The Union Pacific Soggy Bottoms Subdivision (HO scale)

[flyboy2610]

Wow. It's been nearly a month and a half since I posted to this. Better get with it or I'll lose my modelers license. (or la-sonse as Inspector Clouseau pronounces it.)
I've been working on the Life Like coaling tower and got it finished. It went pretty well, except for the stairs, which many people on the I-net have complained about. The lower stairs up to the first landing went fine, but the upper stairs just do not fit properly AT ALL! I will be tearing those off and replacing them with some sheet styrene that resembles wood siding. The siding will run at an angle to simulate boards nailed on at an angle to make an enclosed staircase. OSHA regs, donthca know?
The coal chute was another area. The instructions say to do it one way, the box art pictures it done another way, and some photos of peoples models online have it different than either of those two! So I just did it the way it seemed to make the most sense to me.
I had also planned to detail the interior of both the hoist engine shed and the coal tower office, but once I set the roof in place for a test fit and saw how dark it was going to be, I figured "What's the point?" If I had lit the two, it would have made sense, but since I don't plan to light them, I couldn't see the point. I do thank all who helped with my question regarding the hoist engine, however!
Anyway, here is how it turned out. I airbrushed a coating of light gray on the structure, gave it some black for coal dust and steam smoke, and sealed it all with matte Rust-Oleum. The roof is flat black, the doors and window frames are brown, and the windows are .010 clear styrene. The window material that came with the kit is a joke! It is waaaayyyy too thick, and has the appearance of frosted glass such as might be in a bathroom window. Not gonna happen. The coaling chute got flat black and some flat rust. The hoist drive shaft got flat steel (Testors brand) and some rust. All in all, except for the upper stairs (which shall be replaced),I don't think it came out too bad.

 

[santafewillie]

OSHA regs, donthca know?

I wouldn't worry about OSHA as they didn't come into existence until December 1970!
Nice progress. I didn't comment earlier, but I shorten #4's all the time for that closer spacing.
Willie

 

[jim81147]

I think it turned out well Flyboy . My only suggestion would be to put more "coal dust" on the horizontal surfaces . That is where it would settle and show the most . I agree with Willie , poo poo on OSHA regs !!! Its just my opinion but I think a long tunnel going up the side might take away more from the model than it adds . Could you just scratchbuild some handrails?

 

[flyboy2610]

Yea, I know OSHA wasn't around back then. Modelers License. The stairs won't be an enclosed tunnel, just some boards running at an angle to cover the open areas between the railings.

 

[Rico]

I wouldn't have guessed it's a Lifelike kit at all, well done!
I'm in favour of open stairs as well, it adds that old times feel.
Don't forget some bracing for the stairs, that would add to it.

 

[flyboy2610]

Hey, everyone!
I haven't forgotten about you, or my railroad. I've just been pretty busy the last few months working on other projects around here. I've been working on rebuilding a door for my 1969 Ford F250, Frodo. I'm also adding power windows and door locks. Been working on repairing and re-covering an RC model airplane. I picked up 2 new RC plane kits to build, so now THOSE are on the agenda.
I have been working on a project for the Soggy Bottoms railroad, though. I have become aware of a trackwork deficiency. At the south end of the layout, near the industrial area, I really need a way to transit from the uppermost track in this pic to the lower, and vice versa. As it is now, going from upper to lower requires backing through the turnout. I do not have the real estate needed to add another turnout next to this one, so I decided to install a double crossover. Yes, I realize those are fightin' words to some, but so be it.

An Atlas 19 degree crossing and 4 #6 turnouts will result in a double crossover 26" long with a track spacing of 3" on center. Too long and too wide.
I found this blog while doing some research: http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/2012/06/june-25-2012-my-double-crossover.html
This guy used the same track pieces but performed some surgery on them. I followed his directions and things came out pretty well, but the straight through leg of the #6 turnouts needs to be cut about 1/16" shorter than what his diagram shows. I think I'm going to cut out all the ties between the crossing and turnouts, and fit new ties in between them. After soem work and a few words I'm not proud of, I came up with this:

The "short" leg of the crossing will not have a rail joiner as there just doesn't seem to be a good way to cut the guardrail away to get one in there, so I will have to solder a wire underneath between it and the diverging leg of the turnout.

I seriously messed up on the straight leg of the first side I did, so I had to patch in a short length of rail. You will notice that there are rail joiners only on one side. This is actually the second 'patch' that I made. On the first one, When I tried to trim away the tie plate to install a second rail joiner, the rail came off the ties!
The patch is 1" long, so I'll just get a package of short rail pieces from Randy's Roundhouse (my LHS), and use a 1" piece made for rail joiners on both sides.

