Boston & Maine Eastern Route Progress

[jbvb]

17-Feb-2018: I finished the track and power wiring. And of course, ran a test train to deliver the high priority load of meat so residents of Newburyport and vicinity could have their Saturday roast:



There was a little tune-up as I played with this area, but construction of Downtown Newburyport will now shift to roads, foundations and
landforms.

Earlier I mentioned that the layout-edge hand-throws for these switches would be different because the track is next to the future bed of the Merrimack River.  On RR-Line, that went into one of the general Track threads, but here I'll put it in-line:



The push/pull rod goes through the fascia lower right. The slide switch that locks point position and powers the frog is mounted to the river bed so the push-pull force is all in-line.  Yes, I had to thread several inches to keep it attached to the slide switch while reaching the acrylic connector block.  The block is taller than usual, the switch point rods (upper left) are longer than usual but all three switches work perfectly.

21-Feb-2018: It was going to be an 'electrical projects' day. The first one took much longer than I expected. However, it's in service:



Adding this RJ-45 'keystone jack' box lets operators with wired throttles reach any part of the north half of my layout. To preserve a 'clip up' plug orientation, I screwed what was designed as the cover of the box to the underside of the layout frame.

It took all day because 1) some parts I'd bought got 'put away', so I improvised with what I could find AND 2) I made a couple of punch-down errors AND 3) high-end Category 5 cable is stranded and you can't play 'double-punching' games with it. I couldn't get continuity on all pairs so I had to solder a splice.

23-Feb-2018: I'm one of those who remembers my inventory mostly by position. If it's not filed in a common location and out of sight for too long, I might as well have never have brought it home.

This afternoon, I learned a lesson: track is easy to lay on a prepared roadbed, not so much otherwise. I wonder if this is why I occasionally see an exquisitely crafted, detailed and lit diorama whose track is plastic-tie code 100 painted brown.

Section gangs and track cars vanished from most US railroads pretty quickly as Hy-Rail equipment became practical in the 1950s. I expect the track gang was how many railfans older than me got introduced to the subject. Employees living locally, most walking to work at the same section house every day and then putting away to noisy manual labor jobs up and down the line - summer entertainment before TV. But by 1965 they were gone from Newburyport, so my introduction to railroaders was via train crews.

I recall magazines articles of the 1960s and '70s featuring construction and equipping section houses, but it's been years. They weren't favorite photo subjects and their denizens were rarely social equals of the operating employees. But as I'm a spike pounder at Seashore, the Eastern Route must be properly equipped:



My Newburyport Section House had a track-car setoff for each door. I knew this was going to fall afoul of the Hytron turnout, but a building of those dimensions would only fit in one place in Newburyport. So I decided the existing section house had been moved to accommodate the turnout. And the rails and platform for the eastbound track were removed in favor of the crossover 100 yards west.

I do creosoted wood with stain, so it had to be wood, which has to be held down so it won't curl when I finish the scenery. I think I bent 25 spikes putting 32 into the plywood and wood putty 'subgrade'. Slow, and not a picture-perfect rendering of the B&M standard plan, but it's 24" from the audience.

[jbvb]

6-Mar-2018: Mostly structure work the past few days:



The B&M had a standard smokejack for smaller buildings - galvanized square 'chimney' through the roof, then a capped pipe extending a couple more feet.





I've built them for the Newburyport and West Lynn (Ipswich prototype) section houses. But in 2025 I'm still slowly creeping towards requesting a Structures AP evaluation.

26-Apr-2018: After a busy couple of weeks catching up and turning the debris from March storms into next winter's firewood, I had some time for the RR last night. Those of you who've operated here know the Draw staging's diode matrix didn't always throw turnouts completely on the first button press. I went after that.

The first problem was some 'tinned' bus wire I'd used, resulting in many cold solder joints:



Using magnification as I tried to re-do the bad ones, I realized the tinning was solder with a higher than normal melting point. But the diodes survived re-soldering with my 100W gun on the three old wires that remain on this side.



I replaced all four 'tinned' wires that had been on the diode side.

It works much better, but still takes multiple pushes for some turnouts. Next I'll look at my Miniatronics PDC-1 capacitive discharge unit - its 10,000 mFd capacitor should be plenty, but it could have been on the hobby shop's shelf long enough to date back to Nichicon's 2001-04 era of unreliable capacitors.

1-May-2018: It appears that capacitor purchasers tightened up their specs and improved their testing in the fallout. At any rate, I had a 10,000 uFd cap, bought for this purpose, and I just piggybacked it onto the non-component side of the PDC-1. That gave considerably more oomph, but not enough to make all buttons '1-push' reliable. Next time I feel like crawling under the layout, I'll look closely at the mechanisms. It probably doesn't help that Draw's west throat uses three kinds of twin-coil switch machines.

[jbvb]

13-May-2018:  Blair M (who I don't think I've ever met) commented on the waterfront trackwork:



"This trackwork is really a nice junction, I like the look of the stained ties and dark ballast, it really does have the new england look. This particular photo really gets me witht the process and I am impressed how you move boldy forward through and beyond the turnout with the rail and then fill in the rest later; I know this is a traditional method, but it is still something to actually see it in progress.

This is really ancient stuff, goes back to the beginings of the hobby when you had to know how to do all of the handlaying if you wanted to be a modeler. I really like seeing how the ties precede the rails just as in old prototype. The warm color of the stained wood really sparks a feeling for me that is a mix of pure nostalgia from prototypes, old-fashioned modeling and memories of some of my early wood modeling in scale.

