Reply To: I’ve bit the bullet, Jan. 15, 2011

[David Boeschen]

Been a while since I posted an update. I now have modules 10 to 14 lined up, connected and leveled. Still have one missing set of bridge rails, between modules 12 and 13, consisting of one main track and four yard tracks. Yard tracks are code 55, glued down with Barge. The rail joiners on the side I’ve finished do not move, so I have some testing to do. Must have inadvertently glued them with the Barge. BTW that stuff sticks, but not that well, in that a good yank dislodges the rails. They do need to be laid with a track gauge, since the 55 has a narrower rail base so it does not precisely auto-gauge like the code 70 mainline rail does. This yard is the storage yard at Tolerville, which needed to span two modules.

Once this is sorted out, I’ll have a continuous run of about 32 feet. I’m waiting for this to be done before I build modules 7 to 9, which will be Eureka and the Fall River bridge and more curvy track. Just as a refresher, I have modules 1 to 3 connected, and 4 to 6 connected, for roughly 20+ feet in each of those segments. Still need to bridge the gap between 3 and 4, which is where the door is. Only an engineer would start building a railroad at the precise point where the ingress / egress to the room is located.

Scenery work has now progressed beyond the experimental stage. I’ve been using plaster gauze over the plywood, and over the carved Woodland Scenics foam. Most of the landforms are above the track level, other than the one creek with a concrete trestle, and a couple of gullies with culverts in them. Correction, one gully has a culvert, and the other one will once I build it. I set the culvert with a block of foam under it and surrounded it with WS foam putty.

Around Sallyards on module 6 there is a low hill, and I’m trying to plot out how much flat space to leave for the stock pens. Module 10 has a cut higher than the loading gauge, and the area on modules 1 and 2 has a partially finished hill. This represents the area between Durand and Yates Center, and although it is pretty hilly there, I may have overdone it a bit. I’m considering a US 54 overpass which might hide the forced compression a bit.

For roads, I’m trying a subroadbed of strips of 1/4″ plywood, with another 1/4″ or so layer over that. This should match the track height, which is on 1/4″ plywood with Homabed roadbed over that. The top of the plywood is 1/4″ below the module edge, to give room for scenery, and that allows me to jigsaw out parts of it and to add some to the edge so as to follow major changes in the contour. I do this after the foam is in place, and after I whack chunks out of the module to represent low points. Yates Center will be my first town scene, but most of the buildings will be seen from the rear since the town is only visible from the north side.

This spring I’ve been delayed a bit by interruptions such as buying a (prototype) house in Wichita. I’m happy to report that you can hear trains on the consolidated north-south main line through town from the house, just like I can hear the Sufferin’ Pathetic from my Houston house.

I already am planning in my head how to build the Wichita portions of the railroad, but really should try to restrain myself until I get the rest of the Wichita Division finished. I’d like to at least hint at the Garvey Grain and Frontier complexes on the Hardtner line, but I definitely don’t have room to do more than hint. I’ve had the Conway Springs scene about 70% finished for two years, and haven’t been back to that for a while since I haven’t cut the holes in the wall. Or rather, I haven’t finished the holes in the wall. The holes are there, but no roadbed and no lining. Started that during the “winter” when the temp was 40 degrees, but now that it’s 80 outside and probably 100 in the attic, I suppose it’s time to pay more attention. And I’ve been seeing wasps…….

Ron Merrick