Improving The Venerable Tyco Rogers 4-6-0

Sometimes, you need a fun project. Recently, YouTube has been feeding me videos from younger modellers dabbling with old 19^th century locomotives in HO, mainly Bachmann, Roundhouse and Tyco/Mantua. Many people love to replicate the Sierra Railway #3 due to its fame from Back to the Future II and one of them, a fan of video games Red Dead Redemption as been quite active lately and I got bitten again by the old time railroad bug.

Sierra Railway #3 drawn by Gary Caviglia

As many know, the Tyco 4-6-0 is based on the real Sierra Railway #3 but scaled at about 1/72 instead of 1/87 due to large motors used back then. The tooling is a little bit old, but the chassis is smooth and sturdy, with brass bearings for the wheels. It’s also a modular locomotive in the sense you can replace parts and dismantle it as you wish, making it the quintessential kitbash fodder.

SR #3 in its original appearace (credit: Wikipedia)

However, I’ve never been a big fan of SR #3 in its “modern” appearance. The weird Southern Pacific steel cab on a 19^th century classic locomotive is kind of inelegant and breaks the illusion for me even if prototypical. Poor Sierra #3 got involved in an accident in 1918 that crushed it original wooden cab. So I naturally wondered if the locomotive could be turned back into something from the early 1880s. Gladly enough, we still have picture of her in its original appearance. So, what if some 3D printed replacement parts could be made to make it more interesting and beautiful. A conversion kit that would be easy to implement and require very little kitbashing.

Down the rabbit hole in SketchUp with a Brooks loco

So I went on the web and looked at locomotives that had a similar boiler shape, wheel arrangement and domes location. Sure, the original SR #3 was a good contender. Replacing only a few key features would greatly improve its appearance when it was still brand new and lettered for Prescott & Arizona Central. This option helps us to keep the original boiler and tender which is quite interesting. It’s only a cosmetic make over and can be quite effective. However, I was curious if something more generic could be done.

Burlington, Cedar Rapid & Northern 92 was a close match

The search went on and I discovered several Rhodes Island and Brooks Locomotive Works 4-6-0s of the same era that had a more ornate appearance and a more classic cab. Several of these locomotives were build for different railways and I feel the cab proportions looks better than the original Sierra one which was more vertical. However, it comes with the caveat that the tender must be replaced with a Bachmann or Athearn/Roundhouse one to get the correct dimensions.

BCR&N's Brooks 4-6-0 provided measurement

I’ve made all the parts for the Brooks version. The conversion includes a stack, a wooden pilot, two cylinder covers, a set of wheel splashers, new domes, a cab, a bell, injectors and a pair of Brooks builder plates. I would also like to create proper era arch bar trucks.

Doesn't take much to completely change a familiar appearance

I haven’t yet created the Rogers parts, but they would likely includes a new cab, new domes with a whistle, a new stack, a pair of splash covers, Rogers brass plates for the cylinders, a wooden pilot and a backhead. I would also consider a new air pump to replace the ugly molded on parts.

I think that finer details parts on a sturdy Tyco frame with a good modern motor and state of the art paint job and decals could really make this old vintage model shines. I can see many more possibilities with that little locomotive. With many people having access to 3D printing nowadays, what would have been a very complicated project can be turned into an enjoyable ride.

These Dreams Are Made of Foam

 In North American model railroading, stone culverts aren't really a thing. Not that they never existed, but they never became ubiquitous like in Europe where a strong stone masonry culture existed and where railways were built in the 19th century to very high standards that had more in common with the Roman Empire than a large continent that was racing toward the Pacific Coast.

For this reason, beautiful stoneworks are generally associated with the Eastern Coast, where railways were built first. Since only a few lines had enough money to warrant large masonry works, they were a little bit rare. And when our lines were upgraded or improved, steel and concrete had become the new efficient way to build strong infrastructure.

Typical ATSF stone culvert near Colorado Springs (credit: L.C. Clure)

But beyond these clichés, there lies an interesting fact: masonry was indeed used on infrastructures even on the West Coast back in the 1800s. When I studied Raton Pass last year, I was impressed by the beautiful double arch stone culverts erected in the valley. Two large ones still exist nearby Wootton Ranch and are a testament of the ATSF commitment to make this railway a real trunk line. Such examples, while not ubiquitous with the West, where not oddities in the landscape. It was natural for ATSF to use the local limestone excavated while building the roadbed as a cheap material to erect culverts and small bridges. Since then, I've found a few pictures of these structures and wanted to incorporate one into the layout.

