Thursday, February 13, 2025
Repainting an Athearn Genesis PS 2600 CuFt GTW Covered Hopper
Monday, February 10, 2025
Ciment St-Laurent - All Tracks Done!
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The layout ready to receive the new cement plant concrete pad |
Another big step has been made last weekend with the installation of rails on the cement plant main building. This structure was built on a large concrete pad with embedded tracks. We wanted to keep that look so a thick slab of sealed MDF was used to replicate it. Gluing the rails wasn't an easy task and at the end of the day, they aren't as straight compared to our usual standards, but no derailment nor any running issues after an entire operating session.
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Lots of depth in the yard and under the plant. |
Meanwhile, we have planned the next buildings to add to the cement plant, including the laboratories and the workshop. The big furnace and coal dump will be depicted on a printed backdrop for lack of space and to better reflect how things were back in the days. The plant is so huge that modelling everything as a flat would look absolutely overpowering for such a small layout.
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CN GP9RM is taking over the plant switcher for a while |
On a positive note, reaching that step where ever single piece of rail is in place and working has enabled us to start running trains there for the first time for a long while. The GP9RM was doing some switching duties while the new Rapido GE 44-tonner is getting a fresh coat of paint. More on that project latter, but basically, Ciment St-Laurent had a GE 45-tonner (a modernized one). The original goal was to use a Bachmann one but it proved to lack pulling power for our long cuts of cars. Also, adding DCC, sound, a keep alive, a gyroscope and some more weight in it was a nightmare, I've seen people succeeding in doing that, but that's a lot of work. For this reason, we decided to go with a Rapido GE 44-tonner. It's far more reliable and powerful. Perfect for our needs.
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The return of gypsum cars really change the operation game |
With these new exciting developments, we are now thinking about bringing back the gypsum and probably the coal traffic to the cement plant. When it closed by the late 1990s, they no longer used coal. At the end of the day, we may decided to backdate the layout from time to time and I see absolutely no reason not to have the full experience when switching Villeneuve. It really adds hours of operation without changing anything else.
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The bagging plant waiting its final coat of weathering |
Thursday, February 6, 2025
Repainting an Intermountain Napierville Junction 1958 Cu.Ft. 2-Bay Covered Hopper
This simple project was the result of going down the rabbit hole very hard while trying to finish a project on the cheap. Let me tell you it wasn’t cheap, but it was much simpler than I could ever think.
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Beware of simplicity! |
Years ago, when the club started, we acquired a lot of cheap Athearn and Roundhouse rolling stock at a local fleet market. We built the fleet with $5 cars and didn’t have a lot of discernment back then. Among the cars was a small Roundhouse Penn Central covered hopper of dubious tooling. Allegedly a PS-2 2003 2-bay covered hopper, the model was crude and didn’t fit our theme. It laid back in the corner of a drawer until I decided to marginally improve the grabirons with bits of styrene and repaint it in grey as a 1950s PRR hopper with CDS Lettering dry transfers. It was destined to serve on my Harlem Station module but alas, I believe it only gathered dust in another drawer for another 8 years before I thought something should happen with this car.
Could the
car be repainted in a more Canadian roadname? Well, a quick glance at different
prototype pictures convinced me I could use it for something more local and I
purchased a set of Napierville Junction decals. Meanwhile, I pushed my research
forward before committing to butcher the car and found out it was both the
wrong prototype and would require extensive work to be upgraded to a decent
appearance. There goes the dream of an easy one-day project!
Descending
into the abyss of Internet and nakina.net, it became clear that my safest bet
was to acquire an ACF 1958 cu.ft. 2-bay covered hopper. I had a few choices,
but decided to purchase a neat Intermountain car in a random roadname but which would
be painted light grey to save me troubles. I figured out it would only be a
matter of removing the lettering with Solvaset then relettering with the new
decals.
Not only the new car being highly detailed cost an arm and a leg, but the roof and the bays were painted black! Also, the light grey from the pictures online was far too dark for NJ. Thus, I ended up removing the lettering (which was for once easy and fast) and repainting the car in light gray. The big modification I made was to remove the end cage metal plate used for the reporting marks. NJ cars didn't have that plate.
