Japan + Wales =

...successful duplication of a detail part!  Oyumaru + Milliput = part

Since deciding to rebuild the trio of Purina cars, I've been on the lookout for Laconia end sills for what seems like ages.  I had given up ever finding them on their own, or if I did, for a decent price.  Seems like 'nostalgia pricing' for vintage parts is over-the-top high.  My next resort would be to either scratchbuild a pair or find a donor kit to sacrifice.  It would probably be cheaper and faster to buy another Purina kit of the correct number.

But then along came PLASMO, and his video of using Blue Stuff (a Green Stuff World branded oyumaru) to cast parts using epoxy putty.  After hemming and hawing a while I decided to pull the trigger and buy some.  Last night I warmed up the kettle and softened the oyumaru.  I glued the part to a scrap of plastic packaging and pressed on the softened thermoplastic...voila!  A mold! 

Next I cut away a couple bits of Milliput and kneaded them together.  Once I thought I had sufficiently mixed the two components I pressed some into the mold.  And then I waited.  Overnight.  I could see through the clear mold material that I had gotten a good press; it appeared that the Milliput was deep into the recesses of the mold.  But how good?

This morning I got my answer - as Tom Johnson* says - I think it looks pretty good.

*In these uncertain times, I find it very comforting to watch a skilled craftsman rebuild, repair and restore a beautiful piece of furniture to its best condition or former glory.  I hope to do the same with the vintage freight cars I have collected, including the Purina cars mentioned above.

Mainline Mimicry

...or, how to pull off big-time ops on a small railroad.

A cut of cars await pick up by the eastbound time freight.

I've been playing a sort of operations game that lets me model a snippet of the bigger railroad picture.  My railroad was designed to be a model of a small industrial area served by a short-line railroad with tight curves, a few spurs and a siding that serves as a runaround track.  However, when I planned the track arrangement I included a full loop of track in order to just let trains run from time to time.

 The eastbound arrives and the conductor checks his manifest.

Also, while the industries I selected allow for a limited variety of rolling stock, there are still cars I wouldn't include in a typical operating session when running the railroad as designed.  Same goes for locomotives.  Typical power serving the 'park' is all smaller steam with short wheelbases. 

Lanky Mikado 480 backs down into the siding.

Recently I got the itch to run a longer train.  I pulled out the one and only brass engine I own (and only oil burner), a custom painted beefy 2-8-0.  [There's a whole 'nother blog post about this engine coming eventually...]  I hitched her up to a string of 9 cars and a matching caboose and let her run.  Add a cup of coffee (or something stronger) and a stool to sit on and I'm blissfully unaware, for a time, of all the world's calamities.  After I'd run that engine a few days, I selected 2-8-2 #480, typical power for the Christmas Tree train - again, not a loco you'd expect to see pushing cars down spurs in this setting.

 Three cars are heading east today.  The remaining car will go west.

This is fine for a while - longer than, really - but I wanted to plus the experience.  So, I imagined my 'long' train as a time freight hauling cuts of cars from division point to division point.  I imagined my solitary siding as a place to set out cars for a local to work later or perhaps a town switcher to shove around the local industries, and likewise, to be a place for that time freight to pick up a few cars to forward on to their next destination.

 With the pickups added to the train, the setouts are shoved into the siding.

The local crew will deliver these cars to their industries.

To make this pickup/setout game a bit more random, I chose to employ a simple generator - I flipped a coin.  First flip, heads = odd, tails = even.  Second flip, heads = 1 or 2, tails = 3 or 4.  This determines how many of the cars on the siding I pick up.  Since the siding only holds a max of 4 cars, once I subtract how many I'm taking I can flip again to determine how many I'm setting out as long as it is equal to or less than the number I just picked up.  I may take all 4 cars and only set out three.  Or, I may take one and leave one.  Depends on the flip.

 Their work complete, the crew heads back to the caboose while the engine pumps air into the train.

To complicate things further make things more interesting, I add one more flip to determine if I'm setting out cars from the front or rear of the train.  This shuffles the cars in the whole train, not just the first few behind the engine.  This is also a bit more true-to-life, as cuts of cars would be blocked for just such a set-out according to the order of towns the train passes through and may be anywhere in the train.  The conductor would know which ones were to be put where.

