I survived!

January 11th, 2009

Well, the show is over! An early start on Saturday morning, leaving home at 7am to be at the NMRA British Region’s Winter Meet at Benson in Oxfordshire by 8am. All the fields and trees were white from the frost, and there was a thick mist in the air – the poor car heater was working overtime, and just about managing to keep the cold out!

With help from fellow Seaboard Southern members, we got the layout up and running in time for show start at 10am. A good start to the day, everything worked as it should have. Well, apart from one block detector, but I found out it actually helped if the controlling DS64 was actually plugged into the power! Doh!! Thanks to the careful adjustments I had done earlier in the week, all the track joints between the boards behaved themselves and we had no derailments. The only problem we had was with two tortoise motors that were not throwing all the way across – these were the cause of a few derailments, but we made sure the points were fully across before sending a train across. Later in the afternoon we had a strange problem of two dips appearing on the crossover on end board B (the farm board is end board A). I will have to have a look at that sometime, possibly ripping out the points and re-laying them.

The computer system (Railroad & Co.) behaved itself, and the demo ran nicely for those who wanted to see it, apart from one time when I ran the DC Amtrak (still need to get controller for that) during the demo. This seemed to confuse the system and it ended up throwing the points for the Amtrak loco, not the computer-controlled one…! But you have to learn somehow 🙂

So, apart from those few problems, I am very happy with the way the layout ran, considering this was its maiden showing at an exhibition. It seemed to go down well and I received very positive feedback, with a lot of people interested in the Railroad & Co. system.

At the moment the layout is still boxed up in the conservatory, and will remain so for a while as I am going to be starting work on the two industrial switching boards inherited from my friend Jim Bainbridge who is now living in San Francisco…thanks for doing the hard work (ie. tracklaying), Jim! Much appreciated! :-) Now just to wire it all up and get started on the scenery!

The next outing for Rochelle Intermodal is in September at the annual Seaboard Southern exhibition. More details can be found on the Seaboard Southern website.

So, here are some photos from the show – as usual, just click on the photo for a larger image and a description:

Barn and silos
Barn and silos - eye-level
CSX on loan...
Farm scene - complete view
Yard entrance
Engine shed and workshop
BNSF going past yard
Mi-Jack
CSX entering yard

The start of the scenery…

April 22nd, 2008

I have just started the first layer of the scenery, the ground cover. A second layer will go over this (bushes, weeds, rocks, etc), then I will lay the ballast so that it all blends nicely.

Have a look at the Scenery Gallery to see the first bit of scenery on Rochelle Intermodal.

The first section I am working on is the ground between the main tracks and the edge of the layout. The space between the main tracks will be ballasted, so no use putting any ground cover there. I will add some bits and pieces after the ballasting has been done there, but nothing drastic…a few weeds and other detail bits (old ties, parts fallen off trains, etc).

At the moment I am looking at getting a mix of Arizona Rock & Mineral Co ballast which will be close to the colour of the ballast at Rochelle (a mix of Chicago North Western Pink Lady and CSX/SP grey). It looks like Caboose Hobbies in Denver stocks it, and I am hoping to go to Denver at the end of May, so will bring back some ballast from there. I will only be able to bring back a bit at a time, but at least I can then get started on the ballasting.

I am also about to start laying the concrete apron for the intermodal yard. I purchase sheets of styrene yesterday, along with strip wood for support, and I will hopefully be able to start on that over the weekend.

Right, time for bed…I would rather stay up to do some more scenery work, but some of us have to work…no fun 🙁

Track painting and weathering started…

April 17th, 2008

Finally I have the conservatory to myself again…the modules are back up and I have started work on painting & weathering the track. I have started with the yard tracks as they are firstly wooden sleeper tracks, and secondly will be mostly hidden by the concrete apron of the yard itself. I have airbrushed these tracks with Pollyscale Roof Brown, and will be painting the rails using the brilliant Rusty Rails Painter from Joe’s Model Trains – I’ll be using the ‘Brown Rust’ paint for this.

The main tracks are going to be more of a challenge as they have concrete sleepers. I am trying to work out the best paint to use to simulate concrete sleepered track…suggestions have been made to use various shades of grey…I’ll be experimenting with a spare piece of track to see what I can come up with…

One thing I do need is prototype reference photos of concrete track – I’ve found lots of photos of wood sleepers, but not many of concrete sleepers…if you have some photos in your collection please pass them my way! Ta!

In the first (and only!) photo of this update you can see I have started to install the Hayes Wheel Stops on the yard tracks. I am just test fitting them at the moment, so they aren’t glued down yet. I am using the Tomar Industries white metal Hayes Wheel Stops.

Hopefully I will get started on the concrete tracks soon – in the meantime I might get started on the styrene base for the intermodal yard apron.

Another update coming soon!

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