Project: Fast Acting Circuit Breaker

Today's model trains are more sophisticated then ever, relying on complex computer circuit boards and lots of easily damaged LEDs and other components. The old reliable Lionel postwar transformers had internal circuit breakers but they were only good to protect the equipment from that era. They won't protect today's trains, and it is very likely that a short circuit from a derailment would fry your internal circuit boards before the transformer's breaker would trip. Replacing burnt out electronic boards is expensive when they are available surplus, and impossible when they are out of stock. A simple in-line external circuit protector system is cheap peace of mind. So, I built one as a fun project.

I found plans on the OGR's Youtube channel for a fast-acting circuit breaker box. This is an upload of an older video that I believe originally was filmed about 15-20 years ago. As designed, it had four sets of banana jack binding posts on each side for the input and output wires (a Lionel ZW has four sets of outputs) and it all just barely fit.  

When I priced everything through the video's updated recommended parts sources, the banana jack plugs alone were $90! Since I don't even use that style of connector, I asked on the OGR forum if they were required and found out that they weren't. So, I switched to using inexpensive terminal strips and saved a lot of money. 

The parts I used were: 

(1) fast acting circuit breakers (W28-XQIA-10) that I sourced from Ebay. The numbers in the circuit breaker part number designation actually represent something... the last "10" means 10 amps", and not being an electrical wizard I decided not to deviate from what they called for here. They were $3 each.  

(2) heavy duty terminal strips from Ebay for about $8 total.

(3) a project box. The plans called for a box that today costs $25 and it was only barely large enough to fit everything in it. In fact, you had to solder it all up and then bend the wires out of the way. I looked on Amazon and found a substitute box that is a roomy 8"x5"x3" with external mounting tabs for about $10. Larger, cheaper, and more convenient. Sold!

(4) Red and black 16g wire. I bought a five foot long piece of red/black speaker wire on Ebay for $6.

(5) 14/16g wire terminals. I bought a box of 20 for less than $4.

I started with a scrap of plywood I found in my garage that I cut to size and sanded smooth. I could have left it natural but I decided to paint it black. The project box was marked by placing blue tape on the sides and then laying out the four 1/4" clearance holes for the wires on each side. Because the box is so large, I had a lot of flexibility in where to locate things. I probably could have located them lower down on the sides. I found the drill bits constantly grabbed the plastic box, and the only solution was to very slowly drill down through the side walls. Then, I spun a hobby blade around the holes to remove the burrs.

The project box was screwed to the wood. Then, I attached the terminal blocks to the sides near the holes I had drilled.

The top of the box needed four holes to mount the breakers, and each hole had to be about 5/8" diameter. My largest drill bit was 1/2", but I did have a spade bit that was 11/16" which helped. I should have been smart and bought the correct size bit, or a tapered reamer, but I did neither. I mostly used my metal burr bit to make the holes. As a result, one of my holes was slightly too large and the breaker rotated in it slightly once installed. To prevent this, I glued small strips of styrene around each breaker just to prevent movement. I later painted them black.

The five feet of wire allowed for each of the four channels to be 15" long, which was just about perfect. Honestly, though, another couple of inches of red wire would have made things easier later on. There is plenty of space in the box to cram the extra wires.

Wiring it up was pretty simple. The black wires had some spade terminals crimped on their ends and then they were screwed to the corresponding terminals on each side of the box. For the red wires, I clamped the lid onto the side of my workbench to hold it in place and then soldered on the eight wires. After that, I used some heat-shrink tubing for security. It wouldn't short if the two red wires touched, but they would just jumper over the circuit breaker and defeat its purpose.

Right before I screwed it all up, I took a picture for posterity. 

Well, upon screwing it together I discovered the circuit breakers wanted to pop up out of the lid. My holes I drilled were a little too loose to retain them, and there was so much extra wire down below that it acted like a spring to push them up. I pushed them down and screwed down the lid, but if I were to do it again I might install them on the front of the box as its depth is longer than its height. Or maybe just buy a proper reamer for the holes. 

I haven't tested it yet, as my layout is still in the benchwork stage. But, it was a fun project to work on in the meantime. 

Benchwork: building the table tops / modules

The benchwork is coming along nicely.

