Boston & Maine Eastern Route Progress

[jbvb]

24-Jan-2021: I picked up another old, old project. I'd built the acrylic/plywood carcass for Batterman Press sometime before I joined RR-Line (2006, maybe). I'd cut/painted 'concrete' strips to glue on not long after I bought the 4x8 sheet of .040 styrene, and also painted a bunch of Holgate & Reynolds vacuum-formed brick sheet for the infill.

Later I found out Weld-On acrylic cement would bond styrene without damaging Floquil paint, which was good. Even later I figured out I needed to attach one wall with magnets because the 'concrete' strips would cover its screws and my personal energy doesn't like to be asked to do an interior before the exterior. So there it sat:



I've done the final fitting on the acrylic, now I need to install the rest of the 'concrete', make the magnets work, find the brick sheet (you'd think that much would be hard to lose, but my attic is clearly big enough) and get it presentable.

26-Jan-2021: Batterman Press has progressed: The concrete skeleton is complete on three of five sides. I don't think I left room to add .040 to the 4th side, but it's completely hidden anyway.



Part of my 'learning experience' here has been starting out with screw assembly and realizing I needed to make one side removable. With magnets, I thought alignment pins might be useful. The screws already fitted the holes, so I filed threads off a couple and buried them under the concrete strips:



Seems to work well. After I finish the concrete, I'll find the brick sheet I painted. It will be in a largeish flat space under the layout, but searching will be involved.

27-Jan-2021: Tonight's progress is concrete strips installed on the Franklin St. side of Batterman Press.



I had my hands on the camera because I hadn't expected the exposure to be as long as it turned out. Next step is more bits of concrete as necessary inside the edge of the roof.

28-Jan-2021: Paving and sidewalk won't be too hard as all the buildings are removable. Of course, all the buildings need more detail too..



The 'operator's eye view' of (from left) Railroad Ave., Maxwell Sq. and Franklin St. in Bexley.



This is the view from the yard's body tracks. I hadn't realized till I took this that Franklin St. is this much of a view block. The tall buildings in the Depot area are almost completely hidden.

The support columns are all complete. I touched up their paint after the putty dried. Still hadn't come across the brick sheet, two more places to look.

[jbvb]

30-Jan-2021: Answering a question: The Eastern RR's 1839 Salem Tunnel as it existed in 1954 only allowed 14' 11" height at 4 feet from the track centerline. But reconstruction had begun in 1952, when a project moved Bridge St. from a grade crossing just outside the east portal to an overpass. This also buried part of the wye connecting the line to Peabody. You can judge the scope from the relationship between Salem Tower (still standing, unused for many years) and the portals, and how far the 2-track tunnel width extends inside.

A few years later, work started on replacing the rest of the Salem tunnel. Instead of two tracks, this was built with one, only going double inside the west portal. The through route to Portland had been severed in 1952 and President McGinnis had other plans for available cash. At least the 2nd Salem Station (in the deep tunnel entrance cut) was double track. This allowed meets while trains made their stops (an important schedule feature whose absence plagues the current Malden Center, Reading, Andover, Lawrence, and JFK/UMASS stations). This was finally finished in 1958. The stone Salem Depot with the castle towers had been torn down in the early stages because the new tunnel was much longer to avoid the former situation of a grade crossing between the Depot and the west end of the Tunnel, across that end of double track.

6-Feb-2021: I've posted a few phone camera pictures. It is a way of getting shots inaccessible to a conventional camera, but it only works where I can see the phone's screen to compose the shot and push the shutter button. I'd thought about a webcam with autofocus, but they were in very short supply last year. I just got a Logitech C615 (autofocus, glass lens, 1080P sensor):



This is a view of the Acme Fast Freight truck dock in West Lynn that I'll never see directly. It's the tool I used's default 640x480 image size. I'll try larger images tomorrow. I tried a video, but it was jerky. This might be the autofocus trying to track the moving train. Turning that off doesn't help the video much.



So far I can get two zoom settings and at least 5 focus distances. I also tried a video with autofocus turned off - less jerky but still not up to what an inexpensive handheld video camera can do.

8-Feb-2021: After spending a long time while Walthers' site refreshed its way through the On Sale pages, I got my order in this afternoon. Then I put all the windows into DynaCompuTron-A-Matics and played with the webcam a bit more:



It suffers from a little flare at extreme contrast, but so would most cameras taking this picture in the real world. Phase II RDC by Rapido, truck is a Mini-Metals '46 Chevy.

My phone camera would fit where the webcam was, but it would make a terribly grainy photo and AFAICT it is too automated to allow me to fix that.



Chuck Diljak asked me if this was an AP Cars candidate. I replied It can certainly be 'a superdetailed car' as it has all the brake piping, but the end decals might draw criticism. I have other cars more likely to earn Merit, but no scratchbuilt cars as yet.

12-Feb-2021: Earlier this week I finished paving Franklin St. and Maxwell Sq. and got the street partly detailed.



The scene can't be finished till I find the brick sheet for Batterman Press. I also got in some work on a punchlist item for AP Structures. I'm thinking how I might get a real-looking brick sidewalk with .020 plastic brick sheet. But I find myself wondering if I could do the irregular surface (at least here where the ground freezes) better with paper texture on a deliberately uneven Wood Putty base.

[jbvb]

Franklin St. above was taken with my webcam. It's fun to see views I hadn't even considered when the scenery and structures were designed and built. However, the $70 webcam is at its limits. Lacking a real aperture, I can't do things with the webcam's depth of field. Better software might get cleaner edges in the image, but the horizontal lines seem more like a sensor artifact.

