Operating May 31, 2025

We had our 16th op session here two days ago. If you have ever hosted an operating session, you are familiar with the preparation and setup required for a smooth, or relatively smooth, running of the trains. I begin with an email confirming the operators, date, timing, and other incidentals. One example is that we are an inside slipper or sock home; outside shoes are deposited on the inside porch. 

We have an orientation 15 minutes before the first run. I find this is critical to ensure operators are aware of operating nuances. A key one for me is the new hand-thrown switches using a push rod anchored on the fascia:

The rod is attached to the Tortoise switch machine. I plan to add more, as this was a manual railroad. It provides a more active role for the operator. One issue was that I did not allow operators to "practice" using the push rods. Consequently, I would hear the switch machine gears grinding because the operator was pushing and pulling too hard. I will now include a time to practice after a brief instruction.
Here is the Orientation sheet that continues to evolve:

timetable

I find that an orientation, even for operators who have been here a few times, helps anchor them into the time and era as well as new information and how the time table, etc, are to work. 

Below, the Yard Master is building a train with his yard engine, Alabama, for a crew's next run out of Chattanooga:

Switching maneuvers in Dalton with 

two crews negotiating the right-of-way. 

To the right, Dan is functioning as the conductor while a new operator, Andreas, takes position in the cab, figuratively speaking, of course.

Above is a close-up of Dan and Andreas with loco Catoosa.

The first part of the operating session went flawlessly. However, after the first 45 minutes or so, one locomotive was not receiving power, and another had its motor turning but no movement. If the issue is not solvable in a couple of minutes, a replacement loco is acquired. The motor turning one had an issue with the shaft separating. Easy repair with CA super glue. She now became a backup.

This is a pano looking over the south yard in Atlanta, over to Dalton:

And to give you a close-up view on how crews pin the link, as we say, here is a photo by Jim Judge, YM for Chattanooga, showing how it's done. I have found tweezers with LED lights, which help immensely in a dark area of the railroad.

I ask crews to be sure to make notes on their Time Table sheets with any issues, including track repair, car breakdown, and areas where they experienced a short; also to note the actual arrival and departure times. These notes allow me to fix the issues before the next ops.

Bottom line, they continue to come back and enjoy operating and hanging with friends.

LINESIDE DETAILS

These are slides from a power point presentation i did to show all the possibilities for someone's model or virtual railroad.

The first slide indicates categories or areas. This is followed by slides of each category.

More to come. A slight technical difficulty prevented additional slides to upload. Please revisit another time.

Mantua General 4-4-0 Rebuild Part 1

I have rebuilt about 10 of these Mantua Generals. But since Soundtraxx came out with the TS2 1100, I have converted a few to include these beauties. The sound varieties are are superior to their Economi and Micro sound decoders, which I had in several of my locos. Photo below is the General as Mantua manufactured it. I believe the former owner colored the stack and pilot as these were originally black, or if from a kit it would be bare metal. Note the drive shaft. This too was modified as I needed to change the motor to fit the tender along with a speaker, "super" capcitor and the sound decoder.

The most mindful aspect for a rebuild is determining what parts to paint while adding the electrical parts and the new details. 

Where to start?1?1?1 - Contemplate your sequence of moves. It is a bit of a chess match. And as with chess, there are multiple moves. For this build I first chose all the detail parts I wanted to add. Here are two photos showing these. 

Top photo, row left to right: tender steps, water valves, water tank hatch, stack. 

Bottom row left to right: tender brake beams, firewood split from local shrub, short and long handrail stanchions. Later I'll show how these were configured.

Top row, left to right: valve steam rocker arms, whistle, bell, horizontal pilot. 

Bottom row left to right: boiler stanchions, steam chest lubricators, double link coupler pocket, long tool box for rear  of tender.  

Lastly, tender tool boxes that rest on tender top near cab, flag stanchions, pilot draw bar. 

I made notes, both mental and written, as to what I wanted to build. First was the cab roof. Through our civil war railroads groups.io, we learned that  cab roofs were not all peaked as with the Mantua model. There were arched as well.  My good friend Lebron made one and I adapted his approach. First, file off the peak, then using a thin sheet of brass, it is shaped into an arch. Shims were inserted to support the new roof.  

