Woodchip Gondolas - Part 1

This update has become the companion piece to my recent Almost Completed ...Saw Mill entry.  While I had plenty of centerbeam hoppers to support the Muskoka Timber saw mill operation, one item I was lacking was an adequate number of woodchip cars.  So over the Christmas break, I decided to dig into some unbuilt woodchip car kits which have been sitting on my build shelf for several years. I should stop here and point out that while the manufacturer called them wood chip cars, in Canadian railroad terms they are correctly identified as gondolas. The resin kits, manufactured by Alpine Railway Shops of Kettleby, Ontario, were marketed as being representative of rolling stock used by CN and BCR for saw mills and paper mills. The gons were to become lettered for the KLR and be used in shuttle service between the Muskoka Timber mill and the Spruce Falls Pulp & Paper mill complex.

Researching sites such as the Canadian Freight Car Gallery, it appears that National Steel Car built this particular gondola for the Algoma Central, Canadian National (CN 879250-879749, Built 1975) and Pacific Great Eastern (PGE 90001-90140, built 1970). The Algoma Central received two groups of these cars. The first group, comprising 90 cars numbered ACIS 1401-1490 was built and delivered in 1974. The second group, delivered in 1981, were the 23 cars of series AC 1501-1523. About half of the 1500-series cars were sold off to Newaygo Forest Products in the early 1990s when the mill at Mead closed in 1985; some of the others were sold to Westar Timber (WESX) in British Columbia. Both series of ACR cars were built with one solid end, and one end that is a door, hinged at the top, for unloading the car using a hydraulic ramp. The car is tilted on end and emptied much like a dump truck. These cars were acquired for service for Newaygo Forest Products, shipping chips from the mill at Mead on the Northern subdivision to pulp mills in the USA.

Source: http://canadianfreightcargallery.caPhotographer: William Henderson , Location: Glen Valley, BC. 
Date: May 21, 2014

Source: http://canadianfreightcargallery.caPhotographer: George Widener 

Cars similar or identical to the 1500 series were also built in the 1980s for Quebec-Ontario Paper (QOPX) and Euro-Can Pulp & Paper (EURX).  The cars were 163 gross tons, with a 6,600 cubic foot-capacity, painted light green and numbered QOPX 100-204, with the reporting marks signifiying the Quebec & Ontario Paper Co. The cars were Leased from General Electric (GERSCO) by the Donohue Paper Company and used to service the newsprint mill in Thorold, ON, which received woodchips from northern Quebec and Ontario.

Woodchip cars were built as large pieces of rolling stock, due to the density and relative weight of the material that they were carrying.  As you can imagine, woodchips are very light and don't really compact bery well, meaning that cars can be overfilled without reaching the cars rated capacity.  Often loaded cars were tarped to help keep the contents from flying out of the rail car and to the surrounding landscape.  

Pine Trees

In keeping with the holiday spirit, I decided to sit down and create some trees for the layout, specifically some pine trees.  Several years ago, I acquired three boxes of Campbell Scale Model trees that a gentleman approached me about trading for several Athearn blue box kits that I had listed for sale.  I knew nothing about these trees except that they came five to a box, with all of the materials supplied in the box.  I couldn't recall seeing these at any shows, but decided to go ahead with the trade anyway based on the reputation Campbell has for kits.  So the kits arrived and I promptly placed them on nthe modeling shelf of projects to build down the road.

I needed some evergreen trees for a corner of the layout and decided to start building my first pine tree.  The first thing I noticed was that the pine tree "sticks" were much larger than I had anticipated and larger than any other pine tree that I have on the layout.  I think that the trees are more in keeping with some western pines this week, however, as I'm going to place them in a corner and they won't be a focal part of the scene, I'm hoping that they don't stand out too much.

The foliage consists of two bags of what I believe to be air ferns.  Air fern has a delicate, airy structure as the name implies and is available through florists or garden centers. The truck of the tree consists of a pre-stained wooden dowel, with pre-drilled tiny holes in the trunk of the tree.  So it's a simple matter to insert the air fern branches cut to shape into the hole after a small amount of white glue is placed on the trunk.  Branches can be re-trimmed with an X-Acto knife or scissors as you build your tree, and most branches need some amount of trimming as the air fern seems to twist quite a bit.  

