Author Archives: Jack Shall

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About Jack Shall

I've been a model railroader and railfan for well over 60 years now. My interests lie in the steam era and the early diesel era. My modeling has been in HO, but I do have a closet interest in Fn3 :-) It's been a number of years since I've done any layout construction, and the new Louisiana Central pike under construction is by far my most ambitious effort. Follow along with me on this new adventure of the Louisiana Central.

More Track Going Down

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Layout progress continues at a slow, but indeed at a steady pace.  As you’ve read in previous posts, I’m starting with all of the (mostly) hidden staging track as it’s the furthest away from the aisle and the most difficult to work with.  The Louisiana Central trackage is complete, including wiring, and is operational, sans a switch machine at the entry to the area.  This past weekend saw the start of trackage for the Illinois Central staging area.  I’ve got enough roadbed completed to do all of the staging track at that end of the layout.

I’ve run the power bus along with the track I’ve been installing, and tapping the bus along the way to feed the track as I progress.  I have the bus temporarily connected to the command station/booster for testing purposes.  Last week I installed a backboard and shelf for one of the three planned booster districts.  I’ll be using DCC Specialties PSX circuit breakers to further sub-divide each power district, and I’ve installed the three C/Bs for the district I’m working in.  I still have to run the interconnecting wiring between the booster and the C/Bs, and then connect the power buses.  When that is done, the wiring for the entire sub-district will be complete, and the other sub-districts can be connected as they’re run.

I don’t generally get any work done on the layout during the work week, however I thought maybe I could devote a bit of time in the evenings to working simple projects, like building car kits and such.  I have an old roll-top desk in my living room that is unused, in fact it was my hobby workbench before my permanent bench was completed out in the train building.  I’ve decided to reactivate the old desk as a secondary workbench, and have recently started to restock it with common tools and supplies….whatever is needed for the “simple” projects.  I have read several times that doing small tasks like that can have a significant impact on overall progress, so I’m going to give it a shot.

As I’ve mentioned before, I operate regularly on Lou Schultz’s C&O Railroad over in Covington.  I’m sure most of you know that Lou has been going through quite an ordeal with a health issue for the past month or so.  Please keep him in your prayers to help get him through this.

-Jack

An Historic Event

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An Historic Event occurred this day on the Louisiana Central Railroad when the first trains rolled across the line.

The first train to traverse the rails was powered by engine number 5582, an ALCO RSD-5  recently purchased from the C&O Railroad.  She hauled a short train of assorted box cars over the line.  She was later followed by the railroad’s number 83, an ancient 4-4-0,  hauling the road’s ex-commuter day coach.  The car was packed with the “brass”, many railroad employees and a few railfans that managed to finagle a ride.  All went well during the festivities with nary an incident.  You can witness the event via these photos.

Full disclosure:  well, they rolled through the staging area for the railroad which is as far as the line has gotten at this point.  However, this staging area represents the line between Willis and Bude, Mississippi, and that’s a long way!  But the important thing is that trains rolled under their own power.

-Jack

Track Going In

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Well January and early February were just chock full of railroading events.  I think there are a couple more things coming, the Louisiana Rail Run for one.  Now that things are slowing down a bit, I’ve had more time to put in on the layout.

I have installed the hidden staging track for the Louisiana Central.  Last week it became apparent that I was short on rail joiners for the Atlas code 83 track that I’m using in the staging areas.  Due to production problems in China, Atlas track and accessories are extremely hard to come by presently.  Art Houston stepped up to the plate and mailed a bunch of joiners to me so that track laying can continue unimpeded.  Thanks Art!

I also soldered the electrical feeders to the installed track and pulled the track bus wiring below the area.  I’ll be hooking up the feeders to the track bus this weekend.  I’m going to sub-divide my booster districts into several smaller districts fed through DCC Specialties PSX series circuit breakers.  I have three on hand presently, so I can complete the wiring to this track.  I hope to do that this weekend so that I can actually run a train!

Next trackwork will be the Illinois Central hidden staging track.  The sub-roadbed is already done, so track laying will come soon.

-Jack

January – It’s Been a Busy Month

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January has been a great month for railroading.  I’ve been attending events for the past three weekends, and have yet another this Saturday coming.