Now to assemble the electrical components. Most difficult to find these days is a strong motor that fits and can accommodate other parts. Here I have a Swiss Micron motor, 13mm x 20mm. The sound decoder, cube speaker and current keeper are by Soundtraxx. Respectfully TS2 1100, 810154 cube and 810140 "super capacitor". I also use TCS KA2 Keep Alives in some locos. Both of these have worked fabulously! Rarely is there a stall or stop over a switch. 

This next image shows the above components installed into the tender. The pointer is indicating the mini plug connecting the hot wire from the decoder to right side drivers. The ground wire is not visible but it's been attached to a screw that was tapped into the tender from. This connects the left side of the tender trucks which also have brass wire wipers soldered to the truck and bent slightly to touch the tender wheels on the left side. The white wire is connected to another mini plug for the hot wire coming from the headlamp. 

Here you can see how the headlamp wires are connected. The ground wire is held in place with the screw that holds the steam dome in place. Duck tape keeps the wires secured to avoid floating into the drive mechanism. 

Here you can see the electrical components, in particular the motor. These unfortunately have significantly increased in price, only available direct from Switzerland. At $90 plus a $16 shipping chang made these impractical to continue using. I am now on the hunt for a successor. Also in this photo you see a few other aspects of the install. One is how the ground wire from decoder is screwed into the tender frame. ANother is the mini plugs. You just cut away the black plastic with cutters. They are then soldered to their respective wire. Lastly is the use of scotch tape to hold it all together, seen also in a previous photo.

The painting of course started earlier. I primed with a Rustoleum paint. The Russia Iron color I found in my collection of Model Power paints. Russia Iron can be a variety of colors. However, this version, from my research, is pretty spot on.

 

Next was the walkway. These could be a mahogany or other hard wood color. I used Vajello a different wood color but after seeing such a difference from the mahogany (photo below), I repainted the walkway to match the cab. 

I predrill all the holes for the detail parts either prior to painting and most certainly prior to adding decals. Here's two photos of cab grab irons. 

The decals are by the master, John Ott. He is a medical illustrator by trade. He also creates remarkable lithographs of 19th century locomotives. http://www.ottgalleries.com

Here are the decals he recently did for me for this build. Impressive no?

I first cut the curved end. The other cuts being square are made after as the hold the decal in place for the free form cut of the curve.

The area to apply decals must be painted white for the decals to show up. I use Vajello white. I tried the gloss white but it was too clumpy. ALthough you can see small ridges in the paint, these are unnoticeable after decal is applied. Micro Scale decal products are quite reliable. 

 

  

Once applied, I wick most of the water away in some cases. right photo. But the water helps to loosen the decal to position it, left photo. 

In some cases the decal is a little short. Color matching is ket to cover the white area at tender bottom. Two Polly S colors worked!

Main components are painted and ready to be assembled. Weight is a most important element for these locos. Cabs come with a full weight. However, I like to add the engineer. Using a very slow process of cutting out that corner with a hack saw allows for the figure.

This shows the drive shaft mechanism. You see two shafts. The longer one has NWSL parts because I wanted to narrow the ugly large shaft that comes with the General. I cut one of the large, white balls and drill a hole for the narrow piano wire.

Next time I will show installation of the other detail parts and other nuances to rebuild a Mantua 4-4-0.

Flat Figures by Brian Kammerer

Many, many months ago, I needed to scenic the area that increased in size as a result of opening up the aisle just south of Kennesaw Mtn. This area is at the top left corner between Kennesaw and where "Mill" is noted. The entire table of the Atlanta area is now parallel with the back wall and allows for a pleasurable 3' aisle.

I now had 3' feet of new real estate to scenic which I found artistically challenging and was a good thing. I had several ideas including a small farm, dirt road, double post and rail fencing. Mock up  structures were placed in the area. However, it all felt too busy.  Trains would be passing the Redoubt which has perspectives then a farm then mountain... So I just sat and pondered gazing into the bare benchtop. I would come back over a period of about 4-5 months. Interesting how the idea finally lands. I decided that I would create a deep perspective with distance. The backdrop / ridge line is foam core with a couple of layers of flocking. I would  need to show a 1000 yard or more distance from the ridge line to a full size (HO) foreground. 

