The Sky is Blue

The walls (and ceiling) behind the layout are now blue. Yes, it would have been easier to do this prior to building the layout, but at this stage it still wasn't a big deal to slide it out of the way. The color is Benjamin Moore Caribbean Mist. For now I decided not to paint the wall with the doorway that is perpendicular to the layout, but I might change my mind about that later. I also need to make some kind of cover for the thermostat. A freight car box with one end cut off fits nicely over it, but I think something more rounded would look better.

I took some of the buildings from my old layout out of storage and put them on the new layout. The row of storefronts will be continuous, so I will need a few more to fill the gap.

Layout Update - January 2020

So it's been quite a while (exactly 4 months, in fact) since I last posted anything on this blog. Luckily the reason why is good news - I've just been busy with layout construction and life in general. My informal goal had been to get the first phase of the layout up and running by the end of 2019. I made it - just barely - and ran the first train on December 31.

A consist of home road equipment makes the first lap.

I spent the last few months of 2019 laying track and wiring the layout. I did all of this prior to attaching the legs to the tabletop. Being able to rotate the layout on the floor and tip it up on one side to access the underside made the tracklaying and especially the wiring and switch machine installation much easier. The layout is currently wired for DC control using an MRC Tech 4 power pack reused from my old layout. The added complexity and expense of DCC does not seem worth it to me for a small layout like this where only 1 train with 1 locomotive will be running at a time. I'm intrigued by some of recent developments in wireless locomotive control (e.g., LocoFi, RailPro, etc.), and down the road I might switch to one of those systems. The layout is wired as a single block (with many feeders) but I equipped two of the spurs with on/off switches to be able to park locomotives on them.

I connected groups of feeder wires together under the layout with Wago 221 lever nuts as shown below. I learned about these from reading Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine, and I highly recommend them for ease of use.

The first phase of the layout has 5 turnouts. Three of them - the ones around the outer loop - are controlled with Caboose Industries 204S switch stands. I like how these look but they seem a bit delicate. We'll have to see how they hold up over time. I put temporary paper targets on the switch stands for now but will replace those at some point with painted plastic or brass targets. I reversed the throw bars on two of these turnouts so that the switch stands wouldn't be right on the edge of the layout and therefore more vulnerable to damage.

The other two turnouts - the one in the middle of the layout and the wye that leads to the future interchange track - are controlled by Tortoise switch motors. The turnout in the middle is an awkward reach to access from either side, so a powered switch machine made a lot of sense here. The wye, on the other hand, is on the edge of the layout and easily accessible, but the interchange track will be a reversing section and I wanted to automate it with switch machine contacts. The wye is actually too close to the edge of the layout for a normal Tortoise mounting. I pondered this one for quite a while and even started building a custom linkage until a very simple and obvious solution finally occurred to me: reverse the turnout throwbar and run the Tortoise wire through the hole at the end of the throwbar instead of the hole centered between the rails. This allowed me to offset the Tortoise to the side so that the 1x4 frame would no longer be in the way.

Top view of offset Tortoise mount.

The image below shows the underside of the middle section of the layout where all the wiring comes together. The blue box is the power pack from my first train set - it works great to power the Tortoises. One advantage of using a power pack for this application is that I can use the throttle knob to adjust the speed of the Tortoises. The feeder wires on each section of the layout are connected to a single pair of bus wires, and the bus wires from each of the 3 sections (the thick 14-gauge wires in the image) are connected to the terminal block. The bus wires from the future expansion will connect to the unused pair of terminals. The white Romex leads to the Tech 4 power pack (out of view to the right).

Now that I have a functional layout, I'm planning to get started on structures and scenery but also spend some time on my rolling stock fleet. I hope to be able to post more now that most of the heavy lifting of layout construction is complete.

Roadbed

Cork roadbed is complete. I glued it down with carpenter's glue and used staples to hold it in place while the glue dried. Once the glue dried, I removed all of the staples and gave the cork a good sanding. I simply laid the cork across the layout section joints, though prior to doing that I did cover the joints with tape to keep glue from getting into them. My goal is to build a layout that could be disassembled should we move, so it doesn't need to be engineered to be easily and repeatedly disassembled and reassembled. This 4x6 section might be small enough to be moved in one piece anyway.

Next up: tracklaying. For now I plan to keep the layout on the floor so I can easily move it around as necessary for access. Once the track is down, I will put it up on the legs again.

