New England Northern Railway
This blog will be a record of my personal journey in researching, building, operating, and finally sharing my freelance O scale, three rail layout based on the railroads of New England.
Saturday, January 4, 2025
Organized chaos
Saturday, December 28, 2024
First track laid!
Tuesday, December 24, 2024
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
I hope you and your loved ones have a wonderful and blessed Christmas this year. Don't forget the reason for the season.
Luke 2, versus 1-20
4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
Tuesday, December 17, 2024
Playing with Grandpa's Lionel (1987)
While going through some old pictures from my grandparents, I found this one. It has a lot of great memories for me. The train is probably a Lionel #1543 set which came with the Lehigh Valley #627 44-tonner engine (perhaps the start of my love for GE centercab switchers), a flat car with pipes, a gondola with red canisters, and a caboose. The sets were released around 1956, though I don't know what year my grandparents purchased them. They bought two sets, gave one to my Uncle, and gave the other to the neighbor's son who couldn't afford one. They were low cost sets. I don't know how much my Uncle used it, but whenever I visited my grandfather he pulled out the plywood board painted green with a simple loop of track and one remote control track and off I would go!
Sadly, almost everything on the table is now gone. The train disappeared after my grandfather passed away, likely by a visitor who thought it was worth a lot. None of my immediate family would have taken it as they all knew I loved it. I have faint hopes that someday it will turn up. The buildings and aliens are long gone, as are the stuffed animals. But, in 2018 when visiting I removed the track from the plywood board. It was as rusty as sixty year old track can be but I managed to save most of it. I cleaned it up and use it today under the Christmas tree. So, part of it lives on.
Sunday, December 8, 2024
Train show bounty
Thursday, November 21, 2024
Project: telephone poles
I like short weekend projects. Since my layout has barely been started anything I work on generally needs to put aside for later. Telephone poles are a neat detail that adds a lot to a scene without much effort. For my smaller scale layouts I purchased plastic poles and painted/weathered/detailed them, but for O scale I thought scratchbuilding them would be fun.
As it turns out, while this was on my mind I randomly pulled a back issue of O Gauge Railroading magazine (February 1998) out from my shelf (of about 100 that I have) and I couldn't believe it when it featured an article on building telephone poles! It was Divine intervention. What's more, the inspiration for the article was based on the reader seeing a layout as a child in Rochester, NY (my hometown).
The basic supplies are 3/16" diameter wood dowels; 1/8" x 3/16" stripwood for the crossarms; green seed beads (size 8/0)' and some metal pins. I calculated the cost to exactly $0.82 per pole with two crossarms and 16 beads. They might not be the cheapest poles to make, and they might not be 100% perfect compared to real telephone poles. But I think they came out great, they were fun to build, and they fit into my budget.
I started by ordering a pack of twenty 3/16" wooden dowels on Amazon, which cost me $10.79 shipped. Thankfully most were straight with only a few bending a little. I set them all aside one another and marked out 8" from one end (the total height), as well as the four spots which would indicate where the notches for the crossarms would go. My little bandsaw made quick work of cutting them down, and then I used my belt sander to slope the top part of the pole 45-degrees (to allow rain to run off and prevent the pole from rotting). The speed of the sander burned the tops of the poles black, which may prove a problem later during staining. But it sure was quicker than cutting with a razor saw.
Then, I marked and notched each pole... twice... for the crossarms. This was the most tedious and frustrating part of the project. I tried razor saws, a Dremel tool, three types of hobby knife blades, and the edge of a file. What worked best was to use a razor saw to make the notches, and then whittle the area between with a #11 blade. It is hard work as you need to get in close to see what you are doing, and hold the pole near the top to steady it for the cutting, but you also don't want the blade to slip and cut into your finger. I did all 20 poles in two sittings.
The crossarms were cut using a razor saw to 2" in length, and then I used a sanding stick to clean up any rough edges. They aren't all perfectly the same length and that is okay. I miscalculated while cutting them and ended up with twice as many as needed.
Next, I marked out the four spots where the insulators will go.
Then, I stuck thin quilting pins into the crossarm at those spots until they stuck/wedged into place. Finally, all four pins were cut to length by eye (enough to hold two beads but not much more) with cutters. Once cross arm at a time. I later put a drop of thin superglue into each wire joint to hold the wires firmly in place. Don't use too much glue or it will interfere with the staining of the wood later.
Then, I gave each pole and crossarm a good brushing of Minwax "Special Walnut" stain. As expected, the stain didn't penetrate where the superglue had pooled around the wires but that's okay because the glass beads will hide it later.
After letting the stain dry, I used wood glue to assemble the crossarms onto the poles. Fitting them into the notches wasn't too bad though some notches were bigger than others. I made sure the crossarms were generally pointing in the same direction on both poles. Then I let it all dry. Later, I applied drops of thin superglue into the notch joints from behind for further reinforcement.
Then I looked at the poles and was dejected. The crossarms stuck out too far from the poles instead of being flush. Maybe I should have cut the notches deeper? Had I done so, though, the poles might have broken. As I drove to a picnic later that day I looked at the poles I passed and saw that the crossarms were not notched into the poles but were bolted proud of them. Feeling better, when I came home I gave everything another coat of brown stain to darken them more.
If one coat was good, two wasn't better. It dried shiny in places which didn't look at all realistic. So, I sprayed them with Dullcote and several days later game them a black oil paint wash. Then I thought they look more like old posts that would have been exposed to smokey steam and diesel locomotive exhaust.
However, once they dried they looked worse. The mineral spirits reacted to the Dullcote and superglue and left huge areas of white residue. Some might look like sun bleaching, but the result was terrible. As a last ditch effort I brushed everything with another coating of the walnut stain. This worked to hide the bleaching, but then the stain had dried in spots leaving shiny areas. So, another coat of Dullcote was sprayed on and I called it good. They might not be perfect, but I just need to get out of this cycle.
After a couple of days I glued on some small green beads to represent glass insulators. I used Aleene's Tacky Glue because it dries clear and filled any excess space inside the beads. It was a bit tedious trying to pick up each bead with tweezers because they were round and not cylindrical, but in the end I only lost a couple to the rug. I made sure to line up the beads on top of each other as best I could so they didn't look wonky. A few areas only got one bead if I left the wire too short, resulting in a "broken" insulator.
For the V-shaped metal support brackets that go underneath the crossarms I took regular staples and cut them in half, then glued them on. The next day they were painted with brown paint.
The last detail was to add the bolts holding the crossarms to the main poles. I tried using cut track nails and tiny pins but they without predrilling the hole I risked the pressure of pushing them in would knock the crossarm off . So, instead I used thick black craft paint and a toothpick to apply a small blog where the bolt should be.
The total time involved was about 10 hours, or 30 minutes per pole. I could probably do it faster next time, but 20 poles should last me for a while. While they aren't perfect, I am happy with the results.