The Boston & Maine In New Hampshire 6' X 3' Layout

Thanks Jeremiah, I too look forward to the N scale arbor day! NH just isn't NH without trees.

Onward! In a perfect world, I would be able to stay put long enough to really get some progress done. A weekend in Illinois and a following weekend in New Hampshire, followed by another magazine deadline, Easter, Trade show and oh yeah, moving cross country again, make me wonder if this may be the last post on this for a while. Life comes at you fast, mine is at warp factor 9.



The last post, I had glued down my transition from main to weeds. Here I have installed the siding and as you can see, it is flat on the base. To give it a slightly less maintained look, I first used the Woodland Scenics contact cement, rubbed on the short section of flex track. I let it dry some what (tacky) and then placed it on the base. I used a series of t-pins to work in some kinks and bends, but used a tool to still keep everything in gauge. When I was happy with the look, I t-pinned the track and soldered the track. Here we see one of B&M new FMC 50 foot box cars sitting on the siding. A little new for this scene as these were from a 1979 order, but here to illustrate that the car can be spotted without fouling the main.



Here is the long view. Couple of things before we go on as you maybe asking yourself some questions. A: Yes, that white foam board is the foot print of the freight house and loading dock and yes it is close to the main. Remember this siding was installed when freight cars were 36 feet long, not 40 or 50. The 50 footer fits, which is good since there are plenty of 50 footers out there in 1976. Those will need to be spotted for Johnson Lumber at least once a week. B: "I thought you said this was a siding, it looks more like a spur." Yes it does. Allow me to give you two answers. Prototype World: With bankruptcy hovering over the B&M for over ten years, maintenance was cut back and stripped to the bone. While the B&M could justify keeping the Northern in ok shape, the little used siding in Potter Place could hardly be justified. Getting only a car a week in peak season hardly justifies a siding with two switches, and since passenger operations stopped over ten years ago, a siding is no longer needed. So when this section of the Northern got washed away in a late summer thunderstorm, the south end switch was never fixed. Crews just cut in new rail for the main and left the siding as a spur. Real World Answer: I could not find a curved turn out that matched and I'm too lazy to scratch one. So here it lies, and it makes operations more interesting. In a bit of irony, the full scale siding turn out machines on both ends are fully operational today. I'll add ties and cut rail to the scene to complete the look soon.



Has a great Nor'Easter, fallen on Potter Place? No, this is just the plaster cloth. I spent the better part of the evening getting the hill shaped and formed, then cut several strips of plaster cloth into 6" X 6" squares and covered the hill area. The flat incline is the sub roadbed for Depot Street. I'll next ad the foam for the roadbed, then apply more plaster cloth to taper the roadbed and create a drainage ditch. the flat spot facing the tracks will receive cast rocks and will simulate the rock cut of granite that is so common on the Northern.



Looking at the hill from the center of Potter Place. We see that even without trees, the hill makes a nice scenic block, hiding both Route 11 as well as the other side of the layout. Once this area has trees, it will be hard to see anything beyond Depot Street. As far as what is next? Rocks need to be cast, both for the cuts on the Northern as well as the small cut on Route 11. Track must be painted, Depot Street needs the roadbed installed, more plaster cloth, the styrene top applied and then it needs to be airbrushed and detailed. Once the road is complete, I'll paint the plaster a gray brown color, add ground foam colors such as olive green, brown, amber and red to simulate early fall. The forest floor ground cover will be added as well as a fair amount of fallen trees and limbs. Next the rocks will be painted then Arbor day will finally happen. A lot of work in such a small space but hopefully it will capture the scene.

With a busy schedule for the next few weeks, I really don't know when I'll have time to work on the layout again, but hopefully we'll see something soon.

More to Come...