I love your photo of the turnout in the woods, that is the sort of railfanning I did as a kid, I grew up in Northeast PA where a lot of the duplicate routes were abandoned and you had to use imaginiation to see the railroad back in time past the trees.

Nice work."

20-May-2018: Thank you very much, Blair. I have a little feeling for your native corner of PA: I've seen a lot of old roadbeds off in the woods around Scranton and Reading, though I've never taken a hike on any.

Things have been busy with outdoor work, Hub Div. events, Seashore track work & operations etc. My modeling time last week was a break from structures: building and installing more Rapido switch stands for Newburyport.

Each sprue will build a Ramapo #17 (high, pre-1960), a Racor #17B (high, post-1960) and a Racor #20 (low) stand. I can use all of them, but I have to make B&M-pattern targets from brass. Also, the sprue only includes one lamp molding (I'm not complaining, these were manufactured incorrectly so Rapido gave them away at the 2018 BigE Amherst Club show).



I'd painted the lamp's roundels on an earlier sprue, but this time I looked through my stock of MV reflective lenses; the LS 220 (red) & 221 (green) were about the right size. I drilled a dimple in each roundel out to #50 and Goo'ed four MV lenses in place. Then I spent a while playing with pictures.

Verdict: The reflected light can be seen, but you have to look (left side, just past the signal). It's not conspicuous more than a foot from the audience. I will move this to a more visible location and glue it in place so it doesn't get vacuumed away. And I will build future switch stands like this batch, with a spike for a lamp.

5-Jun-2018: I'd been working on/around the layout, but nothing really photogenic:

1. Installed cellular blinds w/cords in the south-end windows. I chose a bluish color not too far from my backdrop's sky color. It is less noticeable, but also blocks more light than the plain white ones I've used elsewhere in the house. My goal is less heat transfer (either way) and less UV.

2. Cleaned up the whole attic floor, then vacuumed & cleaned the track for visitors from CA. They'd found me via the NMRA Layout Directory, which I would recommend to anyone else who likes the occasional visitor (if nothing else, the prospect of showing the layout is an incentive to get off my duff).

3. Got serious about my "What have I learned from contest judging" checklist for the Structures AP. The last burst of activity had been gas & electric meters, this time it's doorknobs and stink pipes. And detailing High St. across the bridge. Then I'll put together a folder on each structure (or maybe make an HTML page with links to plans, prototype photos, build photos etc.).

Apropos of that, has anyone ever seen an HO scale casting for a roof drain? In warmer clients, they connect downspouts to scuppers at the parapet, but in Northern New England it's more common to put a domed cast iron grating over a drainpipe that runs down inside the heated interior of the building. Usually 4" to 8" diameter on the bottom. [2025 I still need to explore where the 3d printers hawk their wares]

26-Aug-2018: Well, 2 1/2 months, time for an update. I went to Thailand and rode trains. I went to the Kansas City NMRA convention and rode trolleys on the way, in K.C and on the way back. In between, I harvested hay, wheat & rye, started learning to operate a Pettibone Speed Swing (12"/foot) and made a lot of progress on 5 Strong St. I also shot a photographic layout tour which I'm slowly uploading to Flickr. And tonight I started putting Rowley and Rowley River back in the layout. They got some touch-up for Rowley's 30th birthday in spring 2019. But prep for the NER Mahwah convention (erielimited.org) takes precedence - two clinics and one contest entry.

30-Aug-2018: Reminded by an old post with a turnout count, which can be a rough estimate of layout complexity. In February 2018, when I finished the Downtown Newburyport track, the Eastern Route's turnouts were:

74 fully operational (9 commercial, 56 hand laid, 9 came with the piece of the old MIT club layout),

2 hand laid awaiting mechanisms (inside GE River Works),

10 not begun (5 in GE River Works, 5 on the future Oil Spur peninsula),

86 total.

In May 2010, I had 31 working of an expected total of 80. GE and Downtown Newburyport both got more complicated as I finalized their designs.

21-Sep-2018: I'm [still in 2025] looking for is color photos of Lynn, Malden, Medford, Somerville from before maybe 1975 (when many
started getting re-sided with aluminum or vinyl). I need them for my backdrop in the urban part of the layout.

After I got home from Mahwah, I sat down to fix a problem with Bexley Yard that bedeviled some of my operators:



I'd built Bexley with a block boundary in the middle (purple line across the body of the yard above), so switching could be done from both ends simultaneously. When I installed power districts, the way I did it made this gap a district boundary too. But operators didn't have a reflex for their loco stopping in the middle, particularly when it made the PSX-1s at each end of the yard feep simultaneously.



I added new gaps at the fouling points and independent feeders to each body track. Locos can now run the whole length of each track, and only get feeped at by one PSX when a turnout hasn't been lined.

And finally, I had an arty inspiration. "Jakes" was a  bar & pool hall on Merrimack St. in Newburyport. Gentrification didn't get it till around the turn of the century:



I stopped at Jake's on my way home from second shift at Towle Silversmiths, but I didn't stay long. When I got to Strong St. the 'Theater Train' was sitting in the station. I set my camera on the roof of a parked car and tried a few time exposures - this one came out OK.

The home signal was 'three red', but there was nothing inbound from Portsmouth at this hour of the night. I asked around the next day and found out the draw was stuck.

