Operations Video! And, Curing Ballast

First, all that goopy mess from last time cured up perfectly.  We're now ready for the next phase of construction, including a working grade crossing!  Lots to come soon on this but for now, here's a quick image or two of the ballast, ready for use.

Quite a change here in a few months, after almost 10 years of having laid the roadbed and benchwork for this part of the railroad!

Next, we have a special treat.  Thanks to regular operator Alexander B., we have a fun presentation this time of a recent operating session, set to video.  He shot and compiled the clips, where we see Conrail trains working along the Onondaga Cutoff and in the yard at Onondaga itself.

Also fun to see is some of the actual maintenance-of-way modeling we do on the OC, and the corresponding delay that the maintenance can bring.  The Track Gang under Supervisor Lee is out in the video, causing trains to need to weave around the outages, or to wait until track becomes available.

Further, you get a taste of the extensive use the radios get in the session through the audio on this video presentation.  Thank you Alexander!

Enjoy a quick taste of operations on the Onondaga Cutoff!

Onondaga Cutoff Operations 2019

~RGDave

YIKES. *Gulp*

Dumping glue on a perfectly working model is just not something that ever feels right.

I know, I know, it's 'just track.'  But, track is a model too, and a critical one for railroad operations.

I've done it before and will again, but when weathered track is working just fine for operating sessions it sure is disconcerting then to have to go back and ballast it.  This is not to say that the ballasting process bothers me: in fact, I enjoy it, more than other scenery element construction projects.  many modelers dread ballasting, but for me it's satisfying.  The part that is hard is dumping diluted glue over it!

We begin with the scene pre-ballast:

A quick vacuum job cleans any stray leaves or dust from the area before dumping ballast and the painstaking-yet-generalized process of tamping and regulating the ballast around the tracks.  First I used Arizona Rock & Mineral's black cinders (N-scale sized) for the shoulders and trackside areas, followed by Arizona Rock & Mineral 'UP-WP-Silverton' mix, a dead ringer once washed and glued for Conrail's ballast in Central New York.  The whole dump is glued together:  I do not glue the shoulders first, then the main ballast, since some mixing is prototypical anyway.

This stretch of about 8 feet of track was dumped, tamped and regulated over about one hour's time.

Once tamping is completed and the edges are sculpted and regulated, it's time for business.  The whole track structure is soaked with a mist of isopropyl alcohol, which washes the ballast dust down from the surface and breaks any surface tension.   This is immediately followed by the glue itself.   My mix is 1/4 part white glue, with a few tablespoons of isopropyl alcohol and a drop of dish detergent mixed in, and 3/4 water.  This is shaken and mixed to a consistent, milky fluid, which is then dribbled out of the glue container on the ballast.

Again, this is the part that's hard to see: huge puddles of white mess all over otherwise beautiful models and scenery.

But, like so many things these days, it's the waiting that is the hardest part, and a 48-hour cure period will amazingly leave this whole mess looking just like prototype ballast - and yet it will be solidly glued in place.  Some of the wiser of my group of friends have commiserated that the early 40's are like a distilled liquor:  the first pass or two isn't even consumable, and it takes months and multiple trials to squeeze, heat and pressure something acceptable.  A few more passes and maybe it's even beautiful.  This is a good metaphor for life, and for modeling too.  Sometimes it's the pressure and the stress of life's tests that will streamline, polish, and improve the outcome.

This ballasting is in preparation for the first-ever working grade crossing on the layout.  That will be a big project - stay tuned!

More to come!  Modeling season is in full swing on the Onondaga Cutoff!

~RGDave

From White to...Dark Brown

Summer in full swing means limited layout time, but in the mantra of keeping things moving, here you go:  20 minutes painting up the bare white plaster makes a world of difference for visitors and operators until the scenery itself is installed.

A little bit of scenery installed before gluing in the foam shoulders for the canal scene makes life easier down the road, too - installing static grass beneath a low bridge is nearly impossible.