The two table tops, or modules as Model Railroad Benchwork calls them, went together pretty easy. To save money (10%) I didn't have them drill any of the through-wiring holes in the cross braces. Since I had a 3/4" forstner bit on hand my wife helped me work the drill press and I cut the holes two pieces at a time.

Then, I glued and screwed the cross braces onto one side of each module. I also added 1" square pieces of dowel stock to the joints as I had done on the legs. Clamps were used to keep everything straight. It went pretty quick.

I let the wood glue set about an hour or so and then removed the clamps and moved on to the next set of joints. In less than an evening I had one side done. 

Getting the other side on was a bit more tricky as I wanted to drill down instead of up. That meant I had to lay the loose board on the floor and then flip the already-completed assembly on top of it. I glued and screwed one joint at a time moving down the line. A second set of hands to help stabilize it while I worked would have been nice, but I managed.

While that was going on I stared at my completed legs and realized the pocket screw holes were bothering me. They didn't look nice. So, I filled them in with some construction adhesive (the screws were stuck anyway) and when that dried I gave the joints two more coats of black paint.

The tops of the legs are milled away so that they slide perfectly inside the module's sides, and the weight of the module rests on the lip in the leg. I had to drill four holes for the wood screws which mount from the inside through the legs into the sides, and I used a template to assist me. The legs were not glued on, as if/when I move to another house I want to take this layout with me. The modules are only 3'x6' and can go out through our basement doors, but not with the legs attached. 

The holes in the legs were drilled and countersunk, and then the legs were screwed on. I wish the kit had used Robertson screws here, but I had to use a Phillips driver and whatever screws they supplied were easily stripped even though I slowly powered them in. When I mentioned this to the company they told me that the screws were the "combination" type and both types of screwdrivers could work on them. Doh! At least they are going to amend their instructions in the future to mention this.

Finally, they modules were flipped over and rolled to their location in the basement. They didn't line up height wise, which was a bit concerning. Then I rolled them some more and they did, proving that my basement's floor is off by 1/4" in places. I was very happy how easy they were to push around though. The overall height so far is 43", which I am happy with. Also, despite being 36" deep I can still reach the back areas of the benchwork though I doubt I will really need to.

I am not sure if I want to permanently bolt them together or just use clamps (like they do for Ntrak modules and such). But, to give the wood more surface area for the clamps or bolts to compress I glued on some 2" squares of thin 1/4" plywood that I bought from Amazon. You can get something similar at a craft store. It is cheap insurance to prevent cracking the plywood from over clamping. 

I clamped the two sections together and drilled a pair of 5/16" holes through the now four layers of wood. Then, a pair of bolts were installed. Now I am ready for the benchwork table tops.

Article Published - MOW Yard Office

My second article for O Gauge Railroading magazine was published in Run 338, the October/November 2024 issue. It describes how to construct a Maintenance of Way (MOW) storage and yard office from a surplus boxcar. I was heavily inspired by George Dutka and mentioned as much in my article.

It was a fun project to work on before I had a layout, and it really let me explore how much detailing could be done in O scale (my previous layouts were N and HO scale). Plus, I used a TTOS club car for the Empire and Eastern and I felt like I was paying homage to the local train club that has helped me over the past couple of years as I build up my O scale knowledge.

This is not my first published article in OGR magazine. Run 333 had an article about removable loads for Delaware & Hudson blue glass hoppers made with real glass beads. This was a natural extension after having done some for HO scale previously.

Benchwork: starting with the legs

I received the benchwork months ago but have patiently been waiting for my week off to start on it. But during my lunch break on Friday I cut part of the box open to find the instructions. I wanted to make sure I had everything I needed on hand and it looked like I did.

Everything came nicely bundled and wrapped to save space and prevent movement, as the wood is easily broken if the shipping company were to drop it. In fact, this is one reason why Model Railroad Benchwork doesn't regularly offer 6' long boards anymore. I spotted the legs (they have a portion milled away at the top, and then four boards with double green marks on the ends that had to be the leg cross braces. That meant the remaining boards were the module's cross braces.

The kit comes with all the hardware which includes special screws designed for Kreg pocket hole assembly. The instructions caution not to substitute regular drywall screws. It even came with a #2 square head long driving bit for my cordless screw driver, which was handy as I don't have any square head Robertson screw drivers.