The following photo was taken with my Pentax Kr DSLR (with some buildings removed to place it):



I didn't notice the stink bug on the backdrop till I was working on the picture.



This is the C615's sweet spot: Normal light, not a lot of pressure on the limited depth of field, and a perspective like I was standing on a baggage cart out at the end of the inbound platform. I'll use it to 'scout locations' and check things I was using an inspection mirror for. And I'll keep my ear to the ground for better tech; if I knew I'd get DSLR functionality in a package this size, I'd pay a DSLR price.

15-Feb-2021: Today I finished the Tichy 4028D kit, adding cut levers and air hoses and trying my first 'powder' weathering job. I used Burnt Umber pastel for the brake dust and rust down low, blackboard chalk for the ash above it and finished with a little Bragdon Lime Dust.



I plan to use this as one of 'other than scratchbuilt' models when I apply for the AP Cars certificate. It isn't be the best of the four, but I have one Merit Award and only need three more.

20-Mar-2021: I've been scratchbuilding my first car, a PRR 'FM' 40' flat car, in brass in another thread:

PRR 'FM' 40' Flat in brass



With luck I can get it finished before April; the nice weather makes it much more comfortable to airbrush with the vent pipe out the window.

5-Apr-2021: A big hurrah for Tichy Train Group and the US Postal Service. I ordered at 10 AM Friday, Tichy shipped it First Class Saturday morning and the USPS transported it almost 800 miles, delivering it as we ate lunch Monday.

[jbvb]

21-Apr-2021: Now that the April NERx is just about over and I've learned to CadWeld rail bonds at Seashore, it looks like I need to do another Tichy order:



My wife Kanthima, whom a few of you have met, worked as an architect until 2007. She'd recently built a 'mass model' of a house suitable for Thailand and had been making clothes for herself. Talking about this, she remarked that family and friends didn't need more bird or pet paintings, and she was tailoring to ward off boredom. Newburyport needs lots of scratchbuilt buildings, so I offered to show her how to scale from photos and tax plans, and build out of styrene. 10 days later, I had to start work on foundations:



She's finding styrene and molded windows much easier to work with than the paper and wood she used at university. Roofs tomorrow, so I need to order shingles too.

If you want to see prototypes, ask Street View for 24 Winter St. and 38 Washington St. in Newburyport. I shortened 24 Winter's el and should have compressed it more. But I'll shrink the station's driveway to make up for that.

19-Apr-2021: She's started a 3rd structure, a 1792 Georgian for 180 High St., known as the Pettingill-Fowler House. And I've started a
thread for her: Kanthima's Scratchbuilt Structures

Myself, I started scratchbuilding a refrigerator car in wood but immediately got bitten by yellow glue causing swelling & curling at sheet wood joints. I may be able to recover but I really like Ambroid cement better for wood. <too bad it seems to have vanished completely>

Pacer/SuperGlue's MSDS for Canopy Glue says it's polyvinyl acetate (like white & yellow glues), cleans up with water and shouldn't be allowed to freeze. So I'd expect it to swell and curl wood just the same.

I put a Northeastern/Ambroid coach kit together with Ambroid for wood/wood and Goo for wood/metal 15 years ago and it's been through train shows and operating sessions. Nothing swelled/curled at the time, nor has anything come apart since.

31-Aug-2021: RR-Line had been down several months after (IIRC) a crash caused by vandals.

Not much progress this summer: my wife is up to 9 houses but I need to paint them, then make foundations and scenery around them.

9-Sep-2021:

 

View up (west) Winter St. showing (l to r) 180 High St. (Nid), 34 and 28 Winter St. (James), 40 Washington St. and 24 Winter St. (Nid). All are scratchbuilt from mostly Evergreen styrene using photos and measurements from Newburyport property tax records.



Looking northwest on HIgh St. From left to right, Bollinger-Edgerly "Colonial Georgian House" as 184 High St. (James), 182 High St. 1790s "Rev Thomas Cary House" by Nid, 180 High St. 1792 "Pettengill-Fowler House" by Nid.

12-Sep-2021:



Last night I began foundations for 181 and 183 High St. I think I need to adjust the ground elevation behind 183. And I need to paint both so I don't have to work around Nid's masking.

[jbvb]

3-Oct-2021:

 

The HUB's Northeastern Region convention "Mill City '21" would begin Oct. 7.  Kanthima finished detailing her High St. structures, and I've airbrushed them. She's done the cleanup, Rapido built the Phase II RDCs, I weathered them and took the photo. I posted some street level photos in her thread.

24-Oct-2021: It's been two weeks since Mill City 21 and I'd just gotten back to layout work. Mostly, I figured out the two turnout electrical
problems. One was a switch machine operating wire pulled out of a terminal strip: A 3 minute fix during the Convention if I'd diagnosed beyond shorting the push button with a clip lead. Second was a frog power lead I'd never soldered to the slide switch. But having moved the stuff out from under the staging ladder in the process, I'm resolved to overhaul the staging throat. First I'll adjust the balky switch mechanisms for equal spring force and throw, then I'll reduce electrical resistance on the ground side of the circuit, then I'll take apart anything that' s still balky and make it operate smoothly.

