Boston & Maine Eastern Route Progress

[jbvb]

23-Feb-2015: Finally:  a weekend with only 4" of snow, only one roof to clear, plus an above-freezing day with sun, actual layout progress.
Acme Fast Freight is a major, high-priority customer in my version of West Lynn, with cars dispatched 6 days a week to other regional hubs. Because their prototype Boston-area location was in Malden, I didn't have to research anything; I bought a Walthers Allied Electronics background building because it had enough windows to work with my 'staging viewer' holes. The brick fill areas got hit with leftover paint in an airbrushing session a year or two ago.



I decided I was tired of looking at the cardboard mock-up and started sawing.



I used model airplane cement for the joints and reinforced them with .100 x .188 styrene strips located to support any floors I decide to install. It's big enough and my workbench had sufficient other stuff on it that this has been a stand-up job, using the track as a work area.

26-Feb-2015: Because Floquil has changed thinners over the years, I usually use lacquer thinner when airbrushing; it works with all versions, but I can't put leftovers back in the jar. So when I mix too much, I wind up patrolling the layout room looking for current & future projects that could stand some of this color of paint.

I  made a quick trip to Newburyport to get some detail photos & measurements of the first firehouse ('Deluge #1', built 1864) before it was demolished. The city was delaying the owner's plan to replace it with condos, and somehow nobody bothered to shovel the roof. The rear part, which looks a little tired here, finally collapsed Monday.



This photo from happier & warmer days shows its final occupant, which moved out a couple of years ago. I will model it as Lawler's store with a dry cleaner in the recent 1-story addition. Then I took a look at one of the roofs of my mother's house and decided it needed shoveling, so no modeling that day.



I got some time in on the Acme Fast Freight building. The roof & 3rd floor are .040 styrene 'scribed' with a compass to match the backdrop's curve. It's waiting for airbrushing weather (when it's not bone-chilling to open the window for my vent hose).

I was invited to two op sessions this weekend, and had opened up a ModelTech Studios "3D Background Tenement" kit for the other side
of the Saugus Branch track.

[jbvb]

4-Mar-2015:

 

The attic was comfortable enough that I got Acme Fast Freight to the point of ratifying my choice of kit: Allied Electronics is enough of
a see-through building that my "where to stop" windows to the Saugus staging fouling points still work.



As if I didn't already have 15 buildings 'in progress' (though some just need signs), I figured out how to connect the scene behind the Saugus Branch to Bennett St. This is DPM's Carr's Parts facade coupled with a bunch of leftovers from other DPM kits. Here I'm using the Sears vernier caliper my parents gave me when I was in HS to mark the height of the roof.

I also put in several hours on roads, abutments and retaining walls but it's late and I still had two chores to do.

11-Mar-2015: I try to think like some combination of a businessman and a contractor. I thought about a blank wall, but I needed the
thickness to match the others, so it wasn't going to be simple. And I had an appropriate leftover.



How things stood after a couple of days of building/painting retaining walls, paving roads, and adding ground cover to the areas not directly under trackage.

22-Mar-2015: I'd been working on other structures too:



I accumulated a lot of Walthers modular parts. After a failed attempt to make a used, re-kitted Geo. Roberts Printing fit the Gorin Machine site, I made a try with the modulars. This was made easier by re-flattening the cardboard mock-up I'd gotten tired of looking at for a pattern. The big, flat, solvent-proof work surface is the pull-out shelf of a replica Hoosier Cabinet that had been accumulating clutter for several years.

I'd used almost all my flat pillaster parts. I looked for more at the Wilmington, MA Greenberg show that afternoon.

[jbvb]

23-Mar-2015: More progress on Gorin Machine in Bexley. It's named after Howard Gorin, a lifelong live-steamer. In the 1980s he sold me a Walker-Turner drill press that still graces my wood shop.



There was a lot of new styrene dust, but I got the basic form together. The stock modular parts only do right angles, so I looked around and the clearest write-up was R. W. Holmes' Oct. 2008 MR article. He used a razor saw on his corners, but for the two acute angles, I widened the cut with a new hacksaw blade.

Once everything was aligned properly, I backfilled the cuts with model airplane cement and scrap styrene. Tomorrow morning everything should be dry. I'll try to get the cornices on, as they'll make the structure rigid enough that I can trace out a floor.

