On Overhead Bridges

The next major installation of scenery will be installed just east from CP 280, an area where the mainline curves around the big peninsula on the Onondaga Cutoff.  Seeing that there are no locations on the Chicago Line where the railroad does a 180-degree turn within one line of sight, it is visually important to break this scene up.

I began by assembling pieces of several kits and setting them in place to get a feel.

We have the Rix Products concrete viaduct piers in the foreground, and the Walthers Double Track through truss rough assembly behind.  This is a big visual change and so it's important to mock up the general idea before deciding on the exact approach and location.  I decided I'd like to handle this with an overhead highway bridge, evocative of the big through-truss spans that were common across Central New York through the 20th century  - including one that stood at the west end of Dewitt Yard in Syracuse, NY.

Such roadway bridges are not as common as I expected in HO scale, short of custom brass models - and I cannot justify spending hundreds and hundreds on a bridge that won't carry trains.  I decided to use a Walthers through-truss kit, and kitbash it to better resemble a highway bridge.  (The concrete bridge seen above will be located further east in the town of Fayetteville.)

The stock Walthers truss is a kit for a bridge to carry railroad tracks.  While similar, highway truss bridges tend to have bridge members that are somewhat smaller in size, since they carry less weight.  To capture that feel, I used the trusses and floor system from the Walthers kit but replaced most of the bracing with lighter-gauge lattice from Micro-Engineering city viaduct kits.  Some splicing was required.  Those pieces were allowed to cure overnight.

It's summertime, and that means lots of time with the kids.  I brought the kit and my tools up from the basement and worked on the kitbash while they played.  You can see the main kit on the right above, and the ME kit to the left, with a happy 6-month-old Pete behind in his bouncer (which he loves).

Later, as I enjoyed coffee and the kids ate breakfast, I brought the project to the kitchen table and continued my work.  I inserted the assembled lattice kitbashes, and glued the trusses to the floor system all at once while the kids asked questions.  Susie helped (under a watchful eye) with some of the assembly.

Here's the current status of the bridge, which will get Micro Engineering bearings and DOT green paint and weathering before a concrete-and-asphalt deck.   You can see the lacy horizontal webbing, which is much more evocative of a highway span than of a railroad span.  I also used the stock ME bracing lattice on several of the vertical members, helping too do differentiate this bridge from the stock kit.

Given its prominent location on the main line, this will be the centerpiece of the next scene.  It's fun to share some of the assembly process with the kids, and to see this scene get started.  We are setting up for a fun autumn and winter of progress on the Onondaga Cutoff!

~RGDave

P.S. - enjoy the rare total eclipse of the sun today, which will be going on when this blog entry is posted!

More Frickin' Weeds

On the Onondaga Cutoff, we strive to replicate real-world situations, and I am focused between operating sessions on adding scenery or elements that compliment that focus.  It's ironic that one of the great goals of prototype model railroading is to model those things that in 'real life' we try hard to minimize.  Weathering, industrial decay, litter, and, of course, weeds.

Now that some of the scenery behind CP 280 is set, it was finally time to scenic the narrow stretch of real estate adjacent to the interlocking.  Seen here to the left, maintenance crews have carved an access path through the vegetation but Mother Nature always finds a way.  Weeds crop up here, even some nice wildflowers, but weeds nonetheless.

In modeling and in life, sometimes the weeds are a welcome sign of reality.  Best wishes here at midsummer from the Onondaga Cutoff!

~RGDave

Ballasting the Engine Yard

As we have discussed over the years, I feel that scenery is best accomplished in layers.  While the Onondaga Cutoff operation continues, scenery can grow in organically, spreading across the layout in layers that allow your mind's eye to grow along with the scenery itself.   Industrial scenes, just like rural scenes, require some vision of where we want to get to, but that vision changes once the base layer is in.  

For Onondaga Engine Terminal (ONET), I began by adding a 'concrete' apron across the front of the engine house. The kit was built and installed early in the process since the rails run through the drop-floor casting, and so a hole was cut in the subroadbed to fit the enginehouse.  I refereed to prototype photos of Conrail engine houses at Dewitt and Selkirk for guidance on the dimensions of the concrete slabs and how the track was located through the troughs. Composite hardboard made a good choice for the appearance of weathered concrete.