Here's a view looking west at the middle of the scene.  It is going to be something else when there's a wooded hillside here, but even now the long gentle curve is a cool place to watch trains.  Much more appealing than bare white plaster!

Finally here's a view of the whole scene from where the new grade crossing will be installed.  This is one of the more sweeping scenes on the railroad and I aim to keep that aspect, adding lots of trees behind and some smaller ones and scrubby brush in the foreground.  This is an exciting addition, one of the typical Central New York scenes that is just starting to take shape.  I am set here for a major push into the fall!

~RGDave

Making Decisions

There is no way around it - with layout construction, sometimes you just need to make a decision, and move on.  It's a leap of faith to jump in and move ahead with certain scenic elements.  While some scenes make sense conceptually, others have taken longer to come to vision.  One of those is the long embankment west of CP 277.

After installing the fascia here last year, the vision started to present itself, but still - how should this look?  Should it slope down to a river?  Should the whole thing be a river, with a retaining wall protecting the tracks?  Should it slope up and be in a long cut?

Sometimes, the best answer is to start putting in the bones of the scenery to see where it takes you.

Scenery in this tough curved area begins with cardboard strips cut to about 1" width and long enough to fit with some arc.  These are hot-glued into place.

After those ribs cure, it is time for webbing to be pulled through and hot-glued into place.

The nice part about hot glue is that it cools quickly, and that means that we are ready for plaster gauze landform to be installed almost immediately following the ribs.

I started out at the west end of the fill, leaving the detail at the bridge itself for later but getting started on the easier part to visualize.  With plaster gauze, so long as you wet down the first layer, you can always add more.  Once it was in place, the vision for the bridge area came to focus.  This would be a great spot not for an overgrown former canal, but for a groomed and well-managed NY State Park System canal park.  These are all over the place up in Central New York and it's another element that helps set the time and place.  A tow path, a few benches, mowed grass, and a historical marker on a sign post will help this feel right.

With that now started, it was time to plaster the area behind the tracks as you can see above, allowing smoother surfaces that can be painted and fully covered with scenery.  This will be a forest area with some swampy grass in the lower spots in front of the tracks.

With the operation of the Onondaga Cutoff fairly well-established and with several open-house events this fall, I am making a push to get more scenery done, and this was a big step in that direction.  Now I need to make time to create a few hundred SuperTrees!

~RGDave

A Mainline Route is Open!

As mentioned in the last post, Track 2 is now complete, allowing for trains to run around the whole circuit of the main line! Here, Conrail C39-8 #6000 leads two other units and a train that represents Conrail's SEEL (Selkirk, NY to Elkhart, IN) upgrade crossing over from Track 1 to Track 2 at CP 277. The unit is a kitbash I did a few years after college:Here, the train comes west across the newly installed 9 Mile Creek through truss.

And a going-away shot of the same train at the bridge:

It's fun watch the train cross the bridge, with shadows from the truss moving over the rolling stock and locomotives!

The bridge was finished by painting it silver, and then weathering it with an airbrush and also hand-painted rust and grime. Then I applied a coat of dullcoat to take away any remaining shine. The bridge track was weathered separately, using a neat product by Floquil - weathering pens. These are paint pens that allow you to just weather rails or ties, which can then be oversprayed to create good-looking weathered track. An overall view:

And, a closer shot, showing some of the details and also the un-weathered, un-installed bridge track for Track 1. Yet to be installed are the code line conduits that will hang on the outside of the main truss, as well as the ribbon guard and guard rails on the track itself. The weathering really allows the rivet moldings and details to stand out:

I'm continuing to lay track, and at this point have only about 10 feet of Track 1 that remains to be put in, including over the bridge as you can see here. I hope to have that complete this week, and will then start to install switch machines, and finish mainline wiring.

In the mean time, I have been continuing to replace wheels on locomotives - a few images of that will be along soon.