Carving individual stones is slow but rewarding

I thought about using embossed stone pattern  plastic sheets, but then decided to try carving high density foam sheets like most military and wargaming modellers do. I had purchased 6mm sheets from AK a few month ago for a concrete culvert on the Monk Subdivision. It was time to experiment.

I added capping stones on top of the walls

Cutting the foam to shape was quite easy with a cutter. This high density foam isn't springy like insulation foam (pink or blue), thus holds its shape much better. Right of the bat, carving was easy as it can be and I progressed "fast". Or should I say, it took 2 days! I would start by scribing the stone pattern with an Xacto blade at a depth of 0.5-1mm then opened it to shape the joint with a small styrene wedge I carved in a scrap of plastic. Nothing fancy. I made different ones to fit various geometry. When most mortar lines were done, I would come back with my little tool and shape the stones, giving then rounded corners and imperfections to get a more natural look. This was quite a tedious but satisfying work.

When all the flat parts were carved, I rolled an aluminium foil ball all over the surface to give it an irregular texture replicating roughly carved stone. This is an old trick and it certainly is the single most important step to make the result shine.

The vault is made of a kerfed foam sheet

I went all the way and also carved the barrel vaults. When the sheet was finished carving, I kerfed the backside following the same spacing than the stone rows. This would make the sheet flexible to get the correct radius. Tediously, each vault was glued with canopy glue, making sure the alignment was perfect. It worked better than anticipated and when it was completely assembled, I brushed a layer of white glue on top of the vault to fill the kerfs. This step ensured the vaults would keep their shape and wouldn't deform.

From inside, the vault looks like the real thing

Gluing is done step by step to insure proper alignment

One done, both vaults are great to look at...

The culvert was brushed with two coats of acrylic primer to sealed the foam. Then, I added a coat of diluted tan paint over the stones to get that Southwest color. This was followed with a wash of black India ink and isopropanol to make the details pop. Several drybrushing techniques were used to make the stone look more tridimensional, but the mortal lines were too deep and needed mortar.

Primer helps to spot things to correct

The initial color was tan to mesh with local limestone

Adding the India ink wash really made the stone realistic

I started by sealing the paint work with a thick gloss coat. My though was that it would make the mortar less likely to the stone surface while remaining into the cracks. I elected to use white tile grout to fill the gaps. I smeared it in the joints with an old brush. Then, I cleaned the stones by spraying water on the surface with an old spray bottle. The spray was strong enough to push away the mortar, and a wet towel was enough to remove the excess.

The tile grout is smeared into every nooks and crannies

I really liked the mortared joints, but the overall effect made it far too clean and bright. It had to be toned down with a very light India ink wash. Unfortunately, it made the stone loose its warm beige tint and all the mortar got too dark. My mistake!

Most of the grouting is completed except the wing wall

To fix it, I drybrushed the stone with different shades of tan to bring back their color. Then, I reapplied mortar in a few select areas. I made sure to clean it well and using a large brush, I clean the surface by wiping it down in a vertical motion. That way, any grout traces on the stone would look like lime leaching out of joints. That really improved the realism. A few spot washes and shadows were done using dry pigments to replicate places where dirt accumulate. I decided to not overdo the effect as the culvert isn't located in a very rainy area.

Stone colors are rectified with washes, filters and drybrushing

Overall, I really liked the process. The carving was fun and I can see a lot of potential in that method. The painting was challenging because I created my recipe on the fly and should have done certain steps in a different order. I think it will be a very nice addition on the layout and a future railfanning spot. For this reason, I elected to make the foreground deeped in that area to get better photographic potential.

The weathered culvert now in place on the layout

Vince Valley - Applying Lessons Learned From the Circle

The originating  story of this post goes back as far as last October when I was exploring weathering techniques on old plastic kits, many of them Revell. Exploring the American Southwest sure was an excellent way to be immersed into an ubiquitous presence that have always been there in this hobby.