14-Nov-2021: I hadn't done much new on the layout since October. But I did get a culvert at Seashore repaired. Real track workers
have to struggle with winter, but we're volunteers and our railroad will slumber from mid-December to May. So I'm getting back to work at home. Kanthima started another round of structures. I sat down to paint one's roofs this afternoon, and didn't find the jar of dirty thinner which has had my Passche H's needle and cone in it. It will turn up eventually, but it's not for nothing I keep backups:



That Badger sprayer was the first airbrush I bought, in the late 1970s. I switched to a plastic internal mix, then the Paasche in the 1990s. The Badger was OK for laying down a coat then, and still works now. Fitting was still on the hose, so I hooked it up, thinned the Scalecoat paint considerably (it likes thin paint) and fired away.

I told Kanthima I'd had to use the ancient airbrush, and after dinner she looked at one of her workspaces: There was the missing jar! I'd given it to her when she was experimenting with solvent paints (she knows watercolors well, oil paints a bit but had never worked with acrylics, lacquers or enamels).

24-Nov-2021: I used the old Badger again. I'm thinking I'll keep it out for Scalecoat 'flat' paints, which have a lot of ground glass and can be poured back into the jar after thinning.

28-Nov-2021: The 2021 Tour de Chooch is done. We had between 20 and 24 visitors; uncertain because not all signed the guest book. Quite a few were people I know, at least one was more than a hundred miles from home. I got a break of about 30 minutes mid-afternoon, otherwise I was talking while trains orbited all day.

My wife finished the roof on her 13th house late this afternoon; it's on the layout. One turnout wouldn't throw when I turned power on to set up last night and one passenger car derailed 3 times. I investigated after looking over the Forum.

6-Dec-2021: I dug out the old WinXP computer I run DecoderPro on today and set out to fix the Atlas HH-660 that decided it couldn't move in September. I fiddled and fussed and re-wrote all the CVs from the roster file twice: No joy. So I took up my spade again and dug out the Atlas manual. It said a mere DCC reset doesn't put back the state of mysterious "analog parameters", you need the Magnetic Wand to fix them. So I dug again for the Magnetic Wand, switched a block to DC and applied it. Quoth #1161 RESET and motion was restored.

Then I adjusted P2K E-7A MEC #707 to be a lot quieter and start/stop in a somewhat realistic way.

Orionvp17 (Pete) asked:

Forsooth and verily, this soundeth good Milord, but what is this "Magic Wand" of which thou speaketh?

The Magnetic Wand that came with Atlas HH-660 #1161 looks like a doll-sized reflex testing hammer with a rubber handle whose business end is a powerful cylindrical rare-earth magnet. I'd post a picture but it's already back in the Original Box and put away. Appears  to have been shipped with Atlas diesels using QSI sound decoders. Date on the Quick Start document is 2013.

[Mark Dalrymple]

The masterpiece is coming on well, James and Kanthima.

Lots of enticing nooks and crannies to lead the eye around.  Some very interesting composition.  The night time shots also look fab.  Still a bit too 'clean', but I'm sure that's on the list still to be done.  Quite a unique look, which is already a major achievement.  It must be lovely to work on the project together.  I share gardening and dog showing with my wife, but she really isn't much interested in my modelling.  Still - I enjoy the time on my own...

Cheers, Mark.

[jbvb]

20-Dec-2021: During my recent phone/net outage (old cable splice failed), I crawled under the staging yard again and got electrons to all the turnouts again. It appears I'd been hurrying a bit when I re-worked the diode matrix a few years ago. The matrix board is fine, but several leads to turnouts hadn't been well inserted in the terminal blocks. That plus a loose wire at one turnout, was the problem.

13-Feb-2022: Most of my layout time the past few weeks was my first 2022 'Challenge' (RR-Line) project: Optical train position indicators for my mostly-hidden "Saugus" staging tracks. I had to overcome some modest electrical obstacles. That area will be simpler for me to manage, and I can probably delegate staging management to an operator with a little experience. Details here:

<to be posted, used Rob Paisley's optical detectors, apparently no longer available>

My wife and I have also gotten back to working on the houses around the Newburyport depot site. Two more are now painted and she's installing the windows. Pictures in her thread.

My wife's thread is Kanthima's Scratchbuilt Structures Structures under Scratchbuilding. I had linked to it last year when she made it clear she wasn't going to just build one.

I'd  chosen my 2nd (RR-Line) Challenge project:: Creating scenic settings for her 13 new-since-last-April structures, the 5 I've built and the one I have under construction. First step I got out the Wood Putty, sawdust and brown paint, mixed some up and filled in around the foundations on High and Winter Streets. I'd stayed up too late reviewing layout progress since 2019, so pictures later.

23-Feb-2022: Several of the High St. houses my wife built need steps, and they should be stone, built contemporary with the foundation. The terrain isn't flat, so heights and shapes vary. My friend Ron had showed me some stone work he made out of plastic lumber scraps. My house carpenter has been leaving me scraps (modern 2nd growth wood just rots too fast) so I tried my hand at it.



These will be the back steps of 182 High St. 9" rise, 12" tread.



The plastic plank material cuts fairly fast with a metal-tooth XActo saw. You can also use a knife, but smaller pieces may break under the cutting force.



Here are the finished steps with joints either cut with the metal saw or scribed with the the 'tool guy' purchase whose business end is visible to the left. I'm still experimenting with coloring. A&I darkens but I need either brown and gray-ish washes or similar chalk/powder.

24-Feb-2022: I spent today on grass, foundations and roads. I've experimented with dirty thinner on the plastic lumber; it improves on the
A&I but I didn't get a photo.