This photo below shows the first steps to bridging the distance. At the base of the ridge line is a dark tree line. The intent is to show a tree line closer to the viewer and enhance the perspective experience. There are two figures in the middle ground. This is what I call "concept measuring" to ascertain plausibility for the entire scene. The cluster of trees is meant to be a view-through element. Once painted and flocked, I want the viewer to peer through the trees to help distribute the perspective as they see the scouts. The stream, and of course the house car, are the foreground. The fun of creating this scenic element is assessing what to place between the stream and the ridge line to foster the sense of distance.

Close up of the above photo...

Even closer image below. The figure is another Brian Kammerer creation. His film "The Other Great Locomotive Chase" is populated with a plethora of flats. When I mentioned to him what I was doing he suggested flats. I had hoped he would. He graciously created a few sheets of infantry, cavalry and artillery figures. Everyone who has viewed this scene could not tell the scouts were flat.

One of the figure sheets Brain created is below. All I did was reduce the size then print a sheet. After cutting the figures I wanted, and adding a thin sheet of cardboard backing for rigidity, I simply glued a straight pin to the back. The bench is blue insulation foam, making installment of the figures very easy.  

I am getting ahead of my process.

While still in the imagination phase, and driving around on different days, one day as I was passing a field. I saw exactly what I was wanting to build. In the middle distance from the road there was a cluster of trees. The added component missing in my scene was the vegetation among these trees. Small, wild growing shrubs, bushes and some vines. Here is the nearly final touch, close up...

A more distant view...

I want to add more underbrush among the trees and in the open field. However, for the most part, I am quite satisfied with the results.

Test run with a Soundtraxx Current Keeper

 Locomotives running smooth is what truly matters. Otherwise I have a wonderful diorama. But that is NOT the goal. Here are two video shorts showing the Dr Thompson, a converted and detailed Mantua General, on a test run. My big difficulty was getting them to consistently run through turnouts. So far so good!

Adams Express Group Build Project

 About one month ago, Bernie Kempinski posted a suggestion / challenge for a group build of a box / freight car. The purpose is to generate activity and motivation for those who have wanted or perhaps have stalled on a project. It also can inform members and viewers as to the possibilities to increase your railroad fleet. I chose to scratch build the Adams Express car. As far as we know, there are only two ACW era photos. Interesting in that there are three different types reveled in these images shown below...

This first image, taken in Nashville, has long side openings and an exterior door. The truck side frames are unique in that they are braced with two vertical beams to accommodate heavy loads. One can assume that the color was on the lighter side since the lettering and numbers are dark. A cool modeling detail is the calk marks on the sides. Although they could be considered graffiti today, these were either instructions or notations for the handlers.

This next image shows two Adams cars photographed in Chattanooga, circa 1864...

On the left, a distinct difference from the above is that the door runs on the inside and has a curved roof versus peaked. And seeing white lettering, most likely the color is quite dark. Looking at a photo I took at the Sacramento Museum, it could be a bluish green, seen below this photo.

Back to the Nashville photo, the Adams car to the right has other differences which include a shorter height, a boarded up window and what appears to be an even lighter color with dark lettering.  

Here is a sequence of photos of my partially completed version of the car in the Chattanooga photo...

Siding is Northwestern scale lumber, 1/8" scribed siding, but the planks are too wide. I would use the more prototypical 1/16" for others. The roof is card stock and scored to illustrate a metal roof. I will add Panamint HOT82sACW 3D printed trucks and InterMountain metal wheels. I used metal crate castings for weights and have one door open to see in. Look close and there is a waybill attached to one of the crates. On the other end is a 1/4 oz. weight to bring the total weight to about 46 grams. Alexander link and pin couplers are also attached. Grab irons are Detail West .019 brass wire. Grandt Line  #5101 nut/bolt castings also add to the detail. Turnbuckles are by Tichy. Queen posts I believe are Grandt Line. I found these in a drawer, to my joyful surprise, but were loose so the manufacturer is a guess. Lastly will be to create decals or cut individual letters... oh boy.