Post #26

Although this blog is mainly about the construction of my traction layout, there are always distractions along the way.

I have been lucky to retain the friendship of school mates I went to school with over sixty years ago next year. We all have an interest in 'railways' and every few months or so we gather at each others places for an afternoon of rail activity, usually a model layout, maybe a rail video and always a lunch and afternoon tea and plus a drink or two.

Yesterday was Phils turn and he has a magnificent layout, I would call it finished but he always seem to find a spot to add more items to.

Also good news in that a few years ago Phil had submitted a proposal to have his layout included in the Australian Model Railway magazine. After not having heard anything from the editor, luck would have it that Phil bumped into the editor at the recent Rosehill Model rail exhibition and it now seems that the layout may feature sometime in the magazine during 2026. It is called the Northmeadow Lines, NSW based, so watch out for it next year.

I took a handfull of photos, the layout is so photogenic I could have taken hundreds but I will let the magazine show it all off.

Here is a handfull of photos I took yesterday:

 

Post #25

 It's been over a month but the wheels have still been rolling, The track plan has been locked in now and its just a matter of getting down and installing the track. The easy bit is laying the flex track and then comes the hard bit of making the hand laid section. It's been well over 40+ years since I have hand laid my last track.

I'll come back and cover the track laying in another post. I actually got around to ordering some printed circuit sleepers for the track and points ( or ties and turnouts) but when laid for the first point I found that the sleeper thickness was slightly different in the two products. So I said to myself take a deep breath and move onto something else for a while.

So I looked for another time waster and I have quite a few plastic building kits to be assembled. Up one end of the board I have laid in a siding that can be served by both heavy rail and traction as there will be overhead to it. 

 The building is a Walthers kit as per photo. The box was fairly heavy and after opening there were many bags of various colour of plastic sprues. Your first thought is wow how long is this all going to take to put together.

It was just a matter of getting the instructions and start putting it all together. It is not a hard structure to make, just a lot of repetitive actions to do especially the windows. Part of the effort goes into removing the items from the sprues.

I decided the building would have a weathered, slightly run down appearance as opposed to the bright shiny new look out of the box. The first task was to locate the four sides and paint them with Tamiya Flat Earth colour. This immediately toned down the plastic red to a more real looking brownish brick colour. Then to make them stand out more all the window sills were then painted with Tamiya Desert Yellow. Both of these colours like bright and clean but them comes the weathering colour which is Tamiya Khaki Drab which is then diluted well down with some Isopryl Alcohol. This works a treat and work up from very diluted to more heavy ratio where a stronger aged appearance is required. You can see as soon as it is painted over the sills, they take on a weathered appearance. You can see the immediate change in the colour of the painted area in the photo below.

Another bonus of the building is that it will hold two point motors for adjacent trackage, sometimes it is easier to have top motored point motors.

The kit is very well produced for an injection plastic model, all parts fit as they should with out any filing, this compared with a few resin cottage industry buildings in the past that require much filing to fit. I would do an hour or so work each day on the building. There is no rush to finish and was easier to target a task for the day such as assemble the docks or do work on the windows.

 The roofs over the dock and rail dock were glued into place and then painted with Tamiya light grey. I then added some rust streaks on the roof. Some rust coloured chalk was scraped onto some wet Isopryl alcohol and let to dry. Like I said this building is old and decrepit. Side steps and railings were added. The roof had four skylights on it and were added. The plastic supplied for the roof was just a flat black piece so I added masking tape over it to add some texture and this was an improvement. Again to the rescue Tamiya flat black added to the roof and weathered up with the Tamiya Khaki drab. The roof has to remain removable so to allow access to the point motors.

 The next big job was to weather the windows and insert into the building. I wired all the windows together and then dunked them into the usual brown goopy mixture to make the job quicker. Once dry then came the insertion process. I still had the roof off at this stage to make it easier. It was then just a matter of sitting down at the desk and gluing them all in. And after they were in then came the glazing. So now the building is basically done, I may insert some floors into it unless the 'weathering' over the windows doesn't block out the view to the inside.

 So the building is basically finished, I might add some other details such as water down pipes and a few stickers. There are some that came with the kit. So this distraction from the track laying has been done. I basically wanted to refresh my ability to construct and weather up a building. And when the time is ready it will be secured down to the baseboard and this will allow the scenery to flow around the outside or a place for the weeds to take hold!

 

Post #24

Well there has already been a change from the last posting #23 in that the extra siding designed next to the terminal road for the freight working has been dropped, just due to the layout of the points and curves. I will look and try and find another location to place one.

I made a trip to the local hobby shop (yes we still have a few) and purchased some Peco code 75 track and some smal radius points as well. Most of this track will sit in balllast and this will allow me to move the track layinf forward before I tackle the job of hand laying points. One issue is that I have to source some more printed circuit sleepers for the construction. I actually found a packet from Clover House that I must have purchased a long time ago as I believer they are no longer operating. I am hoping that 'Fast Tracks' have them in stock so the long process of ordering and waiting for them to arrive should be my next job.

The current work area

The area I am working on is shown in the above photo. The track will be single through here and it runs through ballasted track. There is a terminal road which makes a destination to go to and from and a standard gauge siding that will be served by both diesel hauled locos and also will be electrified for other goods traffic. As shown in the photo both lines intersect via two 90 degrees crossings and these will also be in their own right of way. Short of making the 90 degree crossing myself I decided for speed to purchase ready made crossings. The best I could do were Atlas code 83 crossings and it is surprising to see in the photo the width of the rail head comparing code 75 and 83. I think it will work okay as there won't be any 'operation' on the standard gauge as there is a sudden drop to the floor, I ran out of baseboard. There is also a slight grade in this area to get away from the flat earth policy and make it look more realistic. The grade comes up from the REA building and rises around 20mm at the top.

