Happy Monday

I'm not awake yet.

Welztalbahn: A few impressions ...

260 417 and 86 167 in the Emsingen engine servicing area

Tonight I continued the solo operations session I started a while ago.  After completing its work, 260 417 returned to the Emsingen servicing area where 86 167 is getting ready to take the last train of the day to Prechtal staging.

Earlier in the session 260 417 delivered a cut of cars to Talheim which still need to be distributed to their respective industry spots. I very much like the side-by-side view of advanced scenery and background work with stand-in cardboard low-relief buildings and unfinished walls in the photo below. This will be fixed in due time when I start work on the industrial district in Talheim.

A cut of cars sits on the siding in Talheim waiting for the Koef crew to start work

Fill-in Scenery around the Emsingen Lokstation

The ballast is glued down, so on to the next step: Fill-in scenery.

Cover up existing track and scenery elements. Then apply glue and DIRT.

A short while later with the glue still wet.

And the same angle with the signal box back in place.

As I cover painted plywood with actual scenery over time, the views become more and more satisfying.

Next up: Finish the ballast in the curve, and then move on to weeds and bushes.

Emsingen at Night

Ueb 97 836 returns late from Talheim. Engine 211 082-3 doesn't have much work with the single box car in tow.
Meanwhile, 89 006 is dropping ashes in the Lokstation in the background.

89 006 is one of the ubiquitous Maerklin Nr. 3000 C-couplers (0-6-0 in US parlance), not converted to digitial operation yet (if ever).
211 082-3, a light diesel engine type, is Roco Nr. 68960. Those engines were a common sight for many years on secondary lines in Germany. Hard to see in this photo, I still prefer the original purpur-red livery over the more recent beige/blue, or even DB AG's bright red.

Long Distance Ballasting (2)

My back hurts, but the curve now has most of the ballast it needs glued down. The remainder will get added when the Lokstation is back where it's supposed to be and the transitions are scenicked.

This time I tried a slightly different approach applying the glue in order to minimize movement of the ballast.
First, I sprayed about a foot of track with 70% Isopropyl alcohol, to help with breaking surface tension of the glue.
Then (and this is the change) I let the glue wick in from the sides of the track. Either by applying the glue right at the outside base of the track in locations where I didn't shape the ballast edge, or set the eye dropper on top of a tie end and carefully let the glue slowly wick into the surrounding ballast. Either way, the glue will wick under the track into the middle and wet the ballast from below, thus gluing it in place with almost no movement. When the ballast turns white from glue you know it's soaked all the way to the roadbed.

Using this "bottom-up" approach I no longer get the "wash out" effect I regularly had to deal with when dribbling glue into the middle of the track from above, and all ballast starts to swim in a puddle of glue between the ties.

The center studs in Maerklin track make it very difficult to arrange the ballast evenly between the rails. This approach keeps the pieces where they are supposed to be and minimizes cleanup later.

"Long Distance Ballasting"

Ballasting again. This time I get to do it on the one of the hardest to reach corners of the layout: the turnback curve around the Emsingen Lokstation, which is currently sitting on the work bench outside the layout room.

This looks deceptively open and accessible in the photo. In reality, there is the computer cabinet and lower level tracks in the way.

The closest location to reach this corner is from the access hatch on the right hand side of this photo (behind the red cap of the ballast container). Most of the curve is about 3 feet away, so I get to work with alcohol and glue at the end of an outstretched arm. To make matters worse, the roadbed on the inside of the curve sits right on the edge of the plywood, so I will ballast and shape that part only later after I put the Lokstation back into the layout ... and then work really carefully around the sceniced areas. 

I put the ballast in place and carefully shaped it. Now it's time to soak it in alcohol and apply glue without disturbing too much of the shape. Still not one of my favorites.

Safety First!

The cinder pit ("Schlackengrube") got a safety railing today. Worker Emil Hermann approves.

