Turntable (Pt 2) - Pit

I started work on the pit.  The finished dimensions will be 13 5/8" diameter and 1 7/8" deep.  I have a piece of 15/32" plywood that's 2' x 4' in size.  That's just about right for three 16" square pieces.  I'm planning to cut the main hole to 14" diameter and line the side of the pit with 1/8" thick hardboard.  That brings the hole down to 13 3/4".  I want to leave 1/8" clearance on each end of the bridge and that brings it down to 13 1/2" and that will be the finished size of the bridge.  Perfect.

For the three pieces of plywood I drew two diagonal lines from corner to corner, crossing in the center.  Where they crossed I drilled a 1/8" hole in all three pieces while they were clamped together.  I made up a board to draw circles, a compass I guess, that has a screw hole in one end and holes for a pencil at 6" and 7".  The screw goes in the center hole of the plywood.  With the pencil in the 7" hole I drew a 14" circle for the pit on one piece of plywood and the 6" hole for a 12" circle that will give me the ring rail support on another.  The third piece of plywood goes under the other two and forms the base.  With the three pieces of plywood stacked the height is 30/32" from the upper surface of the base.  I need a finished height of 1 7/8" or 1 28/32".  I plan to use 1/2" Homasote over the sub-base of plywood.  That will give me 45/32" or 1 13/32".  To get the last 15/32" I cut some of the left over plywood into shims and glued them between the top layer with the 14" hole and the middle layer with the 12" hole.  Then I cut a strip of 1/8" hardboard (Masonite) 1 9/16" wide and glued it in to form the pit wall.  It sticks up 1/8" above the Homasote which is 6" in O scale which is the thickness of a narrow gauge tie.  Perfect.  I'll be able to run stall tracks up to the edge of the pit and the rail will meet the bridge rail just above the lip.

Update (1-9-18):  I took the plywood underlay into the shop and cut the recesses for the turntable, ash pit and coaling tower.  I mounted the turntable using corner braces glued in place beneath the plywood so the turntable can set flush in place and still be easily removed for maintenance.  Four screws in the corners hold it in place.  I can't do any more assembly on the pit until I get the bridge trucks in place because all final dimensions are tied into them including the depth of the circular rail and the height of the pit wall.


Update (2-13-18):  With the dolly truck parts delivered and assembled the turntable bridge is finished.  I can now use that to come up with final dimensions for depth and rail height in the pit.

I started by assembling the ring rail.  Originally I was going to buy some code 70 rail and 5" x 7" ties and hand lay everything.  I've had such bad luck getting parts delivered for this project that I didn't want to wait another month and a half for the rail to be delivered.  I had some code 70 Micro Engineering flex track laying around and it even had weathered rail.  I used some for the bridge rail and another piece for the ring rail.  The flex track was 36" in length and my ring rail is 37.75" in circumference.  I cut the flex track lengthwise down the center of the ties and then soldered two pieces end-to-end to give me the right length.  I used rail joiners and just soldered over them for a stronger joint and that really helped when soldering the rail into a ring.

I took the time to file the rough edges of each tie and then painted everything with rattle cans, grey and darker grey.  I had drawn the rail location on the piece of plywood before cutting out the center so now all I had to do was glue the rail along the line.  I used wire nails to hold the rail in place and Gorilla Glue to hold it down.  I then glued in 1/8" hardboard strips to dress up the edges of the plywood that showed inside the pit.  I also glued a piece of Homasote to the top piece of plywood to bring everything up to the correct level.

Final assembly and detailing coming up soon.

