Another One Bites the Dust!

Union Pacific's Moscow Local switches the seed warehouses on Harry Bilger's Moscow UP/NP layout.


What is it with the layouts coming down? Seems I know of more being dismantled than abuildin' these days. . . while Dallas/Fort Worth was never a bit hotbed of prototype-based operating layouts, we're losing another great one with the imminent demise of Harry Bilger's very cool railway depicting the small town of Moscow, Idaho circa 1965.

You might remember this one from the 2009 Model Railroad Planning magazine. Harry, who grew up near the Red River in Sherman, Texas, memorialized the northern Idaho farm/college town of Moscow in an 11 X 22' layout in a separate building outside his Whitesboro, Texas home. Harry's been retired a few years, and he's making the wise choice to sell his home and nice wooded property and move with his wife into a senior's townhome down the road in Denton. Better to make the move now, while they still have their health, than when it becomes a real issue.

Harry made a career on the Milwaukee Road railroad in Chicago, but he chose not to model this great railroad, nor his childhood Texas lines, but Moscow, where he spent less than two years while attending University of Idaho. But what a railroad town! Moscow was served by branchlines of three railroads of the northwest, Union Pacific, Northern Pacific, and Great Northern. Harry's layout features the first two; his next, somewhat smaller layout in the new townhome will depict the GN in Moscow.

UP and NP shared a narrow corridor though Moscow, lined with grain elevators, seed warehouses, lumber yards, cement distributors and oil jobbers. It's a great prototype to model--relatively compact, with interesting operations. UP had a local originate here on a turn to Colfax, Washington; NP served Moscow with an out and back local from Pullman and two through freights and an RDC passenger train in each direction also ran thru each day.

I had a second opportunity to operate the layout last week, and it ran flawlessly. Harry's scratchbuilt structure are among the stars of the layout, and he's as interested in digging up a new fact or photo as he is adding another accurate boxcar to the railroad. There's nothing flashy on the railroad in Moscow--it's same old same old GP9's for power, and boxcars, flat cars, tank cars, and cement hoppers between that and the steel cabooses.

For my Aussie modeling friends, the lesson I take away from this American-based railway is this: Harry's layout is another argument for the notion that modeling the "ordinary" often results something that definitely is NOT boring.

It's a shame it's coming down in a few weeks, but I'm sure his next Moscow creation will be just as evocative. And I'll be 30 miles closer to his new place, so I hope to be a frequent visitor!

There's a few more photo's of Harry's layout here.



"back side" of the layout, featuring visible staging and NP's long cement/oil spur track.


Overview of Moscow, NP in the foreground, UP towards the back. The majority of structures are scratchbuilt to match their prototype.


Atmospheric scene of Moscow.


Looking across the NP yard toward the Union Pacific depot.

Alcos in the mail--and they aren't 48 class.

Modeling NSW doesn't mean I don't have other modeling interests. I'll collect a few locomotives or freight cars of US railroads that might have sentimental or special interests. There's a small fleet of Milwaukee Road boxcars and grain hoppers and a nice Walthers rib side caboose in the closet. I've got a sweet Burlington Northern F45 from Athearn as a memento of seeing these giants in the Pacific Northwest. And I've kept a nice handful of rolling stock and the locomotives used on my Walla Walla Valley layout before my NWSGR modeling adventure: the two HH660 Alcos kit-bashed using Lifelike Alco S-series underframe and cab and a resin long hood--definitely custom, and I'm sure the only HO models out there when built painted for Walla Walla Valley!

That isn't the case anymore, since Atlas just released their own HH660 in WWV paint. Walla Walla Valley modeling has gone main-stream! Factory-equipped with an accurate McIntosh/Seymour 538 straight-six turbocharged sound decoder, how could I resist? The detail and running-qualities are better than my kit-bashed version, and the price was right.

They arrived today, only a few months after the order window closed. And I paid nearly $100 apiece under retail for them--under $180 each. And that's with sound. And I didn't have to pay in advance. Eat your heart out.

Times like these, waiting three years now for a trio of paid-for 48 Class Alcos to show up (late this year? In 2012?) makes me realize how tough you Aussie modelers have it. Small production runs=high prices. Small production runs+few retailers=no discounts. Small production runs=wait at the back of the line for the American manufacturers to finish their Chinese factory runs, then you'll have your turn. Okay, I share your pain. And I've got postage to pay as well.

So when I read whinging Yank modelers on internet discussion boards complaining that Athearn has fallen three months behind on their delivery schedule, how dare those bastards!, I really have to bite my tongue. You have no idea how good you've got it.