I had the basic ground cover in place on the west side of High St., and started on the south side of Winter St. The front doors of 181 and 183 High also need painted 'wooden' steps up to 1st floor level. My wife says she'll make these, but she was working on 40 Washington St. today. I'm tolerable at static grass but not feeling I have much to show the Forum.

The next day it snowed so the layout got a few more hours' work before I got on the tractor.

25-Feb-2022: At the request of nearby family, I did some plow bank busting before lunch. Then I worked on High St. and Winter St. scenery while my wife added details to several structures. Modeling this rather genteel fence around 180 High's yard is a goal:



It's no more than 4 feet high, and its spikes are "tear your pants" rather than "disembowel you". I have Ratio's RO434 styrene Spear Fencing, but it's closer to 6' tall and definitely aimed at fare evaders and other miscreants. Model Memories' etched brass Spear Top Fence is also about 5.5 feet tall. I could certainly cut down the MM etched parts and solder a new bottom rail, but do any onlookers know a more appropriate product?

[jbvb]

27-Feb-2022: Today's work got me to a photo location that doesn't need much more work before I'd try to publish:



- A car with no light leak on the head pin.
- A little detail painting along the track.
- The Kadee Whistle post looks oversize. Maybe just push it down a scale foot or so. Check B&M Standard Plan.
- Model the signal cable that begins at the H-arm and extends east past the depot to the drawbridge - solder & thread.
- High Street's telco & electric pole line - Rix with someone else's transformer if necessary.
- A few trees on/near the backdrop.
- Manual focus on the tender - even f/40 isn't enough for this depth of field.

12-Mar-2022: I'd been working on greenery, fencing, foundations, doorsteps and sidewalks. My wife has tried her hand at detailing: curtains in 7 Strong St. Today's project was the fences my prototype had opposite the depot:



I used Tichy's 6 foot board fence for the sloping fence protecting the retaining wall - it doesn't project above the ground like it does on the other side. I modified the part separating the Strong St. houses from the depot tracks to represent a B&M standard 5 foot fence used here: cut off boards & posts at the top rail, file it smooth, cap with .030 x .060" styrene strip. The non-platform side of the station and the fill towards the river were very well fenced in this era. The depot, to avoid mangling passengers trying short cuts and neighbor kids. The fill because when a passenger woke up leaving a stop (my father did once) the crew couldn't back up without a big delay. So they were dropped off on the tracks to walk back to the station.

Tomorrow I'll build more 5' fence for the fill on the river side of Merrimack St. And then I'll paint it all a weathered boxcar red. I could leave the side facing the High St. house white, but the only way anyone will ever see it is if I put a USB camera in the back yard. I suppose it would also save paint..

19-Mar-2022: A town road crisis and some 1:1 preservation activity distracted me, but I did make some progress. A few days ago I got
the fence painted and a commercial tree properly installed:



At this point, 17 of the planned 21 structures in this area were substantially complete. I felt a sincere draft to get back to Bolles Motors, a kitbash of WKW's Wallschlager Motors I got my teeth into two years ago. Of course, I'd bought the WKW 'built up' building somewhere in the course of Obama's presidency.... At any rate, WKW's brick sheet was reasonably close to the original's somewhat oversize brick, so here goes the garage portion of the structure:



The prototype's garage floor was about 8 feet above the showroom, but my showroom didn't have room for the prototype's depth. I'm using Tichy 35" square 2-light masonry windows for natural light in the area. I'm beveling the walls 45 deg. at corners; the prototype's construction did not appear to involve either an architect or an engineer.

Sunday will be consumed by more 1:1 preservation work and the last meeting prior to the Monday - Thursday NERx (NMRA Northeastern Region on-line) event. If you want to hear my voice, I narrate the cab-ride video of Rick Abramson's New Haven Electric Zone layout (I also shot and edited it). This is planned to close out the show Thursday evening.

20-Mar-2022:  I was asked how to view NERx events.  Open NERx dot org.  Hover over the Past Events item and select March 2022 for the cab ride video I mention above.  As I type this, the Next Event will be live March 17-20.

27-Mar-2022: The NERx event went well, and on either side of that I've made some progress on Bolles Motors:



Next job is figuring out how to paint and letter it. Here's one of the few prototype images I've found:



I see the 1950-ish image (serious car fans feel free to correct my limited make/model knowledge). I need white letters on (probably) brick for the garage bay wall. I attended Chuck D's clinic on that using dry transfers, and I've seen others post about doing it with self-stick vinyl. I'll need an appropriate font, and probably skip the bottom line because I can't tell what it says. Then I need a lot of lettering on the frieze panel above the windows. I think I'll just print that so I can cut out a strip of paper and glue it in place. And I also need to guess the wood trim color - maybe just mask WKW's green and re-use it.

29-Mar-2022: While chatting with Pete about Bolles, I did enough research to want to save it here: I have 3 photos of Bolles Motors:

The one above, which came from someone of my generation with a family connection to the dealership. This seems to show 1955 Dodges.

One from the 1957 city directory, with the same frieze lettering, showing 1954 Dodges This also shows a recognizable B&M XM-1 outside braced boxcar in an eastbound train above.

One from the 1963 directory, with retouched frieze lettering: they appear to have covered up "DODGE Job-Rated TRUCKS". and replaced "DODGE" and "PLYMOUTH" with "DART". This shows a 1963 Polara, the whole garage area and the station's retaining wall farther up Winter St.