Turntable (Pt 1) - Bridge

My original plan was to use a 90' Walthers Cornerstone HO kit and modify it for narrow gauge O scale.  That would give me a 49.6' turntable which is just barely long enough for my 2-8-0 locomotive.  When I started to assemble the kit I realized how cheesy the quality is and quickly cancelled that idea.  I could buy one of several other O scale turntable kits that are available but the cost or the looks or the dimensions are not what I wanted.  My only reasonable solution was to build my own.  I spent some time cruising the net looking at old photos to get an idea of what I wanted.  I found a scale drawing of a turntable used by the East Broadtop RR and used that for inspiration.  I drew up a full size (1/4" = 1') drawing of my own to work out the dimensions.  The photo above shows my design above the Walthers turntable.  I expanded the bridge to be 13.5", or 55 scale feet, which looked better with the 2-8-0.  It's also wider to allow a walkway on each side of a locomotive and tender.  The pit is 2" deep and I added a ladder on each side of the bridge for access into the pit.  Diamond Scale (click here) makes excellent turntables in almost every scale.  The quality is very high and the prices are in line with that.  Out of my league.  Luckily for me they also sell individual parts.  I'll be using their O scale wheel dollies along with several other parts they make for the center shaft.  I contacted Diamond Scale and they offered to send me a scale drawing of the wheel dollies so I could incorporate them into my drawing.  When it arrived I found that all I needed to do was notch the ends of my girders to make things fit.

I ordered the plastic parts I needed from Plastruct (click here) for the girders and wood parts (8" X 8" sugar pine ties, 2" X 10" decking planks) from Kappler (click here).  While I wait for delivery I'll get done what I can with what I have in my shop.  I cut out a wood buck from a full scale piece of 2" X 2" to form up the base of the bridge.  It will be clad with the girders and topped with the decking so you won't be able to see it but it'll add some needed rigidity for the center shaft and the wheel dollies.

I made the hand rails while I was waiting for other parts.  Actually, I made them several times.  The first time around I used heavy copper solid core wire and soldered on stanchions from the same material.  The result was a handrail that looked like it was 100 years old and severely beaten.  Since my railroad will still be in it's infancy in the 1920's and my foreman is meticulous with maintenance this just wouldn't do.  A friend suggested I try brass rod.  I found some 3/64" rod that measured out to 0.045".  My 2" railing in O scale would be 0.042" so this is plenty close enough.  I wanted to show pipe joints where the stanchions meet the handrail but couldn't find anything that looked right.  I ended up using heavy blobs of solder at the joints, filing them down to a good shape and then using three coats of brushed on enamel paint to build up the joint uniformly.  In reality the final result probably can't be seen from 3' away but I'm happy with the results.The stanchion supports are made from 0.010 thick styrene super glued into place.  A resistance soldering station would have allowed me to use brass for this and the final results would have been much better.  Note to self......

Referring to the book "Bridges & Trestles" from Model Railroader magazine I was able to closely match the prototype for girder construction.  Closely but not exactly.  The prototype used 3/4" steel plate  and angles but I felt that in O scale the equivalent was just too wimpy looking.  Instead of 0.020" I used 0.030" which looked better to my eye.  It only shows on the edges of the flange and bracing angles.  The girder web plates are cut from 0.030" sheet styrene and the angles are 1/8" (6" x 6") and 3/64" (4' x 4") ABS.  I used ABS instead of styrene because the styrene angles inside web is angled while the ABS is flatter which would make a difference when trying to mate them up.  I used 0.030" x 0.100" strip styrene for backing, or filler, for the bracing angles.  I also cut my own 0.030" x 0.280" cover plates for the top surface of the girders.  Where my girders change angles or are notched for the wheel dollies I doubled up the bracing angles and placed them back-to-back as if the girder was made up in sections and then riveted together.

I will be adding rivet detail to the angles and ordered some 3D resin rivet decals from Archer (click here).  The prototype spacing for bridge rivets was generally 3" (0.063" in O scale).  I drew this out in scale on paper and it looked way too bunched up.  At least to me.  The O scale bridge rivets from Archer are spaced at 0.195" (about 9.25") and these looked too far apart.  I found the S scale bridge rivets spaced at 0.146" (6.9") looked pretty good so I'll be using those.

I made the upper bracing that goes between the girders using the same bracing angles as I did for the girders and added gusset plates made from 0.030" styrene.  When I laid it on top of the wood buck I realized there needed to be some spacing.  I ran the buck through the table saw and recessed the top surface about 3/8" in between the girders.  When the wood gets painted black it should "disappear".  The reality here is that the top bracing probably won't even show beneath the 8" x 8" bridge ties and the 2' x 10" decking but if something does show through then it'll have some depth to it.