I'm very pleased with the results to date. Each tree takes about an hour to construct and trim. My only complaint is that whatever the air fern has been treated with, or maybe it's naturally like this, the smell tends to become annoying after about 30 minutes of working with them. It's some sort of moldy type of smell that I find to be distasteful. Fortunately the result is worth the temporary annoyance

Next step is to "plant" my trees.

Initial tree materials. Sorry for all of the background clutter but it's my active work bench.

Completed treet

Close up of the branch structure

Addressing a Lingering Mistake - Part 1

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had the opportunity to be part of the LDSIG tour during the 2014 NMRA National Convention held in Cleveland, OH.  As part of the tour, layout owners were asked to report on what they would have done differently during a discussion session after the tours.  While I didn't have the opportunity to participate in the discussion directly, it did get me thinking or maybe it actually solidified some thoughts I had been having while constructing and operating the KLR.  One of the last things that I wanted to admit was that my design on the south wall of the layout had to sharp a curve in place.  Sure it could handle 40 and 50 ft boxcars OK, but I knew that I would be running some larger woodchip cars and centerbeam flatcars, as well as the daily passenger train.  However, I didn't have a yard in this area as yet, so I kept telling myself it was OK and never tested the curve with larger equipment.  However, fast forward to present day and the small staging yard is complete, connections made to the adjoining track and I've been running trains.  Well, I thought I was running trains until I tried some of my longer cars, including my nice Rapido passenger cars.  So tonight I bit the bullet after many weeks of thought as to what I could do. Maybe it was trying to run my passenger train through the curve that finally got me to act.  So instead of the barely 22 degree curve that was in place, I opted to rip out track and scenery to accommodate a 30 degree curve.  The choice of the 32 deg was based on this was about the smallest curve I could handle without a major reconstruction of the model and use some of the existing trackage nearby to reasonably make a connection.

Ripping out the scenery from two modules was sort of bittersweet. I never really liked that corner, something always bugged me about the scenery. While I liked the rock outcroppings in the background, the lack of any clear way to get to the N scale cabin that I had placed there bugged me.  So with my handy multi-purpose tool and hammer, I removed everything to the base foam layer. Boy was that hydrocal that was used tough to remove. Even the adhesive glue I used back then was tough to remove, as pieces just didn't want to come off. But an hours work, and here's the result, a new canvas to work with. I was able to save all of the rock outcrops, as I had built them to be removable.

Next to be modified was the old Eel's Creek module, which is actually the lead to the curve. In order to accomodate the change in track radius, I needed to add some new real estate and the only way to do so was to modify the bridge and surrounding scenery.  I had originally used a resin material to create the water, and while the effect was good, it was never really deep enough and I wasn't quite satisfied with the bank edges.  So it had to go too, which was no big loss, although I did try to save the bridge piers to no avail.

Prototype bridge over the Otonabee River

Not to bore you with the details, but here's a quick recap of what changed after the tear-out was completed:

• Increased the track radius to 30 deg  
• Re-shaped the topography of the western bank of Eels Creek
• Carved a new river channel
• Added a new river base via adding several coats of ModPodge
• Added a new bridge section
• Re-routed my track as it came to the creek and immediately after the bridge
• Ripped out the area behind the curve; the final scene in this area as yet to be determined
• Added many more rock castings

Most important thing, the curve now accommodates larger rail cars although it still is a fairly sharp curve.

Loon Lake Country Store

One of my summer projects was to work on the placement of buildings and roads in the town of Pembroke, Ontario.  Pembroke is my only real town, but that I mean other industries are located in various spots on the layout and represent actual town or city locations, but I have made a conscious effort not to include any other buildings than the industry itself. My other towns are simply depicted by photo backdrops.  For a review of Pembroke, see my earlier discussion in a posting entitled Modeling Pembroke.

