Almost There

Yes, I know. Christmas is coming too ...

My "To Do" list on the Davenport (post electrical/mechanical) is down from about 25 items to about a dozen:

Build/Install front and rear headlight lenses
Build sandbox covers.
Install horn and bell pull cords.
Clean and reinstall cab on locomotive
Install radio on locomotive, connect antenna.
Install bell on hood and horns on roof.
Connect front, rear headlights.
Build muffler, remove old smokestack, install new muffler on hood.
Install hood.
Modify radiator & Build grill guard, reinstall
Build and install flag holders, or match paint and cover old hood slots.
Add decals, other graphics, and Marcus.
Test.

And, I think I may see what I can find in the large diecast toy section of Tractor Supply to save me building a muffler... some of theirs are quite detailed, and should work nicely in 1:20.3 for a smaller stack.

I had hoped this post would wave the "FINISHED" banner ... but I'm spending my day dealing with a main drain clog (again,) and may therefore end up delayed for a few days!

Matthew (OV)

Vital Signs

As of today, the major electrical work on the Davenport is finished.

This tiny locomotive now sports 12 NiCd batteries, an ELITE throttle by RCS, and a Phoenix P5 sound system, as well as a P5T interface board, and all of the requisite wiring to make them all work, under the tiny hood.

The power switch is under the rear frame of the locomotive, as is the radio receiver. The small speaker will fit in front, between the frames. The charging jack will go in the rear cab wall, and be disguised by a sand box / cab seat on the inside, and either a sand fill or a handbrake on the outside. I'll go more into the cosmetic details next time, when I have photos to show how they're progressing... the big news TODAY is that other than connecting the headlights, the electrical work on this locomotive is FINISHED!

The first trial fitting of the various components was not especially encouraging (and, I'm told led to indigestion in some quarters!) There seemed to be no way to fit everything in ... and more wire than a local telephone exchange!



I found the best way to overcome the "octopus" the project seemed to be swallowed by was to remove all of the extra wires from the Phoenix and P5T ... there are several extra wires pinned into the plugs that aren't needed for what I'm doing here. I also shortened up harnesses where possible, and then connected what was left in neat, organized bundles. With the battery pack modified from its standard 4-4-4 arrangement to a top row of 4, a middle row of 5, and a bottom row of 3 cells, I found I had room for all of the electronics on top (including the Phoenix P5 at the extreme rear of the hood, vertically,) and sufficient clearance for the worm and gears underneath. With the battery secured to the right hand side of the hood, there was a space along the left that accomodated the P5T, and all of the bundled wires, as well as the volume switch. With the "Octopus" gone, everything finally fit in a functional, if crowded, way.



Much better! The programming port can be removed by unplugging it from the board once the board has been programmed ... which I did (though not before taking the photo above, apparently.) All that was left was a full scale test ... and I'm happy to report everything started up and ran like a charm... both sound and motor. The speaker in the above photo is a full size Phoenix speaker, and I used it just for testing -- the actual speaker is much smaller and will fit between the front frames, and ahead of the power block.

Now to finish up, there's still lots of cosmetic work to do, as well as final re-assembly, and cleaning up all the debris and marks that a major surgery like this always leaves ...

But today, it's alive! ALLLIIIIVE!

Getting There (Much like the Tortoise...)

No photos yet... but for folks looking for progress, there is progress!

The electronics are almost finished. The locomotive now has an RCS ELITE throttle, Phoenix P5 sound card, a P5T interface, radio receiver, charging jack and power switch all installed. I'm waiting for a speaker for the Phoenix to be delivered. The hood and the lid are both on the frame, and taped in place while the RTV that holds the battery pack in place sets up; this is somewhat delicate, as everything fits, but only just. The new headlight and horns are ready to go, the rear headlight has been fabricated, and once I have some styrene and brass in hand (and some JB Weld!) I'll be able to finish things up. Oh, and I'll need to charge the battery ...

Stay tuned. I expect more, and photos soon.

Fully Apart

In an effort to keep this series in order, today's update shows the fully stripped down frame of the Davenport.