All are grainy halftones, so I can't be sure whether the frieze is brick, or mortar parged over brick, or a metal sign applied over brick. The 1963 retouching suggests an enameled metal signboard, as signage lettered on brick would have been easy to update on the building itself. So the ease of printing a paper frieze is tempting, particularly as this isn't a contest model.

[jbvb]

30-Mar-2022: Michael Hohn suggested:

If you use printed paper, you can use the letters as they appear on the building. You could make a digital copy, eliminate the perspective, clean it up, fill in the missing letters, etc. Looks like "DODGE" and "PLYMOUTH" are different sign
fonts. Do a Bill Gill.

It was a good idea, but my attention was on 1:1 railroad track work.

25-Aug-2022: Well, that's 5 months of no model railroading. But I have gotten 300 feet of carbarn track, plus a turnout and another 90 feet outside ready for streetcars to be stored. And paved the way for another 250 feet of outdoor storage. Look at aerial photos of Seashore Trolley Museum and see how almost 1,000 feet of what should be running track and yard leads is covered, mostly by rapid transit equipment that can't move under its own power. This year's work will continue a start we made in 2021.

I hoped some modeling wouldl take place in September, but noooo.....

17-Nov-2022: Three months later, we're very close to finishing dismantling the track from our old South Boston Barn (too short for 2 45' cars on each of its 3 tracks) and storing it out of the way of South Boston II (weathertight Butler building holding 9 cars and a 2nd pit for underbody work). My April/May is laid out for me: reassemble the old track, build ~100 feet of new to connect it to the RR, then help Overhead put up the wire.

But most of yesterday and all of today was layout time: Storing tools & materials, cleaning up, showing the layout to 20+ TdeC visitors. The only sources of trouble were a couple of commercial turnouts in "hidden" areas. Some work still remains to finish setting up for the next op session. But I've ordered material to advance the "cable signal line" project And a few of my visitors will be coming here to see how I did signals, or brass side/core kit passenger cars, or something else.

No pix tonight because I didn't take any. I was tired from some glotch I'd had for a week (tests say not covid, I wore a mask all day). And I've learned half of what I want to know to start the pole lines on High and Winter Streets in Newburyport.

25-Dec-2022: Seashore's done till spring; we finally finished taking the 1:1 track apart and storing it. But the following weekend we went out to dinner and I spent a day at the HUB Division's Marlboro show, and later in the week we had COVID. Two weeks of low productivity followed and I was afraid we'd be 0 for 2 on this year's holidays. I had got the 7' snowblower onto my tractor and until it's needed there were things to do on the layout...

7-Jan-2023: The "Roomette" lighting kit for the City Classics "Crafton Ave. Gas Station" was shown way too bright on full 12 VDC (7-Nov-19).  While waiting for glue to dry on my other project, I got out the resistor kit to try to dim it. I started out with low values but didn't see any effect till about 1.5K ohms. I think the light level with a 2.7K ohm resistor is most realistic.



Here's the City Classics kit with Roomettes interior, powered at 12VDC through a 2.7k ohm resistor. Room lights are off, other illumination is from the south windows.

Pete asked about Roomettes: roometteslighting.com is active and offers billboards and printed/lit interior kits for a lot of the commercial plastic kits in HO and N. I'vel seen the owner at a train show or two, but wasn't really in the market till I knew what to do about brightness short of buying a Just Plug dimmer port per building.

15-Jan-2023:



The power poles are modified Walthers. Yes, the real pole line changed sides just upstream of the B&M tracks. Phone circuits were in cables, which were pretty conspicuous. I'm undecided about modeling the cables, as that will complicate access even if I can make the cable removable.

In my 1952 - 1965 era, High St. was lined with mature (4' diameter at breast height, 60-80' tall) American Elms. Today I'll do some experimenting to find out how big a model will work just in front of the backdrop. Later I will add an LED streetlight to one or two of the poles, starting with the closest. I made both removable with phono jacks. If I want another it will be far enough back that I might skip the socket. I won't fasten the sidewalks down till I'm finished with the road surface, street lights and adjoining grassy areas.

20-Jan-2023:



So what I felt like working on was fence. Here's an 8 foot and a 12 foot pipe gate hung between two life-expired switch timbers. It's right behind the section house, what do you think Farmer Bzdula would be using in this area? The gates are laid out to make it easier to tow hay wagons to and from the dirt track to High St. Tichy .032" phosphor bronze, bent & soldered in a simple jig, blackened, waiting for enough airbrush work to be "galvanized" with Scalecoat "Graphite & Oil".

I recently took a close look at the only Owens-Illinois era picture I've found of the Hytron warehouse (out of frame left). I learned a few things about the chain link property fence, so I've built a couple of gates and am ready to start the first plain fence segment. More when that gets photogenic.

26-Jan-2023: I contact-cemented the tulle to the gate and the short RR-east side fence. The phosphor bronze "pipe" parts are blackened but nothing got painted till the whole project was ready. This siding was built in the roofwalk era, so I used a Tichy telltale I had on hand. I do have plans for B&M-style telltales, but that's another project.



Below is a ground-level shot from the direction of the nearest aisle.



The gate pivots need adjustment. The longer fence segment to the left came next. I had modeling time tomorrow, but Friday was all
Amherst show loading, driving and setting up. I hoped for a quiet Monday...

