The Carlin foot bridge - part 1

In Carlin there is a foot bridge over the rail yard and this is something I wanted to represent on the layout.  Here is a Googlemaps photo of the prototype.  There appears to have originally been more than the 4 tracks that pass under this bridge today but some have been removed.  Because of compression of the scene my bridge will just span over the 4 tracks.

My bridge is going to end up being a bit different due to the need to compress things.  The prototype has ramped ends but mine is going to be stairs.  Also it looks as if the railing on the prototype are made of wood and my model is going to be all steel.  The starting point is a Pola kit that I picked up last year at a local club's open house.  This bridge only spans 1 or 2 tracks but that's OK as I can use the stairs and scratch built the rest.

 

This is how the foot bridge looks right now with the scratch built deck.  Not so noticeable in this photo is a support tower near the middle that was left over from the Walthers glacier gravel kit.  I have a few ideas for railings on the deck and will hopefully find something on my next hobby shop visit.

These stair towers were not quite tall enough for modern American rolling stock to clear underneath so they were placed on a base that gives them some extra height.  I then tested all my tallest rolling stock for clearance and they all were OK.  I also want this model to be removable from the layout so I made my normal pits for the stair tower bases and built up the scenery around them.  The drilled a hole and glued in a couple of the small magnets I keep for this purpose.  A thin piece of sheet steel was glued to the top of the base between the pair of towers on each assembly to interface with the magnets.  This will be covered with scenery.  The bridge deck is a separate assembly that will connect to the towers with clear styrene strips on each end that side into a space between the bottom of the tower deck and a horizontal beam. 

After the railings are finished, this bridge will be painted black with perhaps some other details added and some weathering.

Spring 2022 update on layout progress

This is going to be a sort of random update of what has been going on with the layout over the past couple of months.  I have been working on two expansion sections for the layout that total about 11-1/2 feet.  This was just too big to handle as one section so it got split into an 8 foot section with the town of Carlin and a rail yard and a 3-1/2 foot section which goes from the east portals of the Palisade tunnels to the beginning of the yard.

I had gotten quite a bit done on the big section when I ran out of ballast and my local hobby shop did not have what I needed.  I had ordered some directly from the manufacturer in late January and while waiting for it to arrive set the big section aside and worked on the smaller section.

The photo below shows this smaller section at this point.  The basic bench work and track layout had been completed last fall.  Recently I got some bridge abutments done and installed, and built up the river banks.

The bridge at the rear was kit bashed from an Atlas girder bridge.  I turned one of the girders around so that the detailed sides are both facing the viewer with the blank sides hidden.  I also made the deck a bit wider so there is room for a slight curve to the track.  I have found these Atlas bridges a great starting point for some bridge projects, sometimes finding used ones cheap at train shows.  Here are a couple of examples of projects I have done this way.   Bridge 1 , Bridge 2

The basic structures of the tunnel portals were done some time ago and I am now finishing them so they will be ready for the east end of the Palisade tunnels.  In this photo the wing walls are being added to the Southern Pacific portal.   When done these will be a close match to the ones on the west end of the tunnel.

 

After a 2 month wait for the ballast it finally did arrive a couple days ago so things should get moving on the big section again.

A Santa Fe video

Been taking a break lately from layout building to do some household projects and also to run some trains.  While I don't actually model the Santa Fe, it is another railroad I grew up with and do have a small collection of Santa Fe locomotives.

After hearing the song "Santa Fe, all the way" I was inspired to get all my Santa Fe stuff out and run them on the layout.  Adding a few others that were in the shop for future DCC decoder installs I put together this short video.  Hope you enjoy it,  I'll post again soon with an update on the progress of the layout.

 

Buildings for Carlin

Carlin will be the most developed area on this layout.  Below is a screen shot from a Google maps 3D images that shows the area that my modeled scene will represent.  In the steam era the Southern Pacific Railroad facilities covered a large area in the center of town and that is all now gone and only 4 tracks remain.  In my modeled eras this was still a crew change point and a local originated from here.  One of the landmark features seen in this photo is the foot bridge across the tracks.

Of course as it is with most modeled scenes my representation won't be 100% accurate.  On my layout I will have the street shown as Main Street in the photo above running along parallel to the yard with buildings along the far side.  I have been going through my small stash of kits for structures that would fit in.  I have also purchased a few things and may later attempt to scratch build a couple of buildings.  The next photo shows some of the structures that will be used.

• The Pola bridge I found at an open house last fall, it will be used with modification for the foot bridge.
• The Laser-Art gas station is something I had and may use it.
• The 3 stall fire station is from my last layout.
• The blue building is from the Walthers Propane dealer kit.  Not using this part at the industry so am using it here as the yard office.
• The half built wood structure is a railroad rooming house kit from American Model Builders.  I purchased this after reading that the SP had a "large wooden club house" in Carlin.
• The tower is another AMB kit that I built about 25 years ago and had on an Ntrak module.
  

Wanting to have a few houses in the mix I found a seller on ebay that makes 3D models of the 1920's era Sears kit homes so I ordered 3 different models.   Each model is composed of several pieces so the detail painting can be done prior to assembly which should make it easier.

So I will have a few structures to work on which is fine with me as it is one of my favorite parts of the hobby.

