Post #22

 I mentioned back in Post #19 that I was going to build a terminus track based on the one that was at Aurora. The town was located 35 miles (56km) west of Chicago and located around the Fox River. The terminus was right on the bank of this river as shown in the photo below.

 My HO layout is not based on anywhere in particular in the USA but I have based certain locations on photos I have come across in my research. This one for Aurora stood out and that photo has plenty of modelling elements in it. One photo I have collected suggests that it snows there and the river freezes over. But that would be a too easy model, just fill the area with plaster and spray water over it?

I have dedicated one corner which will be near the trolley shed to be the Aurora terminus. I am calling it that as presently I haven't named anything on the layout. Maybe as I live downunder in Australia I could call it the 'Southern Aurora'

Photo: Vintage Rail Journeys

I chose this corner to work in as I was able to use flex track as it won't be laid in a roadway. By doing a combination of road and non-road construction this has allowed me to progress the layout quicker and also adds some variety in tracks.

I then cut away the edge of the baseboard down about 30mm to allow for the river to be modelled at a lower level. At least the outer boards were of around 80mm wide boards so it could be cut down readily. I also added a corner bracket there for more strength.

Ready for the cut, no going back now

 

The track in my usual fashion ran inwards and not parallel to the edges, I'm sure it looks better. I used a jig saw to make the longer cut in the front board, and it came out close to being level. One thing I have to be mindfull is that everytime something is attached to the baseboard the added weight will be required to bourne by the two pivot points, so I hope I haven't reached the breaking point (yet). So the river bed was made with some scrap plastic and cut out around a vertical support and lined up to fit the edges.

Work in progress

Ready for the river

One thing that I had rescued from a previous HO railway laout was a timber bridge model that had come out well. It had four support walls as well giving more character to the bridge. Although I didn't notice any at the real Aurora terminus I decided to include it at my terminus. The only problem was that there had to be two sides for the bridge and on one side there was limited space to fit anything in. It comes up close to the crossing loop so by the time the scenery gets done around it there won't be a lot of water showing. Anyway it gives a reason for the bridge.

To simulate the river I used some texture paint applied with a sponge to the plastic, this then gave a rippled effect to simulate movement in the water. After this had dried I then applied some Tamiya Flat green over the white texture paint. As this gave a flat finish I then painted gloss Mod Podge over the green paint to end up with a gloss finish. The river near the edge was painted a Tamiya Buff colour to simulate shallower water than the middle. A previous river I made for my On30 narrow gauge layout required $150AU worth of resin. I wasn't going down that road again and tried to do it on the cheap.
 

River and bridge in place

I finally got the river glued into place and I am about 90% happy with the outcome, the gloss certainly gives a good appearance of flowing water. I regret I had prematurely cut the plastic not parallel to the track thereby loosing an Aurora style river bank appearance. Anyway I am sure it will come out alright. Plenty more scenicing and track ballasting yet to do.

Post #21

 One of the key factors in the layout design has been the unexpected purchase of an Electroliner set recently. It was too nice to let it go and I immediately purchased it. This rush of blood made me realise that the whole lot of previous planning of a layout with just trolley cars was now altered. As this set is made up of four articulated cars you could almost call it a train. But in real life most of its journey between Chicago and Milwaukee was on a railway like right of way where very high speeds were attained. But at the other end of its operation it was also able to negotiate street trackage and elevated systems and sharp curves to get to the terminus. It was the sharp curve situation that was going to effect me in the layout design.

Oh for some overhead

 Prior to sending the unit away for a decoder fitout I read that the unit was suitable for ten inch radius curves, so I promptly set out making paper templates, cutting them out and laying them all over the layout to try and find a final design.

The Electroliner was the first unit that I required to be decoder fitted as this was going to set the minimum radius curve size. I still had that magic ten inch figure that I was hoping for. Late last week I got notification that the decoder had been fitted and it was ready for collection. Last Saturday was the day and luckily it coincided with a model railway exhibition where I was able to receive it. It was also fitted out with a sound decoder which compared with either a  diesel or steam sound decoder I must admit sounds pretty boring. Sometimes you felt that even before it was fitted out it was already making a similar sound with the existing motor! Anyway it has been done and has a nice horn and compressor sounds. And also the two bells which I presume is some sort of conductor communiciation with the motorman. Coupled with the head and tail lights it has come out well.