The railing is a left-over from the Auhagen telephone boxes kit. I bent it to shape, added some paint, and glued it next to the pit. ... Then I tested whether it is too close to the track. It was, of course. ... Now there are two dimples where the glue set up first. One of them is barely visible to the left of the white leg.

Dirt, Sand, Gras around Emsingen Lokstation

The Lokstation in Emsingen is on the bench. Yesterday, I installed the lights, today I turned my attention to scenery.

I tried out a different technique for the ground around the turntable. I wanted a somewhat unkept, muddy appearance.

Here's what I did: Brush thinned white glue on the painted base board. Sprinkle fine, real dirt from the back yard into the glue. Then stipple more glue into the dirt. This produces a mud-like appearance. In fact it is real mud. Next, I sprinkled various colors of fine turf into the wet mud. I deliberately tried to create make this very uneven. I finished off with the same grass fibers I used elsewhere on the layout to tie together colors, add body and texture.

Here's a close-up of the mud. The tracks will get some light ballast next.

Updated (12/15/2014):

Step by Step in pictures ...

Brush glue on the base board. I use Matte Medium from Scenic Express.

Using an old spoon sprinkle on sifted dirt from the garden. The more dirt, the muddier it will become.

Now comes the fun part: Using an old brush, stipple more glue into the dirt and make puddles of mud.

Sprinkle on some fine ground foam for more body. Here I used Woodland Scenics Yellow Grass, Burnt Grass, and some Medium Green.

Using the Grassinator add the grass fibers to taste. I'm using Scenic Express "Late Summer".

Done. Total elapsed time: 10 minutes, including covering up the roundhouse, which took about half the time.

Working

Now that the Talheim buildings are tricked out with lights, and my winter break has started, I'm coming back to the Emsingen Lokstation. It's really convenient to be able to pull the whole engine facility off the layout and work on it at the bench, instead of being hunched over the layout in some more or less comfortable position.

Sprucing up old lights

Of course my Dad's layout had some lights for illumination. That was 30 years ago, so everything was done with incandescent bulbs. The lights masts are not very detailed, but reasonable for inconspicuous locations. If only the bulbs weren't so huge!

After a failed experiment with a SMD LED, I replaced the original 16V AC bulbs with 12V DC grain of rice bulbs from MicroMark. That requires removing the shade, cutting out most of the bulb socket, and soldering in tight spaces. However, the effect is well worth it.

3 lights done. Two more to do.

Emsingen roundhouse re-installed

I installed the roundhouse on the layout. I need to work some more on cabling and lights, but the basics are working well, including individual control of the roundhouse doors.

Roundhouse lights

The kit comes with bases for lights, but not bulbs. For the interior lights I installed 12V grains of rice from MicroMark. I wanted the warm glow of incandescent lights on the inside, since there will be some cool white lights on the outside lighting up the Lokstation area. I wanted only one, or at most two connections for lights inside the roundhouse. The leads on the bulbs were too short to reach all the way to the rear wall, so I extended them with magnet wire reaped from the motor of a broken kitchen appliance Pascal and I took apart a while ago.

Lights installed. The magnet wire runs along the roof trusses.

Night time.

Ready for installation on the layout

Servo Control for the roundhouse doors

This weekend I spent a little bit time to put together the mechanics for the roundhouse doors. As mentioned before, I want the doors to open and close independently from moving a locomotive.


I replaced the supplied spring-loaded mechanism with Micro RC servos. The servos are mounted in a scratch-built support structure made from 1/8th inch styrene.

Test-fitting supports

Servos mounted and fit into place

Time for some spray-painting...

I spray-painted the styrene pieces, mounted the servos, and fit the piano wire in place. The video at the top of this post shows the result. When installed on the layout the cables will leave the roundhouse through hidden holes in the roundhouse floor and the decoder mounted underneath.

Coaling Bunker Done for Now

The coaling bunker is at a sufficient level of completeness to put it into the layout and move on. I did some more fine tuning on the coal carts and finished installing the crane hook and rigging. I gave the crane some light weathering to fit in with the rest of the bunker.
The service track in the front will be covered up with concrete. Even it it were balasted, I didn't quite expect it to look this weird.

