Dave Loveless' Monterey Branch

Today I operated on Dave Loveless' Monterey Branch. I ran several trains in this TT&TO session, passengers and freights moved, and 10 visitors were busy throughout the day. Dave models the Southern Pacific Coast line between Gilroy and Salinas with combined staging representing San Jose and King City, as well as the branch line from Castroville to Monterey and Pacific Grove. Since that areas is just south from where I live, the locations are very familiar. One of the benefits of prototype modeling.

In the picture above I'm running the Gilroy Local. The wide shelf in front of the station is very useful for sorting car cards. I should keep throttle and paperwork there as well, instead of following bad habits and putting them in the station parking lot. Here's my clearance issued in Watsonville.

To stretch time and compensate for lack of distance between towns there are markers between towns on the the mainline like the one below indicating that one needs to stop here here for 5 minutes to let time elapse. This had the desired effect of slowing down the session. While it can be a bit of a drag for engineer and conductor, it allows sufficient time for station operators and dispatcher to go about their business.

An example of that positive effect happened when I was done with my work in Gilroy and wanted to return to Watsonville. Before leaving Gilroy I checked the schedule (as required by TT&TO rules) and noticed that I would not be able to make it to Watsonville ahead of first class train 36, and clear the main line in time before third class train 471 was due to depart Watsonville.
Hence I stayed in the siding in Gilroy and jokingly mentioned to the station operator that I'll be stuck here for at least the next 30 minutes. This led to some discussion between station operator, layout owner, and dispatcher. They knew that both trains I was waiting for were delayed, so I would not actually need to wait. Because there was sufficient time, Dispatch could set up a three-way call with station operators and generate an order in triplicate to give my puny Extra 2525 right over a first class and a third class train. Only after it was confirmed that the order was delivered to the crews of trains 36 and 471, I was handed my copy and was able to leave Gilroy.

The photo below shows on the left the order to run Watsonville to Gilroy. The clearance and order to return from Gilroy to Watsonville are in the stack underneath. The order giving me right over 36 and 471 is on the right.

Later in the afternoon I ran the southbound beet train from San Jose to King City. Here it is in Sargent. I stopped by the prototype location a few years ago and very much enjoyed servicing a location I had seen in real life.

Many buildings on the layout are simple boxes wrapped in photo prints, or functional stand-ins like the Sparolini Distributors Warehouse in Monterey. This low-tech approach is surprisingly effective in creating atmosphere and a feeling of place. I need to keep that in mind for future large layout projects.

Other areas are effectively detailed, like this warehouse scene in Ford Ord.

Of course Monterey's Canner Row is on the layout, as well as Pacific Grove, and even the sandpit at the end of the line in Asilomar.

Good Morning!

Caltrain 4th & King: Bumpers

There are a bunch of neat details for model railroaders in this photo taken during the morning rush hour at Caltrain's 4th & King station. The red end of track lights. The blue light lanterns. The rolled up power cables and respective switch box in the rear. The differences in ballast before and below the bumpers. The weathering of the bumpers. The pack of bottled water stored on the ground. ...

What jumps out at you?

Poppies!

Spring is here!

Kurve: Storage Case

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Now that scenery work has started on Kurve, I need a way to protect my work from dust and accidental damage. It's time to build a storage case.

The first step was to separate the little extension piece from the main module, cut rails and scenery, and put it aside. This makes it much easier to build the box for the rectangular main module. I cut 12" wide strips from the Lauan plywood sheet I used a few weeks ago to make the module sides. I also cut square strips from a 1/2" sheet of plywood to stabilize the edges.

I started with the end sheets, and then fitted the sheets on the long edge of the module. I used wood glue and staples to attach the Lauan sheets to the edge strips.

I'm one 1x2 ft sheet short to close the top, so I left it open for now. It turns out the two sheets already in place make nice handles to put the cover over the module, but I need better support for the edges.

This build took a surprising amount of time, so I didn't get much else done today.

Coffee break

Enjoying the sun, a snack, and coffee, while reading the January Eisenbahn Journal with a seasonably appropriate photo on the title page.

Kurve: No more Pink Foam

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My goal for today: No more pink foam. My Scenic Express order arrived yesterday with a Heki Flokstar XL, which I put through its paces today. I'm quite pleased. The Flokstar is more powerful than my homebuilt Grassinator and easier to handle. The cable to the grass hopper could be a bit longer. I tried grass fibers up to 6mm length, and they land on end, standing nice and straight.

I started with the inside hill.  There will be tress on top, so this area should be thick with undergrowth.

I moved on to the hill on the outside of the curve. There will eventually be trees here as well.

With ground cover the cut looks quite nice already.

Since I was on a roll, I took off the painters tape from the track and painted the rails.

Mission accomplished: No pink foam left.

I primed and painted the module sides earlier in the day. This is Craft Smart Dark Grey.

This module started its life as a temporary filler, but with scenery progressing I'm growing quite fond of it.

Kurve: Rock Outcroppings (4)

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Whoops. One of the washes I made last weekend turns into a nasty green when dry and viewed in daylight. It's only paint, so this was fixable, but it was annoying and it took a little while until I was sure I got it right. The solution involved washes with Craft Smart Suede and Ivory, and cleaning up the color around the rocks with Golden Brown.

Untergroeningen: Locomotive Shed

I made a mockup of the locomotive shed in Untergroeningen from Auhagen Baukasten System wall sections. The look of the shed gets pretty close to the original. There are photos on the Internet, e.g. at Vergessene Bahnen or Eisenbahnfotograf. The water tower on the mockup is a bit too high, and the shed windows are too large compared to the prototype. However, this is a workable compromise between a complete scratch build and a standard kit.