Update:  I got the rivets from Archer and spent a good two days getting them in place.  Tedious work.  Before I did that I sprayed the bridge in primer grey so I'd be able to see the rivets better.  When I got the rivet packages opened I found more detailed information than had been provided on the website.  I ended up using scale 3/4" rivets spaced 3.25" apart and it came out looking just right.  In the center section I added five rows of vertical rivets and a small sheet of .030" styrene to simulate the pivot bearing mounts.  I also added additional rivets in the area where the frame is notched for the wheel dollies.  This is to indicate the addition of splice plates.  It adds some extra detail and I'm explaining it with the story that the turntable was lengthened when the railroad added the 2-8-0 to it's roster.  I made up some end plates for the bridge using the same basic construction as the main girders and added 0.030" x 3/16" cover plates to finish up the ends of the girders.  Once again......this area probably won't show when the model is finished but I know the detail is there.

Another Update (1-9-18):  I airbrushed the bridge in engine black and right away realized the rivets had disappeared.  I mean they were still there but just didn't show up.  I used Bragdon weathering powders to give it some age and they did return if you looked real close.  I think they don't stick up far enough to really show.  My opinion at this point is that they weren't worth all the hours of work it took to get them in place.  I'm still waiting on an order from Diamond Scale for the bridge trucks and center shaft.  Also waiting on an order from Kapler for scale lumber that will be used for the bridge deck and ties.  Slow building process at this time of year.

Update (1-31-18):  I've spent most of the last two weeks working on the control system and have covered that in Part 3.  I wanted to mention here how the drive system is mounted.  The turntable shaft extends through the pit floor and is held in place by a bearing and retainer.  Mounted to the shaft is a 60 tooth GT2 pulley which is a metric size with 2mm between each tooth.  This pulley is driven by a stepper motor with a 40 tooth pulley mounted to its output shaft.  The pulleys are connected by a 400 tooth (800mm) belt.  In the picture above you can see there is an idler pulley mounted behind the turntable shaft.  I chose this location to prevent side loading on the shaft.  The belt still has enough contact on the shaft pulley to provide good drive.  Both the idler pulley and the stepper motor mount are adjustable to provide the proper belt tension.

I also finally received the wood strips for the bridge decking.  I spent a day cutting everything to length and scribing wood grain on all surfaces.  I then sanded everything lightly with 220 grit paper to remove sharp edges and fluff sticking out from the scribing.  When all that was done I threw all the pieces into a one gallon zip lock bag and poured in my weathered wood concoction.  I let this sit for 12 hours, turning the pieces over and sloshing the liquid around every now and then.  The next day I poured the stain back into its container and laid the pieces out to dry for two days.  The next step is to assemble the deck.  For information on the weathering check out Rusty Stumps Weathering Parts 1 and 2 (click here) and (here).

Update (2-5-18):  Made some progress on the bridge.  It's almost complete now.  I'm still waiting on parts for the dolly trucks from Diamond Scale.  When they come in I'll get them painted and mounted to the bridge.  After that I'll just have the pit and control panel to do to finish up this project.

Update (2-13-18):  I finally got the rest of the dolly truck parts in from Diamond Scale.  The truck frames are cast white metal and the wheels are small diameter bearings with brass bushings.  I filed down the castings to clean up the flashing but they are very nice pieces to start with and didn't require a lot of work.  Diamond Scale uses these trucks on much larger turntables than what I'm building here.  Mine is only 55' and I think some of theirs are as big as 130'.  The cast frames hold the wheels at an angle to match the ring rail and because of this I had to modify them.  My ring rail is just over 12" in diameter so the angle for the wheels has to be pretty tight.  I had to cut the dolly frames down the center and file in a 10 degree angle.  I then glued them back together and then glued in a flat panel across the top to add some rigidity.  Once the glue was set I primed and painted the frames and then added some age using Bragdon weathering powders.

The picture here shows the top dolly is modified and the other stock.  Sitting on the ring rail it becomes obvious that the modified one follows the curvature better.