Waiting for the Mails.. .

Oooh! Should be an exciting couple of weeks by the postal box.

• Ordered a new Canon 60D body,which should be here by week's end. Will sell the Rebel XTi, still in great condition. Gotta get ready for Oz 2012, ya know. . .
  
• New screen for the netbook. It sorta cracked getting jammed in the overhead bin coming back from Arizona in March;
• AR Kits correcting my order for some freight bogies, and adding a few more to boot;
• Mess o'fun stuff from IDR: some new underframes for BCW as well as a couple wagons Lance Lassen wanted to include on my order also;
• And, finally, a set of Austrains FS/BS. . .and thanks to Eva Wong at Tom's Hobbies for being quick on the mark to send them to me so quickly after a month of inquires to Austrains were either gobbled up by the internets or not yet responded to. Once more, Eva and Tom's come through with exemplary customer service.

Now, I only have to find some time to put this stuff to use!



Lookin' fine for a 53-year-old!

This Budd's for ME!

Speaking of cameras and Australian trains. . .I managed to get out for an afternoon trackside to photograph a new commuter rail operation about 30 minutes north of my house, connecting the mid-sized city of Denton to a light-rail route into downtown Dallas. Eventually, this new operation, called the "A-Train", will be rostered with new, ugly "Diesel Multiple Unit" cars (ugly? Well, I'm just crass enough to say they look like dildos!), but until these are delivered, trains of leased Budd RDC diesel cars are handling the commute.

In the late 1950's it was the "Budd Car" that figured to be the savior of money-losing passenger train operators in the US and Canada. Nearly 400 of the diesel-powered Rail Diesel Cars--in five variations, including an unpowered trailer--were produced, the majority for eastern US carriers New Haven, Boston & Maine,and Canadian Pacific and Canadian National. Many had long careers as commuter carriers; some on medium-haul intercity services replacing more costly to operate locomotive-hauled trains. At one point, New York Central--I shit you not--strapped a pair of surplus turbo jet engines to one in order to set a world's rail speed record. By the 1970s, though, most US operators had retired their fleets, although they proved popular in Canada for nearly two more decades.

Where's the Australian connection? Budd built three for Commonwealth Railways in Australia; some look-alikes were also built down undah for NSWGR.

The cars operating on the "A-Train" --10 cars, in five, two-car sets--are all former CN and CPR cars leased from another North Texas commuter hauler, Trinity Rail Express. TRE has surplused them since acquiring a fleet of locomotives and cars based upon (and in some cases acquired from) GO Transit in Toronto. The "A-Train," then, has become the largest RDC-only passenger operation in the world. Quite a testimony to the self-contained, self-propelled passenger cars, the youngest of which are over 53 years old!

I won't walk across the street to photograph most of what passes for US railroading these days--but those Budds in Denton? Oh yeah.


Equally at home from Canadian forests to South Australian bush to the suburbs of Dallas. . .

Old-school modeling! It's in the can!

Sure, the K wagon is $20--but three of these, along with the colorful Kodak film can--make a pretty spiffy oil tanker for less than $99 a three pack! And: bonus! It matches the diecast truck!

Sometimes I think we modelers today have it too easy. There's paint that's mixed to perfection for virtually whatever color your railway used. Detail parts a'plenty. And that fine ready-to-run equipment? It's so good, anymore, that it truly invites the winghers to take broadsides at even the finest efforts, nit-picking, I suppose, for the sake of nit-picking (and let's face it--the Internets give us each a place to be experts).

Something, perhaps, is lost from the old days of modeling. Remember? Well, it was before my time, but I've heard that folks used to whittle locomotives out of left-over pieces of firewood, make turntable pits out of old hubcaps fromVolkswagens, and laid track using old clothespins and stolen chrome trim strip from Chevrolets.

So I'd a bit heartened to see this revival of the resourceful modeler in recent popular modling magazines. In keeping with the reduce-reuse-recycle ethos of the Green Movement, modelers today are using everything they can from the rubbish bin to enhance their modeling. Plastic caps for paint cans? Sure! Bridge abutments! I have a friend who uses his wife's tampon applicators as pipe loads on flat cars (though make sure you ask her at the right time of the month to use them).

I'm inspired, most of all, by the growing movement to feature old film canisters. What could be more old-school than that? It's using remnants of a bygone technology! It's environmental sound! And what nostalgia! I used to have literally dozens of plastic Kodak film canisters rolling around in my car--I couldn't get rid of them fast enough. A few, of course, were kept for storing loose nuts, screws, Kadee couplers and, back in the freewheeling 80s, a bit of herbal relaxation (which could, in a pinch,be used as realistic ground cover, as long as you got rid of the seeds).