You can see the cavity in which the motor mounts; there are two "D" shaped brackets on the motor that allow it to be screwed into the bottom of the large metal "hump" that takes up the center of the cab area. Removing the one at the non shaft end allows the motor to come completely out. And, any earlier questions about the frame are answered; the black and gray areas are all one piece and the "hump" is an integral part. The whole frame is metal, by the way, which makes gluing and drilling a little different from what you might be used to on a plastic locomotive! Here also you can see the bottom end of the power truck, consisting of the gearbox and axles. It's held to the bottom of the deck by four standoffs that are cast into the floor, and when removed has a strange strong resemblance to an HO power truck (only much larger.) Now, the trick will be to get all of the various components arranged and mounted, and the wires between them run, and organized. It looks like the power switch and radio receiver will go under the cab between the frame rails, and the speaker will go up front under the frame just below the factory supplied speaker grille (which has beene removed.) Everything else has fit under the hood, and the standard rear charging / aux power jack will be concealed on the fireman's side of the cab, and will resemble a sand fill and sand box with a seat on top. I plan to redo the engineer's side of the cab somewhat, as I'm not thrilled with the size or position of the factory control surfaces. We even have an engineer enroute from Hawaii to take charge of things once the unit is operational (thanks Richard!) although I suspect he may have to be temporarily assigned to K-27 duty ... and it may be hard to get him to step down to the little 10 tonner after that!

Stay tuned ... there's more coming!

Crossing the Rubicon

After lengthy discussion with Dave Goodson, I've decided that Slate Creek #2 will be converted to Battery Power and Radio Control (by RCS) here in the Slate Creek shops. Dave will be chief technical advisor, and will hopefully prevent me from blowing anything up along the way!

Here's what the Davenport looks like with the top off the hood, and the Bachmann circuit board removed. There are three plugs on the circuit board; one for the headlight, one for the power IN from the track, and one for the power OUT to the motor. Removing these, and four screws, and we can see what's underneath.

The large silver object is actually a stack of eleven metal plates that are notched to allow space for the worm gear and the gear it drives on the gearbox, which is attached from underneath as part of the truck. The front of the plates have a roundish bite taken out of them, which corresponds with the round speaker mounting underneath; you could put a small speaker here, and half of it would have a grille to the outside, underneath the engine, between the frames.

Removing the weights we can finally see all the way to the bottom of the hood space. Note the gear oil all over the place, and the channels that the motor wires pass through to get to the motor. This gives you an idea of the space we're going to have to work with to install batteries, radio receiver, throttle, and sound equipment. Needless to say, some creativity is on the horizon ....

To properly arrange everything, though, the rest of the locomotive needs to come apart, so we can see what space there is to work with, and what other obstacles may present themselves. The cab is held on by two screws at the front, and an odd arrangement of two screws that hold tabs in place that mate with locking tabs on the back of the cab... removing the screws, one can remove the plastic "pins" and the locking tabs can slide upward. There are four screws that hold the hood in place. That leaves us with the bare frame of the locomotive. Now you can see the "grey area" that appears as the cab floor and the surrounding black painted area that makes up the rest of the deck. While the sides of the "frame" are screwed on from underneath, the deck itself is a single massive cast piece that includes the "grey area" and the large domed "hump" that would presumably represent a huge transmission on a gas-mechanical loco like this one. The motor is actually accessed from underneath; removing the power truck (from the primary gears down, it comes away in one piece) exposes the plate through which one has access to the two brackets that hold the motor in place. (I haven't removed the truck yet, so while you can see the motor access "hatch" you'll have to wait for the next installment to see inside!)

So the plan is, now, to tackle the following laundry list:

1.) The battery/radio control/sound gear is in transit... when it arrives I will need to find a way to fit it all inside the locomotive.

2.) My new headlights have arrived, and are much more like what I had in mind for this locomotive. I will add the headlight, modify the hood to accomodate them, install one in the rear cab wall, modify and install the horns and locate a bell, and decal the locomotive all while it's apart. Oh, and I plan to move the grabiron standoffs from their unusual placement on the radiator to either side of the radiator as they should be ... and I may make a grille guard for the radiator itself.

3.) The seat in the cab bugs me. It appears to be too small for most of the 1:20 people I've met, though that tiny Sherman Pippin found in some of the earlier Bachmann locos might be comfortable. So, I'm going to rework the controls and seat along the lines of a "Big-n-Tall" accomodation ... anyone who thinks I may have a personal stake in that approach ... I have no comment at all as to whether I'm thinking of a 1:20.myself in that cab when I think this way!

4.) At that point it'll be time to reassemble and test. Stay tuned for that, and everything in between!