Now that the bridge is finished I have the final dimensions I needed to complete the pit.  Woohoo!

Getting in Line

Once I laid down the 1/2" sub layer of plywood for the yard area I decided to pencil in the track locations to verify that the design would work out in full scale.  The yard area is not a big deal because it's basically three tracks running parallel to the wall.  The only concern was if there would be enough space for the building flats between the yard and the wall.  As it turns out there's plenty of room.  The raised service track for the sand house and the coaling tower worked out fine as did the ash pit tracks.

The problem I ran into was with the turntable and roundhouse.  The ash pit track is the return track for the turntable.  The roundhouse is located on a bump-out perpendicular to that.  I discovered that none of the roundhouse stall tracks were a clean 90 degrees to the ash pit track.  Everything was off by 4 degrees.  The reality of this is that it probably doesn't matter.  Whether the turntable is operated manually or electronically it shouldn't have any affect.  To my mind though one of the tracks should be perpendicular to the return track so that all the other tracks around the turntable can be placed evenly around it.  I can't move the turntable and there's no easy way to move the yard.  Shifting the roundhouse by 4 degrees makes the most sense.  But here's the rub.  The bump-out is just barely big enough for the roundhouse and cannot be moved because of space limitations in the room.  Shifting the roundhouse 4 degrees moves it too close to the edge of the layout.  Gotta think about this one.

The roundhouse is a Thomas Yorke design and came as a very basic kit with just plaster walls and instructions.  I bought this about ten years ago and am just now getting around to building it.  The original design calls for the rear wall to be 53" back from the center of the turntable.  That's 30" between the edge of the turntable and the front wall of the roundhouse.  That's a lot of real estate!  There's no way that would fit in my plans for this small room so I modified the design by pulling the building forward so it was 12" back instead of 30".  That's much better but it caused the rear walls to spread out more than the wall sections I had for back there.  I was planning to pour new wall sections to make up for that but it would have required a lot of plaster carving.

Now I have the problem with the 4 degree offset and the building being too close to the edge.  It finally dawned on me to use narrower stall doors and this will make the whole building narrower.  With the original kit I would have had to make my own doors anyway so making them a little narrower isn't a big deal.  Then I found some narrow doors from Grandt Line that would work.  It made the entire roundhouse narrower by enough that I felt comfortable shifting it over the 4 degrees.  As a bonus I can add one additional wall section to the rear wall and it spreads it out exactly the right amount.

So now I can set the third stall track exactly 90 degrees off the ash pit track.  When I began drawing in the rest of the possible track positions around the turntable they came out to be centered exactly an inch apart, center to center, and gave me 40 possible track positions.  Exactly.  Everything kinda fell into place like magic.  This is how it's supposed to be.

Layout Framework

The layout is a shelf design, meaning that the support framework is hung on the walls instead of being built as a table out in the middle of the room.  I used the book "How to Build Model Railroad Benchwork" by Linn Wescott which was originally written in 1979 but is still a great source of information.

The basic construction uses 2" x 2"s for pilasters.  These get lag screwed to the studs in the wall and then everything else gets attached to them.  Bracket arms (1" x 3") and braces (2" x 2") form the main supports with gussets (1/2" plywood) to add rigidity.  "L" girders (1" x 2" and 1" x 3") are then attached across the bracket arms to support joists (1" x 3") which support the scenery and tracks.

Using shelf style benchwork has several advantages.  It leaves floor space open underneath which makes for a nice storage area.  It also allows more walk around area to view the layout and provides a more linear look for laying the track.  I think you can fit a lot more track into a room using the shelf style layout.  For what I'm doing it also allows me to add a second level to the layout without blocking the view of the lower level.

The two pictures above show the first stages of construction of the lower level yard area seen on the left side of the track design image below.

I plan to lay some track to the benchwork I have done so far so I can get things running and test out some of my track design parameters.  I'll be laying down a layer of 1/2" Homasote over the plywood foundation which will provide a good base for spiking down the track. 