1-Apr-2015: After I got back from the Finescale Expo, I buckled down to clean up projects ahead of Saturday's op session. First, I made a canopy out of JTT corrugated styrene and Evergreen .080 and .125 I beam for Acme's newer dock:



Then I built a dock to match it:



Scalecoat 'Aged Concrete' is a little darker than Floquil 'Concrete', but the design is intended to suggest the curved dock was added when Acme moved in.  Paint's drying now, I'll assemble it in the morning.

2-Apr-2015: There was more roof work to be done, window glazing, some attention to the doors, then signs and finally detailing. But the canopy and dock are done:



The X-29 is an old Trains-Miniature car with simple modifications to improve the looks: I filed the running board down to about half it's original thickness and trimmed the door 'claws' down to minimum size. It doesn't stand up to the Red Caboose die work, but it doesn't fail horribly as part of a mostly 'Green Dot' fleet on my layout.

[jbvb]

5-Apr-2015: Since Saturday's op session I have:

- Fixed the turnout that bothered the passenger cars

- Loosened the truck pivot screw on the Rapido Osgood-Bradley coach

- Fixed the yard throat turnout lever

- Re-switched the misrouted freight cars

- Restaged passenger & freight

- Organized my timetables better

- Charged the radio throttles

Since I won't get the replacement PSX-1 circuit breaker till the middle of next week, I moved on to other projects:

Initially on kitforums, then on modelersforum, Tom Langford has organized a 'Traveling Freight Car' using Atlantic & Southern 3667, a loaded 55 ton hopper car. I picked it up at the Finescale Expo in Scranton and it finally made its way across the Hudson and up to Boston today:



Setting up for the photo shoot, I spent about three hours with four colors of paint on the DPM leftovers kitbash visible to the right of 4012. It's my first attempt at beige brick, using Floquil Depot Buff. It still needs mortar, when I figure out where I put my paste away.

Finally, a note on my 'Floquil Life Extension' technique: I dip my brush in lacquer thinner and then in the paint that collects in the Floquil lids. I keep doing this till the lid is pretty much paintless, then start taking it straight from the bottle. The model gets essentially 'free paint' which would otherwise dry in the lid, the lid goes back on clean and none of the cheap lacquer thinner gets into the liquid paint itself, so it doesn't curdle.

9-Apr-2015: My upbringing didn't give me much knowledge of 'sin'. It wasn't till I was working as an engineer that I really came to understand how careless or convenient actions can have a price which WILL be paid someday:



In 2007 I really wanted an operating layout, which ultimately led to me building the Saugus Jct. turnout across the joint between some existing track and the new roadbed. And I sinned, twice: First, I didn't move the shelf bracket. Second, I decided to just drill through it and make the point rod hole oversize, using only the air gap to insulate between the two rails. I didn't apply insulation, I didn't even drill both holes oversize; the shelf bracket is at the potential of one rail.

I am repenting (and re-doing) my sins now, after this led to a short circuit taking much longer than it should have to debug.

27-Apr-2015: I completed the Acme Fast Freight kitbash. It still needs a billboard on the roof, but I need to learn GIMP better to get the colors more uniform.



This also shows Busch flexible self-stick cobblestone (Walthers #189-7078) in the area between the two team tracks. I'll post more when my experiments at coloring it are thoroughly dry.

28-Apr-2015: An intermediate step in last night's GIMP activities produced this, which I post here for pre-1970 B&M modelers and anyone else whose prototype used similar signs:



The original is at a museum in upstate NY, Steve Labonte gave me his photo. This isn't shown in any B&M plans I have, but I made GIMP print it 24" wide in HO. If anyone wants the GIMP .xcf file, it's quite small enough to email.

[jbvb]

1-May-2015: I'd been going back & forth about how to build the roof sign for Acme Fast Freight. I got past that:



I'd printed the sign on regular paper and sprayed it with matte finish. Then I mounted it on heavy kitchen aluminum foil with 3M Super 77 spray contact cement. Then I figured out a plausible frame design using Evergreen styrene I had on hand:



The vertical posts are .080" H column, the horizontal members are .080" channel, the braces are .060" L. I primed it with rattle-can gray before sticking the foil to the frame with Walthers Goo.