Two blasts on the whistle and it's time to roll.  This is a scheduled freight after all.

I'd love the room to build a railroad where I could model a division point yard, or a major terminal where big steam power is coupled to long trains, which then roll over a long mainline at high speed.  But that's just not possible at present, and I'm okay with that.  I can still have a little taste of that action in minature, so to speak, right here and now.

Turnout Trials

One of my long-put-off tasks on the railroad has been tuning the turnouts, or switches.  This includes filing any rough corners or edges that wheel flanges might 'pick' and cause a derailment, checking the gauge and tolerances throughout the points and frog area, and securing the throw bar to keep the points held in place.  On that last point I have finally left the starting gate.

 The strip of white styrene has been temporarily slid into place beneath the throw bar to provide friction.  The piece is an HO scale 4x12, though the thickness is only important if, like me, you are using the same type of Atlas turnouts.  What matters is that it is enough friction to hold the points in place without regular operations causing them to move but not so much that it becomes cumbersome to slide the points over to throw the switch.

When planning this railroad and how it would be operated, I chose to make all the turnouts accessible in order to throw them by hand, whether with some sort of switch stand or by the 'finger flick' method.  Peco turnouts have a spring mechanism built in that locks the points against the stock rail; Atlas turnouts do not.  In the past I have used the popular but grossly oversized Caboose Industries ground throws.  Wanting to create a more fine-scale appearance on this railroad, I decided against using them here. 

Should this friction method work as well as I think it will, eventually I will glue the styrene strips in place when I balast the track.  I have beautiful little switch stand models that will live next to each turnout but they will only be decorative.  There are operating switch stands that either throw the turnout when you move them, or move in response to the throw bar sliding.  In the interest of time and simplicity I decided to not use those this time around.

I will report how this method works in a future post.  However I am already seeing results as I operate a locomotive that seems to derail at a couple turnouts.  After I inserted the strip, the engine has run right through without a hiccup.  Below, Pan Handle Rusty Route #225 rolls over the Icing spur turnout without derailing.  Note the white styrene strip seen beneath the tender.

When Two Become One

Or, when the materials speak, listen.

I had planned to use the little narrow windows from the Tichy Work Car Windows set to replace the narrow side windows in the cupolas.  I had thought the narrow Tichy window frames would work, but when turned vertically they weren't as tall as the square window frames on the front and back of the cupola.  However, included in the assortment were wide two-panel windows.  I held one window against the cupola side and immediately knew I had to use it. 

The narrow window openings had bothered me since I made them, and I really didn't have a good solution.   Something about the relative size or placement was off and I couldn't figure out what bugged me, I just knew I didn't like it.  So when the narrow Tichy windows didn't make it better, I was doubly discouraged at that point.  But my displeasure turned to satisfaction when I put the long, wide windows in place.

The actual fix was simple.  I cut out the center section between the two narrow windows, then added scale 2x4 strips to the sides.  I'm going to say that the new frame is a slider, and my train crew will be pleased to be able to open that window and get a breeze through the cupola rolling down the tracks in central Florida.

When Scratch Isn't Up To

Case in point, these windows.  I tried to make my own window frames but I wasn't happy with the results.  I was happy with the overall shape and size of the cupola itself.  Enter Tichy Train Group's Work Car Windows Assortment, part number 8206.  I have dry-fit one window to test the fit and sure enough, I couldn't have fit it better if I had planned it that way.  There are smaller windows in the set and they should likewise work just fine for the narrow side windows.  Here's the kicker - they come with glazing!

Will I attempt to scratchbuild window frames again in the future?  Sure, if necessary, or maybe even just for fun.  But will I let it stall a project as long as this attempt did?  No sir.  If Tichy had not made these excellent window frame inserts, I would have likely found suitable kitbash parts from some donor cabeese.  The caboose is a signature piece of rolling stock for any steam era railroad and as a freelancer, I believe it is even more important that I'm happy with the result.