[jbvb]

2-Feb-2023:



Billy said a passenger special east via Harbor Tunnel was due before morning rush. I couldn't get off from 3rd shift, so I was at West Lynn when I heard it blow for Western Ave. The Camel was in the yard, so I scrambled up a boxcar on the East Runner. My first shot stank, but the next came out OK: the Camel's almost new roadswitcher in the foreground with two of those new potato cars. Two 3800s were on the special, I've lots of shots of them and the New Haven lightweights. But not together. Guess I should save up for a Railroad Enthusiasts trip to the Conn River Division.

Both new Eastern Seaboard Models potato cars and the Rapido USRA boxcar were OK out of the box. The Bowser RS-3 was discounted, probably because the rear coupler had been damaged: One plastic centering prong missing and knuckle pivot too tight. I swapped the good one to the rear and applied a Kadee #158 to the front, which will get used less. And put another bulk pack of #148s on the shopping list.

Then the obligatory DCC fiddling. Bowser set the short hood as front, easy to change. Not so adjusting individual sound levels. My 4.20 DecoderPro doesn't know sound names, just CV numbers. I'll upgrade, but I may need Loksound documentation to leave horn and bell loud while turning the prime mover down. It does sound better than any other 244 on my layout, and momentum is set so the prime mover usually revs before the wheels turn, so no hurry.

One thing made it clear how far electronics and data communications have evolved since DCC was standardized in 1993: DecoderPro took more than an hour to read all this Loksound V5's CVs. I save all my locos configurations to disk and back them up, in case a decoder stumbles and needs a reset. Next time I'll make sure I have another project handy to work on....

5-Feb-2023: Fireman's eye view of the Newburyport Depot site from Merrimack St.



I was taking pictures for something else and thought of this scene, which has progressed more than anything else on the layout recently. Nid and I are hoping the Indoor Hobby season works out so we can at least start the depot (left). Through the early 1940s the area from Washington (grade crossing ahead) to Merrimack St. (camera is over) was all board platform. But asphalt and walkways were in use by the early 1950s. I don't recall the inbound platform as being wide enough to stand safely while a train passed, so I've put off giving it yellow lines.

Regarding crossing gates, word at the BigE was that NJ International was no longer making them. https://njisignals.com/collections/ho-scale-crossings seems to confirm that, showing only one wig-wag item in HO. I have plans, I'll haunt fleaBay looking for #1161 until I find energy/time to scratchbuild.

Dave Emery asked:

Was that wood fence between houses and tracks maintained by the RR? Legal requirement?

AFAICT the B&M fenced almost all its property, except where customers, employees or vendors needed access. I have the idea it was required by law due to eminent domain, but can't cite specifics. The board fence in Rowley is scratchbuilt in wood following a prototype that survived across from the former Ipswich station site into this century. The board fence from High St. to the river in Newburyport also survived till the rail trail. But I decided life was too short to scratch what Newburyport needed when Tichy had something close.

Orionvp17 (Pete) needed NJI gates too

B&M Standard Plan K-9 has enough dimensions to be printed to a modeling scale, though it only shows both front and side of the lamp/crossbuck assembly. I have both the paper plan book sold by the B&MRRHS decades ago and the digital version from nmro.org - Boston & Maine Data #1 I think.

6-Feb-2023: HUB Div. Module Group layout at the Amherst Club show at the Big E (W. Springfield) notes: Rowley and Rowley River are my HUB modules, also part of my layout. The Cleveland group has a large layout that we set up with at Indy and K.C. They have large radius loops that allow for a whole lot of different layouts. They kind of inherited their standards from us: Larry Madson started out founding a module group in the Denver area, then moved to the next town over from me and started a group with the HUB, then moved to the Cleveland area and did it a 3rd time. That show was pretty good, by post-2019 standards: Two pieces of equipment I'd been looking for at below list, the Flying Yankee Association table did well, and I found time to at least glance at everything in all four buildings. And didn't get covid.

10-Feb-2023:



Fireman's eye view as an eastbound cab unit passes under the US Route 1 overpass at the west edge of Newburyport. Only one building is missing from this scene, the Prost Bakery served by the spur ending at the High St. cut. I took advantage of today's 55F weather to catch up on airbrushing. After the chain link fence for the Hytron warehouse was dry, I finished drilling post holes and installed it. A little wobbly in places because it's not on perfectly flat ground, but that's only visible from locomotive cabs.

My DSLR lens barely fits under the hardboard deck of the future US 1 overpass. Some of my earlier photos were from a railfan PoV,
with it sitting atop the bridge deck.

23-Apr-2023: It had been more than two months, and the progress wasn't strictly on the layout, but my equipment case is mounted to the chimney and has its three sliding doors:



The doors still need some adjustment and handles, but I'll probably start getting equipment I want to see or have handy out of my storage boxes as I do that.

Materials are 1/4" pine plywood for frame and shelves, 1/16" plywood back, 1/4" inside width aluminum channel door tracks and 1/8" acrylic doors. It's mounted via 1" aluminum channel at each corner.

Mounted with 3/16" masonry bit, special screws through a 3/16" hole in the aluminum angle. Some storms drive a little water through my chimney's flashing, so I blocked the case away from the bricks with 3/8" chunks of the same "plastic plank" I used for stone steps earlier in this thread. My regular drill didn't work with the masonry bit, so I made the first hole the old way, tapping the bit with a light hammer while spinning the bit 1/4 turn between taps. I borrowed my son's hammer drill for the other holes.