A westbound engineer's eye view of the completed structure looming over West Lynn yard. A couple of weeks ago I got the truck dock roof done and added the ACME sign to it using Plastruct styrene letters. With the roof sign, the structure is done. Even though the photos  show me a few color shifts I could go back and fix with GIMP...

There's scope for detailing, but I'll get the overall scene a lot more complete before I come back to this.

4-May-2015: After yesterday's op session, I closed out the evening doing this:



Dip the end of the .010x.030 styrene in Goo, insert into rail gap, nip, repeat. If I let it hang over in line with the rail, I don't have to hold the styrene while I nip it. This is fast enough that I did about 1/3 of the main line turnouts/gaps in an hour.

Once the whole main is done, I'll come back with a sharp file and a Bright Boy to make sure nothing fouls the gauge. No running trains in the mean time.

[jbvb]

7-May-2015: I finished all the gaps, along with soldering a dozen neglected rail joiners. I went back to Gorin Machine (started in March).



I'd made a couple of tries at adding mortar; Between the pillasters and the stepped-out portion of the roof pieces, doing it with liquid or paste was going to be a lot of work. Here I've used Savogran Wood Putty (out of production, but I think Durhams Water Putty might also work). I pressed it into the mortar lines with my fingers, brushed and picked off excess and then set its fish glue component with steam from a tea kettle.

Last night I painted a lot of lintels, next is to install a lot of windows. Then some details on the roof and walls, followed by signage and weathering.

13-May-2015: The clear styrene skylight casting from Walthers' Allied Electric Motors kit is far and away the most picky job of painting I've ever done. Pictures when I don't hate the results.

No skylight pictures yet; I may have to mask & airbrush it. But the project advances:



This illustrates a minor Walthers modular gotcha: the 'wide walls' with pillasters used the paired window castings. Those without pillasters use single window castings (which I didn't paint enough of).

20-May-2015: Mieke's Yard Office kit is pretty much finished; she added a few extra details like the stink pipe, a scratchbuilt electric meter and the signs I made for her. Once I finish the scenery around it, we'll make the pedestrian bridge from the top of the stairs over to the main line atop the retaining wall.



Today, Boston Engine Terminal assigned a Maine Central Mikado to the Camel. It's on its way back to Mystic Jct., braking to a stop so the conductor can get weighbills from the yardmaster while the rest of the crew is picking up the Boston-bound cars.

2-Jun-2015: Things have been quiet on the Eastern Route since the long weekend - lots of signal gangs working and the long haul trains diverted to the Western Route to give them uninterrupted nights to work: https://modelersforum.com/index.php?topic=6882.0

Today, while waiting for signal pier concrete (glue) to set, I finished installing yellow joint bars (laser cut resin board from Precision Design) over rail gaps everywhere except Newburyport. I don't think they'll be much of an issue there, but that'll only be eight more if I'm wrong.

24-Jun-2015: I was walking down Bennett St. to the plant and noticed a shiny new car parked at the West Lynn yard office, so I snapped a picture. Turned out a Traffic Department man named Smith was learning the territory; he'd just been promoted down to headquarters from Concord.



After I got the setting for Mieke's yard office mostly done, I tried out a little point-and-shoot whose lens location would let me frame this picture. It reveals a few things I should fix before I can hope to publish it, but it's progress.

[ACL1504]

James,

Just finished getting caught up on this thread. Lots of great stuff here and again, thanks for giving us all here the work you did on RR Lines. The rural scenes, the overpasses and scratch built structures look great.

Tom

[jbvb]

Thanks, Tom.  A good memory of your A&S hopper car on tour.

30-Jun-2015: The signal setup at the east portal of Bexley tunnel has looked complete for a while, but I was talking to one of the gang at Bannon's last night; he said there's a lot more work to do on the electrical controls at Bexley Tower.



The first two styrene dwarf signals are in place but not wired. The remaining seven are on my #3 workbench in various stages of completion. An op session was coming up in a week, so I shifted gears to cleaning up and re-staging before the weekend.

9-Jul-2015: My friend Mike was covering the 3rd trick Newburyport Drawtender job while the guy who owns it was on vacation. He knows I'm usually up early, so he called me about 5 AM, saying there was an R-1 on the 'Narragansett' and it was late enough that I might catch it in daylight.