I have not yet found a picture of the locomotive shop area of building, which is located behind the water tower away from the tracks.

[ part 2 ]

Spring Coffee

The forecast says we are done with rain at least for February.

Kurve: Rock Outcroppings (3)

[ Kurve posts ]

Completed rock face in the cut

I was on the right track with texture, and continued chiseling both sides of the cut this afternoon.

Texture done

When I was done with chiseling I realized that I had held the chisel at a 90 degree angle to the hill side, so that the rock strata are perpendicular to the hill. On both sides of the cut. It's not quite as noticeable on the right side in the photo above, because that side of the cut is steeper, which implies the layers would make a ~60 degree in the middle of the cut, instead of continuing consistently from one side to the other, and the railroad dug through the hill. I'm going to blissfully ignore that mishap, but now you know. There will be grass and bushes to make this less obvious.

Now that I had rock texture that looked about right, it was time to work on colors. I planned to use the common rock face approach: Paint plaster with a somewhat light rock color, add a black wash to enhance the crevices, highlight the edges. For the light rock color I made a yucky mess from acrylics I had available to arrive at a light mustard color (Anita's Sunshine Yellow, lots of Craft Smart White, a little bit of Black, a few drops of Golden Brown, thinned with water 2-3 parts color to one part water). After the base color was dry, I made a wash from Black with some Golden Brown and stippled it over the base color. For the highlights I lightened the base color with white and more Sunny Yellow, added a bit more water, and lightly (not quite) dry brushed the rock in a top-down, bottom-up motion. At this stage the rocks look like this.

Base color, dark wash, and highlights

This is way better than my first try, but still a bit bland and too homogeneous.  Multiple passes of dropping spots of dark wash in random places lead to a more uneven appearance. I made another wash this time from Craft Smart Terracotta, stippled that on in random places, followed by more dark wash in more random places. And eventually I ended up with the look in the lead photo of this post. That's good enough for tonight.

I also remembered a lesson I had learned years ago when building Steinle: The plaster sucks up all water and the appearance can change dramatically when a wash dries. Be patient. Try something, then wait for the plaster to be thirsty.

Kurve: Rock Outcroppings (take 2)

I decided to redo the rock outcroppings in the cut because I was not happy with how the first attempt worked out.  This time I worked horizontal strata into the plaster mix with a small chisel. I pretty much just hold the chisel horizontally, make a shallow cut into the plaster, and chip away a small amount of material, place the next cut parallel to the previous cut, and keep going ...

Within minutes I get a much more satisfying rock texture (left and middle) than what I had before (right). This looks much more like the sedimentary rock I wanted to represent here.

Renumbering Cars

Tonight I decided to work on decaling and renumbering cars. As operating railroads, both the Welztalbahn and Silicon Valley Lines require all cars on the railroad to have different car numbers. I picked up the coal gondolas above for cheap at a recent ETE meeting, product number 4431. One of the cars got a number. I used a number from a set of random numbers sold by Andreas Nothaft at modellbahndecals.de.

The other car I worked on is Bowser kit #60205, a CNW wood chip hopper. I renumbered the car for Silicon Valley Lines. The glassfiber eraser got quite a workout on the CNW herald ...

PAE - SFO

Let's try this again.  90 minutes after the SJC flight was canceled because the inbound flight couldn't land due to bad weather, the clouds had lifted enough that planes could land.

An uneventful 2 hours later we're flying over San Francisco towards a tight 180 degree turn into SFO airport.

Canceled

Low ceiling at Paine Field in Everett.

So low that the inbound flight for my trip home couldn't land and diverted to Portland. The ground crew hung out on the field until a minute before the gate agent made the announcement that the inbound flight has landed in Portland. When they walked away it was clear that flight AS2742 will not leave on time ...

They announced multiple times to call Alaska's Customer Service center for faster rebooking service, but I preferred to talk to someone in person, and also: I have time, so I didn't mind waiting.

I'm now booked on the "other" Alaska flight to the Bay Area. Unfortunately, that will take me only to San Francisco.

Fun with Rain

Furniture Fun

Snow Fall Caboose

The white specks are actually snow flakes. I think this was the first snow fall I saw this year.

Night Time Caboose

Volcano Alley

Mt. Jefferson, Mt. Hood, and Mt. Adams in the distance peek through the clouds as we are flying above the Willamette Valley east of Albany, OR.

Kurve: Module Sides

The hill on the Kurve module is built up from layers of one inch pinkfoam sheets, which doesn't look very presentable, nor is it sturdy. I dressed up the sides of the module with Lauan plywood, which is thin, hard, and lighter than hardboard. I glued the sides to the module using paintable Silicone caulk, and also filled the gaps along the edges.

Kurve: Rock Outcroppings

I'm planning to add grass, creepers, bushes, etc to form a rather overgrown thicket on the slopes of the cut. In a couple locations rock could peek through the bush cover, so I slapped some Mold-a-Scene plaster into the scene a couple weeks ago, and worked on the scene on and off in the evenings after work.

Hmmm, yeah, looks like someone slapped some Mold-a-Scene plaster on the slopes of the cut. Maybe this will look better once fully dried and painted.

I'm not quite convinced yet ...

The paint is too dark, and gets darker when enhancing the crevices. I like the effect, but the color balance is way off from what I have in mind, and the crevice effect disappears when the tint dries. The rocks are also not sharp-edged enough. I'll try to enhance the edges, and start over with a much lighter color. Most of this will be hidden under bushes and other greenery when the scene is complete.