Freight Car Ladders

I currently have 4 Sunshine #64.53 Wabash rebuilds on the bench. These are representative of some of the many rebuilds that the Wabash undertook during the 40's to help bolster the fleet and get usage out of perfectly good frames and trucks.
The 85000-85199 series were a variant from the other rebuilds in that they retained their 50 ton Andrews trucks and they had different ladders than the other rebuilds. Based upon the photo above I took the rung spacing to be 14", rather than the usual 16" or 18". The supplied stock Tichy ladders were definitely not the right rung spacing.
I have been enamored with the ladder building technique from the Speedwitch Wabash AAR cars. A photo-etched pair of stiles that you bend to create the angle and then insert commercial straight grabs once the legs are clipped. Solder or glue and they're ready for mounting.

However the rung spacing on these ladders were wrong for this project. I posted an impromptu survey on STMFC, and among other things, got a suggestion from Tom Madden how how to create my own ladders.
A really simple, but very effective technique. http://www.pullmanproject.com/Ladders.pdf.

I spent most of the morning creating the 16 required ladders and mounted 4 on one of the cars.

I'm very pleased with the final results. I'm indebted to Tom for this technique.
Having said that I'm still going to pursue other options for oddball ladders. With the hopes of making them commercially available. Stay tuned!

I like my job.

One of the great things about being a custom builder is that I get to work in scales and with products and kits I wouldn't otherwise get to play with.
Today I finished up a Chooch ATSF Bx-56 boxcar kit. Proto48 is something to behold. Such detail!
And the workmanship that can go into these cars!

Jim Zwernneman did the kit design and pattern work for this kit and he really knocked this one out of the park. I've built this car in HO from a Sunshine kit, but this O scale behemoth really shows the uniqueness of this car design. I am in awe of Jim's incredible attention to detail.
It is indeed a pleasure to work with products this well designed.

Coincidence?

Today, on Yahoo STMFC, my friend Bill Welch, started a thread on the history of Prototype Modeling. Among the many things he wants to discuss is the original resin kit makers. People like Al Westerfield, Dennis Storzek and Steve Funaro. All of whom have made a great contribution to the hobby.

It's intriguing to me since today, I just finished building and painting a pair of original Storzek kits for a client. These Rutland kits are classics by any definition.

While the actual resin is the old epoxy compounds, the pattern work done in the mid 80's remains some of the best modeling ever produced. These old Storzek kits are a delight to work on.
I'd also like to mention that I have a few of the Rutland Car Shops stock car kits available. Feel free to contact me if you'd like one.

A bit of a mystery

I have a bit of a mystery on my hands.
I have been unable to date, to find any photos of the Aylmer station, other than 2 very small ones from the turn of 19th century.
I do have a drawing from National Archives of the station and a proposed addition of an express room dated 1920. It was a sizable station, similar in size to the Jarvis station further east.

Then , through the good graces of a friend who desires to be anonymous, I was given a copy of a real estate map dated 1948 which is marked "No station". And the train order board was relocated to adjacent an elevated crossing tower. The station was located just to the west of where the real estate map shows the tower and train order board.
Also the Employee Timetables I have all show Aylmer as a 24 hour train order office, which leads one to believe that the operator worked out of the crossing tower.
But the big question for me, is when did the station burn down? That's the only situation that fits the circumstance. The search is on with various agencies. I'm hoping that the station was lost close to my modeling date, 1951, so I can model just the footings. Could be really neat.

That was some kind of fun

My good friend, Trevor Marshall, posted the following on his blog today. The whole project was fun.

The Peterboro Project

Posted on May 2, 2012

I read something online today that reminded me of one of my favourite memories in the hobby and I thought I'd share it here.
Back in 2006 my friend Pierre Oliver and I knew each other and knew we travelled well together, but we had not worked on any hobby projects. Then we got to talking and realized we were both intrigued by the Free-mo modular standard, and decided to build a module.
We knew of no other Free-mo enthusiasts in the area (although the S Scale Workshop, of which I was not yet a member, was using a standard developed from the same principles). So we saw this as an opportunity to introduce Free-mo to Southern Ontario modellers. But we also knew that any module we built would also have to stand on its own as an exhibition layout, in case nobody else was interested.
We wanted to do something that really showed off the free-form nature of Free-mo and realized one of its strengths is the ability to replicate prototype locations, in a way that other modular forms cannot. This is because with Free-mo, the benchwork can follow the track - including a prototype track arrangement. Other systems force the modeller to work with restrictive modular specifications that make it difficult to capture the feel of most real places.
Pierre and I looked for several candidates and settled on a small yard and adjacent industrial park in Peterborough, Ontario. The result was The Peterboro Project ("Peterboro" is how the CNR spelled it). This module consisted of a dozen sections, each a maximum of 60 inches long by 18 inches deep. In total, we had about 50 feet of module: about 27 feet represented the through route, with the balance on a number of peninsulas - including one about 12 feet long which in turn supported its own peninsula. Pierre hand laid the turnouts and produced some great freight cars for the layout. I scratch-built many of the structures.
We created two adapters that flared the ends out to the standard Free-mo modular width of 24 inches, so we could connect to other modules. But when set up in exhibition mode, we left these at home and attached a five-track sector plate to one end of the through route. We could then operate the module as a sprawling switching layout. Here's a plan of the module as an exhibition layout.
Peterboro's debut was a Free-mo rally hosted by the Rochester Institute of Technology Model Railroad Club in the fall of 2006. Pierre and I had a great time but this was the module's only Free-mo appearance. We exhibited it as a stand alone layout thereafter. (We had no problems with Free-mo - we just didn't have any additional Free-mo opportunities.)
The module was featured in the August 2008 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman magazine – and then Pierre and I sold it off to move on to other home layout and modular layout projects.
I took photos in the workshop and at a number of events, including exhibition set-ups at a customer appreciation day and barbecue hosted by Toronto-area hobby shop George's Trains, and at the 2007 Toronto Christmas Train Show. And I took some rail fan photos to help illustrate the article in RMC.
As should be obvious from these pictures, Peterboro was never "finished" - we planned to add trees, people and details, and the module could've benefited from some additional attention paid to presentation: skirting would've been nice. But even as exhibited in its "work in progress" state, The Peterboro Project received a lot of positive comments, and it's gratifying to see a number of groups that now use Free-mo or Free-mo inspired standards in Southern Ontario. I wouldn't say we introduced the concept, but we certainly gave it a push.
I learned a lot through the Peterboro exercise - especially some tricks that are invaluable when building a layout that needs to survive hours of bouncing and bashing in the back of a vehicle. I also learned that I really like sector plates for staging - something I continue to use today.
But the best part is Pierre and I spent a lot of time in the workshop together in the summer of 2006 to build Peterboro. And along the way we became really good friends. While Peterboro is now someone else's, the friendship continues stronger than ever. And we can make each other crack up by saying things like "It's a co-op!", which not even our wives understand.
I'm really glad we built The Peterboro Project.