Sure enough, when I got to Robinson Rd. there was 4108. The brakeman was just climbing back on after pushing the button to line the automatic interlocking into the yard. That 'run-down' timer is 4 minutes, so I grabbed a quick shot of the engine and the red 'jack'.

I was trotting under the Robinson Rd. bridge when the engineer gave two short and cracked the throttle. I sprinted a little past the home signal and got another shot as it entered the yard. At Bannon's after work, Ernie told me that 4108 was the Rigby protect engine and ran light to Arundel after the diesels had fuel trouble.



My first interlocking was in service. A day too late for the op session, but better late than never.

[jbvb]

17-Jull-2015: After the op session, I ordered a bunch of signal parts. Meanwhile I worked on the NMRA AP certificates for Civil Engineering and Scenery. The former is waiting for evaluation to be scheduled, the latter has had me adding details and fixing little problems in my planned 32 sq. ft. area: East Bexley through Rowley to Little River.

Wednesday Ron G. brought a P2K RDC-3 to try out. We set it up leading an eastbound train. I remembered a photo of a similar consist arriving Rowley circa 1957, but even if we could have put the camera where the photographer had been standing, the backdrop would have been my chimney. So this one's from the opposite side of the tracks:



I scratchbuilt the crossbuck to B&MRRHS plans in 2000. In 2015 it finally got its "2 Tracks" placard.



The B&B gang put up some new fence at Little River and painted the flanger sign and switchstand at Newburyport West.

I had Author, Volunteer and Electrical (my most recent, a year ago). Getting Civil, Scenery and Dispatcher in 2015 seems within reach. Structures is a little farther out. Fates willing, I qualified for Official in 2017, not that it advanced my pursuit of MMR.

27-Jul-2015: It appears the wheels will eventually grind me out a Civil certificate. I'm continuing to work on Scenery, while pondering a comment my AP Chair made while looking over the area I plan to submit for evaluation:



The left (RR west) end of the section is East Bexley, where the backdrop coves in and the Robinson Rd. overpass exists to separate the sceniced area from the unsceniced Bexley yard tracks.



But the right end, at Newburyport West, was just the visible line where I reached 32 sq. ft. and stopped applying ground cover. He says it would be better if the scenery ran up to a natural divider.

The US 1 overpass will go in the gap between Little River and the Hytron plant. But it hasn't been begun: I need to learn to make molds and cast multiple complex parts. But also, I can't get the level and vertical curve of the east (right) end of the embankment right until I'm roughing in the landforms on the un-built 'Downtown Newburyport' peninsula.

I explained this and he responded that completing and scenicing the sides of the embankment would work, though not as well. But then I remembered the Georgetown, Rowley & Ipswich trolley embankment west of Rt. 1. Almost all of the fill was east of the B&M, so it might do the 'divide' function decently, while avoiding Rt. 1's issues.

So I dug out O.R. Cummings book and when detailing gets tiresome I'll mock something up. The abandoned abutment will go a little right of the switchstand. I just need to make sure that the block signal (yellow push pin) just west of the Rt. 1 overpass still has decent sight distance.

28-Jul-2015: I was completing the cable guardrail on the approaches to the Rt. 1A overpass. But with .010 wire (scale 7/8") the longer parts on the far side of the tracks take some looking to spot:



The lens was about 8" from the truck.

[jbvb]

29-Jul-2015: I'd concentrated on the Heubach Farm in E. Bexley and now it's almost finished.



Mrs. H's kitchen garden will be hard to see behind the house: I used Alkem etched corn, Busch laser-cut rhubarb and JTT cauliflower and broccoli. I hoped the phragmites tufts would look more like asparagus ferns, but I suppose they're OK as some sort of allium. The picket fence is elderly Atlas (why it isn't pure white). The little patch of flowers is a snippet of a 'wildflower' grass mat surrounded by a fiberglass window screen scrap painted white.



Two jobs remain: The collage photo of the "Blue Tombstone" (Harvestore silo) behind the barn needs to be reprinted in color, and I need to make a 'barnyard pole' with light and electric meter. But if I want it actually lit, I should spend the hot part of the day digging around on the web for the right 1/8" audio jack/socket combination to mount it removably.

