The Hartwell Railroad in N Scale

Hi all. Ive been a lurker on the forums for about a year and you guys motivated me to start putting together some benchwork together over last Christmas in the basement. Ive worked on the layout sporadically over the past year and decided to share the story of the construction as I progress in the hopes it may motivate me to get more done on the layout. I alway enjoy reading the construction threads on the forums and thought there might be room for one more.

I've had 2 smaller layout attempts in my past, the first being an 8 foot shelf HO layout about 25 years ago when the kids were small. Not much scenery, just a single train running a loop in the family room so the kids could play too. Ten years ago I tried a small N scale 3x6 module with plaster hills, ballast and a few turnouts just to try an see if I could put the whole thing together. Now that I have a large dry, mostly unused basement (and a very supportive spouse), I thought of trying to build another layout. I decided to start with a relatively small L shaped corner piece that I plan to fully develop before attempting anything larger. I consider myself to be pretty knowledgeable in the armchair, but a complete novice when it comes to actually doing any train work. It was time to get off the couch and into the basement to try something.

I live in North Georgia and there is an interesting Short Line called the Hartwell Railroad that interchanges with the Norfolk Southern. It was started in 1878 as a 10 mile 3 foot narrow gauge line that was converted to standard gauge when the Southern railway acquired it in 1905. Southern then sold the line in 1924 and it still operates the original 10 mile line from Hartwell to Bowersville, plus 48 miles of former Norfolk Southern rail line between Toccoa and Elberton Georgia. Three times a week you can see usually a GP-30 and a GP-9, most still in the old paint of the original owners like the B&O/Chessie, Chicago and Northwestern, and even a Denver and Rio Grande GP35.

I thought I would start building from the interchange so I could try my hand at the single track shortline, get some trains running and switching at the local industries, as well as develop the dual rail mainline for the Norfolk Southern. I started with the idea I would build a 6 foot by 6 foot corner unit and try my hand at track laying, wiring and scenery in that relatively small area before thinking about expanding into the rest of the basement.



I put together an open benchwork of mostly 2x4's, laid some 1/2" plywood with a cork roadbed, and placed Atlas code 55 rail and switches. I wired for DCC with a Digitrax Zepher unit, 16 gauge bus wire with 22 gauge feeders and built a pair of simple loops at the ends so I could get some trains running. I tried my hand at a painted backdrop for the first time on masonite and just started scenery building on the south end and plan to progress up the table as time allows.



Here we see locomotive 3021, an ex D&RGW GP-30 in the Hartwell Railroad colors, heading into town. In the background is the Norfolk Southern mainline climbing up at the base of the mountains to Currahee Mountain on its way to Atlanta. This was my first attempt at airbrushing and painting a locomotive, as well as lettering a new road name. Were still about 2 miles south of town so I will post as we move up the line closer to the interchange

 

Looking very good indeed. Not sure about the rest of the engineers around here but I get in a hurry and the the engineering usally shows up AFTER I laid track, built structures and put in the infastructure.... kinda like imagineering as I go which result in MOW ripping out track and switches , building and such and starting over ....

 

Looks great so far. I agree, I'd like to see more!

 

The traffic lights are surface mount LED's on a plastruct square tube. They are run off a 9 volt bus and a 555 timer feeds a 4017 counter. The lights cycle every 60 seconds or so.

 

I caught HRT300 around Christmas last year and the others are a couple of photos I found online at rrpicturearchives.net. They really do look as bad as this. 3016 and 3021 are the only 2 in new paint, the original 3016 was really bad.

 

I roughly drew out how the interchange section is laid out. The Hartwell interchanges with a wye onto an interchange track. The wye requires some tight curves of about 9 and 10 inch radius so no 6 axle diesels on the short line. The Hartwell doesnt use any 6 axle engines that I am aware of anyway. There are 4 industries served near town. The concrete plant recieves covered hoppers and has a curved 3 car siding off the interchange track. The recycling center, propane company, and plastics plant combine leading and trailing stub sidings for some interesting switching challanges on the single track line.

Two problems I have found is that the maximum arm reach to the curve is about 36 inches from the corner, which is a little far but still reachable with a small step stool. Also the mainline climb out of town is just too steep, it climbs about 4 inches in a 63 inch run. That calculates out to about 6.3% grade. I could try starting the climb just after the turn to decrease it to about 4% plus I plan on decreasing the grade on the next section anyway, now that I have some seperation between the short line up front and the mainline in the back. I know a 6 car Kato Amtrack train seems to pull the hill without problems, but I havent tried a multi-consist freight of any length yet.