22-Sep-2018: Replying to comments, The same shot in 'daylight' isn't pretty - unfinished scenery, the ceiling looming over, fluorescent tubes in the background, so I'm pleased with my inspiration. And at that hour of the night, most of the 'not so outstanding citizens' in that neighborhood were either in Jake's, or the Flying Yankee next to the station (24 Winter St., 3rd or 4th down on the scratchbuilding list).

[jbvb]

3-Oct-2018: Newburyport in that era was pretty safe: bar fights but gunshots only in hunting season, an occasional B&E but no muggings. Some domestics got reported, most didn't.

21-Nov-2018: This summer I finished a structure I'd begun 16 years ago. Just now someone asked me for a picture to clarify a detail on the prototype, and I realized I hadn't taken any. Here's the subject of my first "Scratchbuilding in Styrene" clinic with everything except finish and detailing:







Here it is now, though looking at the photos I need to make the yellow more 'creamy' and bleached for a realistic look. This will also ease the somewhat overdone 'mud splash' on the lower walls.





23-Nov-2018:

Bulletin Order #53, Effective 12:01 AM Friday November 23, 2018.

Newburyport: Spring switch in service at end of double track, MP 37.4 Eastern Route.
Normal direction is for movements from single track to Westward Main Track. Movements on Eastward Main Track between Merrimack St. (MP 37.37) and Merrimack Drawbridge must not exceed 20 MPH.

Talking with John Parsons of Azatrax at the K.C. national convention, I commented that the D2T I/R turnout controller was almost what I needed to model a Spring Switch. We exchanged a few emails and he sent me a prototype. I've still got some wiring to rearrange for manual control, but not with Tour de Chooch looming. John gave me permission to post about it last month, but I don't see it on azatrax.com yet.

If you don't know what a 'spring switch' does on the prototype, or why I've wanted one since 1970, I can explain after the Tour.

[jbvb]

9-Jan-2019: Responding to a request for pictures: The Spring Switch Controller circuit board is of limited interest by itself, and Azatrax hadn't updated their website to show it [publicized in 2019 IIRC]. The pretty photos came when I added the prototypic "SPRING SWITCH" sign beside the track and on the fascia.

Meanwhile, people who know me and my layout well might want to sit down before clicking through to this picture:

The rest of the story: My son's regular job had a slow week, so he asked if I needed anything done. And I decided to deal with the part of the attic floor that should have had shimming or underlayment before the original linoleum installation (note open cracks lower left). The floor should look a lot different Friday.

This is the first time my work table had been moved in at least 10 years. Alas, picking through the pile of swept-up debris didn't reveal any useful lost parts, just a #72 drill and my first attempt at an HO adjustable window screen (didn't fit).

4-Feb-2019: The repair got finished promptly, but then a whole lot of things happened which didn't leave much time for modeling. But today I spent a while working on the visible side of the spring switch:



Here's a B&M spring switch at the end of a siding just west of the Petersburg Jct. NY diamond with the Rutland's recently abandoned line to Chatham NY. The section crew will be making their life a little simpler today. Note the big box supporting a fairly routine high switch stand.



Later that day, the spring switch mechanism is about to be wrestled into the weeds and replaced with a normal Ramapo #17.



I built the box from .020 & .040 styrene sheet, adding a Rapido switchstand casting and a bit of half-round styrene for the ?hydraulic? damper. Handle is .025 phosphor bronze, staff is .020 music wire.

[jbvb]

5-Feb-2019: Frank Palmer asked what they (section gangs) did in the winter? Pete suggested "freeze", which happens when you're standing around waiting for a train to pass or some other gang members to finish their part of the job.

I replied:  Been there, done that: January 1978 at South Station, Boston (day labor for the Mass Bay Transportation Authority)

There's no ballast between the ties under the points. So in a nearby storage building, there are a bunch of sheet metal objects looking vaguely like Bigfoot's house slippers, with a round stack coming out of one end with a wick. When the Super makes the call, the Section Gang will fill 'em up with kerosene, light 'em and stick one between each pair of ties under the points. Then trudge around the interlocking till the snow stops drifting, refilling as necessary and re-lighting when a passing train dumps enough snow to extinguish one. Then pick 'em all up and put 'em away till the next storm.

Then and 9-Mar-2025, image search for "kerosene railroad switch heater" shows what I'm talking about as the 1st pic

Pete replied "This tactic, BTW, was all over the news media last week as Chicago "burned the railroad!!!" Lots of photos from all sorts of angles, high buildings, etc. showing the switch point heaters in use during the really cold snap...."

When the South Station kerosene lamps were retired during the 1984 reconstruction (along with Tower 1 and the underground baggage ramps and reverse loop), I think that was the last use in New England. I can't imagine anything so labor intensive remaining in today's RR operating environment. I have seen a couple in museums in recent years.

I believe what the newsies were twittering about in both Boston and Chicago was LP or mains natural gas. Most gas installations are easy to spot in fair weather too.

7-Feb-2019: Spring Switch project is complete: Signage on fascia, trackside and on the control panel. The prettiest is shown here:



Next focus was to be stalled projects and revising the operating plan to include Downtown Newburyport.

8-Mar-2019: One of Rapido's RDC-2s arrived last week. I sent it out on the main for break-in. The baggage-end ('F' mark) truck didn't track very well. Per the instructions, I tried bending the baggage steps out a bit, but no joy. After a number of derailments I investigated:



I could feel something catch as I moved the truck around: the red power feed wire shown above was bent upwards so it would catch on the underframe at certain angles. I used the back of a hobby knife to bend it back within the confines of the truck frame. All happy now.