Once I get this installed and glued/nailed down, I'll solder all the rail joiners to maintain alignment. If I'm careful, I shouldn't have any trouble with the short legs of the crossing. I hope.

 

[flyboy2610]

I have neither died nor disappeared. I hope that doesn't bother any of you!
I've been working on other projects and stuff around here. I have finally gotten the double crossover into place, though it is not fastened down yet. The track leading into it from the upper left is going to have to be realigned, as it is not going to match up correctly as it sits. As mentioned earlier, there is no way to get a rail joiner onto the short legs of the crossover, so I am going to have to align everything and spike that section into place. I had thought of soldering jumper wires to the bottom of the crossover, but that won't work, so I'm going to solder jumpers across the rail gap on the outside of the rails. The joints that have rail joiners will be soldered. I aligned everything and rolled a car through the crossover from all directions and it never jumped the track, so I feel confident it will work.

The double crossover in place. I hooked up some track to the upper left side to have room for my test car to roll through. Underneath is another turnout that is going to have to be taken up and realigned.

A look at the 19 deg. crossing itself. The joint just past the diverging rail of the turnout will have to have a jumper wire soldered to it. There's no real good way to solder underneath. I will drill a couple of holes for track nails on the middle ties of the crossing.

The ends of the crossing (both sides) still have their nail holes, so these will be used when nailing it down as well. The joints with rail joiners will be soldered.

I still haven't finished the lift-out, either! The 'slit' on the bottom left is a road from the parking area down the camping area. Backing a boat down THAT should be fun!

I'm puttering on this as I can. I've been busy trying to get a couple of RC planes finished.
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?2742395-Building-a-Great-Planes-PT-60
https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?2682779-Superstar-60-repair-and-recover

Model railroading is an interest, but model aviation has been a lifelong passion. I've been building them from balsa wood since I was about 10. And that's longer ago than I like to think about!

(Edited 9-29-2018 to add some pics.)
The business area of the crossing. The short legs of the crossing are jumpered to the stock rails of the turnouts. There's not much room in there to work, so use a fine tip on your soldering iron.

An oblique angle view. The long legs of the crossing still have their rail joiners. There's not room for joiners on the surgically altered short legs, so they had jumper wires installed. It looks like I need to touch up one of my feeders.

 

[santafewillie]

Nice surgery flyboy. I do have a small suggestion...In your third picture, there are two gaps between the rails. The upper one doesn't look too bad, but you might want to fill the lower one in with a piece of styrene, or a small piece of rail, unless you intended to fill it with solder.

Willie

 

[flyboy2610]

Nice surgery flyboy. I do have a small suggestion...In your third picture, there are two gaps between the rails. The upper one doesn't look too bad, but you might want to fill the lower one in with a piece of styrene, or a small piece of rail, unless you intended to fill it with solder.

Willie

I don't think everything was pushed up tight in that pic. It actually all fits together pretty snugly. I do plane to solder all the rail joiners, except those on the four ends of crossover where it connects to the rest of the layout. I appreciate your comment!

 

[flyboy2610]

The double crossover is a success!
I got it fastened down, got the necessary rail joiners soldered, and spent about an hour taking my UP 4-12-2 and a box car through it every direction I could think of at varying speeds. Everything went well, but a 4-12-2 doesn't really like #6 turnouts when traveling fast, so management has instituted the following speed restrictions:
When traveling forward and not crossing the crossover, no restrictions.
When traveling forward through the crossover, 10 mph.
When backing straight not crossing the crossover, 10 mph.
When backing through the crossover, 5 mph.

I did realize that the crossover will have to come up again. There will be 0-6-0's using this on a regular basis, and they really don't like the insulated frogs on a #6 Atlas turnout that well. There will also be an occasional 0-4-0 on the rails, and they really don't like those frogs! I forgot to drill and tap the frog hole for a 2-56x1/8" screw. I put a screw into the hole from the bottom, then solder a wire onto the head of the screw. I've tried soldering directly to the frog and just don't have any luck doing that. I will be using that wire to power the frog. Hopefully I can still get some Caboose Industries powered ground throws. They can be rather fiddly to assemble, but once done they work great!

 

[santafewillie]

I forgot to drill and tap the frog hole for a 2-56x1/8" screw. I put a screw into the hole from the bottom, then solder a wire onto the head of the screw. I've tried soldering directly to the frog and just don't have any luck doing that.

That's what that round screw hole is for on the side of the frog. Cover with ballast when done.
Willie

 

[flyboy2610]

That's what that round screw hole is for on the side of the frog. Cover with ballast when done.
Willie

Yes, that's the one I meant. I prefer to install the screw from the bottom, and then cut the excess off flush with the top of the hole. It makes for a nice neat install.
Here's a pic of what I mean. The little silver colored disc on the top side of the frog is actually a cut off screw. You can see the wire peeking out from under it. The #8's have a tab at the side of the turnout to solder to, but the #6's don't.