Controls for Carlin - Part 2

The turnout controls for the 13 turnouts within the Carlin section and a display panel showing the position of all 15 turnouts in this part of the layout are done.  The idea is to have the knobs along the front edge for each turnout and with LED's on the panel showing the route alignment.

Here is a close up of the panel itself.  The turnouts that can create a route through the yard are labeled E1 to E5 (east end) and W1 to W5 (west end).  Those use a pair of 2mm green LED's to show the point position.  The spur tracks are labeled S1 to S5 and use a bi-color LED with green indicating aligned and red indicating diverging.  Notice in the photo below that W4 and W5 are dark.  That is because these are going to be on an adjoining section and are not yet fully connected.  W5 on the panel has a toggle switch as it is the only one that is using a motor because of it's location.

The connections for the W4 and W5 turnouts have been wired to some plugs that will make it easier to connect things after both sections are installed in the layout.

 

Controls for Carlin - part 1

The track work and mechanical controls for the 13 turnouts that are on the 8 foot Carlin section have now been completed and it's time to get serious about the control / display.  This panel will show point position for all 15 turnouts on both sections and have 1 toggle switch to move the points at W5 on the small section.

As I mentioned in a previous post, All of the turnouts in Carlin are going to be manually controlled.  My usual rule regarding the use of manual or electric control are whenever 2 or more turnouts are to be controlled together then go electric.  In the case of Carlin I went through all the scenarios of operation and could not find any situation where I did not want to have individual control of each turnout.  There will be one turnout on the far side of the river that will be electric because of difficulty of getting a manual control to work properly.

The panel drawing shown in a previous post has been modified just a bit, the new version shown below.  The spur track for the chemical transfer got turned around to allow for enough open space along the front edge to mount the panel as the edge of the 8ft section is going to have 13 push-pull control knobs.  Also the numbering has been rearranged so that the knobs will be in sequence from left to right.  A copy of this graphic will be used as a pattern to drill all of the holes in the panel then another copy will be used for the actual display.

The turnouts for the 5 spur tracks (S1-S5) will use bi-color LED's with green indicating aligned and red indicating diverging.  For all of the other turnouts that are part of a route, a pair of green LED's will be used to show point position.  The negative side of the regulated 12 volt DC bus will be the common for all of the LED's.  The positive of the 12 volt supply is run to the center position on all of the turnout control switches.  Then wires from each side of each switch are run to an LED on the panel.  Each of these LED's gets a resistor so I made the tempoary setup shown below to test which values would be needed to get the best balance of brightness and have ordered what is needed.

Right now I am running all the wires from the turnout contacts to a terminal strip near where the panel will be.  The panel will be built on the bench with wires coming out the back that will connect to the corresponding wire on this terminal strip.  To be continued...

 

Progress on Carlin yard

Carlin yard has been slowly but steadily progressing.  Additional turnouts had to be made for the spur tracks that will come off the siding along the front of the scene.  Now work has begun to lay that siding with the turnouts.

While assembling this section of track I have been using a little tool that I made up a while back that I thought would be worth sharing here. This tool has been making the handling of the rail joiners much easier for me.  

Starting with the small screwdriver that comes in one of those eyeglass repair kits I cut off the flat blade end.  A scrap of code 55 rail was soldered into a scrap of square brass tubing of a size that both the rail and screwdriver would slip into.  Then the other end of the tube was glued onto the screwdriver with ACC.  I also filed the end of the rail just a bit to make it easier for a rail joiner to slip onto.

It’s easy to get the rail joiner onto the tool and then use this to hold the rail joiner while pushing it onto the track rail.  I keep this tool in the same small zip lock bag that I keep my rail joiner in.  This idea could also work with other codes of rail and other scales.

This will be the last post for 2021.   Wishing everyone a happy new year holiday.

Another new Youtube video

Recently I created a new video that features most of my Southern Pacific collection.  This gave me a chance to run some things that I have that are outside of the layout's modeled era.   The idea came from seeing a Youtube video of a commercial produced by the Southern Pacific in the 1980's and then finding a few other videos using the same music and featuring HO scale layouts.  So I thought there should be an N scale version and here it is, enjoy.

Starting the Carlin section

Work has begun on the Carlin section of the layout which is about 11 feet long and will be above the staging yard.  I have not been great about making drawings for most of the layout but as I will need a control panel for this area I do at least have the graphic for that panel below which will be used to create display panel.  I call it a display panel because all but one of the turnouts are going to be controlled with push-pull rods with LEDs on this panel showing the status of the turnouts. 

In the steam era Carlin had lots of railroad facilities but that had been cut way back by the 1970's and even more so after the UP merger.  In the era that I model, Carlin was still a crew change point on the Southern Pacific as it was half way between Sparks and Ogden.   Crews based at those terminals would stay here for the required rest period before taking another train for the return trip home.   The Western Pacific line passes through on the other side of town so there were cross overs so eastbound SP trains using that line could come into the SP yard then return after crew change and servicing.

A local originated from here so a road switcher and a switcher will be stationed here as well.  There are a few industries just to the east of town but since I don't have the length to do it that way they will be represented along the front edge.

As I have done in the past, this section is being worked on in the middle of the room sitting on saw horses.  Here is a recent shot of the east end of the yard.  When track laying is completed the section can be set up on it's back edge to make the turnout controls and wiring much easier to install.