To save me some time, I
went with Tru-Color paint, mixing my own blend of light gray and spraying it.
As always, the results were great and the car ready for lettering. Fortunately,
that step went fast and the result is far beyond my hope. I’ve yet to decide if
I will add the ACI label to date the car to the late 1960s-early 1970s, or keep
it as is for a more versatile look.
That said, I’m still stuck with my cheap Roundhouse PRR car in the drawer and what should have been a $10 project turned out to cost more than a brand new car! Live and learn… again. You can’t always struck a deal! I’ll take my revenge with other really cheap cars later!
Monday, February 3, 2025
Ciment Saint-Laurent - Bagging Plant Done
Work has resumed on our club layout and we are currently working on the cement plant. This is a huge undertaking we often postponed for every reasons imaginable. Fortunately, with our new Saturday morning schedule, we have more energy in making it a reality.
Last weekend, I was thus able to finish the detail work on the bagging plant, including roof support rods and fascia. A coat of camouflage color primer has been also added after I shoot the photos. Next step is to complete the superstructure (silos and conveyors) on the main building. Jérôme and Louis-Marie avec finishing the concrete pad and the roof, thus we will soon be able to add several details to finish this one too.
Meanwhile, I've been figuring out how the rest of the plant will be modelled. The most realistic approach is to treat the clinker building in the backdrop, just like we did in Clermont with Donohue. The foreground buildings such as the laboratories and the workshops will be modelled full scale with correct detailing. That, I believe, will greatly enhance the experience by providing the parking lot and places for trucks and machinery to get repaired. It will had a human element that was missing from this huge plant.
Meanwhile, when the small Rapido GE 44-tonner performance will be fully assessed, it will be repainted in Ciment St-Laurent colors.
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Monk Subdivision - Progress at the Staging
Steady progress has been recorded on the Monk Subdivision with more tracks installed in the staging. With the lift bridge completed, there is no reason to not lay track as far as I can until switching my attention to the layout itself.
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Paper templates mockup really helps to settled down the track arrangement |
Installing track right now without delay has been an excellent idea because I've been able to test the Fast Tracks 30"/27" curved radius by using paper template. The good news is they all fit very well in my space, meaning I can finally go forward with the track plan.
Another positive thing is that after a while, it was clear I had enough space for a seventh staging track on the lift bridge and I decided to add it. The benchwork had to be enlarged in the big 180 degrees curve, but otherwise, there was plenty of space for it.
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The lift bridge is now optimized with 8 tracks |
Then, it struck me that I also had space for an height track on the lift bridge... I did some test with spare turnouts and yes, it did all fit my space, albeit the 180 degrees curve which had to be widened anyway.
So, at the end of the day, I'm back to a 8 track staging yard, which is about the same capacity than the original 2 level staging design. This is an unexpected discovery that truly makes my day as the layout is now without any major capacity or minimum radius constraints to run all the trains I planned for it.
Monday, January 20, 2025
Repainting Athearn CN 50ft Mechanical Reefers
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A poorly factory painted vintage Athearn reefer |
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A bargain bin find at the LHS |
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Super Clean can't cut through the old Athearn paint |
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Removing rivets carefully with a chisel blade |
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A car ready for primer |
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Yellow pigments are notorious for their poor coverage |
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Faulty decals with a frosted/fissured surface |
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Small details such as patches tell a story of their own |
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Completed cars ready for future weathering |
Sunday, January 19, 2025
Relettering a Walthers Proto 10,000 Gallong Tank Car
As I move through my pile of kits and cars to be redetailed or repainted, I sometimes stumble upon fruits that are so low hanging it would be criminal not to harvest them. An easy win is an easy win and for that reason, they should always be taken.
The story started with a set of Black Cat decals for a McColl-Frontenac Oil Company car. I had purchased it because I liked the name of the company, with Frontenac resonating with Quebec City a lot since that man of the 17th century was one of the most famous governor of New France. Frontenac Oil was a business based in Montreal that was merged with McColl & Anderson Oil in 1927. Their fleet of tank cars was in service until the very early 1960s. The company was partially owned by Texaco who became the main shareholder by 1941. In 1959, it became Texaco Canada until it merged with Imperial Esso in the late 1980s and became history.