 

Just an update on the layout and as it stands so far. I really did not have a chance to work on it since March. April was a busy month thanks to a trade show in Toledo Ohio, and the move. For the last year, the layout has been in Northern New Jersey while I was out training for my job. I'm now back home in East Central Illinois. Last Sunday, the 29th, the layout had it's legs removed, wires secured and was moved in a big box truck. Despite sitting in a truck for four days and making the 733 mile trip, the layout is in fine condition. This is why I designed the layout this way. The layout is now set up in my "Home office" which is just a front porch. It's cramped, but I should be able to start working on the layout once again. Angela and I realize that a small three bedroom house for us and two teenagers is too small, so we are looking for a bigger place within the area. Ideal conditions would be a four bedroom house. The forth bedroom would serve as the Office, study and of course, Railroad room. With Galesburg RR Days just a few weeks away, time will be limited, but rest ashured, the layout is still in operating condition and will have progress resume shortly.

On a Slow Order...

 

Congratulations for your safe relocation.

 

Thank you! My Dad told me of this restaurant the last time we were up getting measurments. Wish I could have eaten there when trains were running. The building I have there is just a stand in, I'll have to scratch build the Potter Place Inn eventually.

 

No worries CAP LOL, you would think I get that a lot, but surprisingly enough, I don't. In public I always either refer to this skit with Burnett and Conway or another skit done by Monty Python. The younger generation usually says "What?" I usually explain my last name as such:

W, I, two G's, another I, followed by an N, no S.

No pictures but an update on the layout. I wired everything up yesterday afternoon and the B&M GP9, #1715 started out with a track cleaning car and one buggy (Caboose). As of this writing, 1715 is on the Northern main doing track cleaning duties while I'm working on the foam roadbed for Route 4 (Depot ST). I also have started with the parking lot at the station. I have used two thicknesses of foam, the higher is used for the main roads roadbed while the thinner is used for the parking lot. I would like to continue the road throughout the day, we'll see if I run out of foam.

I also started the transition this morning to Z scale couplers. Wow what a nice difference! So far I only have the front coupler in 1715 done as a test. I still need to ad the rear one and weather both. The 1715 is going to be the subject of a future construction article for Railroad Model Craftsman, so I need to finish this up today.

More to Come...

 

Well as Aerosmith's Steven Tyler would belt out, "I'm back in the saddle again!"

As I had predicted, work has been sporadic, but steady. The layout's home in the front porch/office area has had the advantage of allowing me to work on it more often than when I was in Jersey. So off to the pictures!



Here we have the north end of NH Route 4 or today's Depot Street. I looked up both pictures and Google Maps and realized that Cilleyvile road and Depot St had a bit of curve to it, so out came the foam from meat trays and I set to work. You'll also notice a distinct white area. That white area is going to be the parking area for the Potter Place passenger station. The prototype parking area is gravel and there is just a slight transition from the road to the parking area. I built this area up with foam from foam plates, then sanded a nice transition from the road roadbed to the parking area.



Here we have the south end of Route 4. Remember, even though the foam used here is black and sometimes white, the styrene still needs to be put down and painted, this is just the roadbed. An easement transition between the south side of Cilleyville Road and Route 4 is also seen here. I next used a sanding bar with fine grit sandpaper to level the roadbed. This sanding also makes for a nice rough base for the glue to adhere to the coming styrene.



I next sanded the parking area so that there were no hard edges between the sheets of foam I had glued down for the station parking area. I next applied some acrylic artist paint with a 1" foam brush. I'm using two colors here, a dark and a light gray. I simply laid a bead of each color on the foam and mixed the two colors for variation. This picture was taken when I had one coat on. I have since placed another coat on. Next I will use Diorama Dirt that I picked up in Springfield from Monster Model Works. This "dirt" is a very fine mix that will match the gravel parking lot very nicely, but I'll cover that (no pun intended) later.



Here we have the roadbed of Route 4 going up the hill and meeting NH Route 11. At first I was going to trace a curve onto the foam and cut it in one piece, but I found it easier to simply cut a straight piece 2" wide and then carefully cut angles into the foam, glue, pin down and repeat. Somewhat tedious, but a lot less guessing involved. I'm using Midwest modeling pins here. They are sharp and long and work great holding down the roadbed. With this, I can honestly say that former NH Route 4's roadbed is done. I now need to start on NH Route 11's roadbed, but that should not take long. After that, styrene work will be next, followed by a mix of hydrocal and Diorama Dirt, paint and some distress work. Oh yeah, I stumbled on two techniques yesterday that I think yield great results in N scale for a gravel driveway and realistic paved roads, but your going to have to wait on that!

