PROGRESS!

It's been a long time since much noteworthy progress happened on the Slate Creek, at least that could be published here. Certainly there have been model railroad projects in the works (some of which will soon appear in these pages) but the railroad itself fell behind mostly because of the overwhelming size of the task of building the hardshell scenery. The Slate Creek takes up most of a 40x40 foot basement, and has a hardshell "hillside" from one to three feet high for most of its length!

This week, we had a visit of state from Mr. Paul Weiss, who has the distinction of being the Chief Civil Engineer from the Slate Creek (Mark I) and with his help, we finally have something to show you!

Now, the Slate Creek is primarily a loop railroad, so, starting from the pier and working clockwise around the main line is officially "Timetable North." Place names are simply working titles (though some will probably stick) and for now are really only designed to help visitors figure out where they're standing!

The scenery construction started at the "North" portal of the tunnel, entering the canyon area, and has now progressed through the "Big Cut" at the end of the canyon, around the curve to Midway, past the turn north of the station, and along the back side of the layout to High Bridge, and around the curve to the south switch for the Mine area. The south portal of the tunnel is immediately opposite the south Mine switch on the layout (though, in the "real world) the two would not be near each other, and when the scenery is complete will look like the two totally different places they are.

So, without further ado, the tour!



Here you see the line immediately north of the "Big Cut" This is roughly the area seen in the last couple of photos in the previous post, and has some difficult geography; the hill had to be specially shaped to allow a hatch in the "ground" to allow access to the central air unit for the second floor of the house which is directly above this area on the ceiling!




In these two photos, you see the area to the north of the Midway Station, from two different angles, and, a kind of "Before and After" effect. The hillside is made from wire mesh screen on a wood framework, which, once built has layers of Hydrocal (plaster) soaked paper towels applied, and then a finishing layer of Hydrocal. The "before" photo also features our Chief Civil Engineer hard at work ... Thanks Paul!



This photo shows the area just north of Midway and toward High Bridge. The track, for the most part is out of range of this particular shot, being below the photo and to the left until it starts to come back in toward the wall just before the bridge. This area will have the depot rd, and possibly the church... time will tell. The missing corner section has been screened in, and is awaiting plaster along with the rest of the scenery north of this point.



Here you see the future location of High Bridge, one of the few locations on the layout with scenery to be built significantly below the grade of the track. As the plaster is not yet installed, you can also see into the tunnel interior, which comes out at the bottom of the "canyon" area.



The screen currently ends here, at the south switch for the Mine area. The lower terrain makes it possible to see people coming down the stairs when I'm in the shop area, and is one of the only places on the railroad where you can see "someplace else" from any other area ... even if that's not supposed to be possible. It also allows some scenery elements that might not otherwise be available because most of the "walls" are so steep elsewhere on the layout. I kept it this way because it reminds me a little of the old Edaville, where if timed properly, outbound trains could see the inbound trains as they rounded the sharp turn at the Rusty River... even if, for purposes of the layout, those two places are miles apart and would never actually be in view of each other. I think it'll afford some interesting "railfan" opportunities nonetheless!



This last photo really should be the first, before the ones in the last entry, even. This is the south portal of the tunnel, as viewed vaguely from the hilltop I described above, and, imagining this with plaster shell, scenery, trees, and other elements, I think it's going to be one of the more photogenic locations on the railroad. No hikers in the tunnel, please! The north switch for the Mill will be located approximately in the foreground of this photo.

The rest of the layout has some of the wood framework installed, but will have to have the sidings for the mine and the mill installed before the screen can be applied... though the design of these areas is a lot futher along now that I can see exactly how much room I have to work with, and what I can make work with respect to track geometry. Stay tuned!

Altogether a fantastic week's work! A particular vote of thanks to Paul for making this all possible, and to the folks at work who let me have a couple of days off to participate ... I'm beginning to believe I might just get this thing built after all!

And... I promise, it won't be another eight months to the next update!

Moving Mountains

Progress continues on the mountains in the area currently known as "The Canyon" between the north tunnel portal and Midway.





We do, however, have miles to go before we sleep.




There may be more to report over the weekend!

