Making lemonade out of lemons

My friend Brian J. and I were heading down to participate in an operations session at Chris Adams's Valley Local on Saturday.  Unfortunately, the session was cancelled at the last minute, so Brian and I decided to work on my layout for a bit. We were able to lay most of the track on the lift out section. On Sunday, I finished up the lift out section and have been able to plan out the track layout for Worchester yard. The yard has two arrival/departure tracks and two tub end tracks. There is a main line running between the yard and engine facility. There is also a track running behind the engine facility leading to the fright house. The photos below will show the layout much better.

Here is the lift out section after Saturday's work.

Here is the lead to the Worcester yard. 

I need to pick up one more turn out to be able
to get to all of the staging yard tracks.

The track is next to the engine house is part of the engine facility
 and used to move power around without having to use the main.
Coming towards the foreground is the main line, two A/D tracks
 and two stub end yard tracks tracks.

Starting to plan out the the north end of Worcester yard.

Another view of the yard.

I am hoping Chris is able to rescheduled the operations. I was looking forward to seeing all the changes on his layout, I have not been down in a couple of years.

Worcester Engine House Part 1

In 1953 the New Haven Railroad constructed a new diesel engine house, while eliminating the roundhouse and turntable in Worchester. Because the NH and the Boston and Maine shared the engine facility, the NH loaned the B&M RS-3's to cover some of there trains to completely eliminate steam using the facility. The new engingene house has two through stalls and a shorter annex on one side for various workshops and such. It was located on the Providence and Worcester leg of the yard, which is triangular shape. The building itself is a steel frames building covered with corrugated metal for the siding and roof.  On the north end of the building, a new sanding tower was constructed to service two tracks. 

I am using the Walthers rolling mill from there steel mill series. The kit is a very large structure and will leave me lots of material left over for other kitbasing projects. The sanding tower is also from Walthers. It is a very close match to the one the NH installed. The prototype is mounted on 4 to 6 foot tall concrete piers. 

Here is the engine house with an uncut section of roof.
The column for the sanding tower is also here

Here is the south end of the engine house. I accidently
broke off the center piece between the two doors 

The north end with the column for the sanding tower. I am
thinking of making the building more narrow by removing a
 portion of the one story annex. I also still need to add
openings for the windows and doors.

I had built a cardboard mock up, but I wanted to at least get the building started to see if I could determine exactly the space it will take up and plan out the rest of the yard. 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Thinking outside the Box(es)

Boxes, boxes, everywhere! Amazon boxes might be the most common—used to deliver items from Amazon, and then many of us reuse them for sending things to friends or selling on eBay to clear out things we once "had to have." But the boxes I really want to talk about are those that hold all our model trains. When I started model railroading, boxes were mostly the standard Athearn blue boxes (or yellow for those who go way back). The only "fancy" boxes came from brass manufacturers.

As models grew more detailed and traveled longer distances, protecting them became crucial. Life-Like, with their Proto 2000 line, introduced some clever packaging. They separated the body shell from the chassis to protect delicate details from rough handling. However, these boxes took up much more room—often as much as two or three older Athearn boxes! Today, most manufacturers pack their locomotives in boxes similar to the old brass models, but instead of simple plastic wrapping, they use a series of plastic sleeves and shells. This trend spread to passenger cars, with molded plastic shells inside cardboard boxes, and then to freight cars, and even some Ready-To-Run (RTR) structures in clamshell packaging.

All this led me to wonder: what should I do with all these boxes? I faced a dilemma—should I keep boxes to store models when they’re not on the layout? Should I toss them, or maybe use them for craft projects? The older Athearn boxes are handy for storage or as project boxes, a place to keep parts for in-progress builds. The newer boxes, though, aren’t as versatile, and storing them empty eats up space. Some might say, "Keep them for resale value!" And that’s true—models with their boxes do resell better. But I don’t resell much, especially finished models.

My friend Brian J. came by to help with my layout and pointed out my rather messy basement. With his encouragement, I finally made a decision:

Here’s what I’m keeping:

- Locomotive boxes, except for Proto 2000 and yellow Atlas boxes. Those can be hard to work with, and Atlas models can be tricky to remove from their molded Styrofoam.

- Brass boxes. I don’t own much brass, and it feels wrong to toss those.

- Boxes for unstarted models. These are for projects not yet ready for the layout or models that need modifications or weathering.

The rest are going. I make an effort to recycle plastic and cardboard, and I save any instructions, spare parts, or decals. This decision fits me well since my wife and I don’t plan to move, and I’m not looking to sell off the collection. I know this wouldn’t work for everyone—collectors or those who move frequently might cringe! But for me, it’s been freeing to clear out all those empty boxes.

Building Worcester

I have finally  started on building Worcester, I have 8 plus feet of benchwork laid out. I plan on keeping the yard one level to keep things simpler. I have also used modeler's license to have the N&W main line run past the engine hose vs the Providence and Worchester house. Since the yard is flat, I used 3/4" plywood and then coved with homasote. I like the latter for large flat areas as it is easy to spike to and make changes as needed.  The photos show with the bride to the B&M/B&A connection (staging yard). I have also mocked up the engine house to help me plane out the yard. The engine house was used by both the New Haven and the Boston and Maine. Later the Penn Central and now the Providence and Worcester. It was built in 1953, so it is one of the most modern faculties on the NH. 

Here is just a sheet of plywood and the engine house mockup,
Micro Engineering turnout templets and an American Limited
 sanding tower.  

Same spot, now wit the homasote, with it cut to blend into
where the door to the outside.

This is the Walthers sanding tower I will modify to
 more closely match the prototype.

Here is the the whole area with the left out bridge.

Next steps is to lay the roadbed on the lift out bridge and plan the yard and engine facility. There will also be bulk (team) tracks with a 30 ton over head crane, two or three oil dealers, a few coal dealers and some other industries. I also plan to put the NH freight house into the upper righthand corner of the Worcester benchwork. 

 

Bridging the Gap

I have been busy spending time out doors that I have not made a lot of progress on the layout, but I have bridged the gap from the north end of my plan, the NH's Worcester yard to the staging yard that serves both the north and south ends of the layout. That is east and west ends by the timetable. This is not s simple singe track removable bridge, but a multi tack affair that will also contain a 90 degree curve. I am making it overlap the a section Worcester to keep the joints of the rails at 90 degrees, not on a curve. I am hoping tis will make things reliable in the future.  I will also have scenery on it as well.  

This is the gap, with the plywood laid in place and my track templates
arranged. Worchester is on the Left, staging to the right. 

Another angle.

Here it is cut down to size and with a portion of Worcester added. If it looks
familiar, his used to be a little coroner of South Boston from John Pryke's layout.

I use simple shelf pins to align every thing,
I got this idea from Chris Adams.

That is my progress for now, I am hoping that I can get deeper into construction as we head into fall, I will post updates as I make progress.