The Hartwell Railroad in N Scale

fritch Nov 21, 2012

  1. txronharris

    txronharris TrainBoard Member

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    I'm relly, really liking your concept and posts so far. Your traffic lights are off the hook. The locomotive selection you have is great too. This is why I love shortlines. You can model a varied roster without going broke. Can't wait to see more of your layout.
     
  2. fritch

    fritch TrainBoard Supporter

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    Yup, made it down to 8 this winter, not exactly a Montana winter, but I'm used to something higher than the 20's usually.
     
  3. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Hmm. Well, it is not quite polar here, but at present one below zero, snowing and wind sustained just more than 20mph. That puts wind chill at roughly minus 25F. The word is we might get up above daytime freezing again in about four days. Thanks for an great indoor hobby!
     
  4. fritch

    fritch TrainBoard Supporter

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    April 2014

    A little delay due to a big trip to Japan. Talk about railroading, the amount and quality of passenger service was outstanding. It certainly is tempting to try a Japanese passenger service, but the scenery would be massive urban areas with multiple passenger terminals. And you thought building trees was hard, the number of buildings would be impossible.

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    The Shinkansen trains were amazing. The ride was smooth as glass, the electric engines had just a quiet hum, and you look out the window and your going 160 MPH, amazing. With 3 stops we averaged 97 MPH on the trip.

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    There was a little freight, but I suspect they mostly run late at night after the passenger traffic is done for the day.

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    Trolley and intercity rail were easily available and we were able to get around quite easily without a car,

    Anyway back to the layout. The rather extreme winter cold caused the first buckle in the track. The rail was popped right out of the guides on the tie and had to be replaced. Thats Atlas track caulked to a sponge foam roadbed on plywood.
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    The Norfolk Southern single track main line started to get a new Central Valley bridge over the future I-85.
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    And finally ACFX covered hopper got a little heavy weathering as I wanted to try out the micro-scale graffiti decals.
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    Well the cold weather is over and its much more comfortable in the basement. I pretty much blew the rest of my vacation for this year so hopefully I can get some time in the basement.
     
  5. fritch

    fritch TrainBoard Supporter

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    May construction

    May felt a little more like ADD in the basement. Some scenery here, start a new building, work on the bridge, build a new turnout panel, install some frog juicers. About half the layout now has a base coat of paint close to that of Georgia red clay, so less plywood and plaster is apparent.


    The Norfolk Southern single track Central Valley Bridge over the developing I-85 was finished and installed. The plastic supports the 6 axle units without any problems. A little more plastering, ground cover, and road detail and it will be done.
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    Highway 17 got a new surface and some stripes as it passes below the Fieldale Grain elevators,
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    Track was completed and wired so the Hartwell now connects to it's engine house near Bowersville.

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    Finally the Raceway and Taco Bell structures are underway south of the I-85 exit and the Cornelia Station got it's park with the Big Red Apple in the center. I really need to get some new roof tiles on an adhesive backed paper to finish up the scratch built station building.
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    I also installed the first of many Tam Valley frog juicers and they really make a difference for these sound equipped engines. I was just wondering what happens when a frog juicer is on a reversing section of DCC track since they both will detect a short and try to reverse polarity. So far no problems so I guess the juicer is faster than the Digitax auto reversing cards.
     

    Attached Files:

  6. alhoop

    alhoop TrainBoard Supporter

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    cab3.jpg
    Fritch:
    Good job on the station and big red apple at Cornelia. In reply #57 I suggested you could include the Tallulah Falls RR if you had room.
    You can still include part of it by including the Tallulah Falls caboose that sits/sat on the southern leg of the TF wye just behind the station.

    Al
     
  7. fritch

    fritch TrainBoard Supporter

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    Summertime ops

    The scenery continues toward Lavonia as I-85 goes in under the pair of bridges
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    I started programming the ops section of JMRI to try running a few trains. Ran a few rounds, then setup the layout and grabbed my switch list.
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    I made up the Atlanta1 train and left the yard bound for Toccoa.
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    Dropped the cars for the Hartwell, picked up a boxcar, and worked the Fieldale grain yards north and south on the way back to town.
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    I used a bamboo skewer for uncoupling and didn't try any of either the electric or fixed magnet uncouplers yet. There were a lot of disappointments. Picked points, track grade changes that catch the bottom mid-engine of the fuel tanks on the 4 axle GPs. The 6 axle road engines would have been even worse. Defiantly a lot of track work tuneup remaining on the list for next session.
     
