Always Look On The Bright Side Of...

Jérôme finally tackled his long dreamed project of doing some improvement to his Proto 1000 Budd RDC. With Rapido working on a canadian and accurate version of this emblematic passenger equipment, we thought it would be not advisable to put lots of details and sound in this unit. But it doesn't prevent us to make it more fun to run.

The Budd car is now equipped with a pair of red marker lights on each end. In fact, it is optical fibers from a cheap Christmas ornament that carry the light from red LEDs installed in the car roof bulge. A very simplistic but efficient use of diodes makes the light reversible, which is a great feature for this car.

We were afraid the very small optical fibers would be too small to be realistic, but the results far exceeded our intitial expectations. It would be quite great to add this feature to caboose too.

Next step will be to add new couplers and probably some kind of screen to minimize light in the cab. Some faint lighting could also be installed in the passenger compartment to bring some life to the model... and add passengers too.

Rust and Ballast

We did some very minimal work on the layout recently. I was particularly busy working on a submission for an international meeting held in Quebec City this weekend to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Recollet Friars arrival in New France. It was a great weekend and a wonderful occasion to share historical knowledge among many searchers, students and historians from France, Ireland and Canada.

That said, we still found some little time to check up how the ballast turn out since it was glued in place. In general, the result is quite realistic. But some aspect could be improved, particularly the amount of ballast. I tried to keep ballast very low to make ties pop up, but it was a mistake since the tabs under the rails are now quite visible. I should have known better!

Also, the ballast mixed with white tile grout ended up not as great as other. Lots of white deposits here and there and the ballast was so impermeable that glue formed a thin shiny crust where it could pool. Lesson learned: don't use white grout and use it with parcimony.

Foreground ballast mix with too much white tile grout.

The best ballast job was done with my personnal mix of very powdery ballast. This is a mix of crushed stone power and very fine rock particles. I get this mix by sifting regular gravel until it is finer than HO scale fine ballast. Once glued, it really gives the look of older and packed ballast you can find on branchlines and spurs. It also accepts glue well and is very easy to put in place using a large soft brush.

Background track done with my powdery custom ballast mix

The only "real" thing I did yesterday was to weather rail sides with weathering powder. Until now, I used pastel chalk, but wouldn't be advisable for this use. I recently bought a set of A.I.M. powder. I knew the stuff was potent, but never imagined it would be so much!

Rails were weathered using the dark dirt pigment. This particular color is quite realistic to represent rust dust that gather on rails. Using weathering powered also have the superior advantage to color realistically the spikes and plates details. I remember doing this with paint a few years ago and it always looked clumsy. Using powder is truly the way to go for this particular job. I feel I should have invested in weathering powders years ago!

Ballast lacking between ties

I only have one complain. I found out AIM pigments aren't homogeneous. From time to time, patch of orange or yellow appeared in the mix. Unfortunately, you only find out when the powder is applyied on the model and since these pigments are tenacious, getting rid of the wrong color is not an easy task.

Anyway, that means I have now completely ballasted and weathered a stretch of track. Sure there's a lot of things to add here and there, but the basic stuff is done. In retrospect, I consider I found my personal formula to do efficient and realistic track work that I could sum up into a few basic steps that required no particular skill or artistic intuition:

1. Spray paint track with Camouflage Brown (Krylon, Rustoleum, etc.) and make sure you clean the rail heads before paint dry.
2. Using various shade of tan, greyish brown and other toned down colors, apply an irregular wash over ties to give them a weathered look. No need to be fancy.
3. Apply you ballast with a small plastic container (pills container, film container, etc.) and brush the excess with a large soft brush used for home improvement.
4. Soak the ballast with a mix of wet water (70% isopropyl alcohol and water) applied with a spray bottle (an old Windex bottle does wonder). Use a bottle that can produce a fine and regular mist to make sure it won't displace the ballast.
5. Apply a mix of diluted white glue (50% glue / 50% water) to the ballast using a standard glue bottle with a nozzle.
6. Use dirt brown weathering powder to rust the rail sides. Don't be shy and let the powder works its way on the spikes and plate details.
7. Et voilà.

Each steps only takes a few minutes and allow you to paint and ballast long stretches of track painlessly and efficiently. Later, you'll be able to weather the ballast using powders and washes to give hints of oil spills. A few weeds here and there will complete the scene.

I didn't created any of these technics, but it took me years to finally apply them correctly. I can testify I wasted hours dropping alcohol and glue with an eye dropper, scrapping dried paint on rail, fighting my way spreading Woodland Scenics synthetic ballast with my fingers or with small hobby brushes and losing my temper when cheap ballast started to float around.

Atlas (1) / Athearn (0)

No need to speak ill of Athearn, which isn't my goal here, but I finally made up my mind. After speaking with Jérôme, doing some searches and getting feedback here on the blog, I came to the conclusion it was much wiser to keep the Atlas locos and upgrade them.

As stated, we do a lot of slow operation. So far, Atlas GP40-2W performed beautifully. I'm not eager to trade that given fact for better details. At some point, you have to draw the line somewhere and I know a poorly performing loco is worth nothing even if it is the most amazing piece of art. It will end up on a shelf and I'm not a train collector. I can live with Atlas so-so details. In fact, this particular model have quite many qualities.