The Crescent City Model Railroad Club in New Orleans held their annual open house early in the month.  They’re in the process of converting their layout to DCC operation, and since the layout would be down, they decided to remodel several major sections.  Wayne Robichaux and I went down to inspect their progress and also to hit the few remaining hobby shops in the area.  Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a single decent model railroad shop left in south Louisiana.  A few shops we hit had nice selections of Lionel and similar, but us “scale” guys are left in the cold.

The following weekend Ron Findley and I drove over to Hattiesburg, Mississippi to attend the annual banquet of the Mississippi Great Southern Chapter of the NRHS.  Those folks put on a fine get-together.  There were several vendors displaying their wares, the dinner was good, and the guest speaker was quite interesting.  It was good seeing old friends and acquaintances over there.

This past Saturday several of us drove over to Covington to operate on Lou Schultz’s C&O layout.  Overall the session went well, there were plenty of snacks to chow down on, and as usual, it was good to meet with fellow model railroaders.

And finally, this Saturday, January 26th, there will be the Train Day at the Library event at one of the local libraries here in Baton Rouge.  There will be numerous displays about railroading (prototype and modeling), possibly a display layout, and many slide presentations by Forrest Becht, a noted railfan and photographer.

Oh, BTW . . . I actually managed to get a bit of track laid on the Louisiana Central.  I’ve been struggling back in the corner of the room it seems forever, but we’re finally getting rail down.  I’m using Atlas code 83 track and switches for my hidden track (which is what I’m laying presently), and I’m not too impressed with the construction of the switches with regards to soldering jumper wires to them.  Soldering rail feeders isn’t too big a deal, but soldering jumpers to the points is!  They’re just formed sheet metal and I found it quite difficult to tack a wire to the lower portion of the point so it would clear wheel flanges.  Despite my efforts, I had to do considerable filing afterwards to clear the NMRA gauge nubs.  And the frog . . . what a pain!  The frog doesn’t accept solder well, but there is a small tab with a hole sticking out to one side of the frog.  I couldn’t find my taps, so drove to a friend’s house for him to tap the holes for me.  Then I screwed a 1-72 screw to each and added a nut to the bottom.  I placed a dab of solder below the nut so it will never come loose, then soldered a jumper to the screw.  Despite the precautions I took (good hot iron with freshly tinned tip, and a fast in and out technique) the thin plastic surrounding the tab melted away and the cast frog on one switch came loose from its mounting in the switch.  Now I need to figure out what kind of adhesive I need to use to adhere metal to slippery plastic so as to permanently reattach the frog on that switch.

That’s about it for now.  My main focus on the layout will be to get track laid, hopefully at a steady rate.  Leave a comment if you have any questions or suggestions.

-Jack

Another Progress Report

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Benchwork construction is making slow, but steady progress.  I manage to get more done each weekend.  I’m still working the corner of the room that I wrote about in my last post, but I see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I have the risers and roadbed complete along a 35′ length of layout now, and that will contain about 120 lineal feet of track.  About two-thirds of that will be hidden staging track, and that track is ready to be laid.  This past weekend saw the completion of the roadbed for that, and I’ve drawn the track centerlines out.  I spent Sunday afternoon (after watching the Giants crush the Saints…ouch!) studying the wiring diagrams for the Atlas code 83 switches that I’ll be using in the staging areas.  My intention is to solder a jumper onto every single piece of rail, not depending on rail joiners or pressed joints for electrical continuity.  That will probably be a PITA, but not nearly as much as trying to find open circuits a few years down the road when mechanical connections begin to fail.

I’ve had a couple folks comment about my slow progress.  Well, it’s been quite a few years since I did any layout construction, and even though I know generally what to do, I still feel like (and make the mistakes of) a rookie.  Since I haven’t established myself as a famous model railroading guru, I find that I don’t have legions of volunteers begging for the chance to assist in the construction of the next great model railroad.  Therefore I’m mostly stuck with doing this virtually alone, save for some occasional help from my friend Wayne (he provides those extra hands for ripping lumber and things of that nature).  The result of my inexperience and generally slow nature, and lack of experienced help, is somewhat tepid progress.

But, progress is being made!

After I get some track down, I’ll file another report, and probably post a couple photos on the website.