5-Aug-2015: Here's a try at 'night' photography by turning my camera's exposure compensation down. This is about -1.6 stops with only the 'walking around' LED strips for room lighting.



Mr. Rice's new 'yard post' light isn't very bright, but that changed when I built the real power supply for it. Here it's powered by the 'Diode Test' function of my multimeter.

6-Aug-2015: Passing by Robinson Rd., I saw an Alco switcher working the east end of Bexley yard. When they stopped on the main beside the Heubach farm, I tried a time exposure in the last bit of twilight:



This work included making two rectifier/current limiter LED supplies and finishing & wiring the associated yard poles. On a roll, I took a look at doing one for Rowley Depot. DC power is already available, but I must remove a chunk from the stick of wood that holds the big tree in place before I can mount the socket.

[jbvb]

12-Aug-2015: I'd opened a Pandora's Box by starting with lights. The Rowley depot's outside light won't look good in a picture till I've
also lit the station interior and the platform shed. And the Clam Box positively cries out for lights. It also looked easier, so:

I finished the kit (in a 2012 thread not yet moved here) with no thought of lighting. But years ago I bought a set of extra-long drills. The 1/16"
was long enough to drill completely through from the roof to the floor. And a #30 solid wire fits into 1/16" brass tube.



I soldered the cathode of one LED to the tube. I'm about to solder the + feed to the anode of the other LED. In between them I'll have another joust with #38 magnet wire.



The time to have used a plug/jack to connect the wiring was long past. I put a small terminal strip under the layout and hoped nobody (least of all me) picks the structure up abruptly.

17-Aug-2015: A couple of hours of RR work today was enough to finish outside lighting for the Clam Box:



#38 wire is soldered from the left LED's anode to the right's cathode (note color marks to keep track). I made sure both would light before cutting off the unused leads. Because they're in series my meter's 'Diode Test' setting wouldn't light them. I used the current limiter already in place for the Rice farm instead. Next step was 'galvanized' paint for the LED bodies and leads.



The finished scene. Until I decide to illuminate the Rowley platform shed & interior, or the houses, lights for this part of the RR are done.

[jbvb]

30-Sep-2015: We'd gone to Portland OR for the NMRA National, then Phoenix for the PSW Region convention, with lots of scenery & friends in between. I'd finished a project for the Hub Division; back to scenery work:



This 'Ornate Picket Fence' came from Monroe Models' booth at the National Train Show. Tomorrow the glue will be dry enough to paint. Once it's installed Mrs. Rice's garden will be (mostly) safe from the chickens. Beans and Rhubarb are from Noch, young fruit trees (right) are from JTT.

13-Oct-2015: The Scenery AP evaluators will be looking for appropriate signage. So in between picking chestnuts and making applesauce and firewood, I've been trying out new aspects of GIMP on bits of images I found on the net:



I'll eventually need an 'Entering Newbury' sign, but good images are lacking; I'll just take a quick shot when I go pick this one up from the copy shop (I didn't have semi-gloss paper at home). .xcf or PDF format available on request.

21-Oct-2015: Still applying details:



I like the way these signs look. But I expect to be asked about license plates. They're on the next sheet sent to the print shop.



I'm not so happy with this view; commercial picket fence doesn't work well on slopes. But the issues are less clear when viewed from above, so it can stay for now. Tip: the Monroe fenceposts are rectangular. I drilled 3/32" and punched holes to fit with the tail of a 4" file.

[jbvb]

27-Oct-2015: I built the Massachusetts town boundary sign and installed it tonight:



I spent a while installing New Hampshire Red chickens and cows; It was late and I wasn't satisfied with my paint job on Sweetie the Jersey.

That style of town boundary sign goes back as far as I can remember, but a web search reveals that at one point the bottom edge was also curved to suggest the shape of an open book. I wasn''t called on it. Someday I could make a 2nd sign for when it's 1953 on my layout.

29-Oct-2015: Near the end of my punch list; I got 'Sweetie' the Jersey painted to my satisfaction. The NH Red chickens are almost invisible at 3 feet, but they photograph OK.