Layout Design

When I started building the structures for the engine service facility I built a module with the intention of simply adding that to the layout when the time came.  Once I started construction of the layout though I realized that the module had some limitations and it made more sense to just start over.  The biggest problem was that the animation motors were mounted between two layers of the module base and access was difficult.  I'm also going to be using 1/2" Homasote on the layout but the module only had 5/16" which I've read isn't thick enough for hand laid track.  So I'm using the structures I built but am starting over with the base.

The layout is being built in an 11' x 12' room with a 4' x 8' closet.  The closet door has been removed and my work bench is located in there beneath the lower level of the layout.  The track will all be hand laid except in the helix, which will use Micro-Engineering flex track.  Rail is On30 code 83.  Minimum radius is 18" and maximum grade is 5%.

The main layout design is point-to-point with a four level helix connecting the upper and lower levels.  There is a return track that forms a loop on the lower level.  I added this as a whim thinking I could run a railbus on auto-pilot, looping the lower level and creating havoc for switching operations. Just to make things more interesting.  Where the loop connects at the bottom left side of the photo below there's a hinged drop-down panel that allows access through the doorway.  An additional thought for this area is having a roll-around cart with a storage module on top that has 3 or 4 tracks.  The cart could be rolled up to the bottom end of the yard to transfer cars.  This would represent incoming and outgoing traffic from other lines and would be rolled up at the beginning of an operating session.  This is an idea for sometime in the future when I actually have some boxcars and hoppers to deliver goods around the layout.

To take a tour of the layout we start on the left side of the image above.  This is the main yard and engine service area and includes a turntable, roundhouse, car shop, sand house, coaling tower, water tank and ash pit.  The roundhouse is a Thomas Yorke design with plaster walls that I bought about ten years ago.  I have to modify it to make it fit closer to the turntable than originally designed.  The turntable will be made from scratch and has a return track coming in from the ash pit and north and south outgoing tracks going out to the mainline.  Along the wall on the left are building flats for shops and industries.  The yard design is a modified and stretched out version of John Allen's Time Saver.  As the track curves around at the top of the photo it passes several more building flats along the wall and a smelter on the bump out.

The smelter will be made from scratch and is a very condensed version of the Rose-Walsh smelter that was located at Silverton, Colorado.  After getting through the yard area the mainline goes down to a single track, crosses on a bridge over a small town in a ravine and comes to a fork.  Going off to the left will take you to the helix and up to the upper level, the mining region.  Going to the right takes you around the outside of the helix, across three bridges traversing a mountainside that extends to the floor.  This area is based on the high line above Ophir, Colorado.

After the third bridge the line passes through a short tunnel into the closet (4' X 8'), then runs along the side of a mountain and approaches a fork. One side is the return loop and will take you back to the roundhouse.  The other side forks off to pick up processed ore from a 20 stamp ore mill.  The mill is based on plans from the book "Modeling the Mining Industry: Gold and Silver Stamp Mills" from Western Scale Models.  I'm planning to have a fully detailed interior to show the refining process.  The mill won't be animated but will have a sound track with the sounds of a stamp mill in operation.  The other end of the fork is the return loop back to the roundhouse.

The helix has a radius of 18" and a grade of 4.5% rising through four full loops to climb 20" to the upper level which will be a narrow shelf only 18" deep.  It will represent the mining district so the landscape will be mountainous.  There is a "Y" for turning the engine and a runaround siding to ease the process of picking up and dropping off cars. The mill in the upper left corner of the image below is based on the Little Dora mill located near Silverton.  The four small mines will send their raw ore to be processed at the mill in the closet.  This will take a run around the outside of the helix on a 5% down-slope to arrive at the upper level of the mill. 

All three mills will send their processed ore to the smelter on the lower level.  Many of the industries represented by the flats on the lower level will also be to serve the mines.  I'd like to include a forge and a lumber yard if space allows.  The idea is to have plausible reasons for traffic on the railroad.  I plan to use a car card system that has one card for every car on the railroad.  A computer program will generate deliveries and pick-ups for each operating session and the cards will be used to make up trains and tell the crew where to go.  The plan is to make operation as realistic as possible.  All engines will be equipped with sound and controlled by RF hand-held remotes.  Power will be by batteries stored in the tender for each locomotive.