And let's be bold. If I wasn't modelling Canadian National and its adjacent themes, I would either model 1870s 4-4-0 trains or simply the king of model railroading: ATSF. If you have grown up looking at box art like me for hours as a kid, you have been saturated with Santa Fe locomotives and cars. Geeps in dark blue and yellow, F-units in Warbonnet and classic big steamers like the 4-8-4 and the 2-10-4. I blame Bachmann for that, but Life-Like and Model Power didn't help. It's iconic, it's in your face, it's powerful, it's glamourous, it encapsulate everything about cool model railroading.

Classic ATSF steam at Raton Pass in 1954 (credit: Ed Olsen)

The idea of modelling the Southwest grew on me when I was thinking of transforming the Monk returning loop as an American themed shelf layout. Imagine, the main layout is CN and the hidden staging in the other room is Colorado or New Mexico. The idea didn't go far, but then, I explored it again as a lightweight shelf layout in my office room. Would be cool, but cumbersome. Then Merkiomen made me superdetail cheap kits using SP and UP... and ATSF, colors and details. Later, Merkiomen died and it resurrected from its ashes as my childhood friend Vince's long gone old layout. It had been built by is late uncle and decorated with sand to replicate the Southwest with a classic dry riverbed with a low trestle and the ubiquitous Arlee Station.

My friend's original layout track plan

Having collected by accident a few Union Pacific locomotives that were supposed to be kitbashed as CN locomotives, I had a head start... but then, I started to collect a few BLI ATSF steamers. Second hand for some, but also looking at refurbished one. Having seen pictures of the ATSF Fast Mail Express, I had some ideas in my mind. I waited for almost a year until I found the exact BLI Blue Goose (1950s appearance) to recreate that iconic train. I was settled.

Playing with elements to get the feeling right

As I said, I had that idea to recreate my friend's layout because I kind of liked the pragmatic yet versatile track plan. A station on a side with two sidings and a long passing track, and a classification yard on the other side, both separated by a scenic divider that was nothing more than a low kraft paper hill.

We derived countless hours of operation out of that simplistic layout, but let's accept the fact it was quite straightforward and made with brass snapswitches in a classic sectional track approach. Forget about easement, smooth transitions in the yard, superelevation or anything else related to quality track. It was an issue back then, it's even worse now that my standards have been significantly raised in 30 years.

I had to make that layout more jazzy, more curvy, more natural... more grounded in reality. Since ATSF was in my mind, I quickly thought about Raton Pass on the New Mexico border. Far less impressive for railfans than Tehachapi Pass, but quite inspiring for people interested in subtler scenery possibilities.

At Raton Pass, the line follow the river (credit: Eugene Diller)

At that time, a few months ago, I was using extensively AI and Copilot to flesh out the concept, including town names, operating schemes, train consists and even scenery. It was new, flashy, exciting and... full of blatant errors. I had to quickly acknowledge I was fed garbage 50% of the time. Some ideas were cool, but nothing to write to your mother. The sycophant aspect of AI was showing off and at the end of the time, it was just saying what I wanted to hear. A pure definition of an echo chamber... so AI got the boot and the project stalled for a little bit.

Switchlist lore generated by Copilot

That said, some work happened on the layout, including making foam splines and exploring a few ideas. What really changed my approach was that I came by to my Gosford railway explorations which used the same footprint and mainline shape.

A twisty previous version of Q&G

A particular picture of Lake St. Joseph station struck my imagination. I put it in a double S-curve and it worked magic. That's an old trick, but I recall seeing it on a beautifully designed small Japanese HO layout and felt it was worth trying again.

Lake St. Joseph on QLStJ Railway (credit: BAnQ)

Tracks follow valleys (credit: BAnQ)

I added these curves to the Vince Valley, my project file name for the layout, and it started to bring life to what was just a typical 4' x 8'. I had a hard time figuring out what to do with the riverbed and it was left as just a small ponctual feature in a corner.

Building something from scratch

I recall Copilot provided names such as Toluca station and Haskell yard for the main feature. I my mind, it was to be a helper district with an engine house and some sort of facilities to replicate mountain railroading. The creek and pass got named Ringtail as a nod to Raton Pass, though it never congealed perfectly into the concept.

The revised concept was still quite crude

Fast forward to last week and it was time to revive the Vince Valley concept. Once again, I started to play with the Gosford. Archives pictures shows that line followed closely rivers and valleys, curving here and there to conform to the topography. It opened perspectives but closed others. That was clearly resonating with Chris' ideas on the circular JNR layout concept. I thought it would be worth it to use the river not as a scenic feature, but as the backbone of the layout.