30-Apr-2023: Happy till I saw the close-ups. I'd run Challenger's brass HO model of Budd's "Flying Yankee" a number of times in the first few years after I got in 1993. But then the HUB Division Modular Layout went all-DCC and I put it away. I didn't forget about it, but it wasn't assigned to the Eastern Route in the era I model, so it stayed in the box: My Flying Yankee history & modeling info

A couple of years ago I got involved in the effort to preserve and restore the prototype: Flying Yankee Assoc. page

Today I unpacked the model to go in the equipment case I'd built, but decided to try running it. Change the block switches to DC, turn on the Train Engineer, away it goes nicely for its first trips around my layout. And the headlight lights before it moves! Set up the camera, shoot it in a few locations. After dinner, set out to post and discover something's wrong with the B car's front coupling The uneven connection isn't conspicuous till you get down to LP level.



I've got the tools and experience, so I don't expect a fix to take long. Details of the fix will appear here and on the Unofficial B&M Page when complete.

[jbvb]

Orionvp17 (Pete) commented:

My "Custom Brass" Tin Fish needs windows, decoder, sound, interiors, people and something to tone down the far-too-shiny finish
on the exterior.

1-May-2023: Challenger used chrome plated brass as well. Here's the prototype, sitting untended for a decade in the back lot of the Hobo RR in Lincoln, NH.



Maybe the area between the cars didn't get the same abrasion as the roof and sides, but this is "shaving is possible, if scary".

The exterior isn't as polished, but the sky reflects pretty well in the shaded area:



'm thinking I'll weather the exhaust stacks and a streak thinning out behind them on the roof. Then brake shoe dust and a little ash stirred up from the roadbed below the floor. I'm not going to try to take all the shine off the sides. In its prime, I expect they washed the Flying Yankee every night by hand.

At any rate, this is what I found when I removed the underbody pan (4 really tiny screws) and passenger compartment floor (4 larger screws), side view resting on the body shell:



The arm projecting left has a circular hole in the end which slips onto a nylon bearing over the truck center. The lower leg of the arm is soldered to the floor, right next to the screws attaching the channel (end-on) which carries the underbody pan. I bent the arm up so it rested against the bottom of the end under the door. Then I had some trouble with the underbody pan's small screws - the knifepoint I used to align the holes apparently did some harm to the threads. Next time I'll use a pin and hope for less damage. Here's the result:



The train is sitting over a vertical curve, so the gap is larger than normal, but it's greatly diminished and I'm happy about spending an hour or two on it. At a minimum it needs window shades and carbody lights (door area partitions are included in this model).

11-Sep-2023: No progress on the model Flying Yankee, little progress on the real FY and not much on the layout as a whole. Hundreds
of hours of 1:1 track work plus the usual home/farm/town government chores, followed by 4 weeks in Thailand. But today I was inspired by another thread to try backing my content up by printing it into PDF files. I checked links, leading to several edits.

29-Oct-2023: I finished backing my threads up, using my browser to print to PDFs. I'd rather have a more compact format with links I could make work, but at least I have the content. After that I vacuumed the layout, sent the spiders packing and cleaned the
track. I've started cleaning locos, meanwhile mulling over which partly- completed project to finish first: Fence or the first streetlight in Newburyport, Slovacek Fuel's office in Bexley, interior lights for DigiCompuTronAMatics, etc.

26-Nov-2023: I still needed a day's production out of Seashore's ancient tamper to be really done for the season, but the Track Dept. took the holiday and I used it to prepare for Tour de Chooch. I saw a couple of RR-Line members, several HUB and Seacoast NMRA members and quite a few new acquaintances. The Eastern Route performed well;. The only layout trouble was a couple of contacts that needed dust shaken off them. I made a few mistakes too, Engineer and Towerman are two jobs that suffer from divided attention.

[deemery]

James, you should start a separate thread to keep us up-to-date on the Flying Yankee. 

(or is it there, and I didn't bookmark it?)

dave

[jbvb]

Dave, I'll think about a Flying Yankee train (B&M #6000) .  We've done a little to the interior and moved many of the Winton 201A prime mover parts out of the damp container they've spent many years in.
-----------------

31-Dec-2023:



One of the few model photos I took in the second half of 2023: iPhone 7 picture of B&M 6204 WB with a flag stop at Rowley about half a mile ahead. My in-progress modeling projects include my scratchbuilt brass flat car, street lights for Winter St. in Newburyport and upgrading the layout's +/- 12 VDC power supply to 3 amps.

But what I actually finished (overhead wire is something I help with, but not my direct responsibility) is below (drone photo by Eric Gilman):



Three tracks, space for 9 streetcars inside, insulated, single-car between the rails pit. Turnouts and associated curved track were originally built by Boston Elevated Street Railway when their South Boston Carhouse was re-configured for single-ended PCCs in 1946. When South Boston routes were abandoned, the switches and restraining-rail curves were taken apart and moved to Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, ME and reassembled for our first car shed. Our Riverside Carbarn and Restoration Shop are visible above.



The first day in service we pushed Nagasaki #134 (right rear) in by hand, then motored Manchester NH #38 (right front) and Eastern Mass. Street Railway #4387 in using our longest "bug" (insulated cable with insulated poles and hooks at each end - one on the trolley pole, the other on live overhead). The next day we put three more cars in. All will be worked on this winter. Regular operation requires building about eight hundred feet of overhead wire. Hopefully this will get done before regular operations begin in May 2024.