Track Progress

Slowly but surely, I'm getting closer to running trains. I assembled the 3 2x4 boxes on the floor and then temporarily tacked down all of the track. This step took longer than I thought it would. There was some cutting and fitting involved, especially around the crossing, but mostly I took my time and tried to be very careful to ensure proper alignment between sections. I wasn't so careful when I laid the track the first time on my previous layout and ended up having to come back and re-lay it later to fix some problem spots. I have marked the outlines and centerlines of the track to guide the installation of cork roadbed, which is the next step.

TP&W Caboose #529: Part II

I resumed work on TP&W 529 in April. I painted the body with Scalecoat II CN Orange-Red and then applied the decals. I used pieces from four different decal sets to get what I needed:

• Diamond TP&W herald: Microscale 87-648, New T. P. & W. Diesel Locos. -1991
• 529 numbers: Microscale 87-651, Illinois Terminal Diesel Locomotives
• White stripe: Microscale 87-1064, Toledo Peoria & Western Diesels (1969-1983)
• ACI tag: Microscale MC-4280, Automatic Car Identification (ACI) Plates

The "529" numbers from the IT decal set are a bit taller and narrower than the actual numbers. Numbers from a Railroad Roman decal set (e.g., Microscale 90321) might have been better, but I already had the IT decal set on hand and they look close enough for me. Neither TP&W decal set was readily available: the 87-648 set is no longer in the Microscale catalog and the 87-1064 set is currently out of stock. I was fortunate to find both at out-of-state hobby shops with old inventory.

My model after decaling with a prototype photo from the Morning Sun TP&W book for reference.
I have since painted the equipment box black.

The white stripes have been very stubborn and won't settle down nicely on the model, even after multiple applications of Micro Sol. For now, this project has taken a back seat to the layout construction. I'll come back to it later and reassess the stripe situation.

Benchwork Progress

Time has been scarce lately for layout building, let alone blogging about it, but over the past couple of months I have acquired the necessary lumber and fasteners, built the three 2' by 4' boxes that will together form the initial 4' by 6' table, and constructed one set of legs.

The tabletop is at a height of 40" above the floor. I settled on this height so that I could build the benchwork for the future expansion high enough to clear the access doors to the storage area behind the knee wall. 40" is above the bottom of the thermostat on the wall and I decided that it wasn't worth notching the benchwork to fit around it, so the layout won't be right up against the wall in this area.

Next up is to build the IVAR shelf unit that will support the front of the layout, followed by bolting the sections together to form the complete table.

The Layout That Almost Was

I grew up near the (now former) TP&W mainline in Illinois and have dreamed of building a TP&W-themed model railroad layout for quite some time. However, if you had asked me one year ago about my future layout plans, I would have told you that I was planning to build a layout based on the 1950s-era Illinois Terminal Railroad (IT). Here's why:

I first became interested in the IT while I was in college, and I was especially intrigued by the architecture of its combination depot-substations. I decided to scratchbuild a model of the former IT depot-substation at Union in rural Logan County. This was a major undertaking that took me nearly three years to complete, and I reasoned that if I were going to invest substantial time and effort into this model, then it had better have a place on my future layout. So I settled on modeling the IT in the 1950s so I could run diesel-powered freights but still have electrified interurban passenger trains stopping at the depot. After completing the depot, I also detailed and painted an IT RS-1.

I was a member of the Illini Railroad Club while a student at the University of Illinois. I learned in late 2017 that a planned dorm renovation meant that the club would have to vacate the space its layout had occupied for 40+ years. In January 2018 I attended the final open house for alumni prior to the dismantling of the layout. For old time's sake, I brought along a train of the same covered hoppers and TP&W locomotives that I ran on the layout when I was in college. Seeing this train running on the layout reminded me of how much I like covered hoppers and second-generation TP&W diesel locomotives.

On the drive home, I started thinking about building a TP&W layout. Remembering how much time I had already spent building the depot, I talked myself out of it, but the thought didn't go away. I had some misgivings about the IT layout I was planning, namely the difficulty (and expense) of procuring models of IT passenger equipment and electric locomotives and a lack of enthusiasm (and time) for both stringing overhead wire and scratchbuilding many more structures. My IT layout plan also did not lend itself well to construction in phases, and based on my depot construction experience, I did not want to start a project that I couldn't enjoy until many years later when it was fully complete.

After a lot of thought, I ultimately concluded that I was more interested in the IT's depots than its equipment and operations and that a TP&W layout was more compatible with my interests and available time. So last summer I decided to go back to my original plan and build a TP&W layout. I am very excited to run trains of covered hoppers and modern boxcars pulled by red-and-white Alco diesels. Someday I may build a small IT layout or diorama, but for now the depot will remain a display model.