Revised Quebec & Gosford with the river on a paper towel

The track would follow the river as long as it could to explain with the railway was so curvy and twisted. Hills would frame that river to make it geologically plausible and realistic. I really liked how the JNR design closed the ends of the layout with higher ground instead of treating it as opening space. It was now two large scenes, back to back, that curved on each side in a realistic fashion. The scenes were neither approached in a frontal way, but rather diagonally. In Toluca, it was all about standing by the river and looking upstream. You could see the train emerge from the treacherous valley/pass, curve around the meander, stop at the station and continue its route. It also helped to frame the area in from of the station. With the long river crossing the entire scene, it made it cohesive and the "distant" hills really started to make sense. Small rural stations located at a river crossing are one of the classic thing in railroading. It emphasizes the depot as a nodal point point around which everything radiate. No need to model the village, we know it isn't far away...

Revised ATSF Vince Valley design without the bulges

At Haskell, the yard was no longer a contrived set of parallel track, but something flowing into the topography. There was a small natural plateau where the railway built the yard and it made sense.

How scenic bulges are framed (credit: Chris Mears)

All these interesting features would also be accompanied by a free form fascia that follows the scenes and expands where needed rather than framing the 4' x 8'. It's all about breaking that sheet of plywood and it's linear nature. Where the eyes and camera requires a larger foreground, it does expand. The perimeted created alcoves and bulges that are naturally responding to the layout with the goal, at the end of the day, of fooling us believing these is more than meet the eyes.

As for conclusion, the last lesson learned was to use watercolors (highly diluted acrylic paint on my desk!) to shape layout designs. It's incredible how the fuzziness of a brush is much better at grasping scenic ideas than anything else and in just a few strokes.

Going Around In Circles - A Japanese Layout

Over the last few months, I finally gave up and acquired a few 1:80 Japanese trains. Most of them of the late 1960s-early 1970s when steam was in its twilight. I could resist these fantastic videos showing double and triple steam headers pulling boxcars and cement cars during the construction boom. Kato has recently released a newly tooling D51 (their largest Mikado ever built domestically) and I was able to find an excellent deal for a pair from a shop in Kobe.

A D51 mikado visiting the QSSR

As expected, a recent discussion with Chris Mears pushed us to explore what could be a railfanning layout based around that material. Something that is made to gaze from a given perspective and immerse you into a surrounding experience. The idea sprouted from observations made about Japanese railways which typically follow deep valleys, crossing several bridges and tunnels to find their ways. In these valleys, your line of sight is generally obstructed and you stand in what could be best described as an alcove. Truly, you are a spectator and following the train along would be, in most cases, very difficult. In some ways, this way to appreciate a layout is much closer to how Japanese modellers experiment it. Lack of space for intricate permanent layouts and their focus on passenger trains make their approach quite different from how Westerners and North American in particular, enjoy their trains.

Rural lines in Japan are often both dramatic and small scope

Such an observation lend itself to a few interesting conclusions. The layout offers glimpses to capture and you are surrounded. These two facts make size almost irrelevant as long as your trains can use a comfortable minimum radius to not look silly. Hence our decision to explore the possibility to develop a scenic layout that would be nothing more than a circle! Yes, the little train circling around the Christmas tree.

Original idea about a scenic loop with a foldable side

A recent video only posted by Rob Waller of the Bron Hebog layout kind of cemented our idea of a layout built only for the express purpose of railfanning and sure, the pencils started to draw designs around it! We originally started the process by exploring a foldable oval with a visible and scenic part. Not uninteresting but not that efficient at the end of the day.

A second iteration

A second iteration was to make it a compact circle and implement a curved staging that could provide some variety while running the trains. Not a bad idea, but once again, the effective surface of scenicked layout was rather limited. It was a classic scene between two tunnels and maybe a curved bridge.

The classic 1970s Life-Like foam runaround layout

Then it dawn on us how close this design was to the classic Life-Like foam layout baseboards of the 1970s. I use to have a similar custom built layout and I recall that from a railfanning perspective, it had some fascinating potential, albeit generally not exploited correctly! What could be done from such a shape? We at least had the grade to replicate the steamers fighting the grade to pull their heavy load over the mountains. That was an excellent start!