I mentioned before this is a kit-bash. Here's my model with the original arrangement on the box. I kept the general idea that the locomotive track is in the rear next to the crane and protected with concrete wall. The wooden wall bits are intended to be lowered and raised as delivered coal fills the bunker. However, since there isn't much storage near the service track I didn't bother to install bunker walls along the track and ran the cart track alongside the service track instead.
The wall on the left of my model is made from two pieces of Noch foamwall, that I sliced in half to reduce thickness, glued back to back, and topped with a piece of strip wood to cover the gap. While the coloring of the foam piece was hideous with some concrete color it now matches other concrete brick in the area.
Note how I folded the stairs to make more efficient use of the available space.

The coaling bunker is boxed in between the turntable, the engine track, and Ef tower. Unfortunately it is somewhat hidden from view behind Ef tower. You can't always win.

I'll postpone motorizing the crane until I have a bright idea how to link a motor to the axle of the crane without causing a wobble effect on the crane house, as well as turn it in a way that doesn't make the coal cart wiggle violently along the way.

Stairs safety and More Coal

I made additional handrails for the stairs from strip styrene. This took quite a bit longer than I expected.

The coal heap on the right is now also done.

The basics are done. I need to finish the crane, add some detailing, and a couple workers.

Coal

Real coal. The glue is still wet.

While the glue dries, I'm modifying the stairs

That's better.

Overview of tonight's progress

Getting dirty

I shaped the coal heaps for the bunker from insulation board tonight, painted them black, dirtied the grounds, and glued the heaps in place.

 

Shaped coal heaps put in place

Coal heaps painted black

While the paint dried, I weathered and dirtied the grounds of the coal bunker. Heaps glued into place.

I'll let that all dry overnight. Then it's time to add the coal.

Rails for the coaling bunker

I went by the Trainshop yesterday and picked up a piece of code 40 N-scale flextrack. That is some fine rail. Just right for the dinky cart tracks in the coaling bunker. Since the coaling carts don't fit on N gauge track, I removed the ties and superglued the rails straight to the bunker base. There's also small turntable to move the carts between the tracks. I started weathering the walls and pilings.
After finishing the stairs for the crane, coal and appropriate grime and dirt will be next...

Adding rails and the turntable

Done for tonight.

Emsingen Lokstation Coaling Bunker

I'm building the coaling bunker for the Lokstation. The tracks around it are curved, and there isn't a whole lot of space, so it was clear from the beginning that the base plate from the kit won't be used. I need to build a new base that fits my track arrangement, and kit-bash the parts from the kit to fit. Also, the area I have available is larger than the bunker from the kit, so I have to come up with additional wall pieces as needed.

Emsingen Lokstation. Coaling facility seen from the north-east...

... and from the south-east.

I decided to raise the crane a bit higher and build a small concrete pedestal similar to the one in the kit, but smaller. This was completed reasonably quickly from a couple balsa sticks. I carefully marked clearances from the adjacent tracks, arranged and placed the concrete walls from the kit, and spray painted the walls.

There will be some narrow gauge tracks inside the bunker for the coal carts. I'll probably use modified code 55 N scale track for that. While looking at the layout of the bunker I realized that the stairs I carefully arranged to the crane base take up quite a bit of space, and the prototype would have likely constructed them in a more space saving manner, that also keeps the stairs clear of lifted coal carts.

At least this will solve the problem of the floating stairs neatly...

There's something inside ...

The cab of the coaling crane in Faller kit #120147 doesn't come with an interior. I don't really care about a super-accurate representation of what such a crane cab might have looked like inside. However, given that this thing has windows all around, it's easy to tell it's just a hollow shell.

So, I took some random styrene bits and pipes and went to work ...

As you can see this is very rough and by no means accurate. But when viewed through the windows, you get the idea that the crane arm continues into the cab, and there's some machinery inside. Even if you can't quite tell what it is exactly, you do get the impression that there is something.

And that's all I'm aiming for.