One bit of feedback I got from the person fitting the decoder was the difficulty of removing the body from the chassis to do the work. There seems to be two items the body and the window section that have to coordinate being able to be released together. This was made more difficult for him as apparently it seems like the windows and body sides were assembled before the paint had dried and getting them to release wasn't an easy job, thanks John for your careful persistance. When I received my first locos when there was only one number in my age, the Tri-ang loco bodies were just held on with a screw, so simple but it worked and was so much easier. These days it seems it is pot luck what bit you push or pull to get the bodies off.

 I was running it on my sons layout to see how it performed and I am pleased with the end result. This is one very smooth unit. Having had some fun letting it stretch its legs (the driver probably thought he was on his way to Milwaukee!) it was time to test the minimum radius curves. I had made up a ten inch template and then had a section of flex track bent around into a short section for testing. As soon as I hooked up the DCC the sound unit came on. At least the driver seemed to be ready. I slowly inched up the throttle to number one on the dial and it slowly moved around the bend. But unfortunately it had derailed a couple of tiimes so I was ready to declare the ten inch test a failure. Now I had read on Facebook after I had posed the ten inch curve question that by modifying the diaphragms or adding some weight underneath this could solve the problem. I thought that I would choose to step up and go to an eleven inch radius curve and use this as the basic minimum curve for the whole layout. I am sure traction modellers have a laugh at rail modellers when they say they can go around eighteen inch radius - hey try traction land where we can do an eight inch curve!.

The failed 10" radius

It was a case of back to the drawing board and make the next one up - an eleven inch radius template. Eventually I made up something that looked like it would work. The track laid was taken up and reconfigured to an around eleven inch curve. So after getting it all ready, controller hooked up, unit on track it was tried out and after about ten trips back and forward it was deemed a success resulting in nil derailments.

Successful eleven inch curve

So that's where things are up to at the moment. The Crash Test Dummy has done its job, only issue it may have caused some problems now trying to fit in curves that are now one inch broader. But now the minimum radius has been determined the next step is to lay out the rest of the layout design. I hope it all fits!

Post #20

 Well the time has come to lay the first track on the baseboard. The concept plan has been worked out, the baseboard and frame have been made so I am making a start finally. Time flies and it has been over a year or so since South Coast Traction was first thought of.

I was always wanting to make the plan of the track layout as interesting as I could make a traction layout. I wanted to steer away from parallel running along the baseboard edge. I know most cities are laid out in this format but when you only have an 8' x 4' to work with it needs to be as interesting as I can make it for operation. As previously mentioned the invention of DCC in relation to a traction layout is certainly a game changer. A previous layout could only use DC and ran with a multitude of switching a DPDT switch up and down to choose between two controllers, well no more of that with DCC. The only downside of that is all my DC trolleys now have to be fitted with decoders.

On a previous post I mentioned that I like to lay out track and buildings on the baseboard to get a visual and feeling to see how it will look in the future. I have cut out 10" radius paper templates to accomodate the Electroliner which will then have trackage rights over the whole layout. A model exhibition and sale day attended recently resulted in acquiring a few more buildings and other useful items to go on the layout. A bonus was a box of buildings that included the Walthers Merchant row of buildings already assembled, although the painting was a bit rough but that can be fixed when I get around to that part of the project.

The above photo shows the track swinging away from the basboard edge to present a more interesting curve and add some character. This section may even acquire some centre street poles just for a difference. All the buildings I have so far are only up to three stories tall, I think that many multi story buildings would a view blocker type effect so I won't be using them.

Also to add some interest as can be seen in the above photo I am going to incorporate a standard gauge siding to a factory that will run from the edge of the board to just inside the board to a factory. I will place a loco and a box car on the line somewhere. Originally the line was going to dive down in a cutting under a road bridge but after attending a sale day I acquired two dummy crossing signals that made me change to a level/grade crossing. I am going to try and get the siding a dual purpose one and erect some overhead and use it for the traction layout as well. I have a freight motor and a PE model of Electra that can be used.

Next post I will start on the trolley barn tracks.
 