Most of my recent hobby time was prep for my Railrun op session that March.

30-Mar-2019: A busy three weeks - the Town Meeting, then the Hub Division's Spring Training event, then lots of paperwork and house cleaning getting ready for Kanthima and me getting married on the 31st. But some railroad work did get done:



I decided the Market Sq. waterfront terminal of the City RR branch needed a guard to protect teamsters from careless elbows. I used 5 mm acrylic scraps from the hardware store, so it took a while to get the angles right.



And my stepson has been asking for projects. I started him out on an Accurail 3-bay 70 ton hopper kit. He had lots of questions about the instructions, as an exploded view needs familiarity with the end result to work as instructions. But he did a good job and asked for more. So I gave him a P2K 50' end-door automobile car kit someone else had built the underframe for. Again, lots of questions, and a few lost and broken parts I got out the magnifier to remedy. But a sound result. Here he is with his test train.

1-Apr-2019: Late yesterday, after the wedding crowd had departed, my stepson asked for another project. I gave him a second P2K 50' auto box, which he finished before bed. I need to teach him a little more about applying solvent cement, but a good job throughout.



Next I gave him a Tichy flatcar kit. Slightly different style and it needed painting. Which fitted in with weathering the rest of his fleet.

[jbvb]

12-May-2019: In what has become a theme the past 5 years: Aside from yesterday's op session, not much has changed on the Eastern route since April - school vacation included a multi-day visit to relatives and since then I've spent a lot of time on Seashore Trolley Museum's track and equipment. That will taper off when the Museum opens 7 days/week on Memorial Day. And I've bought a bunch of lighting and signaling parts which I plan to post about.

20-May-2019: In the late 2000s I started the Franklin St. area in Bexley. I needed clearance underneath for Bexley Yard's switch controls and the track through Bexley Tunnel, so I used 1/8" hardboard to support buildings and street. I left the rough side up so scenery and road materials would adhere better as the hardboard (probably) flexed.

Later, I'd used commercial plastic cobblestone on Railroad St. and, looking at Franklin Street's rough texture, I had an idea: It wasn't great cobblestone, but in the '50s many New England cities had covered the traffic parts of busy cobblestone streets with asphalt, leaving strips of stones in the gutters. I applied some "Cape Cod Gray" stain to the hardboard and liked the 'feel'. But I dithered over whether I should add a trolley track, and what paving scheme would avoid cracking.

Saturday, my lighting project motivated me to finally repave Franklin St. I masked off strips along the curb, then painted a test section with black satin finish latex, and sprinkled it with 'Part C' colored sand from Spectralock's StainProof Grout system. After it dried and I brushed away everything that didn't stick, Natural Gray (left) came out too light, but Raven looked good



I went ahead and did the rest of the street. I clearly didn't burnish the tape down into the texture perfectly, but as I recall that kind of repaving job, they didn't always get picky with full-size sand for perfect coverage of the edges of the asphalt pour. If it bothers me later, I can weather the black down easily while detailing the gutters.



Next, three WeHonest street lamps should give decent coverage, and then some attention to Gorin Machine's truck dock area.

Pete (Orionvp17) suggested:

Good start, James!
Trash, streetlights, maybe a mail box and a Gamewell Box (fire alarm call box) on the light pole, some peeps going to or from work and you'll have it.
Streetcar is optional, but since you're in the streetcar business anyway, well....
Apropos of nothing whatsoever, Bowser has some New Orleans cars with DCC and sound that look a lot like the Type Five cars in Boston, so there is that....
And when the cracks appear, simply fill them with very dark grey paint, a couple of shovel-sized and not-very-well-done "hot top" patches, and perhaps even let the cobblestones sneak up through a couple of places where the plows have destroyed the asphalt and the Highway Department crews decided that the holes weren't worth taking another shovel-full of patch off the truck.
I'm sure you get the idea!

23-May-2019: Thanks, Pete. So far I've drawn in some drain gratings, but this led the small fry to criticize my 'cheating'. This afternoon brought me to 'first light', which led to a test photo after sunset:



The sidewalk needs adjusting, the mill's doors need steps, I need a permanent Colonial Inn structure, No Parking signs, meters etc, etc. But I am astonished how well my Pentax Kr's automation handled this 15 sec. f/32 exposure. All it needs is dialing down the Exposure Compensation for the reshoot.

28-May-2019: More progress on Franklin St. in Bexley: my stepson practicing styrene & solvent technique on window glazing for a DPM building I hadn't gotten to in 10+ years:



Then we got out some Hi Tech Details parking meters. This time he did break the point off a #65 drill, because he got distracted:



The Downtown Deco "Addams Ave. Part I" I built before I started this thread on RR-Line looks more than a little 'high water' at this angle'; I'm thinking sandpaper before I add steps to the styrene sidewalk.

[jbvb]

26-Jun-2019: June was very busy with Seashore Trolley Museum trackwork, haying and various New England sights and activities with my new family. But there has been some progress:



I'd had this N Scale Architect kit for a decade when my wife asked me for something to build. She was familiar with the basics from  building architectural models in university, but I had to help her with airbrushing and materials new to her.

The instructions are decent, but say next to nothing about how the prototype (still standing but idle for decades) operated. I'm expecting unloading hoppers in front of each of the elevators and a loading area for trucks opposite, with an office somewhere nearby. Asking the B&M community hasn't produced any 'in service' photos, but if I attend September's NER convention in Syracuse, I can stop by and do some detective work. In particular, there should be some remnant of the unloading gates for the silos.

