Chemical Dealer scene (overview)

My favorite freight car has always been the tank car. At one time they were the most common style of car found on a railroad. Therefore, I wanted a place to spot tankers on my layout. Ideas of fuel dealers, propane dealers, and chemical suppliers were considered. Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of trackage or adjacent real estate to model something big.

A team track idea was dismissed, as I wanted a dedicated facility. However, I might do a team track on the left side of the layout though. An old-timey tank car mounted on stilts such as this Life Like kit below was also a no-go. 

Walthers/Atlas makes a nice kit (#6908) of a fuel dealer but it looked too dated for what I wanted, and it doesn't come with a lot of stuff in the box. It has two small tanks, one small shed, and one small shack. Honestly, most O scale kits are undersized and I don't fault Walthers/Atlas for this because they are also aimed at the 0-27 market. But for my true scale layout, I wanted something bigger. Besides, this sells for $80+ bucks online which is a lot for what you actually get in the box.

So I cast a larger net and came across a picture in a Boston and Maine RR Historical Society video of a Suburban Propane dealer (here, at the 26:36 mark) that was more modern and what I was thinking of. One or two large horizontal tanks, one large steel structure, and then an area for trucks to load. Now, how to fit it in my space?

My siding will hold a scale 40' tank car and clear the track to the lumberyard, but a 45' car won't fit and a 50' tank car extends onto the switch. But that is okay. It probably happened in real life too. Besides, most of the time my cars will just sit on display on the layout and not get switched anyway. 

I looked at satellite pictures of the local Suburban Propane office here in Albany and I got some ideas. The old railroad spur is still there (though it is now disconnected from the mainline and covered with propane tanks). There are several modern buildings, which I likely can't model all of. And my facility won't be a perfect match for it. But it was a start.

At the onset I decided to not force too much into the scene. After building my lumberyard I realized that I can't cram everything in or it will become jumbled. There isn't a lot of room for "negative space" in O scale, so I need to factor it in at the start. Forcing stuff in was one of the biggest reasons why my previous HO layout was unsatisfying. See this great post from Marty McGuirk on the topic.

To help me visualize what I could fit into the area I made a mockup of a modern steel building using some posterboard. I also printed out the dimensions of the Plastruct horizontal propane tank kit (#O3019). It fit okay but it was a bit too large and even my wife commented that the tanks were too close to the lumberyard. So I retreated from that idea. Hmm... what should I build then? Without exactly knowing, I pressed on

To prepare the foundation for the building I glued down a layer of cork roadbed. It took forever, and also burned through my supply of used cork that a friend gave me, so in the future I will need to look into something else that is the correct thickness but a lot quicker to install. Maybe... you know... sheet cork? A coat of brown latex paint was brushed on and I had a nice, clean area to work with. 

I decided the tank car siding was still too long so I trimmed off another inch from the end. Then, I took some Brennan's cinder ballast (Railyard Black) and ballasted the sidings including the track leading to the lumberyard. For the tank car siding I mostly kept it cinders because I assume the N.E.N.R. will perform at least some maintenance on any track that will be traveled by tank car carrying hazardous liquids. For the lumberyard siding I mixed more ground foam weeds and dirt in the mix. Both tracks will eventually get static grass and tufts. It looks a royal mess while it is wet, but dries okay.

Note: I discovered I didn't properly caulk one of the holes under the track from when I wired it and I had a muddy, gluey pond beneath my layout when I came back the next morning. Lots of wet paper towels got it all cleaned up up (it wouldn't have been very easy if I had used matte medium instead of white glue) but it reminded me to double-check everything before going to bed.

For the tank car track bumper, I looked at various brands but settled on an Atlas O product. Most of them had lights, or working springs, or are overbuilt to actually stop a runaway Lionel train. I wanted something that was realistic, but even the Atlas one needed some modifications. I trimmed off unnecessary plastic between the sides which snaps onto the rail, and slimmed down the center buffer part itself. (You can see the before and after below). Then it was painted, weathered and glued in place. It definitely won't stop a runaway Lionel GG1 from crashing into the lumberyard though!

Now I just need to build an actual industry for the siding. And I still don't know what it will be.

A visit to Model Rail Scenes and the WW&F in 2021

Several years ago I saw an advertisements for Model Rail Scenes, a company that custom builds train layouts. They seemed to focus mainly on three rail O scale layouts, and their work was realistic and evocative of New England scenery. At the time, I decided that if I ever did build an O scale layout I would want mine to focus on the northeast. So I called the owner, Brian Inch, just to talk about basic layout concepts and such. I wasn't planning on hiring him to build a layout for me, but he models things I haven't seen elsewhere and I wanted to pick his brain. He did one better, and invited me to visit his showroom and talk with him in person. Great!... except he was 330 miles away in Augusta, Maine. 