 

Nampac Plastics

I finished the scratchbuilt plastics plant over the holiday weekend (no shopping for me, I have the internet) but discovered the curved stub track to the plant has 2 inherent flaws. First the curve was big enough to make the the kadee under the track electromagnets unreliable for uncoupling, and secondly, once uncoupled, the cars would not line up enough to couple to each other manually. I got a few pictures before tearing out the stub track and starting again with a straight stub. I tested out the propane and recycling stubs and they work fairly reliably becaude thy are primarily straight sections off the switch. I guess I have another week of rebuilding this industry.

This discovery will also will cause a redesign for the curved track on the concrete plant siding off the interchange track. I may have to use some artistic liscence to design a small 1 or 2 track stub for that plant.

On a different topic. I recieved some MRC and digitrax sound decoders for a couple of Atlas engines. They installed easily enough, although the Zepher doesnt seem to be able to read CV values back on the programming track (with or without a resistor on the track). It does apparently program them correctly. I put them on the layout and could select the loco addresses, activate sounds and lights, but the locos would not move. I rechecked the motor tabs which seemed to be fairly square on the 2 pads on the underside of the board, but no movement. I reset both the Zepher and the decoders to the factory settings but no luck. I fianally soldered two small wires from the tabs to the squares and all 3 locos now work fine. Is this a usual step with the Atlas method of motor contacts? I think I have 3 other working Atlas locos that did not require this step.

 

Hi fritch,

That is the reason I DO NOT have any curved track where coupling or uncoupling will take place.

With my last Atlas install I ended up putting the motor leads through the slots in the decoder and giving them a twist to keep them in place. On others I have done the same as you. Never had much luck with the friction contact between the motor tabs and the board pads. It seems that the tabs get out of alignment either when removing the non-DCC board or putting in the decoder.

I have also tried different ways to compensate for the difference in board thicknesses:

• squeezing the gap shut
• adding a bit of solder to the pads on the decoder
• inserting some shims (plastic, card stock, wire) between the frame and the board
• Any combination of the above

Sometimes a hardwired install with frame milling is easier then the 'PNP' installs.

Gary

 

Atlas decoders

Gary,

Its interesting to see that I tried several of your alternatives as well. I flexed the tabs to provide maximum pressure on the pads, I even angled them slightly to get them centered as well. I even applied solder to the pads and wicked it smooth to improve conduction but without success. The hard wire was the only solution that worked. Atlas should really consider some type of plug to connect the motor to the decoders, although like I said previouly, it does seem to work for some other Atlas locomotives.

 

Good looking layout.

Big Blue is Back!

 

Nampac Plastics resumes shipments

I had to remove the stub siding to Nampac and relocate the building a little farther south. I also changed the angle slightly to straighten out the stub for coupling and uncoupling cars and moved the Kadee uncoupler electromagnet closer to the building. The renovations involved removing some trees and cutting into the hill next to the building. It actually sounds worse that it was. The siding is now back in operation and shipments have resumed to the plant.




Also I spotted a new Hartwell engine in town today, and ex RFP GP-35 as part of a 4 geep consist.

 

Boxcar kit

I decided to shift gears and try my hand at something different this week. I found a microtrains 50ft boxcar in unpainted kit form. I ordered a few different decals from microscale and tried some custom paint mixing for the airbrush. I started with a boxcar from the Terminal Railway Alabama State Docks as I have never seen one of these modeled before and thought it might be a unique visitor to my railroad.



First the unassembled kit



Now the orage/yellow paint



Decals in place and on the layout, versus origional photo of TASD box 77070. Might have mixed just a tad too much orange to the yellow to match but still pleased with the result. Now to work up the courage to weather it a bit.

 

Tugalo Gas

Shippmeents have started to the Tugalo Gas Company. I finished the propane tank cemetay accross the street by building 4 forms from styrene and resin casting almost 100 of those darn things. I also had to scratchbuild the 2 loading towers next to the cornerstone propane tanks.


Ex Chessie 6525 delivers the first propane to the Gas Company

 

fritch, did you have to scratch build the propane delivery trucks or did you some place that sells them? So far it looks as making my own is the only way to get some.

I only made 10 of the large propane tanks so far for my layout. Worth the effort though. All located around different buildings. Just small ones at the dealer location.
It seems I have to make more to catch up to your output.

 

Fritch,
Nice job on the Tugalo gas company scene!
Very well executed.