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

[jbvb]

Holiday temperatures have been all over the place. When it was 40-ish outside I decided where I could use Allen's Hobby Shop (under his house). I hadn't thought through how the 10 foot elevation change between the front door and the back yard would work in its original State St. location. If I'd persisted, the City RR cut would have been unrealistically deep.  By moving Allen's to Water St. I can work it into the ground rising away from the river.



With that resolved (except for choosing the house to model in place of Allen's Hobby) I started work on the retaining wall. The part next to the overpass will be styrofoam meat tray "cut stone", built in the original 1872 construction of the City RR.



To the left I plan to tell a story with two other kinds of retaining wall representing different eras and budgets. But first I'll carve and paint this part. And choose houses to model on this part of High St.

[deemery]

We went to a concert in Newburyport last weekend.  It was interesting driving down High St looking at the prototypes for your wife's models!  (I'm inclined to think 'High Street' was named for the current property values.  :-) )

dave

[Jerry]

James very nice layout

Jerry

[ACL1504]

James,

The layout is coming along nicely. The track plan was an ambitious one and I love how it turned out. Very well done.

Kanthima's structures are wonderful.

Tom

[jbvb]

Thanks, Tom and Jerry. Dave, Newburyport housing prices had chased almost all my old friends out fifteen years ago, after commuter rail service was restored. Now it's "investors" doing much of the buying and prices are beyond ridiculous. They seem to forget their "investments" only generate a return when they can find tenants or buyers.

Bad news first: I used a generous application of Weldwood contact cement to attach the foam to the hardboard in the post above. Next day, most of the foam was dissolved.

Yesterday I made a test assembly using Walthers Goo.  It didn't attack Market Basket foam, but do make a test on whatever your local grocery uses.  The replacement panels look good today, and this time I remembered to stop down the camera for depth of field:



After lunch I'll fill a couple of gaps, then start carving blocks.

[deemery]

Fortunately, Market Basket foam is easy to replace, it's an excuse to buy some steaks?   Someone, Weldwood I think, made a water-soluble contact cement. I learned the hard way (on that old Campbell engine house kit, with the great vinyl brick material) what can go wrong with a solvent contact cement.  

dave

[jbvb]

Dave, my stepson eats most of his meals at school, so we rarely buy the big trays of meat. Maybe...  I seem to recall the water-soluble contact cement, but I never saw it used.

Today I went ahead on another part of the City RR west of High St.  I'm telling a story here, with three different retaining walls representing different builders, eras, budgets and goals:



The styrene reinforced concrete retaining wall with pillasters on the left was built in 1934, as part of an overpass for US 1 as Massachusetts built a grade separated bypass around downtown Newburyport. I believe the Reconstruction Finance Corp. was involved, so construction was very solid except for not understanding how road salt would crumble concrete over the next 40 years. The styrene wall will get painted in my next airbrush session.

On the right, granite block from the original construction in 1870, blackened except for the mortar by soot and steam over the decades. Carved from meat tray foam carved by my stepson, painted with black latex, diluted white paint wiped off for mortar.

In the middle a post-WWII concrete crib retaining wall erected by a developer who filled between the tracks and State St. as lots for highway-centric businesses. This is Chooch cloth-backed vinyl on hardboard. I'd had the cribbing for quite a while, and it had curled in the vertical direction. But I followed the Weldwood instructions carefully; I hope it will hold.

[jbvb]

Last night I got back to the City RR retaining walls.  This piece is just to the left of the High St. overpass. I used a not-very-sharp pencil to scribe the joints.



Piecing it together from small foam meat tray chunks doesn't give the best results; I had to sand the face to make up for different thicknesses. The pencil sank in where the fused foam surface had been removed.  I'll ask my wife about buying a big tray of something before I do another stone block wall.  In Thai urban and suburban areas the little stores and street vendors are so common I don't think I ever saw any meat or vegetable bought more than 6-8 hours before it was cooked. Our nearest food store is 2.6 miles, so here she usually buys a day or two in advance.

Here I've started coloring it with semigloss black latex paint. I wetted the brush in water before each time I dipped it in the paint.



Next step is to fill in the mortar lines with white or off-white. My guesses on how RR granite block walls wound up black with white mortar are earlier in this thread. Prototype pictures on my website here: New England's Railroad Arches