A Good Week's Work

After all this time, I guess it's time to write SOMETHING here. It's not the rollout of anything huge, and no photos of the layout yet, but it's been a productive week at last on the Slate Creek.

The hardshell is nearly framed in the "Canyon" area, from the tunnel portal to the large rock cut. Today, I located a source of Hydrocal in Greensboro, and obtained a 100 pound bag, and enough aluminum screen to do the rest of the "crunchy" parts of the mountains in the as-yet-unnamed Canyon area. I have a roll of vinyl screen that will form the base of the somewhat gentler and more uniform hills from the cut through the woods to Midway, and around the corner to where the High Bridge will be (though approaching the bridge, we'll probably be back to metal screen again.) This week's objective was to have plaster cloth up on the canyon section, and I almost made it! At this point, I expect to at least have most of the screen up and maybe some plaster cloth; I may be able to make a larger dent in it next week. If anyone knows an army of tiny people who can reach the far corners of the benchwork, not step on the track in the process, and apply plaster, have them call me! Until then, this is primarily a solo act, and subject to interruption.

** Note: All place titles on the SCRY are just working titles -- once this is finished, I may give them real "Timetable" names. For now, I've got to call it SOMETHING so I'm trying to be consistent in how I refer to these places so as not to confuse anyone.

In other news, I've been working for several years with some good friends on a project to build some passenger equipment with a more modern feel than most commercially available cars or kits. The project was covered over on the Durango Dan site a week or so ago (see link to the left for One twenty point me) and can be seen in depth on Bruce Chandler's website, www.thejoat.com where you can read about the history of the project, and of parlor cars in general. I'll cover mine in detail after it arrives and becomes a project on my own bench -- for now, my car was the test assembly of the kits at Rio Grande Models UK (also see link at left...) and even in its unfinished form is just exciting! Here's a sneak peek...



(That's not the final color...) I have to commend my new friend David Gormley for his fantastic work, and flexibility on this project. When he asked if I'd MIND him assembling mine as a fit-test, I was all too ready to agree, and got him to paint it too ... I'll be doing the detail work, windows, underbody details, and interior once the car arrives here from the UK; Stan Cedarleaf is already putting the decals together for me. One major part of the work will involve scratchbuilding a railing for the observation platform, which should prove interesting. I'm hoping to be able to get most of the other 1:20.3 detail parts commercially (though I already have all of the underbody details.) I'll post updates here as the project progresses.

There's been some discussion lately about the Bachmann Forney. I've got one, and it went from the box to a couple of laps around the track to make sure everything worked, to the workbench. It now looks like this:



As you can see, this is going to be a "roots-up" project, and will entail lowering the cylinders, lowering the body of the locomotive, dealing with the horizontal and vertical seams in the lower part of the smokebox, reconstructing the cab detail, re-engineering the power and control system, and then changing around some of the details to give a family resemblance to another 2-4-4T that's near and dear to my heart in the 1:1 world. I will, of course, post photos and progress here as it happens.

And, there are a zillion other things to do. SCRY #10, a 45 ton diesel, is currently in the shop and will receive the first QSI system on the railroad, followed by Shay #5. There's an enginehouse being built by Randy at PCGRS in California (also in links, left) which will probably come to fruition late in the year, and other motive power and rolling stock projects on the horizon as well.

But first... I need to have a decent "stage" on which these models can perform, so the focus is the layout itself. Hopefully there'll be photographic proof of some progress in that department in the next week or so.

PROGRESS at last!

For the first time in a long time there's some news on the layout itself. The wiring for the new lights is up, and the frames to hold the scenery are installed from the north tunnel portal, past midway, and nearly all the way to the bridge! (of course, you have to think a little fourth-dimensionally to understand where these places are...)

The turntable has a pit, finally, and is visible in the yard. It needs some cosmetic help, and the table may need some reinforcement around it... but it's in, and turns!

There will be photos of all of this very soon, hopefully with some screen work completed too.

