Boston & Maine Eastern Route Progress

[jbvb]

It's been a month and I hadn't spent much time on the layout: Most of one day working on multiple issues with how I'd installed Azatrak's Spring Switch Controller at Newburyport West.  Fixed some, not all.  Today I started off with my scheme to light a Rapido "American Flyer" coach without batteries. I found the tiny bridge rectifiers I bought in 2013, but their current rating is way too small for the voltage regulators I got last month.  Tomorrow I'll check Digi-Key and the overseas vendors on FleaBay.

So instead I dug into April's Showcase Miniatures signals.  Their "HO & N Break-Away Base" (to defend delicate signals from clumsy giants) looks like it will work: I made a "Y" letter drill hole for a press fit in Homasote. But boy did I wish for a pair of brass or titanium (non-magnetic) pliers to install the tiny magnets in the plastic base moldings. The way the magnets jump to my "stainless steel" tools (which are certainly corrosion resistant) is indistinguishable from tool steel.  And then the young cat jumped onto the layout. Catching her sent two freight cars to the floor. One fixed, one I've bent/installed one of three new grab irons required

But I got far enough that my next post will be about mixing Oregon Rail Supply and Showcase Miniatures parts for layout history reasons in my Lineside Signals thread.

[deemery]

I have a set of plastic decal tweezers, but in general it seems that non-magnetic tools (often listed as "anti-sparking") are very expensive.  

dave

[jbvb]

Well, those 3 weeks of June didn't include much work on the layout. But last week those in charge of the big Maine Central Model RR that was moved to Seashore Trolley Museum started asking me about street track for a trolley line they want to add to it. I've watched HO trolley track being built, but so far I've only actually built full-size trolley track. I searched in Model Railroad Magazine Index and found two HO layouts I had in my MR bound volumes: Boston MTA (1999-2000) using Customtrax (originally Orr) 1-piece girder rail and Brandywine Transit (1975-76) using Code 100/70 soldered to make girder rail.  GE's track was built for RR freight cars, so I don't need the Orr tight radius turnouts and diamonds.  But I had Code 100 and Code 70 rail on hand....

The prototype GE River Works had miles of standard gauge in-plant track. Up to WWII it was all electrified at 600 VDC, but then it was dieselized with 44 tonners (which I recall seeing) and 45-ton double truck side-rod locos (in various photos). My layout had room for the most visible (to RR passengers) parts of the in-plant track:



As I prepared for operations, I built the GE receiving tracks (right of Athearn box below ) and the USN Gear Works spur (under construction lower right). But I put off the rest of the in-plant track highlighted in yellow above. It was in pavement, which I'd never done before, and my initial operating plan has the GE crew working inside the plant only, moving cars between several in-plant destinations and the receiving tracks. I haven't found operators so common in this area that I really needed a GE-only job to fill.



Working this afternoon began with finding track building tools and parts I hadn't used since Newburyport's City RR spur was finished in 2018.  Then salvaging Code 100 rail from 1970-vintage Atlas fiber-tie flex track. Actual construction began when I decided to spike the Code 100 paved track directly to the Homasote, leaving a couple of places where I'm matching its height with existing Code 70 on ties.  Fiddly but it's going reasonably well.



I decided to build the Code 100 part to operable or nearly so. Then I'll add the Code 70 guards using my resistance soldering tools.  I'll put the details of constructing the track into a new Track Building thread.

[jbvb]

Not much layout progress since June.  I did a little more on the street track project, and I opened to visitors from the Northeastern Region convention in Concord NH. The north of Boston event Tour de Chooch ( www.tourdechooch.org ) is a month away. I'm open Sunday Nov. 30 so time to get things shipshape.

[jbvb]

I wasn't very interested in the NMRA until I moved away from Boston and the Tech Model RR club in 1988. We had a new baby, I was commuting to a job which was consuming a lot of my attention, the house needed work and had no space suitable for a layout.  So when Larry Madson said the HUB Division (Boston area NER NMRA) was starting a modular layout, I jumped at the opportunity: A modest space and time commitment, a good group of people focused on presenting easily attainable model railroading to train show and event audiences.  At that time the HUB had membership separate from the NMRA, so I became a life member, Later the NMRA combined Division and National membership and I continued: I showed our layout in places as far apart as Dortmund in Germany's Rhineland and Kansas City, MO. After 36 years of HUB membership and 25 years in the NMRA I'm still pleased with my choices.

Because I'm giving a lot of time to 1:1 preservation efforts, I haven't done much with the HUB Division since 2023. But I did attend the NER convention in Concord NH, and opened my layout for attendees.

[jbvb]

Today was the final day of the annual Tour de Chooch (Free, self-drive layout tour North and West of Boston, MA). I didn't ask a lot of the Eastern Route - I was busy enough talking to people that I skipped lunch. Some previous years I've had helpers to keep trains running and answer basic questions but this time it was just me and my wife, and she had to go out for a while after noon.  I saw many old friends and a few new visitors, 25 in the guest book so 30-ish total.

One youngster went away with a beginner book I didn't need anymore. Another took an MBTA equipment diagram intended as a Christmas gift for a friend who passed between the purchase and the holiday. Dave stopped by with a piece of basswood that he didn't expect to need in the immediate future. If any other visitors were members here, I didn't pick up on it.  I'm tired, but not so tired I won't go back upstairs after looking over the Forum.

[deemery]

I'm looking forward to seeing where that piece of basswood ends up.  I'm glad I had what you needed. 

dave