You can see my mock-up of the Bexley Produce Terminal in the background, and I've also gotten back to work on Gorin Machine (begun 2015). But neither will be photogenic for a while.

23-Jul-2019: . A friend sent me a link to a new (to me) resource: The Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System. Their McMahon Coal write-up (with only one picture now) can be found at  http://mhc-macris.net/  Navigate to Williamstown, then McMahon Coal (WLL.907).

That and a picture from BM-RR@groups.io show me I need to build 4 brass coal gate/chute assemblies. The kit's wood chutes are from the 3-silo prototype next door (modeled on Dick Elwell's layout). Brass is on hand.

But I also decided Slovacek Anthracite wasn't going to go under defending the Blue Coal flag; Oil tanks are needed. I looked through several donations of junky train-set cars but didn't find two suitable tank car bodies. So I checked the kit stash:



Alexander's old 'Parkersburg' kit is about 110,000 gallons, quite enough to match Rudy's 450 tons stored/40 tons/hour coal plant. I plan to repurpose its tank car loading rack as a truck loading rack, but otherwise this will be a stock build.



I used #53 and #55 drills for the fill double elbow instead of the instructions' #50. They say 'glue' and probably mean Ambroid. I did use that to seal the edges of the cardboard tube tank former, but I used Weldwood for the wrapper and roof former.

The front (door) wall of the pump shed is barely 6' 9" tall, so fitting a 6' 3" door broke the sheetwood. I laminated it back together on paper. The window casting is smooth, though.

2-Sep-2019:  The new school year began, putting an end to summer travel etc.

Mr. Slovacek has heard Alderman Iannella's story about his aunt's fiancee dying in the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 more than once. So rather than hearing it again at City Hall, he told the contractor to include containment in the proposal for the tank. There wasn't room for a berm, so he sighed and paid for a concrete wall.



The 'primer coat' is latex house paint, which did a good job of hiding the plywood grain and cracks visible below. I'll finish it grayer, so it doesn't suggest most of the aggregate was beach sand.

[jbvb]

I also mostly finished Newburyport's westbound platform. Following a picture of Kennebunk's similar arrangement, I used 1/16" x 3/32" tie stock with the ends cut to 45 degrees for the walkways between the platforms. The whole area had been covered with a board platform before WWII but that disappeared before 1950.



24-Sep-2019: I hadn't posted in three weeks because 1) my HS reunion, 2) Hub BoD meeting and 3) the Northeastern Region's Syracuse
Jct. convention.

The latter also stimulated a change in my focus. Before I got started on making a 'complete' layout, I'd been building and painting cars and locomotives for years. I'd taken breaks to build pieces of the Hub Division Modular Layout, but I always came back to B&M passenger equipment, plus a 'Green Dot' (NEB&W style) freight car fleet. Enough so when I started formal operations, the Eastern Route only needed a couple of diesels and three commuter coaches to be completely equipped. 6 additional storage boxes supported a B&M presence at HUB Module Group events.

Since 2009, I've been working on the NMRA Achievement Program. I got my 6th and 7th certificates in 2017, but I still needed either Cars or Motive Power to obtain Master Model Railroader. I'd tried a few Cars contest entries but only one locomotive achieved Merit. And the layout didn't need scratchbuilt cars or locos - kits and paint jobs would provide almost everything the B&M owned.

But then I reconsidered: I have quite a few high-quality passenger and freight car models. Turning my Judge's Eye (Jr. Grade) on them, several might be brought up to the Merit level with reasonable effort, and without compromising their usefulness for op sessions or module shows. This rang true to me; my AP is less important than the layout, but I have put maybe 10% additional effort in to document things I'd have done anyway, to get the AP award.

So I re-started work on B&M #32 (Old Orchard Beach), 6-4-6 Pullman-built lightweight sleeper for a contest entry. Back in the '90s, it had started out like this: Brass sides and a car core kit. This old slide shows a finished combine next to diner/bar/lounge sides and an Eastern Car Works core kit, #32 used a then-new Train Station Products core kit:



ECW's roofs were often warped, so the TSP core was a pleasant surprise. This was also the period when TSP and Red Cap Lines introduced a dozen or two products aimed at accurate passenger car interiors. So I got #32 to the point where you couldn't see through it any place you weren't supposed to, and it spent two decades in the fleet.



Below, gray parts are from Red Cap Line, brown seats are Rix, white is scratchbuilt styrene. First I added the partitions, sink enclosure, toilets and water cooler internals to the common bathrooms next to the sections:



I hadn't had an underbody plan, so I'd guessed about the generator, water tank etc. based on what I could see in broadside shots. But now, to achieve Merit I needed plumbing. So I extrapolated from plans for other cars. In retrospect, I could have also installed the 14 toilet chutes with confidence.



The toilets, sinks and bedroom interiors represent a lot of styrene fabrication and hand painting. The only short cut available was not modeling hidden features. So no bedroom toilets. But yes, the stainless strips around the other toilet lids/seats appeared in 1955 builder's photos.

[jbvb]

I didn't have color photos of the original interior either, so more guessing. And a few of the original details had been lost to derailments and handling, so I made new air/signal/steam connections from phosphor bronze wire:



Happily, the judges accepted my guesses and awarded 90 points. So now I've picked out a Tichy reefer and an F&C boxcar I'd built with full brake plumbing etc. to polish and see how I do next contest season. And a tip of the hat to Ted Culotta and his excellent photography for his Essential Freight Cars articles. He really made it clear how the plumbing should be modeled.