An Un-Update

It seems like forever since I've written anything here. Hopefully, that'll change soon, but for now, suffice it to say there's a lot in the works. There's an enginehouse in the design stage, Slate Creek #10 will soon undergo a ground-up rewiring and power / sound system change, I'm working out the final details of the turntable mounting (note that it NEEDS to be in place before the enginehouse arrives,) and oh, yes, the 2-6-6-2 is still awaiting some engineering rework as well.

Then, also, with any luck, we'll have new lights in the basement, so visitors can actually SEE the railroad....

Lots of new and interesting projects on the horizon! Now if I can just get some done enough to take photos, this will be a much more interesting blog to follow.


This photo is from a few years ago, when Gaetan Charette and Nicole came by, and we hit all of the local railroad hot spots... Tweetsie, Doe River Gorge, Spencer ... of course, Cass is something of a stretch to be considered "local," but that's not the point! Gaetan, as well as Bruce Chandler, Doug Matheson, and yours trule also make up a group of folks with a very special 1:20.3 project several years in the making that may turn up here very soon as well!

In any case, stay tuned!

Davenport Rollout

Those of you who saw the photo contest results on Durango Dan's One Twenty Point Me site have seen the first public appearance of Slate Creek Railway #2, the 10 Ton Davenport we've been talking about here since November. I particularly liked the engine that won second place, as I've been considering building something similar for some time now, but I was both pleased and surprised to discover I'd placed in the contest as well.

It's been quite a ride, as you can see in all of the previous posts, from delivery, to teardown, to sandwiching all that gear under the hood, to trying to get everything to function, this little engine has turned into a BIG project. But, even with the external detail changes being somewhat small, the difference is noteworthy, I think:

Before

After

While I still have some more weathering to do, and an antenna issue to work on, this is pretty much what the locomotive will look like from now on. For such a small locomotive, the hours it took to change everything were more than I ever would have guessed... here's a list of "projects" that went into this tiny unit:

a.) Removed factory electronics, and installed RCS radio control, Phoenix P5 sound, P5T interface, and 12 Ni-CD batteries under the hood, the radio under the rear frame, the speaker under the front frame, and the charge jack in the rear wall of the cab.

b.) Removed the Bachmann supplied seat, raised the control stand, and reworked its controls. Added a gear shift lever, clutch, and a new "fold down" style seat in the cab, as well as a pull and valve for the air horns. Also built and added a "sand box" on the fireman's side to match up with the sand fill cover made to cover up the charging jack in the back wall of the cab.

c.) Added the sand fill cover, air horns, and bell, and bell rope. Added the headlight in the rear wall of the cab, and wiring. Also removed the factory stack, and built a replacement one, and replaced the front headlight with a smaller one that looked more the right size for a loco this size. (The one that comes on it is the same as the electric headlight on the 2-8-0!) And, I rebuilt the front end of the locomotive, covering the radiator with HO scale aluminum siding so that the radiator fins would all be horizontal, and removed the handrail supports from the radiator. I made a new grill from brass angle and rod, and added bolts, and a screen to finish it up (the screen was actually some kind of brass decking in HO scale, I think, but it was available in sheets from the LHS!) Oh, and I'm particularly proud of the smokestack; after drawing out what I wanted to do with the front end several times, I was having trouble finding something that "looked right." I looked at toys and truck models, and nothing looked quite right... then I looked at the pen I was drawing with, and realized, if I cut it down, and pulled out the rubber grip....



d.) Finally a set of Slate Creek decals, and some weather treatment to take off the "shine" ... though I'm planning to do more in the weather department in the future.

I'm very pleased with how it came out, particularly since it's my first total conversion/bash/detail project. It will be interesting to see what's next!

I'll sign off with a couple of other photos...

We're Still Here!

It's been awhile!

Somewhere between the holidays and everything else that was going on since my last post, things on the railroad and in the shop have fallen seriously behind, but that's all changing rapidly.

Stay tuned for the "finished" posts on the Davenport (really, I mean it!) Just a little more tweaking and testing, and I'll be ready for a "rolling out!"

I've got to. Something BIG is headed for the Slate Creek shops, and it'll take up the whole shop once it arrives ... I have to make room!

Hopefully this will be a bit more exciting place to visit in the coming months!