I also had a desire to revisit the WW&F Railway in Alna, Maine. I am a lifetime member of the railroad organization but hadn't been there in person since 2017. 

With these two Maine destinations in my mind I just decided to go for it. The pandemic was a still a big thing at that time and I had a lot of free time. My daytrip was on a Saturday and in 11+ hours I covered almost 700 miles. I woke up early and left the house at 6:00 AM exactly. I arrived back home at 10:45 PM. But, aside from waiting in line for over 2 hours at Red's Eats for a fried chicken sandwich (which sadly I found out they were out of when I got to the front of the line!) it was a good day. Below are some pictures from my trip.

Brian's workshop display layout is 10x16', and there is a lot packed in it. It is considered an "island" style layout in that you can walk completely around it. I really liked his dock scene.

This bridge took up a lot of space but it wasn't forced into the scene, and that is what made it so realistic. Many bridges are shoehorned in by builders who want add them just because they look good without giving thought to whether the rest of the scenery would demand such a bridge be built there.

The center area is part of his old display layout that I actually saw at the Springfield, MA train show a couple of years ago. Even the tree-covered forests look good and they aren't those cheap "puff ball trees" that everyone seems to like to build.

Around the layout area were display shelves filled with O scale trains that would have run on railroads in Maine. It was inspiring to see. Brian told me he did a lot of custom painting to get the trains he wanted.

Another interesting view.

After we talked for a while, I said goodbye and drove to the WW&F Railway. They were running multiple trains which required passing each other at the station stop in Alna Center. More picture of my visit can be found here.

As part of my NMRA Master Model Railroader program, I scratchbuilt an On2 model of T.C.D.A. #65. While in town, I set my own boxcar next to the real thing in Wiscasset, ME. and took a picture. 

It was a great day and I had fun talking with Brian and riding the WW&F. What I didn't realize was that my journey into O scale would begin so soon after visiting. 

Rolling Hills

With a steady supply of dirt now in hand I decided to work on some more scenery. To get my feet wet, I first did the area between the tracks on the passing siding. I focused mostly on dirt and bushes and less on grass, though static grass and clumps will come in the future. 

Then, I turned my attention to the front edge of the layout. New England scenery is anything but flat and I wanted to add a few hills and dips to reflect this. So, I picked up a piece of 1" thick green extruded foam and broke out my hot wire tool that I got for Christmas. Finally, I could use it! 

I didn't have a lot of room and I didn't want to model the Alps so I just shaved small pieces here and there to look like rising mounds of earth. I am not sure what I was expecting but the process turned out to be a bit of a letdown. Even with the heat cranked to full it wasn't terribly quick, and the cutter blade just seemed to bog down here and there. And talk about spiderwebs after... something I never saw on the Youtube videos I watched. After some online research I think I might have had the temperature too hot, so I will experiment with that in the future.

In the past, I would just heavily layered on ground goop (sometimes up to a 1/2" thick) to make my terrain undulations. It took days to dry and would sometimes crack during the process but it worked well. This foam should work better but I have to experiment more. In the end, I got some pieces that were usable and I glued them down with caulk. 

One other note: it smells like burning plastic (because it is) and I had a fan constantly blowing on my workbench while I did it. The smell didn't bother me because it reminded me of the time my father took me to work with him at Kodak and we toured the plant where they melted the plastic pellets to make disposable cameras (remember those?). I fondly remember the trip and associate the smell of burning plastic with that... but it isn't for everyone!

The next day I mixed up a batch of Ground Goop and went over them to blend them in more. The recipe for Ground Goop is found here. This time, I used some advice I found online and mixed it up in half of a cheap basketball. The theory is that after it dries you can crack out the dry remainder and use the ball again for a bowl. That didn't work... but I only paid a dollar for the ball so no real loss.

If you make the goop too thick it is hard to spread, and if you make it too thin it runs everywhere. The magic sweet spot is hard to find, but this time I changed techniques and used a cheap chip paintbrush to spread it out. That allowed me to put it where I wanted it and maneuver it where it had to go. It worked great, much better than my gloved hands or metal spatula.

I went up and down the mounds, including a small one wedged between some tracks. I didn't carve out anything below track grade on this layout section but certainly will for others.

When I ran out of goop I just kept brushing the remains of the bowl onto the foam to give me a base color and adhesive layer.

Then, on went real dirt. I didn't use my superfine stuff but instead went with the next step courser, which included very tiny pebbles and lumps. For O scale, this looks pretty good (the fine stuff is best for N and HO scale).