So, as you can see, work is progressing. Because of where the layout is situated, I'll be working on just this side of the layout. Hopefully, soon, Angela and I can find a bigger home so I can have a true layout / office area with a bit more room. Until then, I can't complain because progress is progress!

​Resuming on track one!

 

Thanks! As far as roads go, I'm not sure if my process is more simple or not. I started doing the foam because, real roads have a roadbed and simply gluing down some styrene didn't look right. The process is basically just foam, two inches wide, cut at a bevel, then thin styrene glued on top (Scribed sections if modeling a concrete road), sanded then hydrocal used as a smoother, then airbrushed. You could just leave the foam bare and just use acrylic paint to paint it, but the foam would dent easy. I simply use the foam our hamburgers and other meats come on. I wash them with dish soap before use, cut off the edges and start trimming for roads. If you look, you can sometimes find the black foam among the white, pink and yellow. I've noticed out here anyway, the green foam is usually produce, white is pork, pink is chicken, blue is seafood and black is usually hamburger and steaks.

 

Thanks Steve. This thread will be updated shortly once model airplane season is over. There is a lot of work planned for the south side of Potter Place in the way of track re-alignment.

 

The infamous hot rod and biker builder, Jesse James was once quoted, "It doesn't matter if you spent ten minutes or ten years on something, if it isn't right, tear it up and start over to do it right." Regardless of your thoughts on him, he has a point and one that I tend to live by. When we last saw updates to the layout, I was merrily working along and ready to add more scenery. However, that all changed when I received an envelope in the mail back in July.

I have been e-mailing a few people who have worked the very line I'm modeling and getting a fair amount of information in the process. Please realize I will keep the names of those folks private out of respect of them. Not everyone wants their names broadcasted all over the internet. The envelope I received that hot July day was from a gentleman who was probably one of the last railroaders to work the section of track I'm modeling, albeit for the New England Southern, a small short line that came about after Guilford purchased the B&M. We had talked a lot about the track layout in Potter Place and I wondered if the south side of the layout was indeed accurate. Today's mail contained a photograph of a B&M F3 heading north on the line about to cross Cilleyville Road. It was in this picture that I realized, my main siding was on the wrong side!

It sounded simple enough at first. Take out the RH #7, put in a LH #7, take up the siding, lay a new siding, oh wait, I need to move the hill, and the overpass, oh and then the small siding for the freight depot, gonna need wire drops here and... No simple task and probably why I have waited until now to fix the problem. The next six months, I blissfully ran the B&M local in complete ignorance. I could have gone on and just fudged it but there would be a small percent of modelers and railroaders who would know it was wrong. More importantly, I would know. So on Friday the 23rd, the wrecking crew came out.


The first thing to happen was to carefully remove the #7 RH turnout by Cilleyville Road and remove the siding track all the way back to the other side of the layout. Once that was done, I could study the picture a bit more and realize what I had seen in person last year had thrown me off a lot. Seams the Guilford crew tore up the main until it got to the switch near Cilleyville Road. Rather than deal with the destruction of the road, they left a portion of the main and the route to the large siding. This made me think the main from the station to the bridge was intact. I of course was wrong. We have in fact have a LH switch with the diverging route, 16 feet from the edge of Cilleyville Road, and then another RH switch off from that.


Fortunately this little bit of destruction fixed two problems I had. One, remove the wrong side siding and two, put the sidings in the dirt without roadbed as has been my present protocol. Here we see the new foam roadbed glued in place with a short stub for the portion that will lead to the next #7 switch. This switch will diverge to the long siding which will, like the former one, stretch to the other side of the layout or "Concord". The second and smaller switch will connect to a curved RH switch just before the overpass.