New Motive Power

The big brown truck brought what will soon be Slate Creek Railway #2 today. It's a Bachmann 1:20.3 Davenport (Gas-Mechanical) and there are a lot of really great things about it. The frame appears to be made entirely of metal, and it's quite heavy for its size. That said, it's kind of odd that the grabiron supports are located ON the radiator instead of on either side, and the seating in the cab might accomodate a third grader, but any large crew members (like the SCRY founder, for example) are going to require some other arrangement. The headlight is just ... well, huge... so I'll have to find a better one for up front, and fabricate one for the back as well ... and I suspect we'll also need to add a horn and bell so she's legal on the main line, if needed. Otherwise, add some graphics, and we're ready to go. Well, almost. It looks as if this little pint sized locomotive may be about to pose a challenge for the west coast battery guru -- stay tuned for what we learn from THAT!

Been Awhile

It's been awhile since anything happened here, because I've been away from the Slate Creek for over a month. What started out as a short trip to give my Mom a few days off from caring for Dad turned into a month long trip to help her take care of him in his last days, until he passed away on October first. My heartfelt thanks for all the support, prayers, and notes everyone sent during that time.

Look for some fresh railroad material here in the coming weeks as life returns to "normal" around here.

More Historic Photos: The very VERY begining.

Meet Robert E. Brown. "Bob" to friends on the east coast, "Gene" to older friends and family in the midwest, he's "Dad" to me. He took me to see my first train at about age 3 ... and all these years later, I remember it ... a big black E unit with the now infamous "PC" on the nose led a stainless steel passenger consist through what had once been the Clinton, CT station. Dad took me for my first cab ride (Edaville #3, about 1973) and as you see here, introduced me to model trains. The photo was taken on the very first day I took the throttle of a model train ... and the rest, as they say was history. The Slate Creek Railway is named for the small ribbon of water in Hamilton, Kansas where Dad fished as a kid. He took me there, once, and while the layout is set in an entirely different place, the name seemed a good one. Dad and I were always going to build a big layout together, but it was never to be ... though he did like to come over and see the Slate Creek Mark I, and even made it to NC to see the Slate Creek in its current form, which, though unfinished already represents a great deal of work, and he could see where it was headed.

Dad has brain cancer, about the worst type there is. He's been fighting it for a year now, and its a fight not many win. All of the various work necessary to be a model railroader-- part electrician, part carpenter, part plumber, part builder, and the mentality of an inventor -- all of it I learned from Dad, often by watching him fix and engineer different projects in his own shop. I could always call Dad with questions on how to do something that had me stumped, and he often had not only the answer but the tools or the parts to do it. He came over, engineered and built the swing bridge for the Slate Creek Mark One, on about ten minutes notice. Dad's business card once read "R. Brown and Sons -- If We Can't Fix It, It Ain't Broke." I will always be proud to be part of the "And Sons."

Please keep him, and our family, in your prayers and thoughts.

The K-Rex

Since I haven't managed to accomplish much this week (night shift will do that!) I thought it might be interesting to put up a picture or two of Slate Creek #45, a Bachmann K-27. It is the largest locomotive to date on the Slate Creek roster. This locomotive is doubly special in that it received the whole "K-Rex" treatment from Dave Goodson of Northwest RCS ... the suspension is locked at the #1 and #4 drive axle to prevent excessive lateral play, the counterweights are all hand shimmed (this was before Bachmann started providing corrected counterweights) and the electronics are all brand new from pilot to bunker. The locomotive has RCS Radio Control, NiCd batteries, and Phoenix 2K2 sound, with a specially made mechanical chuff timer to replace the optical one. The headlights have been replaced with incandescent bulbs, as have the lamps in the class lights on the smokebox. The tender now has a rear headlight; at the time of these photos it had not yet been installed.



No.45 carries the standard Slate Creek graphics, and eventually will receive a round number plate on the smokebox, and the same graphite treatment that all Slate Creek locomotives are gradually being given, as well as a crew, authentic tender coal, and other details. I'm even considering getting hold of a road pilot to provide a variety of interchangeable "looks" ... though I have to say the plow is one of the reasons I particularly like this locomotive. Of course, I'm cheating: This photo is actually on the locomotive's shakedown run on Dave's Colorado Consolidated after the K-Rex treatment (he took the photos too!) ... I have a couple photos of #45 on my railroad, but his makes it look that much nicer! (We'll do more on mine later with roster shots of everything, and with the eventual scenery!)