 

[otiscnj]

thanks for posting about your double crossover. Gave me some ideas, and good to know that your idea works!

 

[Rico]

Great job on the X-over!
You may have answered a question I have too, I'm laying a #6 right hand up to a #6 left hand and will heed a diamond.

 

[flyboy2610]

I'm glad I could help someone out! That's the real reason I post these things.
I would like to be able to take credit for the idea, but I can't. I found it here: http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/2012/06/june-25-2012-my-double-crossover.html

4 #6 turnouts and a 19 degree crossing will give a double crossover that has track spacing of about 3", but that was too wide for my other tracks. So I had to trim the crossing down.

 

[flyboy2610]

In between life and RC aircraft, I am getting some things done on this layout. I added power feeder wires to all the #4 turnouts. I drilled and tapped a hole in the frog for a 2-56 screw, then screwed a length of solid conductor black wire (I forget exactly what gauge it is) to the screw. I had enough wire to do a couple of the wye's as well, but I need to get some more wire.
I installed the turnouts leading to and included in the run around section of the industrial area. Everything passed the "give the car a shove and see what happens" test, so we're good to go there. Next came trying to decide where and how to place the industries. I will have 3 main industries in this area, possibly 4. They are a meat packing plant with icing track and ice house, the Rust-Eze Medicated Bumper Ointment factory, Rusty I. Beams Auto Recycler and Salvage Yard, and possibly one more that has not been determined.
There are two possible layouts for these.
In the first scenario, the meat packing plant (Walther's Champion meat packing kit) will go on the right side of the industrial area. The Rust-Eze factory will be relocated to the far left corner, and the receiving area/warehouse will be relocated to the opposite end of he building.
A couple of pictures to show what I mean: (imagine the piece of Homasote being square and you will have the footprint of the Champion packing plant, including boiler house and cattle loading ramp.)

In this scenario, the loading dock will be where the car is spotted. The package of cattle represents where the stock pens will be, and the team track in the rear will be reduced to a single track with the icing platform and ice house behind it. On the other side of the area will be the Rust-Eze factory (Lightning McQueen will be replaced by Doc Hudson), and Rusty's yard will be at the end of the track to the right.
There are some things I don't care for in this scenario:
1: All of the spurs servicing the packing plant are facing point spurs, meaning all empties will have to be shoved forward (from the engineers standpoint) into place.
2: The icing track is rather far from the loading dock, and the switcher will have to back off the track with an iced car and perform two "switchback" maneuvers to spot the iced car on the loading track. Which brings me to my third concern.
3: After hooking up to an iced car, the switcher and car must back onto the spur used by Rusty for his yard. There will be a gondola on that lead at all times, either empty and waiting to be filled, or full and waiting to be swapped out with an empty. This is not going to leave much room for the switcher and iced car to clear the switch points.
So all in all I think this plan is going to go into the round file.

This brings me to scenario #2. In this plan the Rust-Eze factory stays where it is. The side building will get 'flipped' so that the tracks are further from the main building. This will allow the forklift drivers more room to work. And if their forklift drivers are anything like those at the plant where I work, they need all the room they can get!
Rusty's yard will be located on the single track below the Rust-Eze team track. Plenty of room for him there.
The packing plant will be located on the left side of the area. Again the loading dock will be in front. The stock pens will this time be located on the right side of the facility, again represented by the package of cattle. The icing dock will be behind the packing plant, represented by the 1x2 piece of wood, which I cut to the length of the dock. The ice house will have to be surgically altered to fit the space behind the dock. Can't be helped.
This scenario is predicated upon the supposition that the boiler house and loading ramp can be relocated to the other side of the plant. I guess I'll just have to build it and find out!
This means that all operations for the packing plant will be trailing point operations, so the cars will be backed into place, and removed in the forward direction. This also leaves the former Rusty's yard spur clear for the switcher to use when servicing the industries on the other side of the area.
It also leaves a spur for an additional industry. This is the one that would have served the icing dock in the previous scenario.
This all sounds good, but it is not without some issues of its own, mainly dealing with throwing the turnouts. All turnouts on this layout, except for the few Peco turnouts I have, will have their frogs powered. I am building this capability in as I proceed. The powered ground throws use more real estate that the unpowered ones do. This requires that the ground throw sometimes must be one or two tracks away from its turnout. I cut and use pieces of stiff wire run under the tracks to throw the turnouts. I've gone too far to change the style of turnout control, so it is what it is. I don't see anything insurmountable however. A couple of pics of this plan:

I was originally going to have the 0-6-0 work the industrial area, but then I decided I would rather have him in the freightyard, where things might be a bit tighter. I have an IHC 0-8-0 that I will some day put a decoder into. He will work the industrial area.