Post #19

 Well another month has passed by, and no sign of any trams running as yet but plenty of background work being organised.

I have finally sorted out the baseboard and I feel the size is large enough to keep me occupied for a while, scratchbuilding and plenty of plastic buildlings to be assembled and weathered up. All likened to a box of Lego pieces where it all comes together eventually and looks like what the instructions said it should.

I had some drama I shouldn't admit to, it was one that put me back around two weeks. I had the two uprights done and the perimeter of the frame work. I then secured one cross piece in the middle thinking that would keep it stable. I was trying to raise the sheet of 8' x 4' up onto the frame  solo but it was doomed to failure. The sheet was up against the rear support and as I tried to raise the sheet up onto the frame, it decided to collapse in a heap. A few broken pieces of timber but worse still the rotating bearings ended up bent and required replacing. So much so that all of the ball bearings in the unit ended up all over the floor. Well back to Ebay and order another two. The bearings have a declared 66lb each so I don't know if I should be weighing everything that goes onto the layout or just wait for the crash?

As revealed previously the bearings provide rotation to the baseboard to (theoretically) allow work on the underneath from a stool. The days of lying on my back looking up are gone, so the results of this experiment will eventually make it to these posts.

A further measure towards non collapseability (is that a word?) I have secured a fold up leg in each corner. Now I can actually lean on each corner without worrying about collapse. These legs have to be hinged so when I need to rotate they are folded up out of the way.

The baseboard was finally lifted up into place onto the frame, I was confident that enough support was now in place to prevent the second collapse. It was a good feeling to actually get this far. Also to accomodate the 10" radius curves I have extended the length by 200mm and the width by 100mm. This has required purchase of a smaller sheet of ply and the cutting up ready to be connected to the main sheet. The smaller pieces can be seen in the photos.

Rotation plate

I have stayed with the original concept plan for the layout. I feel it will offer plenty of operation in future. The trolley barn will be built over four roads but only two trolleys long on each road (indicated in the photo by the top of a kit building box). There will also be an outside road long enough to enable the Electroliner to be parked there. Also a single short siding to hold the sprinkler cars and or freight motor.

Where the barn will be

Opposite view from above photo

The track on one side of the barn will be made utilising Peco track and points because I already have them and it will also speed up construction. I have purposely made the barn at an angle in one corner. This to me adds interest but also it adds another area where a crossing loop will be built on a single line section, making it forced operation. And in studying photos on the web for ideas for the layout I came across a photo of a dead end track at Aurora. It is beside a river and has a timber waiting shed. This will add some interest (I hope) and a destination and dead end track to reverse direction at.

Aurora terminus. Photo www.trolleydodger.com

Overall view

So that's where it is up to at the moment. Baseboard is in position and a 95% agreement on the layout design. It is easy to design on a 'flat' level but when all the buildings and tele poles are added then another dimension needs to be considered. There is no way a 10 storey building would be considered for this size layout.

More next time.
 

Post #18

  Finally baseboard construction has begun. I have had the plywood 8' x 4' or 2400mm x 1200mm for a few weeks and to make the baseboard framework I needed some extra timber. This was supplied by cutting down some long lengths of pacific maple timber. I transported the timber in the back of the Corolla down to a mate who had a table saw which made quick work of cutting up a boards 240mm wide into three x eighty millimetre wide boards. The beauty of the pacific maple was two fold, it was free and it is a very light timber which was ideally suited for the baseboard.

With this layout to be built I have decided to make the baseboard user friendly in that it will rotate to enable me to work on the underneath of the board without laying on my back or straining looking up from underneath. When considering how I was going to make this work the first thing I thought of was to drill a hole through a centre pivot point and insert a wooden dowel so that the board can be rotated 90 degrees to enable it to be worked on.  Not having any dowel on hand I could see me having to buy a long length just to get a short pivot piece. I then threw the question at Google something like 'rotating joint/coupling' and what popped up in Ebay was my answer, it was a lazy susan mechanism.

 So an order was put in and not forgetting that I had to order two of them. They soon turned up and then after playing with them in my mind I was soon asking how do you screw in the second disc when the first one is already screwed in? It took a look at Youtube to solve the answer in that a a second hole had to be drilled into one of the sides to expose the 'other sides' hole. Harder to explain in words, just check out Youtube if interested.