Yesterday, I had the occasion to get a Tsunami AT-1000 sound decoder suited for this particular model. When I get speakers, I'll perform the decoder installation with Louis. If I'm satisfied, the other loco will be upgraded and both will receive their coat of long due weathering...

Thanks again to John and Greg for their precious input.

Atlas vs Athearn GP40-2W

Lots have been said about both models. Atlas runs a little bit smoother than Athearn which got better details and cab. But that's mainly hearsay on my part. Both models ran on our layout at some time but I wasn't at the trottle and demo didn't last very long. That was years ago... My memories doesn't probably serve me right.

With Jérôme, we are looking at a way to upgrade our GP40-2W. Two choices: install Tsunami sound decoders into Atlas units or sell them and buy Athearn ones. Seriously, this is heart wrenching!

I recently said the Atlas cab bad look could be improved with some little paint touch up. Thus, I got Tim Hayman's excellent comparison photo and did some digital painting to illustrate my point. I hope Tim won't be mad at me because I defaced his pictures! Atlas locomotive is on left and Athearn on right.

Tim Hayman's original picture from Flickr (2013)

As you can see, once the cab nose paint is extended near a little bit near the round filler, the Atlas version isn't far to look as good as Athearn. What do you think about it? It doesn't address the wrong nose height and cab window, but at least the cab get a more bulky look.

Photoshopped Atlas nose (black paint)

If readers have had the chance to compare both locomotive running performance, I'd be really glad to hear about it. I only had the chance to see Athearn GP40-2W once, but couldn't operate them by myself at slow speed. As you know, train speed on our layout never go over 20 mph and most of the time we are crawling at 10 mph and less.

Revisiting (Again) The Peninsula

Ah! The peninsula… I’ve been thinking about since the last year. In fact, it was the element that started the layout rebuilding and era shift. Jérôme often remind me it was build fast and furiously before we got his advice. And, I must humbly admit he was quite right. On the other hand, this layout section has been our postcard image for years now.

I’ve been giving a lot of thoughts about it. Many ideas were explored, including a small yard, a wharf, a rural town and many others. These have all their own merits, however, they fail to address the physical parameters we can’t change. Louis-Marie made it clear the furnace would be there for a long time, i.e., it won’t move. That makes our rebuilding options somewhat limited.

I must accept is the fact walls are there to stay. New space can only be gained by narrowing the aisles. I’m not eager to go under 42 inches for main aisle and 36-32 inches for side aisles. The layout room is also used as a laundry room, we can't forget that point. And, if possible, salvaging large part of the actual peninsula structure makes a lot of sense. It was among our best work so far and could be easily altered.

The actual peninsula radius is less than 24 inches. In fact, it is about 22 inches at best. The larger radius we use, the larger the peninsula gets. At best, I have a space that can afford a 54 inches diameter, thus 27 inches radius. This is rather good, but the problem is that I must use a curved turnout to install the turnout. PECO turnout has an interior radius of about 30 inches. This means the use of a compound curve is required. From Montmorency to Wieland, the curve will gradually get a larger radius. In fact, this is the best because where important scenery and key operation is required, the trackage will be smoother. And with a 27 inches minimum radius, I feel long cars won’t be too much out of places.

You’ll also see I’ve quite reduced the amount of scenic elements. Maizerets’ lessons are kicking in and I decided to keep things larger and more realistically spaced. I’m now convinced realistic model railroad scenery (except for very urban settings) should have a strong horizontal component. On this revised layout plan, you’ll see that from Montmorency to Wieland’s road (even Malbaie River), the forested cliff is almost a continuous feature. In fact, it represents a 23 to 29 feet continuous backdrop. This is no small scenic feat for such a “small” basement layout.

The wharf idea was quite a stretch and I prefer a simplistic grassed over small team track like Wieland. Some MoW material can be left there to rust and other commodities can be transloaded there. The small winding road of Clermont with the stone wall will be reintroduced.  It is iconic, but not overwhelming.  This is the kind of specific particularities that tells a lot about the place without dominating a scene.

As you can see, most CN operations now occur in Donohue’s yard.  This is not prototypical, but not unlikely either. We have operated the layout many times with this track layout and it works fine. Why change a winning formula?

Last but not the least; I place an almost full size Dominion Textile façade from wall to wall. I’ll have to mock it up, but I feel it will be the most satisfying way to render the shear hugeness of this plant without compromises and having to resort to all kind of scenic gimmicks.

As you can see, the proposed track layout is quite simplistic. There are vast expenses of scenery large enough to make you believe the train is truly traveling somewhere.  The more the train gets dwarfed by its environment, the more we get near to what Murray Bay Subdivision is all about (and probably 99% of North American railroads and everywhere in the world). And remember, it can take almost two hours to fully operate this part of the layout (2 industries, 1 team track).

Clermont in the late 70s (credit: Massey Jones)

Now it’s time to talk about it to fellow club members! And if you want an idea about the team track and nearby structures, Massey Jones will give you a good idea.