The biggest decision remaining is about my AP Chair's suggestion that I supply a 'frame' for the right (Newburyport West) end of the area to be evaluated. The abandoned embankment and abutments for the Georgetown, Rowley & Ipswich trolley overpass would suffice. I've got photos and maps but I must mock it up to see if I have room for a credible representation.

5-Nov-2015: What the right (RR east) end of my scene looked like at the end of October. The gap against the backdrop existed because I won't be able to get the levels right for the US 1 overpass until the Downtown Newburyport peninsula's RR roadbed is half done. The gap behind the fascia is where the peninsula will attach.



The road surface & guardrails waited, and  haven't made trouble for future me with the fill and gravel where the approach spans will go. But it does look better and the embankment supplies a bit of 'frame'.



At the other end of the US 1 area of Newburyport, Prost Bakery got a foundation, framed by swamp and the side of the High St. glacial moraine. The ill-founded house is in Newburyport, which is many, many structures away from potential as a Scenery AP candidate. The area I submitted for evaluation goes left from the US 1 embankment.

[jbvb]

I was talking about my AP Chair's comment about a 'frame' here when Mieke commented that she wanted to put temporary cardboard filler pieces in these gaps before Tour de Chooch. I filled as much as I could with permanent scenery:



Mieke commented: After having visited a few layouts in NJ on our way to and from the NER convention, it got me thinking. Some had a curtain underneath their layout, and it really encouraged focus onto the layout, hiding (potential) clutter underneath. So, James and I got 100ft of fabric and a pile of velcro, and I hauled my sewing machine to his place. A lot of measuring later (because aside from 8ft of modular layout, nothing is straightforward, of course) the sewing started:



Here are the first 2 panels installed:



James did all the sticky parts. And once he had that section glued, the third piece went up.

One more panel is waiting for 2 more feet of velcro, and 2 panels are prepped and ready for all their velcro. Yes, we woefully underestimated the amount of velcro needed. Needless to say, there is a shopping list. After those are done, probably 3 or 4 more panels, and also go around using the staplegun to reinforce the velcro to the wood. After the glue dries a little more. Don't want to yank off both velcro sides with the curtain.

One of the detailing that you can't see (as intended, but I may take a picture of to show later) is that in some places there are supporting beams going to the fascia, and I had to notch the fabric to make it fit. Usually not more than an inch wide and about an inch down, and I will probably reinforce the cuts at some point, to prevent the fabric from tearing down from those cuts. Yes, I learned to sew long before I picked up modeling.

[jbvb]

7-Nov-2015: If I'd been able to get the same fabric in 18% neutral gray (in time for Tour de Chooch), I would have, but this works well for me. I requested evaluation when the last few details were installed. Here's results of the 1953 Mass. license plate endeavor:



That's a lot of magnification, and means I need much more attention to weathering than 'a splash of A&I' for any vehicles on which I'm going to showcase the plates. I may also need to figure out the right kind of pencil to color plate edges and back sides. At least I'm a lot better at GIMP now.

Here's another kind of detail from the last GIMP session: The B&M used to sell ad space aggressively, in the coaches, on the station platforms and on any building that passengers encountered. What I remember from the '60s was aluminum frames with cards slipped into them. There were many campaigns for Boston's theater district, as well as movies, food products, autos etc.



I'm following a mid-50s photo of Rowley that I don't have the rights to reproduce. I don't see framing visible around the posters, so I guessed the frames were painted steel angle. I used a pencil to darken the cut edges of each printed poster and stuck them on with rubber cement.

It turns out movie posters tagged by year are all over the net. Theater posters are usually for Manhattan venues. From left, it's 'Guys & Dolls' on tour, 'The Robe', 'Tumbleweed', 'House of Wax' and a Marshmallow Fluff ad that I wish looked less like it came from a newspaper. And yes, I went upstairs and straightened the train order signal mast before I even resized the image.

The actual image/print quality doesn't matter much at Rowley due to the platform shed and roof overhang. I'll need to take more care and maybe find more/better images when I do this with Mieke's Bexley station. That will have four or five feet of inter-track fence, so maybe two dozen card holders on the side facing the audience.  It's much farther from the viewer but not necessarily from the camera lens.

13-Nov-2015: My region AP person liked my write-up; he only wanted pictures to give an overview of the layout to accompany the text. My
division AP chair guesses the Scenery evaluation will happen in early December.