Merry Christmas to all…

-Jack

It’s Fall …and it’s Railroading Time

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We’re getting into my favorite time of the year for model railroading and railfanning.  The temps have come down and the rains have slacked off . . . we’ve had some beautiful days these past several weeks.  Last weekend was the annual open house for the railroad club up in Jackson, Louisiana.  As usual, they had all of their layouts on display and operating.  I don’t think many clubs can boast of having an operating layout in each of the major scales.  And the outdoor operations are fun to watch also.  Their G scale garden railroad is pretty cool, and of course, the operating live steam loop always has some really nice equipment under steam.  I got there about lunch time (and consumed one of their complimentary lunches), but ran out of time before I got to visit all of the layouts.  It appeared to me that they had a nice turnout for the event.

This weekend coming Lou Schultz over in Covington will be having an operating session on his C&O layout.  There is also the annual railroading event over in Meridian, Mississippi this weekend.  It’s too bad that it conflicts with Lou’s session, as I would like to do both.  And the weekend following this will see another operating session down at Art Houston’s layout in Houma.  This is also the time of year that we occasionally have a train show, either in Covington or Gonzales (unfortunately, there is no show scheduled for this year).

It’s also a great time to spend next to the tracks, with the mild days and crisp weather.

I’m still working on my layout, though at a bit of a reduced pace.  As I reported earlier, the basic framework of the benchwork is all but complete.  I’ve turned my attention to the sub-roadbed and risers this past month.  I am working in one corner of the room where several of the tracks going into the hidden staging area will be located.  It turns out that this is a difficult area to lay out and build.  A couple of the tracks at the rear are on curves and are descending at the same time.  They start at different places, but ultimately end up on the same hidden roadbed.  It is challenging to say the least.  I would have rather started in an area of straight, level track to kind of ease into things, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it would be much easier in the long run to install this complex area, then build out away from it, than to do it the other way round.

I haven’t posted any pictures lately as I want to wait until I have some track actually spiked down.  Trackwork in place signifies to me that the section is complete, thus ready to photograph.

I have my vacation time coming up later this year, and I hope I am able to use some (most) of it working on the layout.

-Jack

The Spencer Logging Operation

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One of the featured industries on the layout will be the logging operation of the Spencer Lumber Company.  Spencer’s mill will be located at the town of Oneida (on one of the layout’s peninsulas), and will be patterned somewhat loosely on the real-life mill of the former Crowell Long Leaf Lumber Company.  The Crowell facility still lives as a museum here in Louisiana and I wrote a little piece about it in the blog post The Southern Forest Heritage Museum back in June of 2011.

The Crowell property has all the pieces in place for one to photograph and study, and while I can’t model the facility literally due to space constraints, it will at least allow me to include the vital infrastructure necessary for a lumber mill.  Once you understand the work-flow and the function of the various buildings, planning a “correct” model should be much easier.

However, the other part of the operation – the actual harvesting of the timber – had me scratching my head.  I have a nice run from the mill up to the logging area, which even includes a double switchback, and I have a loading area at the top.  But the space is so limited, especially in depth, that I just didn’t have any idea how I was going to model any sort of reasonable logging activity.  A few weeks ago I spied a copy of Kalmbach’s book, The Model Railroader’s Guide to Logging Railroads, so I purchased it.  In general it is a nice book, with a good description of all the various facets of the logging industry.  Admittedly if falls far short of being the definitive volume that one needs to pull off such a modeling endeavor; that would take many volumes to accomplish.  However there was one short section in the book that provided me with my salvation.  In short, it was the “reload” operation.  This was a situation where trucks were used to haul the logs out of the woods, and to a reloading point where the logs were transferred from the trucks to the railhead.  This became very common in the later years of railroad logging operations (which I will be modeling in 1964) as trucks and equipment were better able to penetrate into the forest.  In fact, this method often became more economical than re-laying track to all the various cutting sites.  This idea will be perfect for my line.  All I need do is add some kind of loader at the high end (a McGiffert or a Barnhart) and I’ll be in business.

While the logging operation won’t be the biggest traffic generator on the layout, I think it will be the most interesting, and I look forward to actually building it.