Ash Pit

The final part of my engine service facility was the ash pit.  I combined elements from the drawing above with the ash pit at Chama.  The pit is made from MDF because I had some laying around in my shop.  The track support is made with styrene.  Weathering is with Bragdon powders.  I plan to add an ash pile beneath the tracks with about five LEDs hidden under that.  The LEDs will be controlled by an Arduino using an inaudible sound track to make the LEDs flicker randomly simulating hot ash being dumped from the engine above.

Sand House

The next addition to the engine service facility was the sand house.  I'd seen plenty of models of sand houses, most of them based on the ones at Durango or Chama.  Basically they consist of a large sand bin that gets loaded by hand from a gondola and a one story structure with no windows.  Next to the sand house is a large tower with a spout for loading the sand into the sand dome of a locomotive.  It took some serious research to find out what was inside the sand house and how everything worked together.  Here's what I learned;

Sand gets delivered to the sand house on the raised service track (Chama) that runs behind the coaling tower.  It gets unloaded by hand into the sand bin which is located against the side of the sand house.  There's a doorway from the house to the bin and a hatch in the wall at about chest height.  The sand gets shoveled through the hatch and lands in a smaller bin inside the sand house.  Next to this bin is a coal fired furnace with a stack extending up through the roof.  Around the top of the furnace is a plywood bin shaped like a large funnel with numerous holes (about 1") punched in the plywood.  Sand gets shoveled into this funnel and the heat from the furnace dries the sand, causing it to sift through the holes and fall to the floor.  The dried sand then gets shoveled into another small bin.  This is located against the wall with the sand tower just on the other side.  There's a pipe that runs from the front of the building, forms a "Y" at the bin and then extends to a holding tank at the top of the tower.   When an engine pulls up to get sand they connect an air hose from the locomotives compressor to the pipe at the front of the sand house.  The force of the air going up the pipe draws sand through the "Y" connection and pumps it up to the tank at the top of the tower.  The air exhausts out of the tank through a pipe at the top and the sand falls into the tank.  The bottom of this tank is funnel shaped with a valve at the bottom.  The spout is attached to the funnel by a hinge so it can be raised and lowered.  There's a handle on the end of the spout that connects to the valve.  The fireman opens the lid if the dome and lowers the spout.  When it's in position he pulls on the handle to open the valve and sand is gravity fed down through the spout.  But wait, there's more.  The roof of the Chama sand house has two vents in it.  The heat from the furnace rises to the rafters and gets exhausted through the vents.  There are no windows because they're trying to keep everything warm and dry inside.  If the sand is wet when it gets forced up to the tower it can clog the lines of both the tower and the locomotive.  It's gotta be dry.  Once it's in the sand dome of the locomotive it's kept dry by the heat of the steam running through the tubes inside the engine.  That's why the sand dome is on top of the engine.

When I built the coaling tower I decided the back side of the engine service facility should be visible from the side of the layout because it has more visual interest.  I wanted to add some plausible detail to the sand house too.  This is where I let my mind wander.  That gondola is sitting up on the service track 5' above the sand bin.  That same track is used to dump coal into the coaling tower bin from a hopper.  Why not use a hopper to deliver the sand too and have the sand bin extend under the service track just like the coal bin?  The sand still has to be shoveled by hand into the sand house but it just made sense to me that it should be built like that.  I also thought the sand bin should have a roof at the house end to help keep the sand dry.  Beneath the track the bin is divided in two with the right side used for coal.  Everything else is based on the sand houses of Durango and Chama.  The sand house and raised service track are from Chama.  The sand tower at Durango had a better look to it so I used that.

For the sand tank at the top of the tower I used half of a plastic "hour glass" style timer from an old board game.  I ran heavy thread through the air line to the weight on the counter balance to give animation to the spout.  The tread runs into the sand house to a stepper motor mounted beneath the layout.  Control is by an Arduino which also provides a sound track for the sand house.