Dark gray grout was then spread across the yard and engine house trackage, with a hefty addition of 'Black Cinders' from Arizona Rock & Mineral.  All of that was soaked with isopropl alcohol and diluted matte medium, and allowed to dry for 24 hours.

Weathering is a critical aspect of any prototype layout, and track is no exception.  Engine house tracks are gritty, greasy, oily, and grimy, with oil- and grease-soaked locomotive sand and ballast. Even when well-maintained, these tracks are filthy!  Arizona Rock & Mineral sells an 'Asphalt Paving Powder' that is a dead ringer for oil-soaked sand when piled about the center of the track, and the same firm's 'Gray Base Powder' is a nice stand-in for fresh locomotive sand that has been spilled here and there, adding nice highlights to the dark grit of the base.

After the engine yard was curing, it was time to tackle the maintenance yard, used to store maintenance equipment, snow-removal plows and spreaders, and the fuel delivery track.  Here, I again used dark gray grout and black cinders, and added some 'Yard Mix' from Arizona Rock & Mineral as well to suggest track less soaked with oil.  Some fresher gray ballast was added where the cabooses are stored as this would be a spot with more personnel about.

Once the area cured for 24 hours, I added some miscellaneous weeds for contrast, and then lined up all the MOW equipment once again.

What a difference some ballast and ground cover makes!  While more subtle than some other recent scenery additions, it's satisfying to get this scene to a more final look.   This sets up the stage for progress further east where some major scenery installations are coming soon.

As the hot, humid summer days pass once again, I am thankful for the time I can spend in the cool basement at the end of each day making some progress and sharing it with all of you.  Enjoy the summer and check back soon for more updates!

~RGDave

Old, and New (well...rebuilt, anyway)

In the late 1970's Conrail took delivery of a fleet of General Electric B23-7 locomotives. These dominated the Albany Division in yard and local service during the later 1980's and into the era set on the Onondaga Cutoff - the 1990's. By this time, the B23's were becoming a ratty bunch, and so Conrail started to rebuild and then repaint them at its massive Juniata Shops in Altoona, PA.

On the Onondaga Cutoff, I work to model locomotives at different stages of weathering, reflecting photos from the era. Here, Onondaga Yard on a warm fall evening in 1995 finds 1987 and 1989 working side by side, classifying cars for outbound blocks:

Below is a closer view of 1989, with the Conrail specific details like the cab signal box and Leslie RS-3L horn, deck-mounted ditch lights, and a lack of sunshades:

And finally an image to communicate some of the tiny work that goes into detailing an HO scale locomotive, showing the metal casting ditch lights that I drilled out using #70 drill bits to accept the LEDs and their wires.

Conrail in the 1990's was a proud company that had come through a tough 15 years of demoralizing rationalization. But, part of that tough period was rebuilding the physical plant, and refurbishing a fleet of equipment - which developed a generation of railroad managers that defined the next 20 years of railroading in the Northeast.

And so it follows that some of the most ratty of the B23-7s were working next to freshly rebuilt B23-7's, and I have modeled that with Conrail 1987 wearing its 1979 paint, and with Conrail 1989 wearing its new ditch lights and 1995 paint. I enjoy weathering rolling stock and infrastructure, but when your era allows contrast, sometimes it provides as much interest as the weathering does.

Best wishes as the summer arrives!


~RGDave

Modeling Maintenance Of Way

A critical part of prototype rail operations on any railroad is 'maintenance of way' (MOW) - the employees that work to keep the track, signals, bridges, buildings, and electrical services in a state of good repair.  Railroaders don't just run trains, or man the towers and dispatcher desk.  My whole railroad career has in fact been on the maintenance side of the railroad, so I am familiar with the equipment and people that do this critical work.

As operations on the Onondaga Cutoff have matured we have added some MOW activity, taking tracks out of service for maintenance.  This adds variety and challenge to the sessions as well as providing a job for one or two guys.  Here is a photo essay of recent track maintenance at an operation session.