As I began to finish the Pembroke area, I still had several vacant spots which were marked with only a 3x5 card to tell the type of building to be placed.  One of those spots was reserved for a country general store, which can be found in various sizes and shapes throughout rural Ontario.  For this building, I chose to use the American Model Builders Corydon General Store/Post Office as my base building.  It's a very nice laser kit, which takes about an evening to build and with painting, was finished in about two evenings. Add some signs and decals, and you see the result.  While this is just a support structure, when I have the time, I'll add lighting and other details to make this a stand alone and make the structure really blend into the countryside. 

Uncoupler Tools - a modification worth stealing

I’ve had the chance to operate on layouts which used both magnetic uncouplers as well as some sort of physical uncoupling tool.  For my money, a simple and cheap tool is better than investing in pre-made plastic or metal tools, or installing magnetic uncouplers in multiple spots.  A wooden skewer, poked between the couplers and twisted to uncouple your cars, is the easiest, simplest and cheapest method available in my opinion.  Wooden skewers are easy to pickup at the grocery or craft store, cheap (my bag of 100+ cost a little less than a dollar), easy to use, and if someone accidentally walks off with your uncoupling tool, you have an entire bag still waiting for you.

The other advantage I found with wooden skewers is that they are long enough to make it easier to work with and they are cheap.  I can locate them all around the layout so there's always one within easy reach, and if one gets damaged I don't care if it needs to be discarded and replaced.

Recently I was watching a YouTube video of an operating sessions and I noticed that the Bamboo skewer was enhanced with a Twist-on wire connector screwed onto the blunt end. This allows for better grip.  In order to keep the wire connector from accidentally falling off and onto your layout, I simply fill the cap with hot glue and twist it onto the skewer, thereby making it a permanent attachment.  The cost for the caps, about $1.50 for 14 at the local hardware store.

Almost Completed ...Sawmill Module

With the coming of fall and colder temps here in NE Ohio, it's time once again to head to the basement and put some serious modeling efforts into the layout.  Throughout the year, I keep a notebook of potential projects and what particular work and details may be needed to get the project started and more importantly, move it towards being finished.  So this fall, I looked at the sawmill area and decided that it would become my major effort for November.  The sawmill is a 2-ft by 6-ft module located along the backside of my paper mill and connects to the Niagara Distribution scene.

Starting the project meant I had to put away all of the other diversions on my work bench, such as weathering some rolling stock and assembly of some vehicles, so that I could concentrate on the module and what was needed to complete the scene. I had already assembled the walls of the various buildings and laid out the track, so I had a decent start on what I thought it would look like. Here's the way the project went:

Man down..looks like all of the workers have been overwhelmed by something toxic (or I'm trying to find out where to place them). I'm really happy with the way the weathering of the roofs turned out. An evening with three colrs of Pan Pastels was all it took.

View looking towards the log conveyor.  This will be where trucks are unloaded and logs placed into the yard or onto the conveyor.

Week 1 - finished assembly of each of the buildings and began the painting process. Only problem with using water based colors from the craft paint department is that it requires several coats of paint (3 in my case) to get full coverage.

Week 2 - all structures built and painted, now comes the time to test fit them into place.  I usually like to place buildings and look at the potential rail traffic patterns for off-loading as well as truck movement on the scene.  After several nights of looking at buildings and just not happy with their placement, I decided to consult some photos I had taken from Bob Mitchell's Algoma Central layout from this years HOMES tour in Hamilton, ON.  Bob's scene is similar to mine, as it is located at the end of his layout room and takes up a far amount of space along his wall.  I'm not sure what the length of his scene actually is, but it's a little deeper than my module, as he has a mainline running behind it.

Week 3 - opted to remove the log pond and tepee burner due to space restrictions. I had roughed both of these features into the scene but decided that they just were too much clutter.  Decided that the space previously occupied by my control tower could be altered to hold the wood chip truck equipment.  This means ripping up all of the previous scenery and starting new.