REA wagon outside the 'to be' building.

I thought I was on a winner when I saw this wagon available for sale at $15. The building I have to build is  Walthers Post Office building but the wagon was a refrigerator one. Maybe I can either rub out the words 'refrigerator' on the side of the wagon or pretend the ofice building keep on getting a large supply of ice creams delivered??. I don't think it will be a major problem.

The track ready to go

 I purchased four 90 degree crossings for the layout, the four can be seen in the above photo and refer to the previous track diagram to see how they fit into the layout.

Now one of my bright? ideas was to make the baseboard being able to rotate so I can access the underside easily for wiring up etc, but when I look at the amount of 'crap' that seems to collect on the topside, when it was time to provide the point motors for this section, I decided to mount the four on top via one way or other. The point on the right has a top side mounted point motor. I discovered after I had purchased a electrofrog one that it needed to be motorised to help sort out the polarity issue. It was the intention to just make it a sprung point but I think that can only be done using the insulfrog type. It will be wired in multiple with the other one that comes from the main track.

Two other point motors will be mounted on the surface and be located inside the REA building. I have used the router to dig two channels for the point rodding so this will solve that issue. The last point motor is going to be put into the back left hand corner of the house block. I will have to put a shed or something there to hide it, that as they say is further down the track.

The terminal road.

 

 

 

There will be a terminal road provided which as the photo shows will be on level ground. I purposely made it long enough to hold the Electroliner clear of the bypass track. You can see how much this unit has dictated a lot of the layout design. I'll say it is on a fan trip when photos appear of the Electroliner in this siding. I have obtained the plastic building shown which can be some sort of covered building providing a better form of weather protection for passengers. The palm tree was obtained from my O scale layout and I think it will still be OK for HO scale.

That's it for this update, I must get on to ordering those PC sleepers so I can start street construction.
 

Post #23

 Well I think I have got the final or very near final track plan worked out. I spent some time working out all the features I wanted in the layout in a previous post and I think I have achieved all of them. The main thing is to have it interesting to operate when the last bit of scenery and overhead wire is put into place. I was only thinking that this layout is probably amongst the smallest one I have built over my modelling years. I can now look back and claim biggest is not always best, but having said that I still don't how guys who build micro layouts can continue with the enthusiasm. They have them built in a few weeks and where is the challenge?

The first concept drawing of what I was aiming for.

 

 

 

You have to start somewhere and the concept diagram has turned out close to the final one. As explained earlier after I aquired the Electroliner I then had to increase the minimum radius to 11 inches to allow a smoother run, or put another way no derailments. There were ways to achieve a tighter radius (i.e. modifications to the set) but the 11" don't look too bad. An extra 200mm was added to the length and an extra 100mm added to the width. And after laying out the final plan I am glad I made it wider.

After making a second track template I started to draw the track outline onto the baseboard. And after two solid days of drawing, sharpening pencils I finally got the plan laid out. Even though the concept drawing was done to scale on a computer, it doesn't always work out in real life.

You will see that the final plan has plenty of curves in it and I only run parallel to the edge where I have to. I have always said that curves make it more interesting, anyway that's my theory.

Drone shot used to accurately map out the track plan

The photo above is how I was able to draw out an accurate plan ot the track position. I reached up above the board and took a series of vertical photos, around four shots. These were then imported into CorelDraw and then stitched together and then traced over to create the track positioning. In the photo the depot, crossing loop and the track into Aurora has been commenced as this is all done with RTR track. I also like to flood the board with buildings and other items to get the feel of how they will sit in the final outcome. I am still getting over the size of HO cars instead of the O scale ones I was previously modelling. 

So eventually I end up with a scale drawing of the final plan.

No not the final, after drawing this one up I discovered that I had a freight motor and wanted it to be able to run into a joint siding that was also worked by a railway locomotive. The factory/industry is the orange box shape towards the left hand side. So plan number two was done:

Now the trolley line was connected to the freight siding and I found I could squeeze in a work depot siding (shown dashed) as well. (Gee you can fit a lot in modelling HO) The rest of the layout I was happy with but it was this freight siding causing issues. The freight line heads towards the left hand side to cross over the trolley line via two 90 degrees crossings. I ended up purchasing four of them - Atlas code 83 as I don't think there are any code 75 90's that are made. At one stage I was going to have the freight line head down a grade and go under the trolley line that would cross via a bridge, but this works okay. The trolley track into the siding was only going to hold one freight car so after another change I reversed the crossover and this made room for two freight cars and a longer electrified siding. Win Win. So another change:

Maybe final Who knows?

So at the time of writing this is the final plan, not saying there may not be more changes to come. I know that the roads shown may not be the final ones but the track has to be laid before the roads can be set out. You can see that by reversing the track into the freight siding that this suits the siding capacity at the factory. I have a Walthers Post Office building ready to be assembled for this spot and have marked out its footprint onto the baseboard.

The barn has to be dual ended as some of the trolleys are only single ended so will have to exit the barn opposite to how they came in. The barn will only hold eight bogie cars and the long siding outside is long enough to hold the Electroliner.

So at this stage I am happy with the progress being made, but always plenty more to be done. Sadly I will have to wait a while longer before I will put up some overhead, but looking forward to doing that.
 

 

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.