25-Jan-2024: My wife's aunt was visiting us. She'd been busy working on cloth crafting and my wife has sat with her re-stocking her watercolors and crochet critters. Kanthima said she was ready to try a masonry building so I researched 114 Merrimack St. (as it was before Feb. 2015). I'd photographed it in 2010, with more after the roof gave out. Happily, a polite phone call to the Assessor's Office got me a scan of the 2004 tax card for the floor plan.



The 2-storey portion was built in the 1840s as Newburyport's first firehouse. In 1864 a larger public market building in Market Sq. became the new fire station, so 114 Merrimack spent the next 150 years doing retail...

In the era I'm modeling it was John's Cafe, later a store. A laundromat was in the 1-story part. When Mr. India moved elsewhere around 2013, the landlord wanted to use its lot for the ugliest, worst located condo in the whole city. The Historical Commission intervened but the landlord just didn't bother to clear the roof during the heavy snows of Feb. 2015, leading to collapse and demolition. I won't hurt your eyes with pix of the condo but the Internet is ready. Corner of Merrimac St. and Bridge Rd.

Nid did the RH wall today.

[jbvb]

20-Feb-2024: The old firehouse has mortar and all its windows now. A few more details and it'll be finished until the question of lighting comes up. Speaking of lighting, I finished the street light I started in December. I tested it prior to painting:



My wife wants another street light in this scene, then I have 2 or 3 more down Winter St. < I'll see if Modelersforum has an existing Street Lights forum before I make a new thread>

I showed my wife a mystery kit I must have bought at a Big E show: The North American Bent Chair Co. is a mix of wood and (apparently) injection molded plastic, but I see nothing on the box or in the instructions saying who made it. And Google is demonstrating how much less useful it's become recently - EBay doesn't even have one for sale. At any rate, we're thinking of it as a stand-in (windows not quite right) for the A. & G. J. Caldwell distillery (source of Caldwell's Old Newburyport Rum) which was once on the upstream side of the tracks, behind the firehouse.

24-Feb-2024: Almost the same camera angle, but late afternoon so there's overall illumination through the insulating blind on the window to the left.



Next little task is to fasten down the RH sidewalks.

27-Feb-2024: Michael Hohn commented he'd enjoy a walk or historic house tour on High St.  I replied the prototype location is a nice walk, though the brick sidewalks and trees beside them require stepping a bit higher than you might downtown.

It's been unseasonably warm for February in the lower Merrimack Valley I'd done some scenery work at the US 1 traffic circle last night, today I started installing the rest of High and State Streets on the Newburyport Downtown peninsula. I also got serious about Prost Bakery between US 1 and the main line. It was a rail-served bakery built in 1957, handling bagged flour and sugar out of boxcars. When I moved to Newburyport, it stood out as one of half a dozen commercial structures in the city which wers post-WWII. But it didn't last long; closing around 1966, presumably due to larger competition delivering via larger trucks. That precipitated me learning to bake, but that's another story. When I built this part of the layout, I thought it had been built earlier., but I didn't know about tax maps then.



This is the Route 1 side of the building.



Not much architecture here, it's effectively two 50x100 buildings with a common wall, staggered a bit to fit the tapering lot. Most walls are cinderblock, but there's brick facing on the retail bakery side (the opposite gable-end wall). To fit the site, I'll compress it to two 30x70 buildings similarly staggered along a common wall.

Question: the Hyton warehouse across the tracks (page 22 of this thread) uses Plastruct 1:100 cinderblock on an acrylic plastic/plywood core. I could do that here, as Plastruct also has 1:100 brick. Both are vacu-formed. But Prost Bakery is 2 feet closer to visitors. Are there closer-to-scale alternatives for HO cinderblock and brick? Vacu-formed is ok, since all the mortar was parged off smooth preparatory for painting.

[jbvb]

3-Mar-2024: Michael Hohn recommended N Scale Architect cinderblock, which I ordered.

The March "Models Named to Commemorate Others" gallery reminded me that while I have naming plans for the city of Bexley, only two have made it into the real world. Photographing both, new camera angles reveal things to fix:



Scott Hooper lived in the same college dorm as me. He built a beautiful water bed in the college shop. Gaposis under the back wall and at the base of one of the power poles will be fixed today.



I met Howard Gorin at TMRC, he's still an active live steamer and I'm still using the Walker-Turner drill press he sold me in the 1980s. Gaposis under the RH foundation and sidewalk, try to make a better repair to the WeHonest streetlight.

1-Apr-2024: I'd been fairly busy on the layout the past week: Two non-modelers from Seashore came by to gain understanding of the hobby as we prepare to open the Maine Central Model Railroad (opened for many years by Buzz and Helen Beals in Jonesport, ME) this Summer as a new attraction on our campus in Kennebunkport, ME. So I cleaned up, including the track, fixed some things overtaken by entropy and ran some trains for them. I also spent a while with paint and the label maker anticipating the Hub High Green operations weekend May 3-5. Paint is a powerful way to change the visibility of things, I have some more work to do in unfinished areas.

Meanwhile, my wife built the main structure of the North American Bent Chair Co. kit by Full Steam Ahead. Here's how far she got:



This is a short person's eye level view from the aisle.



I'm working on the roof skylights and vents. Then there's the actual roof surface, loading docks (all from the kit) and lighting (their lights are dummies). To make it fit Newburyport, I need to decide whether the long "A & JG Caldwell Distillery" sign goes on the brick wall above the 3rd story windows, or on a separate signboard on the roof. And whether any of the elevator tower, "Home of Old Newburyport Rum" and chimney have 3D nature, or are just printed and pasted to the backdrop.