The two tracks immediately above the 4-12-2 are set out tracks for outbound cars. The road engine can pick up off of either of these without entering the industrial area or having to cross a #4 turnout.
Speaking of the freightyard, I know the space for it is in there somewhere!

I've also gotten a bit done on the liftout/river scene. I glued all of the bridge supports into place. I temporarily placed it into position and determined where the roadbed had to go. The tracks on the inbound side are not going to lie perfectly centered on the roadbed, that's how it has to be to match up to the tracks on the permanent side of the liftout. I could rip up the tracks and roadbed to realign it, but I'll just hide this behind some trees.
I also trimmed everything flush on both sides. I need to repaint the sides now. I want to get some rocks and talus for the base of the cliffs. I need to paint the riverbed, after getting it nice and smooth. Then I'll be ready for water. The bridge will not be glued into place until after the water is poured.

While looking over the tracks already laid, I noticed that on the two left side turnouts of the double crossover, I forgot to install the turnout throw wires! And I also noticed that on the lower tack, just right of the Peco turnout, the upper rail is on TOP of the rail joiner! How did I miss these?!
(In his best Grover the Muppet voice) Oh, I am so embarrassed!

 

[otiscnj]

FWIW, in the last photo in your previous post, just above, the 2nd track from the bottom, with the short 1" section of track between switches, looks like it has a very steep grade which might cause upcoupling of cars, or perhaps a locomotive's front to jump the tracks due to the change in grade. I'd say give it a test run, to check it out. Little things like this have caused me a lot of headaches in the past. Other than that, your progress looks good!

 

[flyboy2610]

Yea, I noticed that too. That will be spiked down level.

 

[flyboy2610]

I fixed my boo-boos. That rail is now inside the rail joiner, the turnouts have throw wires on them, and there is no longer a hump behind that turnout. I also installed the turnout to separate the meat packing loading dock from the stock pens.

As I mentioned in my last post, sometimes the ground throws are separated from the turnout they control by a couple of tracks. When the wire crosses under a track in an area where there is plastic on the bottom of the track, it's no big deal. But when it has to cross an area where the rail joiners are, care must be taken to ensure that there is never contact between the wire and the rail joiners or a short could occur.

The first step is to carve out a trench where the wire will lay. You want to get this deep enough so the wire will be below ground level.

What i do next is to take three pieces of brown electrical tape (66' for $1.99 at Menard's) and cut them to the length needed to cover the wire. I lay the first piece upside down and then lay the others on top of it, sticky side to sticky side. The top two pieces are laid so that they meet in the center of the upside down piece. The tape is then laid over the wire with the smooth side of the center piece facing the wire. The tape is then fastened to the layout.

The reason for doing it this way is so that no sticky tape hits the wire, which may cause binding. There is now a surface under the tracks than can have ballast applied over it. If a corner of the tape ever decides to lift, a drop of CA glue will fasten it back down.
The track leading to the stock pens will not be installed until after the packing plant is built. And that may be a while.

 

[flyboy2610]

I got some more work done on the industrial area last night. I finished laying all the turnouts and wyes. I ran the tracks to the Rust-Eze factory, and laid the team track for the unknown industry just in front of them. I need to find time to build the packing plant and ice facility. I don't know when I will get to those, though. They need to be done before I can lay down the tracks so I know where the tracks need to go.

The last of the turnouts and wyes in the industrial area.

The Rust-Eze and other industry tracks. The left set of tracks is not parallel the entire length. It's just what I had to do to get the tracks where I wanted them. Rusty I. Beams spur is to the right of the Rust-Eze tracks.

From right to left are:
1. The tail track which the switcher will use when servicing the industries on the right side of the industrial area.
2. The ice house/platform track which will be used to ice reefers for the packing plant.
3. The track to the stock pens which the stock cars will use.
4. The track to the loading dock of the packing plant. Full and empty reefers will be swapped out.
5. The two set out tracks for cars waiting to be picked up by the road engine. The engine can access these two tracks without entering the industrial area of cross a #4 turnout.
6. The mainline.
7. The yard lead.
8. The engine service lead.
9. A steep drop to the floor.

I also did a bit of tuning to a couple of cars. I had to re-glue the body of the gondola. I also swapped out the Intermountain metal wheels on the IC boxcar for some Kadee units. I also re-tapped the truck mounting screw holes. This car had a disturbing tendency to lean. It doesn't do it anymore, though!

Can't decide what to do next: Should I start laying down tracks in the yard, or build the packing plant and ice house?