For more photos visit;
 http://s1218.photobucket.com/albums/dd410/stinksandbangs/Peterboro%20Project/

Progress, problems and precious moments

        
The layout has hit the "grind" part of it's life.
90% of the track is in. I have some turnout work in Courtland and Delhi to finish up, and the staging yards for the CN Hagersville Sub to take care of.
The really big task now is wiring it all in. Soldering drop feeders and connecting them to the power bus, along with dropping feeders for frog polarity control. Wiring is now complete as far as the west end turnout in Courttland. That includes the liftout section that bridges the doorway.

As I was finishing the wiring in the Tillsonburg CPR interchange yard, a short circuit  occurred. In my usual thorough fashion I overlooked the obvious as I spent an hour trying to establish the cause of this short. The diamond, which was built with a jig purchased from Fast Tracks, was the source of the trouble. However I still maintain that I had checked it when it was built. Some quick work with the Dremel cutoff wheel restored normalcy.

I've chosen to use Fast Track's Bullfrogs for turnout control. They solid, simple and robust. Cheap too! Installation is simple and the system includes linkage components used in RC aircraft. Certainly worth considering.

Once I resolved the short in the diamond at Tillsonburg, I ran a test train along portions of the layout that were wired. Where I made a most intriguing discovery.
I'm using a Digitrax DCS 100 as a base station, with a DB 150 as a slave for half of the layout. I"m also using PSX4 from Tony's Trains for circuit protection.

As the train crossed from the section powered by the DCS 100 to the section powered by the DB 150 a short occurred. A little investigation established that the output voltage polarities of the 2 units is not the same. That is to say Rail A is not the same polarity on the 2 power units. Most curious, but simple to fix.

I live in a relatively small community,(25,000) that used to be a major railroad centre. In it's heyday St Thomas hosted 5 Class One Railways and an Interurban. There are few surviving railroad men from the 50's still living here, so I was delighted to meet a fellow who hired onto the Wabash in 1954 as an engineer and is still living in St Thomas.
I had Jim Rice over to visit yesterday so he could have a look at progress on my layout. I was thrilled to see the delight on his face as he viewed what I was doing. He was particularly entranced by my fleet of paired F7s, all with correct Canadian numbers. " I ran every one of those engines." he said.
I think I'm doing something right.

Today I hate Technology

My house was built in 1904 and is in remarkably good condition for something of that vintage. However 2 major jobs had to be done when we moved in 17 years ago. All of the plaster had to come down and get replaced with drywall and the entire house needed to be rewired to meet modern electrical code.

So for the first 7 years there was a dumpster bin in the driveway ever summer as I worked through the house room by room. I won't even begin to try counting how many tons of plaster I dragged out of the house, never mind the coal soot I blew out of my nose. (By the way, if you ever doubted the ability of coal dust to get everywhere, pull down the plaster in a house that was heated with coal).

As I went along every room was rewired to modern code and inspected by the authorities, so I know where every wire is in the house. Including the smoke detectors that are hardwired in and ganged together, again code requirements. So I am confident in saying that I know what devices are where in my house.

Sunday morning one of the smoke detectors started chirping. An indication that it's malfunctioning, odd since I'd replaced them all 2 years ago,(nothing lasts forever). So off I go and purchase 2 new units to replace the suspect pair, the 3rd unit in the basement was working fine. I install the new units and the chirping continues from the main floor unit. I swap that unit with the new unit upstairs, The main floor location continues to chirp. Very curious.
I spend an hour on the phone with customer support trying to figure out what is going on. We try a few things, to no avail. Over night I had another idea. This morning I opened up all 3 boxes , double checked every connection. I powered down the circuit and the unit continues to chirp. "How?", I ask, there's no power?  Back on the phone to customer support, another very nice lady suggests I take all 3 units outside and then listen to the house.

Remember, as far as I am aware there are no other detectors in the house. I have not installed anything.

I hear a chirp from the location of the smoke detector box. Which is right beside the main hall closet. I go into the closet and there stuffed in the back of a shelf is a CO detector that my wife put there without telling me.

SIGH.

I really hate technology sometimes.

Back to the models.