are pretty large. In short, the problem is the spikes, not the rest of the track. To get around this I’ve set up a system of removing the spikes on the flex track. First, I solder in some PC ties to keep the track in gauge once the spikes are removed. Next, I run a number 11 blade down the web shearing off the spike heads. A few passes with a file knocks down any high spots I might of missed. When you’re done, although the spike heads are still there they don’t jump out in photos, most locomotives will easily glide down the rail, and you still have the nice looking tie plates molded onto the ties.
Here’s a blast from the past….Splitting off of Miami’s “East Rail” siding, just south of the main industrial park, is a one track spur that dives into the weeds, and weaves through concrete canyons between closely packed structures. At the end of the spur there is a blind crossing of 37th Avenue to reach an industry called Pan American Papers. You couldn’t come up with a more interesting model railroad subject. A few days ago Tolga Erbora, camera in hand, stumbled across the local actually working the spur. Being able to catch this action unfold was rare and exceedingly lucky. You can watch his footage HERE.
This mock up of the Bush Terminal Freight house was a test to see if the photo wallpaper technique would scale down to N scale. It appears it will. In this attempt, my main goal was to test the print resolution which does check out. I’ll now rebuild the model adding more layers, depth, and stand off details.
Entering into the Brooklyn Terminal project I had a lot of questions I needed to work through in my mind to see if I had a fighting chance of building something that at least approached what I’d done with my HO layouts. It wasn’t enough to be able to address the questions and challenges (at least what I personally viewed as challenges) but to do so in a way that didn’t involve excessive amounts of time. I really wanted to have a realistic grasp on what the issues were and how hard they’d be work through. At this point I do think I have a sense of what I’m dealing with and it appears the big questions and concerns I had are things that can be dealt with in a fairly straight forward manner.
Photo Wallpaper: Could this technique be scaled down to N scale? The main question I had was print resolution. How would the photo laminates look when blown up in a photo? As you can see from the shot above, it appears the resolution will be fine.
Photography: I enjoy experiencing my models through photographs. Would I be able to create N scale models that would stand up to the up close and personal photography I enjoy? It appears so. With careful weathering, the cast on details on rolling stock aren’t as noticeable as I had feared.
Code 40 turnouts: Track tests a few weeks showed that the Model Power Mogul can handle code 40 track, as long as there aren’t spikes in the way. Easy enough to fix that but what about the turnouts? How to throw them? It seems so basic in retrospect…Tortoise Switch Machines. As I was mulling over the issue I recalled a post on one of the forums where a modeler had devised an ingenious method of modifying the throw wire for code 40. He used the standard .037″ wire but at the end, at the point the wire would touch the throw bar, he soldered on a short, half inch extension of much thinner wire. This approache gives you the stiffness you need to throw the points and a small enough wire at the top to allow the use of narrower throw bars.
Couplers: For now I’m going to stay with Z scale but I’ve been contacted by a modeler that has had some success modifying the Micro Trains scale couplers to make them more viable. It sounds promising.
Keep Alive: To be fair, the Model Power Mogul rarely stalls (even on complex track), but it does occasionally. If I could find a way to get even a small capacitor tapped into the decoder it would be a game changer. Litchfield Station has offered to dig into this if I’ll send them a unit to look at. It’s not the kind of thing they can address unless they have the model in front of them with the shell off. I have to believe that at some time in the next year or two we’ll have the capability to add this feature in tight N scale quarters.