I followed the directions and glued one cross brace to each leg, and the mounting locations were conveniently drawn in already.  Everything is made from nominally 3/4" thick plywood, and it looks like there are 13 plies/layers used. You can't get that stuff at Home Depot. They align vertically on the legs and four screws inserted into the pockets held the cross brace on, though I used some wood glue for extra measure. The only downside is that the glue caused the parts to slide a little bit so I had to be careful to keep them properly aligned and slowly secure the screws. After an hour, I glued the other leg on. While it is possible that the legs are slightly out of parallel with each other right now, once they are attached to the actual tabletop they will be fine.

While moving them around the joints started to scare me a bit. There isn't much holding the assemblies together and a good bump from my leg could possibly crack the joint, plus they will be on casters so the legs will be jiggling around. For protection, I added some reinforcing pieces cut from 1" square wood dowel stock. No screws were used, just wood glue and clamps.

To secure the casters to the bottoms of the plywood legs, I cut pieces of quality 2x4 lumber into blocks. Using a paper template, I marked the caster mounting holes and transfered the locations to the blocks. The holes were then predrilled.  

I glued on the blocks to the legs with wood glue and secured the joint with a large clamp. No screws or other mechanical devices were used to attach the blocks, and since I only have one large clamp the process too a while to do all eight leg. But, this will give me much more support to attach 2" rubber casters that I purchased at the store.

I took the legs outside and sanded them to remove any rough edges. This was important because unlike regular 1x4 wood, the plywood splinters easily along the sharp edges that resulting from being ripped with the table saw.

Then, I painted everything with black paint. I have never painted benchwork but it is an old theater trick to make them disappear more. I more am hoping it will make the layout appear to be "floating" above the floor. I went to the paint store and was shocked to discover that there are dozens of shades of red and green, probably a hundred variations of white, and only two black colors. I picked "Tricorn Black" (HGSW6258) and got it in satin finish because I didn't want a dull, flat color. A little shine will be nice. I used a roller to obtain a nice stippled finish on the plywood.

The last step was to screw on the casters. Ironically, at this time I discovered the mounting plates did not have all of the screw holes punched out in the same place. It wasn't a big deal to correct though by drilling new holes in the legs.

The next step is assembling the table modules themselves.

Three inspirational authors

In my journey towards realistic modeling in three-rail O scale I have found three books to be very helpful.

First, Lou Sassi (a former member of the NMRA Division I belong to) has written many books for Kalmbach including two on "How to Build and Detail Model Railroad Scenes". These are fantastic for breaking down industries, houses or other subjects into small, manageable parts. I am constantly drawn to his wonderful pictures.

Second, Dennis Brennan wrote "Realistic Modeling for Toy Trains" about building an urban themed O scale layout. Ironically, I purchased this book from him and asked him to autograph in 2010. It only took me 14 years to get started on my own layout! He covers weathering, structure kitbashing, and urban decay modeling in a realistic manner and in my opinion few seem to do this well. Usually, the results are over the top or otherwise unrealistic. It is a great book.

Finally, one book jam-packed with lots of New England themed railroad projects is "Model Railroading with George Dutka". He has written numerous articles for railroad magazines and maintains several blogs that I follow. I have already used it for inspiration for several projects of my own in different scales. His book focused mostly on modifying and personalizing structures and rolling stock, and each of his projects is small enough as to not become overwhelming. My new layout will draw upon his ideas a lot in the future.

Benchwork Received

The benchwork for the first side of my new layout is here. Yup, it is all in that box.

I don't mind building benchwork though it is tedious. I have used both L-girder and open-grid styles in the past and I much prefer the later but it requires a lot of precision cutting. I am usually good with my chop saw but it does take a bit of time to do. Which, because of my young son, I don't have a lot of. And, over the past couple of years (perhaps longer) the wood available at the local big box stores has gotten worse and worse.

For this layout, I decided to try something different: commercial benchwork. I looked online at various companies and one stood out for both its price and available options: Model Railroad Benchwork. The owner, Ondrew, also has a Youtube channel showing many of his custom layout builds. I was especially drawn to his quarter-circle and half-circle benchwork options, useful for making nice end-of-layout turnarounds.

I reached out to them in 2022 and asked about purchasing some of their benchwork kits to have in storage until the time when I was ready to use them, but he suggested I wait. Fast forward two years, and I was ready to order but his 3x6' sections weren't available anymore. Apparently, they are too difficult to ship. But, they worked with me and let me order them which I am grateful for.