Here is another angle of the area. Look closely and you can see the picture I received that I am using as a guide.


Careful measurements with my N scale ruler and notes taken last fall, I carefully cut the tracks and glued in the #7 LH turnout. The piece of flex that had been cut out previously was carefully cleaned, cut and filed into place. Too many of my turnouts have been ruined by soldering them to the main, so this time, I did not solder them. I did however recycle the two drop wires that were on the previous siding and soldered them from the small flex filler to the main. The wires are hidden but you can see in the photograph above the gap which is were the soldered drops are. With track down, I cleaned the new tracks and ran a test locomotive through. No electrical problems and no derails! Now I could go on to the other #7 turnout in "Concord."

Not a lot to report. I spent a lot of time removing and trying to save the hill and roadway. I next need to order up some flex, two pieces should be enough, and next work on the siding. Some work will need to be done to get the curved turnout installed, then the shorter freight depot siding can be installed. Once these pieces are down, I hope track work is done on this side of the layout. The hill and overpass will have to be redone as well.

So hopefully I'm back at it with more updates now. Stay tuned as there will be more updates as time goes on.

​More to come...

 

When I last left you, I had taken up the siding that was on the south west side of Potter Place and had added a new #7 RH turnout. With the main back up and running it was time to finish what was left of the old siding. Originally this siding went all the way back to "Concord" and was used as a large siding and sometimes run around. Rather than waste this track, I wanted to simply re-use it and make a connection to the outside world. On further research of maps and articles, I found yet another way to justify my new ROW. At one time, there where three north bound main lines that started from Concord New Hampshire. As we are standing in the yard in Concord, we are looking north. The first line to our left or West in the maps is the Concord and Claremont, next is the Northern (the line I am modeling) and finally the Concord and Montreal. The C&M would branch of the Northern line a little north of Concord, just south of modern day 393's overpass. The C&C however would branch off sooner, around the Bridge Street overpass. I hope for some of you that are familar with Concord, this little bit of info helps. With that bit of logic established, it was time to lay some roadbed.


In this picture, one can see where the siding originally was by the black line. I simply and carefully, pulled up this track, cleaned it up and set it aside. The foam roadbed did not do so well, but was easily removed. A new line was placed on the layout, the feeders you see were repaired and new roadbed was glued in place. The use of pins helped keep the bed down.


Now the track is re-used from the siding, glued and trimmed flush with the layout edge. This gives me yet another dimenson on operations now as I can use this in my future switch list and much later, a connection to a fiddle yard. Keen historians of the B&M will cry fowl! They will say, "Jim, this is all fine and dandy, but the B&M closed the C&C in the early 1960's!" You would be correct, to a point! True, the B&M did abandon the line from West Concord to Contoocook in 1960, and subsiquently abandoned more of the main right into Claremont right up until 1964. However, the line from Concord (where we are on the layout) and West Concord were in tact until 1984. That is about 7 to ten miles, more than enough for me to justify this bit of track. What was the B&M doing with this section of track in 1976? I'm still researching this, however, there was and still is a quarry on this line. I have distinct memories of riding in my Dad's Mercury Capri (Remember those?) and stopping at the grade crossing at Route 3 right beside the bank and seeing a GP38-2 push a string of freight cars by. The line then ran parrallel to Route 3 before turning west in Fisherville and heading west into Contoocook. Another interesting fact, if you think this is all fantasy, take a walk and you will see the track is still in place from Route 3 all the way back to Concord. I have found some switches that serviced a few buildings across the street from the state pen. Not sure what they were but now I have an excuse to find out. So what about the C&M you ask? I'm glad you asked, but rather than give up all my secrets now, you'll have to wait. Now back to Potter Place.