Chris' final concept

That's where the magic of Chris Mears struck with this lovely circular layout implementing two scenes. One outside the loop that provides a mainline run along a river valley and an immersive inner loop where you can look at trains fighting the grade. Both scenes are seen from a different perspective, offering both the outside and inside the curve perspective. In such a design, you never really can see where the train originates and goes. Not that it is concealed, but rather that it simply fades away out of your field of vision. It's all about perception. Note that the descending grade is on the outside radius, providing a gentler slope and limiting the runaway effect. Also, it is where the radius is the largest, which is aesthetically more pleasing when looking at cars from the outside. Inside the loop, the grade and radius are tighter where we want to see a real struggle from the train. The tighter radius is mitigated by the fact model trains look better when seen from inside the curve. All in all, this is a very pleasing concept.

As you can see, Chris also modulated the foreground scenes according to the point of view. Where viewblocks or deep perspectives are warranted, the layout expand organically to achieve the desired experience. You will see more of that on other designs to be published in the following days.

Built using Kato R=22.5" and R=28,75" track

The beauty of all of it is the layout could be folded in two sections to save space. Also, it can be built using exclusively Kato Unitrack components, ensuring the circle is geometrically perfect. To be noted, often with small layout, the transition between small radius curves and straight lines are visually jarring. It never works and looks toyish. By removing completely the straight parts, we get a consistent look with no weird motions that break the illusion. All in all, I really love that design and thanks for Chris granting me the autorization to publish his wonderful drawings!

More to come about the ATSF and Quebec & Gosford layout ideas evolved from the lesson learned from that JNR experiment!

Lacasse Feed Mill - A New Way to Model Asphalt Shingles

I've kept a lot of articles under wrap this year because I wanted to post when they would be fully complete or because I thought they would make good magazine articles (I've still to make good from Otto Vondrak's requests). However, the more I wait, the less the process is clear in my mind. Sometimes, writing must be parallel with the craft in fear of losing its teeth.

One such project was the barn... but there was also the water tower, then the feed mill on Monk Subdivision. All that was drown in the ATSF layout exploration and other ideas.

Old shingles on the Lacasse feed mill in Armagh, QC

The feed mill is an interesting fellow because it required a paradigm shift and learning new techniques to commit to it. In the spring, I cut the styrene wall to build the core, but couldn't find a way to replicate the multicolored asphalt shingle wall siding. Using laser cut shingles didn't make it. It was too pristine and required extensive repainting. I needed something imperfect, replicating old weathered shingles. And that took quite a while.

Scribing painted black construction paper

When I started to revisit my US style railroad structures, I had an Eureka moment when I learned new technique to create tarpaper roofing. The most popular way was to start with black construction paper, spray a light coat of paint, then wear down the edges with sandpaper. It was clear I had found what I needed, or at least, some clue.

Weathering the edge with sandpaper

My idea was to spray an entire sheet of paper with the correct colors, overlaying effects with my airbrush and sponges. When the texture and color was right, I used a straight edge and started to scribe lines with a flat screwdriver at every 3.5mm (or 1 scale feet). These lines would mark each individual shingles. The sheet edge was weathered with coarse sandpaper, then a 5 mm slice of paper was cut perpendicularly to the lines, effectively creating a row of shingles.

Cutting rows of shingles

It was then a matter of simply redoing these steps again and again. Certainly time consuming, but not boring and giving quite a convincing look. Gluing however was a labour of love and took several evenings over two months.

Pencil lines make your life much easier

I started by drawing parallel guide lines at every 2.5mm which would be used to align the shingle rows consistently. Then, using some canopy glue, each strip was glued in place. Canopy glue grabs the construction paper quite fast and dry in a few minutes. No need to wait, each strip follow the next one. Once every wall is cladded, I trimmed the excess material with my hobby knife.

Cladded walls ready to be trimmed

The method was simple, 100% hand crafted and accurate. Black paper with pigment, that's essentially what real asphalt shingles are. Varying the degree of erosion with the sandpaper was useful when I wanted to replicate some specific patterns of weathering seen on the real structure. Shingles located on the highest parts were usually in very poor state while the ones closer to the ground or protected by eaves fared better. But I won't lie, scribing the lines wasn't as easy as it may look and I had to deal with paper tearing, stubborn paint and other issues.

A completed wall

Once again, this is a rich year in learning about modelling. Every new building brings discoveries and just for that, even if the layout didn't really progress, makes my day.