Another historic photo

Just because it doesn't appear anywhere else, this was the original "poster" shot from the old railroad. You can tell it's REALLY old because the locomotive that would eventually become Slate Creek #31 is still wearing White Pass and Yukon colors. This photo was taken in the tunnel portal into the living room, behind the couch, approaching the old Summit station .... and shows that while the old Slate Creek had a lot of room for improvement, it still had its photogenic moments!

The Pre-Prehistory of the Slate Creek

The railroad in its current iteration is actually the second railroad to carry the Slate Creek name. The first was my very first try at a railroad, ever, and was a very interesting approach to a layout.

The first version of the Slate Creek was in a basement apartment in Westbrook, CT, and started when a friend asked me if I'd be interested in living in the apartment. As we were looking at the place, which was the basement of his raised ranch, I pointed to the shelf running along the wall at the top of the foundation, and jokingly pointed out where I was going to cut the tunnels so that the train could move from room to room. He said he didn't see a problem with that ... and before he could change his mind, I moved in, and started cutting holes!

Originally, the railroad was going to be HO, or even On30 ... but for Christmas that year, my brother gave me a sidetank porter, and two LGB side dump cars... and the die was cast. From there, though, I made some mistakes that would come back later to haunt me. First, I selected LGB R2 curves and R1 switches not realizing the limitations that that one choice would eventually put on the railroad. While the original porter and the soon after acquired Shays #4 and #5 would take the trackage, there were some obvious problems just in what the train looked like rounding curves. Much of that was excused though by the unique route of the train.
The main line started in the bedroom, crossing over the head of the bed and running along the approximately 6" shelf that ran the length of the walls where the top of the foundation met the frame of the house. The track then passed through a storage room that wasn't mine (but the landlord allowed me "trackage rights" to make the railroad work) and into the living room, passing behind the couch, and over a swinging bridge that allowed folks to enter and leave via the apartment's main entrance door. From there the track passed through another portal into the storage room/kitchen area, and down a 4% grade passing through the bathroom, under the front door landing, and then back up the 4% grade into the bedroom. First time visitors were often shocked at the presence of the track, but even more by the passage of a train as the track crossed the top of the toilet tank and then exited through a portal next to the sink, into a closet, and from there into the bedroom.
In the bedroom, half the room was landscaped into mountains and a yard area, and then back to the main line toward the bed.

Equipment was a hodgepodge at best. Most of my friends at that point used to say "it doesn't really matter... it's all G scale!" when I talked about what to get, and honestly the Shay didn't look bad with the Big Hauler stuff, or the LGB caboose, so for awhile I had an ecclectic mix of 1:22.5, 1:20.3, and even some 1:24 and 1:29 thrown in for good measure. Eventually, though, it just began to look "wrong" to me, and I started to think more along the lines of scale fidelity. At that point Bachmann released the 2-8-0 in 1:20.3, and it wouldn't take the curves ... and the magnitude of the error I'd made was fully revealed.

For better or worse, it was about that time that my then fiancee and I determined that I would need to move to North Carolina ... meaning that the railroad that had only just been up and running for a year and a half would move too. The good news was, the new residence had a basement of some 40x40 feet that would be available to start over, and correct the issues of scale and curvature, and from which I could remove the grades all but entirely.

Today all that's left of the Slate Creek Mark I is the mural in the living room, and some stray track and scenery that hasn't been pulled up yet. The mountains in the bedroom and bath are gone, and the track has all but disappeared. The non 1:20.3 equipment was sold off, although most of the equipment lettered "Slate Creek" went to a nice fellow in Wisconsin who built a really nice looking large scale railroad around his rec room ... they share track space with an Aristo Mallet and a project you'll see chronicled here in the next couple of weeks, an Aristo Mikado that I'm customizing for him. The logo remains, and the 1:20.3 fleet is nearly larger than the old ecclectic fleet once was.

The old photo gallery for the old layout still exists, and can be seen at: http://home.earthlink.net/~mbrown31/oldscry.htm

The Story So Far

In the beginning, the basement was dark. Eight legged monsters moved to and fro and four legged scavengers scurried about in the corners. And, a voice said, "Let there be light." When that had little effect, with the snap of a lightswitch, the landscape took form.