-Jack

Sub-roadbed Work Started

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I haven’t posted in over a month so I thought I’d post a short update on the layout progress.  As I mentioned last month, I had slowed a bit to take a breather from the intensity of benchwork construction.  Doing so gave me the opportunity to step back and think though the next steps.  As I started looking carefully at where to start roadbed and track, it became obvious that I needed to begin at the point in Willis where the Louisiana Central and Illinois Central tracks leave the layout and go into hidden staging.  As I evaluated the design, I came to realize that from a track plotting perspective, this was going to be a complicated lay out.  I have several tracks in the area all going into curves at various points and also starting down grades, again, at various points.  I finally decided that this area may work best using the “cookie cutter” method of sub-roadbed construction.  I’ve plotted and cut out some of the plywood sub-base.  Next, I’ll use that as a template to mark and cut out the Homasote for the sub-roadbed topping.  I still have to build and install all the risers for this sub-roadbed (about 22′ so far).

It also occurred to me that if I want to install the wiring as I go along (which is what I planned to do), that I needed to start drawing up a wiring diagram.  The layout will be powered and controlled with a Lenz DCC system.  I will have three booster districts; each of those divided into two or three sub-districts; each of which will utilize a DCC Specialties PSX circuit breaker for protection.  My wiring diagram will show these components with associated wiring, as well as tie points for the wiring.  Actual connections will be a mixture of direct wire-to-wire soldered joints, and screw type terminal (barrier) strips, the latter being to aid diagnostics when it becomes necessary to troubleshoot things.  The single most important thing I want to do as I lay track is to solder the feeders to the track and drop them through the roadbed as I progress.  I want to connect the track to the electrical bus as soon as each small section is done so it can be verified and debugged if necessary.

Anyway, I’ve spent a good bit of time working through the electrical aspects of the project, at the same time compiling a list of the supplies that I’ll be needing.  I need to order my terminal strips and a few other things, and admit that I had a case of “sticker shock” when I started pricing things.  Man!, prices have soared since the last time I bought any of this stuff.  I’ve checked the prices at Mouser, Newark and All Electronics.  Anyone have a favorite supplier that they recommend?

So that’s about it for now.  I’ll likely try to get some risers done this coming weekend.  I haven’t taken any photos since the basic benchwork was put up . . . I’m waiting until I actually spike down some track, even if it’s just a few feet.  I’m excited about the next few months because I have several weeks of vacation time coming, and I hope to utilize a good chunk of it for layout construction.

-Jack

The Next Chapter

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I’m taking a bit of a breather from railroad construction this week.  The benchwork supporting structure is complete except for the section that will cross past the room doorway.  Sub-roadbed and trackage are next up.

Last week I was fortunately spared any significant damage wrought by the storm Isaac.  Winds in my neck of the woods were not as severe as in the earlier hurricanes Katrina and Gustav.  But the rains . . . I don’t recall such a slow moving storm and the sheer quantity of constant rain!  My biggest fear was from ground saturation and the resultant tree toppling in the wind.  But no trees came down by me, and I only had to concern myself with a massive clean-up of leaves and branches.

But back to the railroad: now that I’ve reached the roadbed stage, I thought I should slow down a bit and think through what I’ll be doing, and where to start.  I have a ton of old material and pieces-parts from old layouts that I’ve saved and I’ve been digging out those boxes and caches of material.  Obviously I want to use as much of this existing stuff as possible before heading out to the lumber yard.

Yards and other flat areas containing industry will be built using plywood topped by Homasote.  This has worked well for me in the past, so I see no reason to do otherwise.  I’m still teetering with regard to the mainline.  I’m strongly tempted to try Masonite spline construction for the sub-roadbed, something I’ve never used before.  My biggest concern using this method though is with the layout of the track.  I want the track very precisely placed in accordance with my plan and I’m still scratching my head over just how to precisely plot track centerlines when you have nothing to work on except a bunch of skinny joists spanning the L-girders.  I’ve read several articles on spline sub-roadbed and they all were very terse on that aspect of the task.  I suspect from what I’ve read that spline users tend to be satisfied as long as the track runs approximately where they want it to go.  But I come from an engineering background and I have this hang-up about wanting everything precise (which I find quite difficult in many of the things to do with layout construction).

I’ll likely start with the roadbed and track that will be hidden along the walls of the room.  That seems to make sense since it will be the most difficult to access later.  It will also give me a chance to “practice” my construction technique with risers, sub-roadbed and track laying.  With most every task I’ve done in the room construction, and lately the benchwork construction, I’ve eventually worked out a method that produces an acceptable result while at the same time cutting construction time and effort.  I trust this will also happen during this next phase.  I’ve not done any of this construction since back in the early nineties , so it’s really like learning all over again.