Week 4 - home stretch.  Buildings are in place and completed installing the concrete pavement around the planer building, including the truck loading area.  Began to weather the rooflines of all buildings with Pan Pastels.  Installed piping runs from the planning mill building out to the sawdust collector for rail and truck. Scavenged the back yard for small pieces of branches, which will become my log piles.  Still need to place the workers, cut dozens and dozens of twigs to represent the logs and then add some of the smaller detail parts.  But that's another day when the snow is flying and I have a few evenings to catch up.  Now it's on to the Niagara Distribution and paper mill modules for some intensive work. Maybe hold an operating session or two to check my car card system.

View looking bottom part of module. Left track is for loading centerbeam and other cars while right track is for chip loading. The lumber piles are there to show that logs will be dropped and stacked alongside the rail.  Still need to take the vacuum and remove excess scenery and other materials

Over the next few months I'll continue to add scenery elements, such as workers, lumber piles, finished goods, etc.

Modeling Pembroke

I chose to model the city of Pembroke, Ontario on my Kawartha Lakes Railway, although like many modelers, I have taken many liberties for the town. Essentially Pembroke is within the Ottawa River valley, which was a convenient way to allow the KLR to head northward and then turn to the west so that it could interchange with the Ontario Northland.  For my time period, this would actually have been the domain of CP Rail, as it followed the southern shores of the Ottawa River.  However, the location fit in for modeling purposes, and it was similar to several of my local towns that I have spent my summers visiting.

So when I say I chose to model Pembroke, I really mean that I chose to transport local businesses from all over Ontario into the Pembroke area.  I wasn't striving to make true to life buildings, rather take the existing businesses that I found to be interesting or unique and fit them to a readily available kit.  I have some typical businesses, like Home Hardware and a book store, to unique stores such as Cahill's Furrier and the McKenzie Brew Pub.

My thanks to fellow modeler and friend Dale Photo, who helped me out a few years ago by taking some of my DPM building that I had assembled but never got around to painting, weathering or even placing roofs on the structures.  I convinced Dale that when the 2014 NMRA Convention was scheduled for Cleveland, that I could use his help with getting some structures ready.  So he did a lot of painting, some window and roof installations for me, enough to make the layout a little more presentable. During the summer of 2016, I decided to get busy with installing windows, lighting, signage and other details.

Most of the signs you see on the buildings come from searching the Internet for company logos and signs.  All have been printed on a color laser printer.  In some cases, such as the radio station ad on the McKenzie building, decals have been used.  Ultimately each of the signs and buildings will be weathered to age them.  Lighting has been added using the Woodland Scenics Just Plug hardware (see previous posting for my review).

Strange Brew...the McKenzie Brothers Bar & Grill.  Still waiting for a bar, tables, etc; also waiting for the beer which comes from the McKenzie Brewery via Bram Bailey's Ontario Central Railway

There actually is a books n' things in downtown Peterborough. One of my favorite visits for some summertime reading

Fashioned after Whetung's General Store at Crowe's Landing on Upper Stoney Lake; really liked the kit and needed to capture the spirit of the common look which makes it's home on Stoney

Home Hardware Bldg - you can find these in every Ontario town of any size.  First task is to modify the lighting and add an interior

Product Review - Woodland Scenics Just Plug System

I decided to add some electrification to the town of Pembroke in order to give it a little life.  Originally, none of my buildings have had lighting, and in fact, the only lighting was provided by a couple of street lamps I had picked up years ago and mounted to the scale sidewalk.  So when Woodland Scenics introduced their Just Plug system, I was intrigued and anxiously waited for it to hit my local hobby store. It looked like a simple process to light and building, and was basically a plug and play type of hardware.  Fast forward to present day, when I finally opted to make the purchase.  So after designing my electrical network and determining how many Light Hubs, individual lights, etc., I was ready to place my order.