Early in the morning of Friday June 10, 1994, Track Supervisor Jacob is on his hi-rail pickup ahead of the ballast tamper, rolling east from Onondaga Yard into CP 280.   He has copied a 'Form D' - essentially a track warrant under the NORAC (Northeast Operating Rules Advisory Committee), authorizing him to be in charge of that track so that he can move the equipment to the work site.

Once the equipment is moved to the work site, it is joined by a fleet of other vehicles adjacent to the track that work together to repair the track structure, in this case by replacing ties and tamping the ballast to level the rails.  While the work occurs on Track 2, Track 1 is busy handling trains in both directions.  Here ML-403 comes upgrade around a boom truck and the ballast tamper doing their thing.

We turn to watch ML-403's locomotives blast past another boom truck laying out ties for spotting.

TV-13 works west later in the day behind three big GE's based out of Selkirk.  The engineer sounds the horn and rings the bell, following the rules, as he passes various maintenance vehicles and approaching CP 277.

After the work is complete, by late afternoon, the track gang has cleared up.  They give the track back to the dispatcher for use with a speed restriction for the first few trains over the freshly tamped area, then remove the restriction once the track has settled under the weight of revenue trains.   The gang ties up all their equipment back at Onondaga Yard and heads for a well-earned few beers at a local tavern!

Modeling the maintenance of the railroad is something we can all do at operating sessions to add variety and give some credit to the railroaders that few enthusiasts pay much attention to.

Take the Highway

We all do it quite a bit:  driving on the interstate is a very 'plain Jane' experience in America.  So, it needed to look right on the layout.  As this scene came together it was important to get some of the accents right.  Here's a few images of the nearly-finished I-481 scene along the Onondaga Cutoff!

Traffic, including my 1989 Dodge Caravan (correct circa 1994) heading north towards Dewitt.

Now that things are stabilized there, I am working to complete some of the background as well to make for a seamless, front-to-back view from this angle.  That means deciding finally on industrial ground cover for the Iroquois Paperboard plant in the background.

Work and usual springtime activity have dominated my thoughts lately, along with family life and even squeezing a trip in to see N&W 611 do its thing on home rails.   As always, though, a few minutes here and there lead to progress on the layout, and every little bit counts!

~RGDave

Blending Progress Together

One of the reasons there is continuous progress on the Onondaga Cutoff is the generous donation of time and effort from several talented modelers.  While the operating sessions require hours of preparation and then the participation of 12-16 people to make the railroad run, I also have several guys that have been a big help with scenery.

Jason W., who built the I-481 Interstate highway scene for me, is one of those guys.  He's been instrumental in helping with backdrops and he built the highway scene off site and once it was completed, he helped me install it.  The edges were left without ground cover, and now I am working to blend in the edges with the adjacent layout surfaces in order to create a seamless scene.

To the left here we see the double-track main line, with I-481 to the right.  The crescent-shaped gap is what needed to be addressed.   I cut cardboard strip to fit the gap, using trial and error to get it close.  Hot glue is a great way to fasten cardboard strip to the plywood subroadbed.   I worked carefully to minimize damage to the surrounding details.

Using a small hot glue gun helps in tight areas like this.  Jason's work in the foreground is really going to 'pop' to the viewer's eye once the scene is blended in to the surrounding territory.

 Here is a view from the other direction, showing the crescent-shaped embankment formed by the cardboard.  This is the rough fit, with some gaps above that are best covered with plaster gauze.

Once the glue cooled down, I used plaster and gauze to overlay the rougher edges on the cardboard.  This will cure overnight, after which I can paint it black, and add the gravel and stone edges with appropriate weeds and ground cover.

Receiving top-notch help from excellent modelers like Jason is a huge benefit to the Onondaga Cutoff and it is a pleasure to showcase his talent along the route on my main line.  Without Jason's assistance, the railroad wouldn't be anywhere near as far along as it is.  Thanks Jason!   And, thank you to all the viewers that take an interest in progress here.  More scenery progress coming soon!

~RGDave