While reading the instruction sheet, it was clear I would need a 10,000 gallons tank car. A quick search on the internet shown me a prototype picture of a McColl-Frontenac car which looked quite similar to a Walthers Proto one. I always thought the old Life-Like Proto 2000 tank cars were gems and since one in CNW OCS paint scheme was for sale at some Canadian hobby shop where I was doing some purchase, in the cart it ended up.
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Factory painted car before modification |
As with many relettering project, I knew it would be better to remove the old factory applied lettering and keep the original paint job. It would make it less likely to break details, particularly on such a delicate car. Fortunately, for a rare instance in my modelling life, the trick to cover the lettering a few minutes with towels soaked in Solvaset worked! Using a few cotton buds, I wiped the old lettering away until every little trace was gone. Sometimes, a few drops of Solvaset did the trick to remove the most stubborn remnants. In fact, it worked so well and so fast I was able to reletter the car only a few minutes after since the paint became extremely glossy and perfect for decalling.
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The joy of erasing factory lettering with Solvaset |
Black Cat indicates that the McColl-Frontenac name should be centered on the car, behind the ladders. However, the only available prototype picture online lifted up from Pinterest show the name on the right side. I felt it looked better and went forward with that. However, later during the decalling process, it occurred to me the Black Cat artwork was of a later version of the scheme while my prototype picture was from an earlier scheme that was used when the cars were built or acquired by McColl-Frontenac. The question raised was if I should redo the car with centered lettering or keep if on the right.
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Early paint scheme (credit: unknown, Pinterest) |
I have no answer with to that question. A discussion on Facebook with freight car gurus such as Ian Cranstone, Dan Del'Unto and others couldn't provide more prototype photos of McColl-Frontenac cars. The conclusion reached by all of them was that since no evidence was available to contradict my work and that I had, in good faith, followed a known prototype picture, I should keep it as is because it was an educated guess that made a lot of sense.
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Completed car sitting on the feed mill siding. |
So, after reaching that conclusion, I sprayed a coat of satin varnish over the car to seal the decals and restore the factory finish. I'm starting to really like AK Interactive satin varnish because it has that nice semi-gloss appearance so fitting for a brand new car. Until I weather it it the future, it will join the rest of the 1950s Monk roster.
Saturday, January 18, 2025
Monk Subdivision - Building a Lift Bridge
When I designed the Monk Subdivision current staging room, it was clear I need to cross the doorway. In my mind, it would be simply a drop in module with tracks screwed in place. No hinges, no fancy systems... and sure I did build it and it worked until I tried to take out and it stuck because of wood expansion.
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The plywood flat rest against a 2 inches shelf |
I swore I would not replicate this system and decided to design a lift bridge with two hinges. However, I didn't throw away my previous module and a few basic ideas. First, I liked how the module was sitting flush on the layout due to two birch plywood overhangs. The plywood rest on a small notch were I didn't put fiberboard. This was, even if I use hinges, the module weight isn't resting on them.
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In closed position, the hinges only serve for alignment. |
On the other side of the doorway, I installed double bead catches as an alignment device but also as a way to lock the panel in position. Sure, it isn't as strong as a bolt, but so far, I've been impressed with the result. It's both strong, easy to adjust and convenient.
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Cheap, strong and self-aligning: double bead catches |
However, one shouldn't expect a moving device such as a bridge to work perfectly out of the blue and Louis-Marie helped me to adjust it until performance was optimal. A few styrene shim under the hinges, some careful sanding to get a perfect assembly and making sure the catches were on the right place did a lot to improve the finished product.
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Pre-drilled PC board ties |
As for track, the birch plywood used at both ends is also a way to provide a solid foundation to fix the track. A strip of plywood is also provided at each ends of the layout. The first ties on each side of the gap are Fast Tracks PC board ties nailed in place with their height adjusted as best as I could.