Once some track is down, I’ll post photos on the website for those of you following the construction.  I should have something to see later in this month.

-Jack

Basic Benchwork Nearing Completion

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The benchwork on the new layout is progressing quite nicely.  All five of the major sections have been completed.  Next I will be connecting a couple of the major sections with shorter “bridge” pieces, including the swing (or drop) section across the room’s doorway.  I also have to put in a number of angled pieces at intersections of the major sections, and I want to put in some reinforcement material in key places.

The framework is quite strong and is very light.  In fact, it is so light that it is easy to move by bumping into it.  I hope the added mass and weight of the (future) joists, risers, roadbed and scenery is enough to anchor the whole thing down.  The legs aren’t secured to the floor as I don’t want to drill holes through the carpet into the concrete.  I will be depending solely on layout weight to keep it in place.

I could probably wrap things up in about two weekends, however next weekend will be cut short while I take a break to do some railroading over at Lou Schultz’s C&O layout.  I’m looking forward to the operating session.  I also want to do one more evaluation of the roadbed elevations (heights above the floor) of his layout while there.  I’ve tentatively set the various elevations of my roadbed based on my experiences operating at Lou’s.  This will be my last chance to confirm my comfort with these elevations since my roadbed will likely start going in sometime in September.

The startling revelation has hit me recently that I need to start working on much more than the layout structure itself.  I have an entire fleet of locomotives that need to be cleaned, adjusted, lubed and have DCC decoders installed.  And only about 15% of my car fleet is assembled and ready.  Only one structure that I plan to use is ready, and that is a mere shack.  So much to do!

But the layout, after years and years of delay, is finally under construction.  And that is good and I am pleased!

-Jack

Some Thoughts About Roadbed

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As the basic frame of the benchwork progresses, my thoughts are turning to the next step which is the track structure: sub-roadbed and support risers, and the roadbed itself.  For the sub-roadbed, I plan to use a mixture of flat plywood (some of which will be installed “cookie cutter” fashion) and Masonite splines.  All will be topped by Homasote roadbed.  I’ve used Homasote for many years and I’ve always had good results with it.  I have a single sheet and also plenty of scraps from my old layout that will get used, but plenty more will be needed.  A friend has several sheets that didn’t get used on his present layout that he’s willing to let go, and the last time I checked, there was a lumber yard about 60 miles from me that stocked it.  Hopefully they still do.

The two major complaints that I’ve read about Homasote over the years are expansion/contraction from the humidity, and the dust generated when cutting it.  I’ve never had significant problems with it in the former even though I don’t bother to seal it.  As for the latter, I have never let the dust deter me.  I just vacuum the area immediately after cutting to minimize the mess.  I’ll try to do major cutting outdoors and I’m also going to try using the knife type sabre saw blades if I can ever find them.  I’m told that they greatly reduce the dust produced, although they cut a good bit slower.

On my former layout, after the track was down, I had gone back with a router and cut bevels on each side, creating the ballast shoulders.  I did the cuts freehand and they came out rather well, but the process was slow and tedious.  I’ve read an article from a fellow that makes his own Homabed (a commercial Homasote roadbed that has been planed down for consistent thickness, and has beveled edges) and I’ve thought about trying to produce some small amount of that to see if it’s worth the effort.  The commercial Homabed is quite expensive and frankly, is out of my budget.

For the yard areas, I’ll just laminate sheets of Homasote to the plywood sub base and the track will not have the ballast slopes.  I want the yard and industrial trackage set in a mixture of ballast and dirt, really buried into the ground.  I can cut some shallow ballast slopes or small ditches along the perimeter of the yard area using my router as I’ve done before.

I’ll post more comments when I get to that step in the work.

-Jack

Benchwork Progress Report

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Just a short post to give y’all an update on the layout.  Benchwork construction has been proceeding nicely.  Three of the five major sections have been completed (photos on the main website for those interested).  The two major sections left are the peninsulas.  There are also numerous corners to “fill out” with angled L-girder supports.

Overall, I’m pleased with the progress thus far.  Once this basic supporting framework is complete, I’ll turn my attention to the roadbed and supports, and of course, the track there upon.  I also have to deal with the bridge issue across the doorway.  Research continues on that project.

-Jack