Opened the mailbox Friday to find that two packages had arrived containing each of my new purchases.  So I quickly got to work that evening and began the installation process.  Ten minutes into it, I found my first real problem with the system.  After looking at the supplied instructions and going back to their web page, I realized that no where can you find the size of the drill bit or hole size you are going to need to pass the connector pin through the layout and underneath to the awaiting Light Hub. By the way, it requires a 3/8-inch drill bit.  The light itself is fairly large (approximately 3/8-inch squared), which is actually good for giving more illumination, but the pin at the other end of the wire is roughly the same size as the light.  Unfortunately the instructions are not the best and no way to see this before you purchase. Grade = C-

So for any existing structures without a removable floor or roof, you need to create a mega hole cut into your nice expensive structure.  Fortunately, each of my buildings have been built from scratch or kit and I left space to mount a floor at a later date, when I will install detailed interiors.  Of course you could always try to cut off some of the wiring, run the two thin wires through a small hole and reattach them to the light but this sot of defeats the idea of plug and play.  Grade D+

So after drilling my mega-sized hole and attaching the light to the building, as well as mounting the Light Hub to the underframe of the layout, I realized that the connector pin actually mounts to the top of the Hub, not the underside of the box.  So you need nimble fingers to press the connections into the box when your box is actually mounted high on the side frame so that it is out of sight.  We are model railroaders aren't we, and used to small wires and small spaces.  Perhaps Woodland Scenics will engineer and top vs bottom connection in the next version. Grade C+

Plug in front and pass through hole above "dg" in Bldg

It's probably just me, but I feel like the connection plug is very flimsy and just a little bit of extra force will break it and the delicate wires inside.  I have no confidence that if I ever want to remove the wiring plug that I'll be able to do so, as the connection os so tight. Grade C

Light Hub - tough to place wire/plug into hole when you can't see the receiver top

Once all of the lights were installed, I will say that the system nicely lights up the scene and the little bulbs are very powerful.  The dimmable bulbs is also a nice feature, although I found that that controls between Light Hubs were a little quirky and not as sensitive as I would have liked.  Still trying to figure out why adjusting one dimmer results in the next door dimmer have momentary lapses and losing power. Grade A-

Full brightness with the diffuser screen in place

Lights dimmed, still with diffuser screen in place

Pricing....the system isn't cheap but is affordable for the average hobbyist if you plan well.  The simplest system requires a Light Hub, power supply (can be DC) and lights.  So you have roughly $45-50 easily invested.  Through in multiple Light Hubs and you'll need an Expansion Hub as well. My biggest problem is that individual lights are about $4.50-5.00 each and only sold two per package. I think that WS is making a huge profit here and would have preferred that they offer a package with a minimum of 4 or 8 units with a price of may maybe $2-3 per unit.  Throw in the cost of the building light diffusing kit and some extension wiring to reach those distant spaces away from your hubs, and you see that the price creeps higher and higher quickly.Wait we haven't thrown in the cost of the individual street lights yet.

Lighting attached to ceiling of first floor

Overall I like the system and the plug and play concept. I'm really looking forward to installing some street lamps.  Unfortunately I think that it does have some shortcomings and the price is slightly on the steep side.  Overall grade = C.

Summer Ops Session

Like many model railroaders, I tend to work on small, isolated projects during the summer if I can find some free time.  I usually try to finishup any large projects for the KLR in early May, as I know that my time becomes spent more and more with yard work, maybe some railfanning and other summertime recreational activities.  By about the 1st of June, engines have been put away and I start making a list of upcoming projects that I'll start as soon as the cooler months roll around.

However, one of my local friends now finds himself splitting his time between northeast Ohio in the late spring to early fall, and Arizona the remaining months.  Before his move, op sessions on the Ontario Central were held at various times throughout the year.  Now the op sessions are once per month, starting in June.  While it may not be the traditional time for operating a model railroad layout, it does make for a nice diversion from yard work. The last op session I attended was very small in attendance, with only one other regular operator present.  However, it turned out to be a great session, as we were both able to run our trains and we simply did away with a time clock.