Build Your Own Water Tank

Ever since I was a kid I've enjoyed making models.  About two years ago I decided to give scratch building a try.  I bought a number of different sized scale lumber from Northeastern Scale Lumber and made up some "weathered wood" stain from a recipe I got on the net.  My source for stain and technique is Rusty Stumps (R. S. Part #1) and (R. S. Part #2).  This is an excellent tutorial and the results are very realistic.  Once I had my lumber cleaned up and stained I selected a fairly simple project, a water tank, to start with.  I researched the net for info and drawings and then drew up my own design based on my narrow gauge needs and the use of a 4" PVC coupling.  My main source of information was a clinic provided by the Lone Star Region modelers group (click here).  The clinic is available in PDF and has 3 parts; (Part #1), (Part #2) and (Part #3).

For my water tank I used a 4" PVC coupling and wrapped it with 2" X 8"s laid out on two strips of scotch tape creating a "wrap".  I glued this to the PVC coupling and then used bare wire as straps to hold it in place.  I tried #18 wire first but it looked too heavy so I finally replaced that with #22 copper single strand wire.  I twisted the ends to tighten them and then covered the twists with the water gauge when the model was finished.  The banding clamps, NBW castings and the spout are from Grandt Line (click here).  For most of the build I followed the clinic instructions but I used my own full size drawing to lay out the parts.  For the plaster footings I made forms with 1/4" x 1/4" wood  to give me 1' high pads.  I airbrushed the tank with Acrylic paint (Canary Yellow) and lightly weathered it with chalks and Bragdon weathering powders (click here).

Inside the tank I mounted several pulleys and attached a heavy thread line from the spout to a stepper motor mounted beneath the layout.  The motor is controlled by an Arduino and has a sound file that runs in sync with the motion of the spout.  The sound file has the sounds of the fireman opening the water hatch on the tender and then lowering the spout.  Water then gushes into the tender for about 90 seconds, then the spout is raised back to the storage position and the water hatch is closed.  Fun stuff.  The final result is a fairly realistic animated model of a (approx.) 35,000 gallon water tank for a narrow gauge short line railroad.

 

 

Getting Started

I'm just getting started on an On30 layout.  This is a free lanced narrow gauge line serving the mining industry in the Rocky Mountains during the early 1920's.  I plan to use Arduinos to control sound and animation at several areas around the layout.  Train controls will be with RF using hand held remotes.  There will be no power on the rails (dead rail) which will make wiring the layout and track maintenance pretty painless.  There's a lot I want to do but I'm limited by the size of the room, 11' X 12'.  Still, I think I can get a lot in a small space and have plenty of fun doing it.

The first thing I did was draw up a track plan on paper.  I quickly realized how time consuming this was so I bought a design program (AnyRail) and started all over.  I set limits for track radius (18") and grade (5%).  The three engines I have right now are a Gilpin style Shay, a 2-6-0 and a 2-8-0  and I'm confident they can handle these limits.  I'll do some testing when I start laying track just to make sure.  The AnyRail program turned out to be a good investment.  I could design on separate layers, save parts I liked and redo others.  I was also able to make scale footprints for some structures I already have and could create reasonable ones for buildings I hope to include later on.  I intend to build most structures from scratch so I won't be tied down by predetermined sizes.

As I started laying out a design with the program I found that the room size was really limiting me.  I was using Micro-Engineering flex track and turnouts available through the software.  There were some places where I really needed something different though and nothing else was available in the narrow gauge O scale library.  Since HO scale uses the same rail width as On30 I looked in their library and this was where I was introduced Fast Tracks.  Fast Tracks makes templates for hand laid track and this opened up a new door for me with all kinds of possibilities.  Using curved turnouts I could fit a lot more into my small room.  I decided then that hand laid track was the only way to get what I wanted.  Something else that helped me expand was adding a helix to get to a second level.  And I also expanded the room by using the 4' X 8' closet.

I came up with a design I liked and reworked it until I was really satisfied.  I then downloaded a program called TrainPlayer that simulates running trains on your layout design.  I was able to set out and pick up cars at mines and industries and work through all the shuffling to see how things operated.  I made a few small changes and decided I had a good design.  The next step was to start construction.