Flextrack was laid continuously over the gap and plastic ties removed where PC board ones were provided. I then soldered the rails on the PC boards to get a strong link. Using flextrack also helped to make sure both the gauge and rail height were a perfect match.
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Rails soldered and with their gap |
The nice thing with this method is that if the PC board tie tops aren't 100% flush, the solder will fill the gap. Once the rails cooled down, I cut the gaps with a cutting disk and tested if the lift bridge was working as expected... and sure it did! The key, indeed, is to make sure the hinges pivot is higher than the rail head to provide enough space for the bridge to fold over without ripping the track.
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In open position, no risk at all. |
I certainly won't win an award for this lift bridge and I know that humidity variation will have an impact down the road, but I made sure to provide enough adjustment room here and there to be able to make alterations if ever required.
Lessons learned with this experiment are most likely to be applied to the other lift bridge in the scenic part of the layout. I never liked the cumbersome swing bridge I built a few years ago and will cheerful disassemble it when the time comes!
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Repainting a Tortillard du Saint-Laurent Generator Car
Tortillard du Saint-Laurent was a passenger tourist train operating in the mid-1980s with GO Transit bilevel coached and a GP9RM freight locomotive. As expected, this engine couldn't handle all the needs of the coach and an old CN baggage car #8085 was converted as a generator car. This rolling stock equipment was painted in white and green to match the GO Transit coaches and equipped with a Faguy diesel generator.
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Old Tortillard postcard |
If we can take the sponsors name painted on the car side as indicators, it seems to mean that Ultramar provided the fuel and CN the crew and motive power. The old baggage car was from the old Super Continental lightweight cars that CN had ordered in the 1950s and as such, a Rapido one could provide a good starting point. Indeed, given Rapido already made the GP9RM and the bilevel coaches, it was fitting to repaint a baggage car.
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The generator car shot from the side (credit: Pierre Rochette) |
In some way, it would be a very straightforward project... just repaint isn't it? Well, first, I had to design the lettering by using the very few good pictures available to figure out the logos. On some poor quality pictures or under glancing sunlight, they disappeared and one could believe they weren't there at all. In the beginning, it really fooled me because I thought no logo were visible in 1984 and they were added in 1985. Most likely, they were always there as later evidence surfaced.
When the decals were done and en route for printing by Bill Brillinger, I started to disassemble the car. This being an early Rapido run, it had some quirks, but I was finally able to get it in parts for ease of painting. The first thing I did was to remove the lettering with Solvaset and a wet fine grit sandpaper. I also used the same trick to smooth the paint lines between the black and white part. If you have painted a car that had some artwork still applied, you know too well that these demarcation lines always show up. So sanding them done was the order of the day because I didn't want to dip the model into the ultrasonic bath and mess things up.
I also reassembled the doors in open position and glued them permanently. The Tortillard always left them open to bring air to the generator and provide a way for fumes to exhaust.
Finding the exact GO Transit green color was a little tricky. Tru-Color Paint do have shades of GO Transit greens, but these are the modern ones and not the early green. An old bottle of a discontinued green made by Citadel was a perfect match, but I ran out of it quickly and it was too thick to give a smooth finish.
I went to the wargaming shop with a Rapido GO Transit coach and started to look at their different green until I found a decent match. It was Vallejo Deep Green 70.970. While testing the color on a piece of styrene, it became clear that color was somewhat too dark. So I started to create custom mixes until I found a decent recipe. It was 5 drop of Deep Green, 1 drop of AK Deep Yellow and 1 drop of White. I couldn't ask for a better match.
Now I had to decide where the white line should be painted on the car. I did the old trick that railways used. You measure the stripe from the rail head. Using a caliper, I measured the bottom and top of the white line on a Rapido bilevel coach, then transferred this data to another baggage car (I own several ones and didn't want to reassemble the model I had already put apart). When the white stripe location was known, I masked the car and sprayed the green paint.
A few coat of gloss were then airbrushed to provide a neat surface for decals. In hindsight, I should have been more careful and removed the Citadel paint early coat instead of painting over it. Laziness is too often the mother of all sins isn't it!