Added next were three colors of "fine" Woodlands Scenics turf (bright green, dark green, green blend). 

Finally, I pulled out all the stops with course turf in various colors, different bushes from several manufacturers like Woodlands Scenics and Scenic Express, and other such stuff. The greenier... the better. I am modeling fall when scenery is lush again after summer droughts but some is just starting to turn brown and die off.

The full kitchen sink was used...

For variety, I also embedded some real rocks and pebbles that I had baked in the oven along with the dirt. I even included one rock from my previous D&H layout... just to keep that alive a bit.

A healthy dose of white glue and water was necessary to keep the larger bushes in place. Then I set up a fan to blow on the layout and went to bed. And thankfully, no leaks were underneath the layout the next morning when I checked. Yay!

I'm pretty happy with the results.

The front of the layout will look a bit untidy until I install the fascia boards, but that is a long time away.

This fall, I plan to process and grind up real leaves to use as ground cover (essentially for modeling fall in New England) and also add static grass. Until then, it looks more like spring on my layout. That's okay though. I think it's pretty.

Processing real dirt

As scenery progressed I ran out of dirt and needed a lot more. I use real dirt that I dig it up and process at home. The process is described here, and must be done outdoors so nice weather is required. 

So, in March I dug some up from my "secret place" and baked it in the oven at 350 for an hour. Some people skip this step but I can't understand why. I certainly wouldn't want living organisms growing on my layout. I used cheap disposable aluminum pans from the dollar store for this. Dirt is heavy, so set them on a cookie sheet for support.

Because of the uncooperative weather we had, the dirt sat for nearly four months until a nice weekend came along in late June when I could use three different sized sieves to filter it. You need to scrape the blobs of dirt against the screen to grind them into a powder, while tossing the actual rocks out. This part absolutely needs to be done outdoors as it makes a mess and dirt blows everywhere, and the fine dirt dust creates a haze that fills the air. Don't do it when it is windy either.

My sieves are small but adequate for the job. I would love to find appropriately sized mesh screen and build some frames out of wood to increase the amount I can process at once, but I haven't found a place that sells small quantities of wire mesh. Something like this, with much finer mesh, would be great.

The result is superfine dirt, and then essentially three sizes of rocks (which might include of balls of dirt that didn't break up during the sifting process). I store it all in cheap containers from the dollar store. 

I don't use the rocks much, but I use a lot of the dirt as that is the base layer of my scenery. And now that my supply has been refilled, I can work on some more scenery projects.

Happy Fourth of July

As our nation celebrates another Fourth of July, I thought I would continue the tradition (started on my other blog) of posting an image from my collection of a bicentennial engine. 

Bangor & Aroostook GP7 #1776 (built as #573) is seen here on September 01, 1975. For those like myself who love Revolutionary War history, here is a fun nugget: the engine was named the "Jeremiah O'Brien," a Patriot born in Kittery, Maine in 1744 who later became a captain in the Massachusetts State Navy. He was in command of the sloop "Unity" when he captured the British armed schooner HMS "Margaretta" in the Battle of Machias, the first naval engagement of the Revolutionary War. 

If you want to see more interesting bicentennial engines, here are some I have previously featured on my blog: B&M GP38-2 #200 and D&H RS3m #1976 here; A&A ten-wheeler #14 here; Adirondack Scenic Railroad's 44-tonner (here); Conrail GG1 #4800 here; and Genesee & Wyoming's RS1 #30 and Alco S4 #36 here.

Batten Kill Railroad RS3 #605

After spending a day in 2012 chasing the Batten Kill Railroad I knew there was something special about it. It is the only "local" shortline near me and its colorful Alco roster and picturesque setting reminded me of my favorite local railroad near where I grew up. 

During the start of the pandemic in June 2020 I visited the BKRR again. While there, I saw engine #605 which has been out-of-service for a while with a damaged turbo generator. I have never seen it in operation, which is a shame, but I was still able to take some pictures.  

Note that part of the front pilot is missing. I don't know if this was sacrificed to keep their other Alco RS3 #4116 going or not, but it looked sad. However, the rest of the paint scheme has held up remarkably well for almost 40 years. 

I decided I wanted needed a model of this engine.

Everything about it was neat, from the classification lamps to the corner number boards, and the four-color scheme with silver stripes and trim was really sharp. So, I filed it away in my future "to do" pile.

In the summer of 2021 I had joined the local TTOS chapter. I didn't have a layout, but wanted to start collecting "scale" (1:48) trains which run on three-rail track. And having worked with a local custom painter before on an HO scale RS11 project, I knew this could be my chance to have a model of #605. 