Suffice it to say, the first impulse was to turn the light back OFF. Her stuff would have been enough, but then you add MY stuff to it, which we did when I moved in, and the result was a nightmarish scene that would probably have made for a whole new series on HGTV had the producers been around to get a decent look at it. Unfortunately, the small army of production assistants that would have arrived to help sort, organize, discard, and dispose of the pile of junk showed no signs of making an appearance, so it fell to us to start digging. SEVEN truckloads to the local landfill later, and countless trips to the local Goodwill dropoff, and we found that where the white elephant jungle had been, there was now an approximately 40x40 foot room that was suitable for the construction of model railroad benchwork!
I should probably point out at this junction that my wife, Caroline, is entitled to awards and accolades for supporting a hobby that many women don't understand a bit. She agreed to turn over the entire basement (well, almost) for the railroad, and has always been willing to help clean out, clean up, and help adjust family finance to make the project possible. And she's actually into the whole railroad mystique, something I hear not a lot of wives go for. I'm sure she'll turn up as the topic of a future post ... but the story of the early Slate Creek would be incomplete without discussion of how she helped make it all possible.

At this point it was time for benchwork, and this brought in a new set of indispensible help, my brother Nathan, and his friend J-Me (see photo, left) who made the trip all the way from Wisconsin to build open frame benches for my train. The project took place in a couple of chunks, as we had to relocate a water heater, and remove an old oil furnace that were effectively blocking the ROW, and re-organize the remaining stuff in the basement to accomodate the new benchwork build over and around it. Slowly, though, the benchwork took shape, and the subroadbed, and then it fell to me to lay track.

I decided that I would use Llagas Creek code 250 track, using narrow gauge ties, and code 250 nickel silver rail. While my locomotives are slowly being converted to battery power, I'm still reasonably happy with this choice, as I plan to have a working signal system at some point, and therefore need some good electrical properties on the track, even if eventually the engines won't need it for power. I decided to save a few bucks, and order the rail and tie strips seperately and assemble my own track ... this was a MISTAKE. Eventually, I bought a track tool from the folks at California and Oregon Coast that holds a tie strip with a series of short fingers, and got good at using Armorall and some elbow grease to slide the rail into the tie strips ... but for all that work, pay the extra few bucks and have the track shipped assembled! I bought some carpet padding from the local carpet store, and laid it down on the subroadbed before laying the track, primarily to minimize noise between the train and the benchwork.
Llagas provides a screw tab every six inches or so, and so far I've not had any major vibration or noise problems with the screw going directly into the subroadbed using those tabs. The Slate Creek has a pier area, a yard, and a main line all of which are in place and operational at this point. The switches have been added at Midway, and the sidings roughed in there, and there are plans for sidings at the mine, and the crusher/concentrator plant. The yard's enginehouse area will be completed as soon as I can manage to install the turntable, which is already on hand, and just awaiting the bench modification to put it in place.

I'll be back with a more in depth tour soon.

Introductions and Beginnings

One of the more challenging parts of putting a site like this together is determining where to actually start. After that, it becomes easier to throw out the "weekend update" or a series of photos, as the visitors already know who you are, and what you're about.

So, by way of introduction, I'm Matthew (OV) ... born a Connecticut Yankee, and more recently moved to the "Piedmont" of North Carolina, though the local wisdom is that I'm in no danger of shedding my "Yankee" title, and I'm doing my best to maintain my New England voice too!

The Slate Creek Railway is my 1:20.3 scale model railroad which has thus far been confined to the basement, but the backyard is just a window away! An indoor railroad in large scale is less common than the outdoor variety, particularly in 1:20.3 where the 45mm between the rails represents 3 feet instead of the 4 feet 8.5 inches of standard gauge represented by 1:29 and 1:32 layouts, and the models are therefore proportionally larger. But the railroad is air conditioned in the summer (important in central North Carolina!,) and heated in the winter, and allows for a lot of interesting possibilities with respect to scenery that would never work outdoors and exposed to the elements. This website will chronicle the construction of the railroad (not my favorite part, as evidenced by the glacial pace of the scenery!) as well as the locomotives and rolling stock, and as things develop, I hope the operations and backstory will develop here as well. My shop is now up and running, and I hope to be able to document progress on a number of kits that have been waiting for some time to see the light of day. These include a couple of Bob McCown's steel EBT boxcars, a Northeast Narrow Gauge coach, a Don Winter (OV) flanger, and the now semi-famous Azalea, though mine is very different from the ones the rest of the group are building . . . more about that later.

For now, welcome, and enjoy the tour . . . I'll be back soon with some history, and even some prehistory of the railroad to date.