 Once again I have been rescued by using old baseboard timbers that previously formed part of South Coast Rail. These timbers originally came from a next door house construction as they were apparently made to the wrong size. As they were going to be scrapped I quickly grabbed them for future use. They now have notches from the previous layouts baseboard in them but I will fill these in with some offcut timber and make them all look nice. The baseboard framing has to be made upside down as the centre leg is connected to the end timbers. When it is all done then it will be flipped over.

In another 'doh' moment I was going to have the centre leg on the inside of the baseboard but soon realised that when the ply was attached and the board rotated the leg would hit the the underneath of the ply. After cutting off the top of the leg I soon realised that if the leg was on the outside of the frame there would be no problem, so that's where it is going.

As can be seen in the above photo it looks like the plywood is not large enough but as indicated in the previous post, the Electroliner has made me go to 10" radius curves to enable it to run and therefore I needed a bit of extra room to accomodate this aspect. So I have made an extra 100mm in width and also 200mm longer. The theory was that the whole project could have been larger as I have the room but there is a handling limit to a single baseboard size.

Now that the outer frame has been made I need to put the ply down and design the final track layout. If I just spaced out the other central supporting timbers sure as Murphy would put a timber right under a point construction. So the layout will be designed and can be modified if necessary to accomodate the timbers underneath.

There will be a connecting piece between the two upright timbers (and be on the floor) shown to support and stabilise the layout.

  The above photo readily shows the extra baseboard length and width I have grabbed. I will need to source some extra 9mm ply and fill it in to the edge. I am planning to try and incorporate a hill up one end and get away from the complete flat look. It will also create some interesting scenery features, and just hope the Electroliner will get up okay.

So that's where I am up to at the moment - out with the rulers, compass and anything else I can think of to design a good layout.

 

Post #17

 The process for getting back into some traction modelling has been going on for over a year, but I feel that the time is getting close for starting construction.

Over this time I have been collecting the many items required. The traction fleet is ready and the whole fleet is currently elsewhere having brains (decoders) inserted so that I don't have to spend forever flipping switches if it was being run on DC. This was how my first layout was set up but as I was the main (only) driver switch flipping wasn't a concern.

I also have a collection of buildings, mostly ones that I will need some time to assemble. I have managed a few second hand ones that can be placed directly onto the baseboard. Then I have a selection of brass poles as well as the overhead hardware - the frogs and wire hangers which have been sourced from the USA as that is the only location I know where you can still obtain them. The postage is way more than I expected but this is the only way to obtain them. So everything is ready to go.

Last week I finally arranged delivery of a 2400 x 1200mm plywood for the baseboard. I managed to get it down to the shed and took it down 'my' end. I am progressively adding carpet tiles to the floor and most of the first batch obtained has now been laid. To finish off the entire shed I reckon I will need around forty five more which will allow a complete wall to wall to finish. I could have omitted to lay under the baseboards but in the future it will be good to have it all carpeted.

Way back in Post #2 I showed a concept plan that I had come up with that I had hoped would fit onto the 8' x 4' board. I showed the proposed track in a thicker line than just using a pencil thickness line which in real life doesn't work. The plan looks busy and in Post #2 I nominated some features that I wanted to incorporate into the layout:

• Double track in roadway
• single track in roadway
• reserved track
• a crossing loop in the reserved track
• a combination of single and double arm trolley poles
• a depot/trolley barn
• a balloon loop
• reversing loop for single poled trams
• a freight track and building
• a run through passenger terminal
• and try to incorporate a few grades so it is not all flat

Concept plan

I liked the plan that I drew up and then need to translate it from paper to the actual baseboard. A lot of the plans that I see on traction layouts are very simple ones and have mostly straight line that runs parallel to the edge and are mainly boring. I had to try harder to get some interesting working brought into the final design to save from the boredom. It needed to be a few steps up from those people who make micro layouts - operation status 0 out of 10. After you have built the circle of track you can only sit there and watch it run round and round. I previously had an On30 narrow gauge layout that filled the shed and the operation possibilities were endless with so many variations. So I am trying to get this ideal into the design.