Imagine my amazement when I discovered a few of my dad's old Kodachrome canisters from the 1950s--even better than the two-tone grey plastic version, these were in bright Kodak orange and red--what a shame not to use them! And given the recent discussion about the accuracy of the new Austrains four-wheel tank wagons, why not put one to use atop a very nice IDR casting K wagon. The color scheme? Well, I'm sure it's a "what if?", but It almost could pass for Golden Fleece!!

What resourcefulness have you employed lately on your model railway?

A Good Weekend!

This photo has nothing to do with anything in the below post. . .but is IS of an NSWGR subject, the 5-ton goods crane at Gunning. April, 2009.


I actually accomplished quite a bit this past weekend. Fine-tuned a bunch of hand-built points that were giving me fits (adjustments of point gapping, wing rail/guardrail clearances and gauge issues on the diverging routes, all easily fixed with file and soldering iron). Painted trackage I'd put down last week in Gurley. Added the Blue Point controllers and control knobs. Glued down the ceiling tiles and sculpted them into a loading bank, as well as sculpted the scenery in Gurley, and covered it all with a layer of brownish-earth colored latex paint.

And have removed three of the Fast Tracks "Bullfrog" switch controllers (reviewed here) that had, in the course of a year and a half and with little use, decided to become stubborn or downright inoperative. I'm guessing perhaps it has something to do with being made out of wood, which isn't as stable environmentally as plastic is. In any event, these have been shitcanned and replaced by Blue Points. I've just got one Bullfrog remaining in service, and when this one fails--as I suppose it soon will--I'll be rid of them (I think I've still got a half-dozen unopened somewhere under the layout).

The laundry list of "to-dos" on the layout before setting a running night is down to a precious few, and I'm well ahead of the late-June deadline I set myself.

Hoo-rah!

Lower Level work: Gurley

With last month’s completion of lower level (Moree) staging, it was time to get serious about the visible lower level scenes. Two country towns, Edgeroi and Gurley, will represent the railway north of Narrabri, similarly featured with 6.5’ crossing loop, station building, grain silo and loading bank/stock race track.

I’ve modified the prototype track arrangement at Gurley somewhat to fit available space while keeping the rural feel of the place. A truly faithful rendition would place the silo and station building along the front edge of the layout. I’d mocked up the scene with the silo in front, and given the 15” height between layout levels, felt that a silo of nearly that height would visually break the scene in half. Instead, I moved the silo to the rear. I also moved the station building to along the backdrop for two reasons: in most cases, I find it more interesting to look at the platform side of a train station than I do its backside; and its narrow depth (scale 15 feet) made it a better fit along the backdrop than the load bank and stock race. At Gurley, at least, moving these to the front of the layout provides more modeling, detailing and photographic opportunities than it does jammed in against the backdrop. The scenery will be very North-West: flat, wide expanses of farmlands and golden grasses between the Right of Way fences; the “hole in the wall” leading to Moree will be obscured somewhat by a cluster of trees bounded with a bitumen level crossing.

CAPTION: Sketch of track arrangement at Gurley. The prototype is at the top, my version below.

I’ve yet to sculpt the ceiling tile scenery/roadbed base at Gurley, but this past weekend completed the track work, wiring, and installation of Blue Point controls. I’ve included a short video testing the concept, depicting a 44 Class-powered wheat train crossing a 620/720 rail motor set at Gurley. Painting track, adding ballast, and more scenery work is next—not to mention adding the load bank, building the grain silos and construction the station building-- but in its present form, Gurley is ready for operations!

The First Time. . . and The Last Time

The first chance to really operate a large model railway is an exciting moment. All the anticipation built up from planning to construction to testing and acquiring the equipment finally comes to a head.

The last time to operate a model railway before its dismantling is more a time of reflecting on all that came before it. . .the good times shared with friends operating it, and taking stock of what the ‘next’ layout will be like—how to correct the deficiencies of the prior layout, maybe, and how to avoid similar mistakes the next go-round. And imagining how to make the next layout that much better.

These two experiences—the first time and the last time—were rolled into one the other afternoon when a few of us gathered at Lance Lassen’s house for the first and last operating session of his Ardglen Bank model railway.