24-Sep-2019: For my next scratchbuild, I was thinking about Western Union materials car like the one that survived into the 1970s at East Deerfield. That could be put here and there to annoy any excessively cocky operators. And kind fellow modelers sent me copies of the old Ambroid kit plans. My second thought had been a 104000-series narrow monitor caboose, but checking my stash I find I only need to paint the brass model I already own. So I returned to the idea of building a few Laconia cars in O scale while the milled wood stock called for by the Ambroid/Northeaster HO plans is still available. Of course, they'll never run till I paint the O-scale P-2b and find a receptive layout owner.

Regardless, scratchbuilding is simplified by any Merit awards I get for cars already on hand.

1-Oct-2019: Whichever conventions I attend in 2020 (none, as it turned out; the Columbus Day NER convention in Westford, MA was set back to 2021), I hoped to bring an entry or two to see how I did.

I'm showing my layout after the Oct. 12 Seacoast Div. Fall Event, so I did a lot of cleaning up, some of which turned into 'finishing projects so I can put parts & tools away':



This tight-clearance underpass was built in the 1870s to get the City RR branch under High St. I hadn't realized it was dry-laid until I set out to model it. The batter is as large as I've ever seen on a RR structure. But the span itself is clearly much newer, either just before or just after WWII, and allowed much larger freight cars down to waterfront customer.



My stepson carved the rocks in meat-tray styrofoam. I built the railings from cut-up Rix parts. I will clean up the shaggy edge on the hardboard before visitors. I eventually modeled the blank panels, but not that week or next.

I think before the real-world bridge replacement, B-15 2-6-0s (the origin of the 'Mogul Country' tagline, for B&M novices) were the largest engines allowed. But I actually built my whole RR to clear Plate C; that gives me enough of the 'that's why clerestory roofs are so low and modern B&M steam locos look so scrunched' flavor.

[jbvb]

10-Oct-2019: My stepson and I did more work on Franklin St. over the summer. Here's the color original:



Headlights could be added, at the cost of making the vehicles tiresome to move.  Here's the B&W period version:



Room lights would dodge the headlight issue, but then the sloping ceiling looms over the scene.

I returned to a couple of projects on Franklin St. The big acrylic carcass that will become Batterman Press got its first laminated styrene 'concrete' beam. Happily, the acrylic cement didn't affect the well-dried Floquil. But it won't be photogenic till I work out how to do the masonry windows.



There's also what I plan to call the Ritchie-Gilbert House, which goes behind the Coco Club. I'm using the 'extension' part of the BEST "Colonial Georgian House" kit here; the main house eventually was built for Newburyport. The clamps are on the end wall I fabricated to match the kit's.

17-Oct-2019: The house is a little farther along. BEST recommended pre-painting the parts, but I have better luck gluing bare wood surfaces.



I've also added 1/16" square reinforcement in the corners. The stock roof is about 3/16" too short with the new end wall. I haven't decided to extend the stock parts or make new. After a day of Seashore track work, glue was dry.

5-Nov-2019: Orionvp17 (Pete) asked how 1/16" square corner bracing worked out:  1/16" square bracing is adequate so far (2025) on this  structure. But all 4 walls and the roof are 2 laminated layers. At any rate, it stood up to me shaving the new window openings with a #11 blade to fit the windows I came up with from the stash.



BEST's instructions show all the big windows as 4-over-4, but somehow I wound up with two 6-over-6s, much more appropriate for a surviving structure of this age (pre-1750).

[jbvb]

Micro Engineering 28x50" windows are very close to the kit's middle-sized windows, and let me model one open a crack.



The Ritchie-Gilbert house doesn't match its neighborhood, This is intentional and of course there is a story, which I'll tell when house & diorama are finished.

BEST doesn't provide a prototype photo of the 'Little House' part of this 'Big House, Little House' kit (I'm building the Little House separately). The chimney might have been tall to get smoke above the Big House's windows. Or it might have been so the 4-6 flues in it would draw well. If I don't like it this way, I can shorten it or punch it through the roof. But maybe it got extended when Batterman Press built across the street and the DAR ladies started getting downdrafts when the wind was east (as it often is in Bexley).

7-Nov-2019: Earlier in 2019 there were a few write-ups about a new lighting/interior product line called 'Roomettes'. I've tried one 'pictures from the internet' interior, but will need many more for night-time operations. So I signed up for a Roomettes make-n-take clinic at the NER Syracuse convention.

I chose the interior for the City Classics 'Crafton Ave. Gas Station', which I'd started a few years ago. The kit came with a printed cardboard 'office' interior. Roomettes provided both 'office' and 'garage bay' interiors, plus 3D fold-up counters, tool boxes etc. The clinician/founder also provided Gem-Tac glue, a quick-setting tacky PVA product. Mine went together pretty well at the clinic.

Because I'd already built my building, I had to trim the interiors a bit to get them through the floor opening. Wiring them was a bit harder. The provided LED-on-a-tiny-board is compatible with Woodland Scenics 'Just Plug' system, which uses 12 VDC and JST 2.5 mm connectors. I got some 'male' connectors on-line (Just Plug lights have 'female' connectors with metal sockets inside a plastic housing that looks kind of 'male') and connected them up:



This blurred shot (sorry) is with my 'walk around' LED strip lighting on. The Roomettes lights are too bright for me at 12V. I thought about  buying a W-S dimming hubs, but in the end just added a resistor to the circuit.