  8. fritch

    fritch TrainBoard Supporter

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    July update

    Starting to run some more ops movements off JMRI. I think more train running is helping to break in the engines and track work a little. Ive been very disappointed with my turnout, both the commercial atlas and my hand made fast tracks. Still too many derailments but I'm tuning the switches as I have problems and slowly I think I'm making progress.

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    6525 pulls out of the engine house and picks up a load from Gem industries.

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    Another empty from Morgan Concrete plus a spot at the Lavonia Feed Company

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    Then back to the engine house.

    By the way, I picked up a Tomix track cleaning car from Japan and its great. $39 plus $12 shipping but what a terrific machine. It has a powered vertical axle than can run a cleaning pad with a cleaning solution tank, as well as a fine sanding pad if you so choose, but also a really impressive track vacuum that the motor drives very well. It picks up loose ballast and dust I never thought was present. This could be the tool of the year for me.
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  9. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    When finished running the cleaning car, how much debris has it picked up?
     
  10. fritch

    fritch TrainBoard Supporter

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    one pass

    After just 1 pass over the dual mainlines and the branchline produces a lot of debris, scenery material, ballast and dust. Granted I'm still doing alot of construction but I cleaned this last week as well.

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  11. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    That is a signficant amount to keep out of engines and more.
     
  12. fritch

    fritch TrainBoard Supporter

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    August building

    Multiple structures were started in August in an attempt to get some scenery in place. Its so much nicer to run trains through even a partially scenic area instead of plywood and paint. I decided that just placing some buildings is "good enough", I plan to revisit the scenes and detail them later.

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    The Lavonia grain tower go a few homes as neighbors

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    I started to add a farm out of town and tried dying corduroy to simulate a plowed field. Still not sure how to finish the cloth yet however.

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    Started laying out the small village of Bowersville from some old kits which were the last salavaged items from my previous layout from 1995 or so combined with a few new kits. Also need to finish the deck girder bridge supports for the line over the wye.
     

    Attached Files:

  13. fritch

    fritch TrainBoard Supporter

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    September musings

    Well its been a little bit here and a little bit there kind of month. I added more turnouts to Atlanta and Gainesville yards, did a little work scratch building piers for the crossover bridge over the wye, working on 2 factories for the sidings, and even played around with some graffiti, acrylics, and pastel powders weathering a couple of covered hoppers. Still trying to keep to the 15 minutes a day strategy, but multiple tasks means incremental progress on several projects.

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    Atlanta has 2 yard tracks adjacent to each Main running through the middle of the yard. While Gainesville will really just have a single yard track and a second that approaches the station access, along with 2 industrial stub spurs off each track.

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    Some styrene trusses served as the pilings for the bridge supports.

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    I may need to tone down the graffiti decal more on these 2 cars.

    I did keep running a few trains this month, but I really need to work on some backdrop or at least safety rails as 2 more derailments dropped 2 more covered hoppers and 1 track cleaning car to the concrete. The score is now 2 engines and 4 cars off the layout. Always a very traumatic event. They always seem to find the one small opening to get through the scenery and head to the floor.
     
  14. Jim Wiggin

    Jim Wiggin Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Looking great! Enjoying your updates. I really like your idea for the plowed fields, from the images you have here it looks a lot like what I'm used to.
     
  15. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Same here! I don't recall ever seeing this method, but will be very interested in seeing the finished results.
     
  16. fritch

    fritch TrainBoard Supporter

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    December 2014

    OK Santa, Ive been bad. I haven't been doing my 15 minutes a day, I haven't run trains recently, but I still do occasional work on the layout. We did do some real life railroading stuff in the meantime. We rode the Crescent from Atlanta to New Orleans for my wife's birthday. and we visited Steamtown in Scranton on a Thanksgiving trip.

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    Strange civil defense car in Birmingham Alabama on the way to New Orleans

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    Steamtown still has a Reading RS-1, much like the train that started this whole railroad idea for me when I got to drive a taconite freight to Bethlehem PA at age 10, courtesy of my Reading engineer neighbor (that must have been before OSHA)

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    Gainesville got two industry stub tracks added to the sidings, and the Atlanta yard continues to add more yard tracks. Current work includes more trees (of course), a switch panel for the new Gainesville tracks, and more Atlanta yard trackage as more fast track switches are constructed.


    Finally the tool of the year for 2014 goes posthumously to the Tomix track cleaner car, which did a great job until its unfortunate demise after a derailment and a dive to the concrete floor. I did fill in some on the potential holes to prevent further cars or engines dropping off the layout. I do plan on getting a replacement soon, but I have to order from Japan (I haven't seen any in the states yet)
     

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