With a new switch installed, I once again wanted to simulate the two sidings "in the dirt" as it were, just like in the prototype world. Most of us will simply ad more roadbed, but if we look in the real world, there is a difference in elevation from the main line to the spur or siding. Simulating this in N scale is subtle, but worthy. Before I had used a series of styrene to produce a grade from main to siding. This however was not as tapered as I would have liked and as such, larger diesel locomotives got hung up on the hump of track. What to do? Looking at the picture of Potter Place again, I was able to see that the next switch off the main started at the same elevation but soon and gradually smoothed down to the ground. I had already used sections of thin styrene to use as my roadbed for both sidings (more on this later) so I needed a transition from main to the thin styrene. Again, the foam from a meat tray comes to the rescue. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, take a look at the above picture as it shows what I did. That last word in the second call out should be here not her. I used foam safe CYA to carefully place the foam down after triming and beveling it. Once glued down, I used a sanding bar to sand a bevel and transition into it. As you can see, it feathers into the styrene roadbed nicely.


Next, the RH #7 turnout was carefully glued down after I tested the transition. In this picture, we see the GP40-2 on the main while the gon is on the siding. Sharp B&M fans will notice that the unit is a GP40-2 and say "Wrong!" Yes you would be correct. Somehow the shops in Deerfield liberated a Flux Capacitor from a Delorean and installed in in #317 as the B&M did not have these locomotives until 1978. Truth is, this is an Atlas engine I have had for a while and runs great. Didn't want to risk loosing detail parts off my Geep 9! There is a subtle but distinct difference in elevation, just like in real life. You will also notice the white styrene. You maybe asking yourself, why is that there? Well unfortunately, when the siding was on the other side, I used a soldering iron to melt small drainage ditches on this side of the main. That would have made the siding a bit more catty wompus than what I wanted, afterall I'm modeling the B&M, not Guilford! The styrene does two things, one becomes a new level base, and gives me a slight roadbed. The white will be gone after the track is airbrushed and weathered. While there will be some ballast, most of this trackage will have weeds and grass growing up between its ties.

So this is where I'm at right now. I need to get some more track supplies and work on the two sidings as well as the begining main of the C&M. How will that be done? Hopefully my theory will work. I realize this layout thread is a bit more wordy than most, lets be honest, at this point we have seen more on track work and design than pretty trains running through the country side. I hope however you all see the reason behind the madness. Prototype modeling has pitfalls that a free lancer may never have to consider but for me, that is part of the fun! If after reading this you have any questions about the layout, my theories or the B&M in general, feel free to post.

More to come...

 

I always try to let my turnouts "float". If necessary, I might put in one spike.

 

Thanks Hank. For some reason I had the reverse problem. I stumbled for years trying to justify each piece of track and industry, then one day said to myself, "I'll just copy real life." The fun thing I can do when this is all done up with scenery and buildings is run it as I intended with 1976 era locomotives and cars or in a bit of turn the clock back, run it as the 1950's with marron and gold F units. I can go forward to 1980's and even model the short line New England Southern or make believe the B&M never got purchased and now runs GP60s.

The meat trays are so versitle and are almost free, which being a New Englander, I like! Using them as a transition between main and siding works very well.

Ken, I may want your advice when it comes time to ballast them as well. I used to solder my turnouts but at the prices we pay for them, I like to re-use them if possiable. I have saved a few, but no more soldering turn outs. I glue my turnouts but use a small amount and generally let them float much like you do with your one spike.

 

Work has continued, however I don't have anything that is really picture worthy. The curved turnout that is in Concord is down as well as some drop down power wires. Some little things like adding ties to parts of the main line to fill in gaps was done as well. I hope to have both the lead main for the Concord & Montreal as well as the two sidings down this week. The Potter Place siding will do double duty of siding when viewed from the Potter Place side and C&M main when viewed from the Concord side. Ambitious? Maybe, time will tell. I'm trying to get all this track work done so I can get some terrain built as well as the over pass. With Galesburg only six months away and three full detail locomotive projects planned, time is becoming scarce.

I'm also researching turnout control. After a bit of research, the micro RC Servo route seems the best route. I'm looking for an option that will allow a "manual" or toggle switch throw and a "Dispatch" DCC throw. Because the layout is semi portable, I don't want toggle switches all over the fascia. Reserch in this will continue.