13-Nov-2019: Some more work on the Ritchie - Gilbert house:



I decided to keep the tall chimney; old New England houses I'm familiar with all had simple open chimney tops. This style of cap seems to represent later rebuilds. So I'll explain it "In the '20s, the chimney was showing its age, and had to be rebuilt above the attic floor. The Colonial Dames' kitchen reenactments had been troubled by downdrafts and the mason recommended raising it and adding a capstone."

It still needs roof flashing, the door, more weathering and finally glazing. But I'm undecided about the ridge & flashing. BEST provides adhesive copper foil, but in a coal fired city next to a railroad yard, it wouldn't have stayed 'fresh copper' for even a couple of weeks. I tried to get the protective coating off, unsuccessfully.



Here it and its back fence are visible behind evening traffic on Franklin St.

[jbvb]

16-Nov-2019: Since I was starting with copper, I thought to make real verdigris. I scraped the self-stick strip to get through any coating. Then, remembering my chemistry, I thought of copper sulfate and tried dilute sulfuric acid. No joy. Then I actually looked up verdigris and now I'm trying vinegar (acetic acid). Meanwhile, I worked on the property fences:



The back fence is Tichy's, the front is the old standby Atlas picket fence. Both need a lot of weathering. Then I'll dismount them and apply a lawn etc.

Orionvp17 (Pete) asked:

You gonna add a swing set, too? Or is that the sort of place that has a rose arbor and a flower garden along the back fence?

As a proper New England Historic House, it will have a flower garden with a gravel or brick path through it, and a tasteful sign on a post giving the name, date and organization responsible for preserving it. For the Ritchie-Gilbert house, I considered either the "house roof over board" style or the "stylized open book" type. Searching images for "historic house sign massachusetts" shows many of both
types.

20-Nov-2019: I did some weathering with A&I and a brass brush - the Dames are perpetually trying to defend their white paint from the B&M (and other neighbors') soot. But I couldn't generate quickie verdigris with any chemicals I had handy, so I put the copper flashing on after sanding it to get rid of any clear coating. I'll get my prototypical verdigris in a few months or years. And I added a stink pipe with the last little bit of flashing.

I applied static grass in Late Summer color (Scenic Express, I think, label unclear) and put the fences back. Then I consumed two cutoff disks making a 'door stone' from a core I found after drilling granite blocks at the old B&M station in Haverhill. It's barely visible in this photo (taken as if from the roof of Gorin Machine across Franklin St.).



I checked my stash of plants; All I had for late-summer flowers was Hollyhocks and Goldenrod. No flagpole either. So I'll turn the lawn into a garden later, after some sign-painting and shopping.

28-Nov-2019: I made progress on two Bexley-area structures I started for TdeC. The first is an automobile (and other freight) unloading platform for beside the Bexley Freight House area.



Fairly simple except that 1) it was going to be much easier to build out of place, and 2) I decided to use up the warped Revell 1/32" plywood I had on hand.  First problem solved by a 1/4" hardboard base. Second problem solved by laminating 2 of each part with opposing warps. With the posts it has ~40 pieces.

The second is a platform shed for commuters waiting by the inbound track. I'd found 3D printed support columns on Shapeways several years ago, but I hadn't worked out how to do the curved platform realistically:



At 30" viewing distance, I didn't do any framing under the .040 styrene roof, but I did do the front edge as a series of straight segments. I painted it soon after. I dealt with protecting the station entrance when I found the EF17 kit box with the front eaves Mieke held off applying.

Meanwhile I'll think about the outbound track. Typical B&M practice was either a smaller canopy or none. It was uncommon for commuter stations to have more than a half dozen people waiting on the outbound side. The outbound shed will also be in the way of uncoupling and rerailing.

Kanthima was working on a couple more kits for this area, but they didn't make it onto the layout till later.

29-Nov-2019: Orionvp17 (Pete) asked how commuters crossed the tracks. I answered: Right now, there is no inter-track fence, so they have to stumble across the ballast. Eventually, there will be a pedestrian overpass scratchbuilt after Winchester MA before the grade crossing elimination. One end will be at the top of the stone steps built into the retaining wall at the left end of the canopy.  The other uses stairs built into the Baggage & Express building I did a couple of years ago. There will be either 1 or 3 board baggage cart crossings with gates in the inter-track fence.

Pete: Any thoughts on the wooden walkway across the tracks? Seems to me that there was something similar up in Wilmington and in other places. This would be a scheduling issue, and would require the "occupancy signals" on both sides of the station, which might make an interesting diversion for your operators. I need to figure this whole process out...

Rule 107 says "Trains must run at Restricted Speed when passing a train receiving or discharging passengers at a station, except where proper safeguards are in place". So the operating department will complain about delays until I get the inter-track fence installed. Because Bexley has two outside platforms, Rule 107's clause "They must not pass between it and the platform at which the passengers are being received or discharged unless the movement is properly protected" doesn't apply. Station signals were used at single-sided stations where the combination of sight distance, speed limit and traffic density created a risk. Newburyport as I built it would need one eastbound, but the prototype's sight distance didn't require one. They'd be easy to do with a commercial photodetector with one SPDT contact.

1-Dec-2019: Tour de Chooch action report: ~60 visitors (48 wrote in the Guestbook). Adjusted one turnout during cleanup Saturday night, all performed well Sunday.