So eager to see how this proposed sketch would translate onto  the baseboard top, I managed to place the board over the junk underneath (still a bit more to get rid of) and then go into what I call 'dry planning' That is where you place structures, track, buildings, cars etc etc onto the board to see how it shapes up.

There is a similarity to the plan

Looking at the above photo there is some resemblance to the plan. There are some that might claim it is the proverbial spaghetti bowl a term that is often used when a modeller crams track into every square inch on the baseboard. I don't apologise if it looks like that as I won't sacrifice looks for operation. In the bottom right corner is a crossing loop that will give some operation in having to do a cross, it would be a nice feature to have operating crossing loop signals, but thats a long way away.

The fly in the ointment with this layout design has been the purchase of the Con Cor Electroliner four car set. It has a minimum radius of around ten inch radius curves so if I want to get some operation from the set the layout has to use the ten inch radius minimum. The above photo shows some paper templates I printed out utilising the 10" radius curves. Even using this radius will allow the proposed design to be incorporated with some minor tweeking here and there. The big shoe box represents the location of the car barn and will only be four roads containing two trollies under cover. To the top of the box you can make out another open road and this will be long enough to hold the 544mm Electroliner in clear of other roads. The other grey building is a temporary lend of the HO layouts diesel shed to represent the terminal building that will be located there.

In the past I have said that coming back to HO scale from O scale takes a while to get the brain to re-adjust again to sizing. A good example was when I was wondering how wide to make the roads in HO. I was only guessing when I laid out the ice cream sticks to represent the gutters. The road looked wide but then I remembered I had purchased a few HO cars for the layout. Yes I had purchased a black ute, a good pick up I thought. I already had an O scale similar truck and took the following photo:

O scale and HO comparison.

I am not sure that the O scale pickup is actually 1:48 scale but shows the vast differences. I will do some more research on road widths when the track planning gets serious.

Another issue yet to be tackled is the track. It will be a combination of ready to run and hand laid track. I will be trying to use code 75 track as I have plenty of rail left over from the previous HO layout. I have also obtained some Peco set track points. They have a very tight radius suitable for the depot fan but it is Code 100 track, you can't get the same tight radius in Code 75. The street trackage will be laid directly onto the baseboard and covered in to represent the various types of road surfaces.

Proposed depot entrance tracks

One further addition I will make is to tack on some extra baseboard and make the width 1300mm instead of 1200mm and either 100mm or 200mm to the length. At this stage I had only concentrated on laying out the depot end of the board and if all goes well I might only need the 100mm on the end, time will tell.

Now the sad part is that all items I have placed on the board have to come off as there is no framing yet done. More carpet tiles to be sourced to finish off the floor, then the frame up will begin. So as you can see - progress (finally)
 

 

Post #16

 Although I haven't as yet started on the baseboard construction other things have ben moving in the background. The shed is still being worked on, firstly to get it ready to contain East Coast Rail and once that is ready then the other half of the shed will get ready for the South Coast Traction Company.

One half of my fleet of cars has been sent off to have DCC decoders fitted as I feel I don't want to go back to the old days of flipping switches to get operating. On an 8' x 4' board it won't take long to go right around. I am also going to get sound decoders fitted to at least two trams so that videos will be more appreciated. As well headlights will be fitted  to them. It looks odd with a big hole sticking out the front. This as well as the lack of interiors and any form of window glazing leaves a lot to be desired compared with todays models. I guess the fitting of the big motors back then virtually restricted the fitting of seats.

I have also sent off to Modelu in England an order for some figures that I think will represent tramway personnel. I am still coming to terms with the small size of the HO models having just left the larger scale of O scale modelling. Received in superquick time, they have been sent to Ian Fainges an incredible figure painter who will make them all look nice. The prescence of the tramway figures hopefully will bring some life to when I start photographing scenes.

The last post I showed a pile of Traction and Model magazines I obtained. I skimmed through most of them and in one issue over fifty years ago was a model traction survey and the results were published.

 

These were the days well before DCC control and I am sure it would have been well received back then. I seem to remember the invention of the Astrac system was basically a precursor to DCC or anyway an improved way of controlling your fleet. I am not electronically minded so I will go with what works today.