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Scratchbuilding a diesel generator... |
While the varnish was drying, I decided to build a Faguy generator to decorate the interior of the car. A few pictures online provide references about a Faguy mid-1980s diesel generator. They were painted in turquoise and were mounted on metal skid. Which styrene pieces, sprues and some remnants of Tichy roofwalks, I was able to cobble together a decent generator.
A good coat of paint, some drybrushing and hand painting warning labels and Faguy nameplate on it made it somewhat plausible. A wash of AK Kerosene and Oil brought it to life. It was time to finish the car!
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Painted and weathered |
Decals were applied according to pictures and I feared, for a while, there wouldn't be enough place on the letterboard for the "Tortillard" moniker to fit. Fortunately, my measures were indeed right and everything fitted as intended.
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Fitting the huge generator inside the car |
I then sealed the decals, added the grabirons and retouched some overspray areas on black parts. The Faguy generator was cemented with canopy glue inside the car... and it became almost instantly invisible... all that work for almost nothing! Classic!
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Can you see the generator? |
The roof was added and I worked hard to fit the underframe. It was hard at the beginning until I found out bits of sprue gates hadn't been sanded down at the factory and interfere with the underframe. Once cut, everything fitted together and the car was assembled once for all.
I'm quite pleased with the result, except for the fact the roof doesn't fit tighly on the shel.. Some manufacturing issues it seems. Maybe I'll try to address the problem in a month when the paint will be fully cured. I also feel bad for not bringing the car to NMRA standards when I still had access inside. It's still doable, but less practical.
With that said, I' proud to announce that after 27-28 years, I've finally been able to assemble a prototypically accurate Tortillard consist! Incredibly enough, without Rapido, this would have been a serious nightmare too! When I find the inspiration, I will probably replicate the banners hanging from the locomotive handrails and seen on many pictures, including the large "Bonjour!" at the front. I have yet to find out which type of paper would have the right look to create the folds.
Now, the next logical step would be to build the 1995-1996 Tortillard that was inspired by CN 1950s classic passenger trains. After the bankruptcy, this train ended up on the Waterloo and St. Jacobs were it was operated for a number of years until the F-units were sold to Ontario Southern Railway and lost their paint scheme.
While a little bit too late for our era, I expect the 1984 Tortillard to run from time to time on the Murray Subdivision!
Friday, January 10, 2025
Rapido GARX Meat Reefers - Custom Paint
Many years ago Rapido produced a very neat series of General American design 37' wood meat reefers. These were beautiful... and expensive. However, they would be useful for the Harlem Station layout and I waiting with patience. At some point, many of them ended up in the bargain bin because their only sin was to be either undecorated kits or unlettered assembled cars in the RTR era. I picked 2 kits and two unlettered ones for at a significant discount, thinking I could slap a paint job on them easily and for a few pennies. I started these projects, only to let them gather dust in my cupboard for many years, almost completed.
As usual, Rapido did an excellent job with this car but building their kits is always a not so fun challenge because they lack basic instruction. However, I soldiered on even if the plastic they used for this kit isn't great to work with.
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It looks good... but that canary yellow won't do! |
The first kit was painted in the GARX yellow reefer scheme and lettered using Clover House dry transfers. I tried to modernize the paint scheme to better reflect the early 1950s. However, I believe the word "Refrigerator" should be spelled in gothic font but I couldn't find any useful photographic evidence. Unfortunately, when painting it, I used Model Master Reefer Yellow which is almost canary yellow... It felt wrong, but I only measured the mistake fully when I put it together with a factory painted car. The difference is striking and I'm seriously thinking about removing the lettering and repainting the yellow with a better shade of it. That bright yellow would be a better fit for Fruit Growers Express reefers with a bit of white and buff in it to tone it down.
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Hard to believe dry transfers and old decals can look good! |
The second reefer was painted in the attractive early 1950s Swift all-red paint scheme. Unfortunately, I found out the Clover House dry transfer I had was made for the 1954-built steel reefer. Since Harlem Station was set in 1952, it's too late for my era, thus I ordered a a suitable set of Champ decals. Thus, the lettering job is a mix of decals and dry transfer to better fit the prototype. I also limited as much as possible the use of Champ decals which suffer from thick carrier decal film. At the end of the day, I was really pleased with the results.