Need to figure out why one or two paths through Draw's diode matrix doesn't get enough oomph - fix will be complicated if it's due to mismatched switch machines.

- BLE E-7 decoder lost its marbles twice, cured by tilting one side's wheels off the rails.

- MRC tethered throttles lost their marbles a number of times, cured by unplug/replug.

- One passenger car developed an intermittent shorting problem through one main line turnout, need to investigate before it grows and melts a wheel's insulation.

+ Fixed truck swing on Ron G's combine.

+ Wound down after last visitor by starting to re-stage the railroad for the next op session.

- Won't be getting a N2 refill in tomorrow's weather, so no airbrushing till late in the week, if not the week after.

5-Dec-2019: About 25 years ago, when I was doing scenic details for my Rowley module, I needed two crossbucks. For a module, they need to be tough, so I made a jig for code 100 rail and .015 brass. I used brads for locating pins and followed B&M Standard Plan K52:



Last year I'd researched how many I'd need for Newburyport, and my stepson wanted to learn to solder, so I got out the jig. He's made two, but with everything handy I made six more for Ihrie St. in Bexley (three sidetracks cross it, 50-60 feet apart). I believe Massachusetts law would have required a pair of crossbucks for each.

I might need two more for the GE River Works crossing. But I don't have photos and they may not have been required as it was private with a GE watchman.

[jbvb]

14-Dec-2019: I had three structures in progress, this was the most photogenic:



Just before Tour De Chooch, Ron G. offered me a styrene kit for the B,R&P Ashford, PA tower by Railway Design Associates. I had a 'bundle of sticks' B&M tower kit from Sheepscot, but however I assembled it, it would be vulnerable to elbows in a switching area (it also seems to go for north of $100 these days). So after inspecting the moldings, I accepted.

Like other RDA products, the die work isn't delicate, but everything's well molded. And it looks a lot like the Lynn, MA tower, built during New Haven control before WWI. Lynn has 3 stories and 9 track-facing windows, the kit 2 stories and 7. I decided Bexley only need 5 track facing windows. I started cutting with the roof, but I realized the front wall should have come first before doing anything I regret.



Once I sanded the putty, I glued the concrete parts together and painted them.

16-Dec-2019: I'm not aware of any B&M towers other than Lynn were concrete in the NH/BR&P style.  New Haven control only lasted a few years. Pictures of my three in-progress structures:



Bexley tower fits together well, next I'll see if I need to trim the base. I didn't use the clunky stairs RDA supplies. I bought BEST's Colonial Georgian House version with the 'extension' that I consider the 'original house', as in Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn (e.g. my own place). So after making a new end for the Little House, I needed a new back wall for the Big House. Tichy #8024 6-over-6 windows fit the original 2-over-2 openings and will give more of the feeling I want for High St. in Newburyport:



I first saw 'Perplexing Puzzles Plus' (p3nh.com) in 2017 at a local show. This year I'm trying a 'Hardware Store' kit, which fits a footprint I need in Bexley. I like some of the prototype buildings that catch their eye, though the owners don't appear to be model railroaders and this kit had some execution errors: Roof too small for walls, top trim detail didn't fit, 'bricks' sized about right for HO cinderblocks. They seemed receptive to feedback, though.

[jbvb]

26-Dec-2019: Recent progress was mostly on Bexley Tower:



I got the joints pretty well cleaned up, airbrushed it Scalecoat Flat Aged Concrete and detail-painted the windows and doors. A minor annoyance (which might be major for others, but this kit was a gift) is that the box illustration isn't what's inside:



The model shown has a different stairway and the windows and doors appear to have been replaced with castings: I can see file marks around the door at the top of the stairs and the window below it.

But I was satisfied with my paint job on the windows provided, and the Central Valley stairs look OK once detail painted. In trying to figure out how to do the train order signal, it turns out Lynn had an odd arrangement which will be invisible to visitors. But that turned up interior pictures. I intend to light it, and that will be it for my removable floor. So I'm detailing the interior (while thinking about a possible Merit Award towards Structures AP) before adding an LED. The train order signal will come last.

5-Jan-2020: For the New Year, I'd been cleaning up in-progress projects; lots of little stuff but this view did improve:



At this distance, Bexley Tower needs windows, a ground floor view block, an order board, lighting and more work on the interior that will be illuminated. Ron G. left his Bachmann 2-6-0 on the layout after Tour de Chooch. He hasn't been back, so I finally moved it out and put it away.

Perplexing Puzzles Plus's 'Hardware Store' kit is behind the Tower on the right - the retaining wall has been extended below it and landform has appeared to its rear.

Further progress not yet photographed:

- The Bexley Produce Terminal mock-up is now sitting on baseboard which will eventually support the final structure.

- Land is appearing around the new auto unloading platform.

- Slovacek's heating oil tank containment now has cinder ground cover.

- Bexley's inter-platform baggageway is under construction and the inbound canopy has been painted.

- Crossbucks have been erected (but not lettered).on Ihrie St. in Bexley and US 1 and Water St. in Newburyport.

8-Jan-2020: I 'finished' the auto unloading platform next to the (future) Bexley Freight House over the past couple of days. I took some pictures which came out OK:



I thought daylight from the window spoiled this view, but when I got it on a big screen I liked it.



The remains of the old platform date to the '70s while 'Bexley' was still 'Sawyer' on the Tech Model RR Club layout. Again, it looked much better on a big screen than the back of my camera.