Lance and his wife have been planning to downsize to a smaller home (an on-going process, given the lethargic US housing and mortgage market), and that means his good-sized layout based on the Ardglen grade in NSW will be coming down. Unfortunately, it’ll be coming down before it really got a chance to come into its own. Those who follow Lance’s blog will note it’s been curiously quiet for the past X months, time spent working on fixing up the house to put it on the market instead of working on the layout.

The layout would probably have come down without a chance to fully operate had I not shamed him into running it ‘just once.’ So for the better part of a weekend, Lance staged trains, cleaned track, and put together a scenario that would keep four operators busy running grain shuttles in and out of Werris Creek yard, banking coal and grain trains over the hill at Ardglen, and moving container trains of cotton out of the North-West. Lance models the early 2000’s, so the mix of motive power is certainly interesting: Silverton C’s and 442’s; GWA’s orange CLF/CLP and 22 class; Freight Corp/Pac National 80/81 class; CFCLA 44’s and bulldogs and EL’s; and a mix of LVRF 44 class in Red Terror, Blood & Custer and Heritage tuscan paint. There’s even a pair of Freight Australia X class as well as a lone interloper green A class bulldog that somehow strayed from the broad gauge and strapped on 4’ 8 ½” gauge trucks.( I won’t tell if you won’t.)

PARENTAL ADVISORY: R-rated language! First and Last Operating at Lance Lassen's Liverpool Range layout: 1)Freight Australia A Class on "Tamworth Fuel Train"; 2) Sound-equipped 4483 on Narrabri cotton train; 3) Spot-hired CFCLA EL class on PN grain load, 2X80 class bankers on rear; 4) same train cutting off bankers on the fly at Ardglen; 5) PN grain empty led by Ghan-painted NR passes waiting bank engines at Willow Tree; 6) 18-wagon coal train 2X80 class front and rear approach Ardglen; 7) 2 X 80 bank engines downgrade lite; 8) 28 grain wagons on the s-curve below Ardglen, 2 X CLF up front, 2 X 80 class banking.

If planning and good intention would guarantee a smooth running session, Lance’s layout would have shined like a Supernova during its brief life. Unfortunately, model railroading is a complex undertaking, made even more daunting by a layout his size—probably 30’ X 25’ and triple-decked in places. Such an investment in time, space and money requires vigilance and maintenance to keep it in running order, and unfortunately the gremlins were out in force. We found out the hard way when reversing some points that not every turnout had the necessary electrical gaps cut in them. Scenery in places intruded where it shouldn’t, inhibiting points from fully throwing. Random nail heads were discovered in rather jarring fashion to be protruding above rail level. But the biggest bugaboos were related to wireless throttles: while the layout ran flawlessly while Lance staged the trains with a single throttle the night before, his CVP “Easy DCC” was unable to handle four wireless throttles sending signals through stud walls. Consisted locomotives unconsisted themselves. And signals to and from locomotives were slow in processing, creating the uneasy situation of trains not stopping when they needed to. At frustrating times like these, it’s always good to mock the old slogan of Model Railroader magazine: “Model Railroading Is Fun.”

Lance was understandably upset when a gathering meant to celebrate a newly operating layout became largely a trouble-shooting session. But we reminded him that no layout operates flawlessly without many uncomfortable shake-down sessions first. It’s easy to operate your railway alone with a single throttle at three in the morning; quite another thing to have a roomful of guests all running trains. The session wasn’t a total washout: we found that with three throttles, the layout still operated quite well, so we were able to bring a few big trains up the hill out of Willow Tree, a pair of 80 Class Alcos pushing on the rear. For a moment, it was possible to see the potential this layout had, if only it would have survived a few more years.

Not to worry. A St. Kilda-Geelong AFL match played in the background on the telly, and after operating we watched a DVD of prototype operations over Ardglen (i.e. “Aussie Train Porn”); Emily, meanwhile, had been busy on the Barbie grilling sausages, chicken and pork ribs.

While it wasn’t the operating session Lance had imagined it would be, well. . .few sessions really live up to our expectations. Model railways aren’t a turnkey proposition. Smoothness in operation is only achieved by constant running, tweaking, and correcting. Eventually, you get to a point of reasonable reliability, But at best, model railroading is a social hobby, and despite the problems and frustrations, it was still a good afternoon spent with friends sharing a common passion for our model railways.

As you read this, Lance is probably tearing down this railway putting behind the frustrations of this first and last running session and no doubt dreaming of the next layout. Enjoy this video for what it is: a model railway as a work in progress. Don't mind the profanity and inane banter. It's what we yanks call "reality teevee."