During my research I came across references to the "Batten Kill Limited" and "Batten Kill Rambler" passenger excursion trains run by the BKRR. The image below is from a postcard dated May 1984 showing a very clean engine pulling two matching coaches. I wanted my engine to match the appearance in the picture, and it also inspired me to try and model the entire train (to be continued...). 

Engine #605 was built by Alco in Schenectady in November 1950 and assigned works number #78369. It was purchased by the Lehigh and Hudson River Railroad as their #10, and later sold in 1972 to the St. James and Lamoille County Railroad as their #203. In 1976, it was sold to the Vermont Railway and renumbered #605, and finally in 1984 it was acquired by the BKRR who kept the engine number. Below is a shot from December 1984..

I then looked at various O gauge Alco RS3 models. Those made by Lionel and MTH either aren't scale (true 1:48 proportion) or had molded on grab irons and other details that didn't look very good. I didn't want to get super involved with the project by shaving off and replacing things. So, I went with a Williams by Bachmann engine, which used old K-line tooling. IT had separately applied wire grab irons and other free-standing details which looked great. Only a few items would need modification. I picked up a new engine decorated for the Seaboard System (they didn't sell undecorated models) from Trainworld for a nice price.

While this was happening I researched decals. I didn't want to deal with custom decals, and if I couldn't find a set commercially available I would give up on the project. I contacted Highball Graphics and discovered their LO-236 set is perfect for BKRR #605. It was promptly ordered.

Changes to the locomotive model that I considered "mandatory" included adding classification lights and number boards at the corners, relocating the three-trumpet horn* to its proper location, and blanking off some of the middle cab windows above the hoods. The classification lamps came from Precision Scale Company (#4248), as did the clear jewels that went inside them (#48329). They also provided the three-chime Alco air horn (#56191). I didn't bother filling in the cab windows with styrene and putty but instead just asked the painter to spray right over them. That resulted in them looking like they had been blanked out with steel plate.

*A note about the horn: a lot of pictures online show various locations and types of horns on #605 over the years, including a single-trumpet horn mounted on the side of the short hood; the multi-chime horn mounted in front of the cab on the long hood (and later on the top of the cab); and Hancock 4700 air horns mounted on both ends of the hoods. Look at the pictures above of #605 from 2020 and you will see the gray air horns at the very ends. They sound like steam engine whistles, and I don't know why the BKRR added them Since they weren't mounted on the engine in May of 1984, I didn't need to add them.

My painter works out of Milepost Hobbies, a great train store in upstate New York. This was not his first BKRR engine, and he knew exactly what he was doing. Still, I thought it helpful to write down everything I wanted and include pictures and directions to avoid misunderstandings. He scratchbuilt the corner number boards for me and he also replaced the single-beam headlight castings on the ends of the hoods with horizontal dual-beam castings. I didn't even know he was going to do that, but they look awesome.

The painting is exquisite and the colors really pop. This could be considered a gaudy paint scheme, but I love it. Those yellow diagonal stripes along the walkways really take it to the next level. And, because I am modeling the engine as it was freshly painted in 1984, I didn't even need to weather it! (Though if you look at the pictures taken in 2022 above, it really hasn't weathered too much over the years).

Ironically, I had just received my engine back from the painter when in April 2023 the E-Z Catch Train Shop announced a special custom run of this engine by MTH. I think mine looks better, though I would have ordered the MTH one had it been announced a year or so earlier.

The engine was the easy part. The coaches stumped me for over two years though I finally figured out a way to model them, But that part of the story will have to wait.

Simple block control

Three sidings on the layout will have the option to cut their power. This is to allow me to park extra engines if I want to. I didn't bother to wire up those tracks for dual-power input (via SPDT switches). Instead, I simply heavy duty SPST toggles that I mounted on a metal outlet box blank cover plate and inside an inexpensive blue outlet box. I used 16g wire to make all the connections.

The control box is mounted under the layout right near the edge and it is a simple matter to reach underneath and feel for the switch to toggle. The wires exits the box and goes to a terminal block on the right. This allows me to easily relocate the box in the future if necessary, and also make troubleshooting easier. 

Only one track siding is currently laid, as the other two are waiting for me to move onto the left section of the layout. But, for the main joint between the two sections I have a larger terminal block and I ran wires from the toggle box to that. This is probably overkill for this layout, but I would rather be overly-neat than messy.

Up until about 25 years ago, this method was the "standard" way to wire up a layout for multi-train control except that two transformers would go to the toggle switches. Now, even three-rail trains have been taken over with Command Control systems. Oh well... such is progress.