I like the fact that the wood is plywood and not warp-prone like pine, and it uses Kreg pocket holes to hide the hardware. If I had a table saw and a friend to help I could probably build the equivalent for half the cost, but I don't. And, at the end of the day, perfect square benchwork is much more important to me than other layout things I could spend money one.

To be honest, I ordered my benchwork about 10 minutes before this NENR blog went "live" on June 30. I had drafted many posts in advance, but until I pulled the trigger on the benchwork my future layout wasn't official. 

The benchwork was received on July 09, 2024, but I am setting it aside until I take my September vacation. I can't wait to get started!

Harrison's first Lionel layout

Though Harrison is free to pick whatever toys he wants, he really likes his wooden Brio style trains. I think most kids do these days, and I personally believe that Thomas the Tank Engine has done more to interest kids in trains and model railroading in general than any other promotional campaign. Still, I don't actively push trains on him.

But, I bought him a Thomas train set for his first Christmas and he enjoys watching me run my HO scale layout in the basement (had I known this fact last year, I might not have redesigned it to remove the option for continuous running. Sigh)

I decided to built him a train layout for him to play with. It had to be semi-portable or at least movable, it had to fit under my layout, it had to be cheap in case he lost interest, and it had to have some green scenery to draw Harrison's interest. So, I dug into an old Model Railroader special issue magazine from the late 1980s that I had as a kid and found the perfect plan designed by Jim Hediger.

I started with a pair of wooden dolly carts I had left over from Harbor Freight. I cut them apart to salvage the coaster wheels and built a frame about 14" tall (a good height for Harrison) from some 1x2" lumber. This later proved to be a mistake, as the wood from Harbor Freight wasn't good.

The layout base is a piece of plywood split down the middle. The plans mistakenly called for both 3/8" thick and 3/4" thick plywood, and that must have been a typo. Splitting the difference, I used 1/2" plywood. The two outer edges are framed with 1x4" boards.

The ends are framed with pieces of 2x4" board. This is important because they need to be beefy to support the hinges which will be mounted on them. 

The right side of the table with flipped over and two more 2x4's were mounted along the edge on the underside. Then, the caster/leg assembles were set in place. 

I didn't want to glue the wheel/legs in place, so I instead glued and screwed blocks cut from 2x4" lumber on each side of the legs. The wheel assemblies slide out, but friction keeps them in place except when they need to be removed. 

As it turns out, the cheap plywood on the Harbor Freight dolly delaminated and broke so I removed the casters and modified the leg assemblies to use a solid 2x4" instead. 

The non-wheel side of the table also had 2x4" braces underneath along the two sides as well. I then mounted a pair of 14" tall legs made from 2x4" lumber on the left hand side to raise it up in height to match the right side table. Hinges will hold them together later. 

My wife helped me carry the two pieces outside and I went over everything with my power sander. For safety, I rounded over all the sharp edges and removed all splinter areas that I could find. Then, I started to paint them the same green that I used on my HO layout fascia. I thought a 1/2 pint of paint would be enough, but I was wrong. When I went to buy more, the store's paint mixer was broken. 

The next day, I bought another pint of paint which I thought would be enough, but I was wrong again. It barely gave everything two coats. But I like the way it looks. The color is "Jungle Green". I am thinking about adding some indoor/outdoor carpeting but haven't done it yet.

A pair of heavy duty 6" strap hinges bought on Amazon were installed. They look and work great though I replaced the mounting screws with longer wood screws.

A pair of handles were installed on the top part of the layout to assist in flipping it open. I also screwed some rubber "bumpers" on the corners to leave a gap between the pieces... helpful for getting fingers between them if necessary.

Some cheap building kits (Lionel MPC era, old/dirty Plasticville, etc.) were glued up and painted to go on the layout. There was no point in building something nice that a toddler would destroy. Harrison won a raffle at a local show and picked out a light-up police car, and he was also given a very old, plastic cow toy at the same show.

There you have it. Harrison's first real train layout (Brio toys don't count). Naturally, the track isn't attached but when a final track plan is picked we can do so and cut the track at the fold line. Until then, he is content to play with it as is. It might not be much, but it cost only about $100 and it doesn't take up much space once folded up and rolled away. 

He is also becoming proficient at putting the trains on the track, and manually coupling the Lionel couplers together.