Pulling loaded boxcars from the warehouse

Arrival of the paper mill turn...it's going to be a busy day for the crew

I chose the paper mill turn, which is a train I have run before.  I really enjoy this train, as it gives me ideas on how I might switch out my own paper mill. It usually takes about 2.5-3 hours to get to the paper mill and do all of the switching. It's one of those jobs that keeps you very busy, and you don't actually realize the amount of time which has elapsed, as your having that much fine doing it.  And isn't that what model railroading should be all about? So thanks Bram for holding the summer op sessions, and I look forward to the next one.

Adding the Unimin Mine - Part 2

In a previous post, I described how I created the walls of the open pit mine as a background to my Unimin mining area, using a number of rock castings to portray the mined area.  This posting continues from that point, and I describe how the mine area was completed, using dyes to color the rocks and other materials to simulate the base of mining operations as well as blending the scene into the rest of the Unimin mine complex.

This photo shows the completed castings in place; gaps have been filled with spackle.  I added Sculptamold to the top of the hillside in order to smooth out the surface and give a slightly rounded top to the hillside, which will be planted with trees, bushes, etc as a final step.  While the top of the hillside was drying, I used dry wall compound or spackle to fill in any large joints which were present due to the castings pieces.  

Gray and white wash added to castings; top of hillside painted and ground foam applied.  I've also started to add the last wall in the bottom right of the photo.  I ran out of the pink foam board, and started to use some floral block in the upper right corner of the photo. Both are easily sculpted to the desired final shape.

Once everything was dry, it was time to get out the knives and start chipping away at the castings and spackle, to create the final shape of the rock face.  I've found that there really is no secret to this, unless you're trying to carefully follow a photograph.  I simply start changing the rock face by gouging the plaster, pulling deep cuts with my knife, until the shape takes on the appearance I'm looking for. Maybe this is where my geology background comes into play, as it's fairly easy to visualize the fissures, cracks, joints, etc in order to give the rock face a certain craggy look and feel.

For the mined road surface or bench, I simply added some spackle and dry plaster of paris onto the surface to complete it.  I don't want the surface to be perfectly smooth, rather the floor has to have the appearance of an area that has been mined but not so rough that trucks can't navigate on it.  Next come the difficult part, coloring the rock to the right color and consistency.

I like to use various colors of dyes to add color to the casting, rather than buying some of the commercially available liquid pigments.  The liquid pigments do a good job, however, you generally get one color per bottle and the bottles are about twice the price of available concentrated dyes.  I have found that Rit Dyes are inexpensive, come in a variety of base colors, and really set the color well in the plaster. One other advantage is that Rit has done some of the leg work for you, as their website provides a series of colors and what amounts of the colored dyes are needed to produce the final color.  I have colored many rock castings on the layout and still using my original bottle of Rit black dye after all this time.  I'm sure I would have gone through many bottles of liquid pigments rather than one.  Plus, I can easily make custom colors and if the results aren't to my liking, toss it without the feeling that I just used a good amount of the liquid pigment.  I mix my dye in a 70% rubbing alcohol solution.

I have a series of small, plastic screw-top containers that were bought at a discount store that hold approximately 2-oz of liquid and these are used to store my various color combinations. Before applying to the scene, I always like to test a small casting for the correct color content.  For example, to cast the plaster in a gray color, I have series of bottles ready, each with just a few more drops of black dye in them than their surrounding bottle, which allows me to darken the gray as necessary.  Remember to always start with the lightest color and work towards darker colors. 

Tools of the trade

Same area after several washes of gray have been applied.

Here's a photo after the initial "tan" dye has been applied.  It doesn't show well in the photograph, but the stark whiteness of the casting has been toned down and the plaster rock takes on the appearance of a more off-white color.

For the mine, I didn't want to add too much color to the castings, as the rock walls have a very light gray color to them when weathered, although they seem to take on more of a white hue on a fresh cut of the rock.   I always start with just a few drops of dye in the alcohol, progressively adding a few more drops of black dye to each bottle and testing each color before I apply it fully. 

Active mine area. Note that the rocks are a very light gray and in some locations appear to be white on a fresh cut of the rock face.

Here's the final version of the mine, although I need to undo some of the weathering I did as I'm not happy about some of the large "splotches" of gray or black in areas.