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Unlettered cars with custom decals (for half the price!) |
The two other reefers were already assembled and painted. I designed and printed custom decals which were installed on a coat of gloss varnish. They turned out very well and I will print other custom GARX decals to redo my old Varney/Life-Like kitbashed reefers and the Rapido kit I mentioned earlier.
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Model Master Reefer Yellow (left) VS Rapido factory paint (right) |
It was great to see these projects come to fruition. They are nice, classics and will fit any trains from the 1950s. No regret buying kits and unlettered cars. They provided their share of joy!
Thursday, January 9, 2025
Monk Subdivision - Rebuilding the Staging
As I alluded to late in 2024, I had to revise my plans for Monk Subdivision and the staging area. With the upper level gone, a big choice had to be made and I decided to raise the track level to 50" from the floor. It meant I had to raise all the current staging benchwork too which, fortunately, went smoothly and only took a few hours.
To do this, I removed the Kato Unitrak loop and its shelf. The Kato track will serve its purpose elsewhere. It was a short but useful piece of track that helped me moved forward. When gone, I discovered the current staging wasn't level at all, which is quite the big issue when storing cars! So everything was levelled up during the raising process.
The shelf bracket holes in the walls were patched up and a new coat of paint was applied. Then, the fiberboard was reinstalled and painted with a beige color we use on Murray Bay subidivision for the fascia. It's a neutral and bright tone that blends well with anything. Sealing fiberboard really helps to reduce the dust on the layout.
Then, I started to lay the track, assembling several turnouts to create the yard throat and check the geometry. As I feared, the Walthers 28"/24" curved turnouts didn't perform as expected. Large steamed such as 2-10-2 experienced drivers binding when running over the points. This is unacceptable and some solution had to be found.
First, let's address the elephant in the room. Walthers new turnouts aren't good. Not because they are inherently poor quality, which isn't true, but because their geometry is based on the old Shinohara line of products. These turnouts have all have very drastic diverging routes. It's a sharp angle, then the track continue. This sharp angle is a nightmare for models even if prototype do have angled transition. The thing is prototypes use very, very long turnouts... not #6 or #8 and it makes a huge difference. If you look at PECO turnouts, the diverging route is a smooth curve that provides better tracking. Sure, unprototypical, but your trains don't derail.
The Walthers turnout issue is less of a problem with straight turnouts, but the moment you make them curved, it's a nightmare. And by the way, the interior radius at the points isn't 24" as advertised, but much sharper. To test that theory, I laid a Walthers turnout over the Fast Tracks template. Both are 24"/28"... but clearly, one isn't by a large margin.
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Walthers VS Fast Tracks |
So out of the window with the Walthers curved turnouts which are reliable with diesels of all kind and small steamers, but don't like large steam locomotives.
It seems the handlaid solution is the only way out. So I went to Fast Tracks and printed two templates. The first one was for a #10 28"/24". Following the advice of Chris Mears, I laid a flextrack over the diverging route and tested my large steamers. The IHC 2-10-2 didn't have issues, the Bachmann QJ 2-10-2's drivers binded a bit and the Bachmann USRA 2-10-2's speed slowed down by half while travelling the points due to serious binding. I also tested my BLI USRA Mikado 2-8-2 and it had no issues at all. So we can rule out the 24"/28" turnout.
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A little bit tight, but IHC 2-10-2 can run over a 24"/28" |
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The USRA binding at the point of a 24"/28" |
Well, theoritically, no... But, when you slightly adjust the connection angle between each turnouts, it do works. This is about a 1/4" variation over 15" long. I did some verification with the Walthers turnouts and it's not enough to induce a noticeable kink that could cause havoc later down the road. To be honest, this is well within the tolerance when laying tracks.
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The revised yard throat... I'm happy with it, and my locos too! |
Another nice thing is that I've also been able to greatly streamline and simplify the yard geometry to, which will make operation much easier. All in all, these turnouts issues wet me back of a few weeks, but at the end of the day, I'm closer to the goals I set for myself. Now, it's time to build custom turnouts.