Look at my wonderful box of kittens waiting to be taken to GNMRE tonight for some exercise
Front to back
So last week at work in my new desk I was working away and had a few trains on display like I always have and someone was like “those trains are cool you should run them around your cube!”. Continuous circuit running is kinda boring to me so while I was going to take the suggestion to heart I was going to lean more towards a tiny switching layout.
I measured the shelf next to my desk where I normally displayed trains or rolling stock and it was a 1×4 flat shelf with sidewalls (so no accidental rolling to its doom worries). Could I fit something into a 1×4 footprint I thought…
Anyrail
I went home and fired up Anyrail and set my work area to 1×4. It was challenging to get something into that size that would actually be workable and I went through 3 tries before I hit what seemed to be a keeper.
Layout plan
My 3rd attempt at a 1×4 yielded something of a compact mini Time saver which was not surprising as I had been reading about the Time saver and other switching puzzles for a couple months now. It started with the special edition of MRR “How to build small model railways” there was a time saver based article in there which I found interesting plus a 1×6 20 car switching shelf layout that also had my attention. So what I ended up with in my 1×4 was sort of a cross between a mini time saver and that 1×6 shelf layout I was very interested so I began to plan trying it out.
Train show
The semi annual Niagara railway museum train show was that Sunday and this was a perfect chance to cost effectively buy the track to test this plan out. Sure enough I managed to get all the track I needed for about $32
Testing
I assembled the switching arrangement on the floor at home and used sectionals I had to test the general principal of the layout. I wanted to make sure it could work as a puzzle and a general switching layout before I cut up my flex track. Sure enough it works. The layout allows for a puzzle of 6 cars, 3 spotted in their proper end locations and 3 in the inbound/outbound track. The goal is to swap out/in the existing cars with the new. It takes about 40min-1 hour to complete I am sure that will go down in time.
At work I laid out the same sectional layout to make sure it actually fit and as it turned out I would gain an inch or so at each end once I switched to flex track.
Once the flextrack was in place the layout was clearly a success to me so now it is time to make it more semi permanent.
Running the train
Here’s how a day can play out on my breaks:
What’s next
Currently the track is just down flat in the shelf because while my work allows me to have personal items in my cube they wouldn’t want me to start gluing and painting things so the next step will be to get a thin piece of material to go under the track. This will allow me to secure the track and also transport the layout home for things like scenicking and other messy tasks
So just remember with a will there is a way when it comes to model railroading!
Remember that Chessie SD40-2 I was restoring back to health a few months ago? Here’s the latest on that project.
After my last restoration post I had got some standard Kadee #5 couplers into the Athearn coupler box but I didn’t like that the metal centering plate stuck out a bit. I also tried putting a Kadee coupler box on instead but it sat too low to be useful on this old Blue box chassis. Eventually I picked up some Kadee #148 whisker variety couplers and used the existing Athearn coupler box to fit them onto the engine.
This appeared to work at first.
After checking with a coupler gauge it was clear however that the couplers sagged down and were not reliable. They weren’t catching on turnouts or anything but on a grade they would let go of their cars.
Finally I picked up a bag of Kadee #209 washers and placed one within each coupler box and the issue was solved! Now this proud old cat is back on the line where it belongs! Thanks Kadee!
I had this Canadian Pacific box car that I picked up in the summer that had the paint damaged because it wasn’t sealed properly. The car wasn’t expensive so it just sat in a box unused for the time being.
Since the cars paint job was already damaged I figured there was no harm in trying to weather it. The damage to the paint was mainly on the roof, it had been stripped away by some adhesive and where it was stripped was actually a decent spot to repaint with rust to make the roof appear worn and rusty.
I bought some rust coloured paint at Just Train Crazy and some rust powder from AIM. The idea was the paint the stripped spots and then see what this weathering powder was all about that I heard about from members at club.
I applied the paint first onto the damaged parts of the car. It looked decent but it did seem out of place to have these suddenly complete rusted out areas on the roof of the car.
I opened up the box of rust powder and began brushing it in over top of the rust paint and around the edges. This created the look I was after. I went across the roof with the powder rusting it up as appropriate and then also added some to the step ladders and on the sides where the Canadian Pacific Decals were worn. I think I have achieved the look I was after and it was exceedingly simple to do.
I remember when I was a kid and you could pick up the best rolling stock on the market for $10-20. Of course that was 20 years ago and there has been some inflation to add to that… Currently for a mid range car you are looking at about $20 and something really good 30 and up depending on type and features.
This can add up very quickly if you are trying to build out a fleet of rolling stock to populate a layout!
Used gold
This is why much of the model railroading community frequents flea markets, swap meets and general train shows you can usually pick up a lot of used stock on the cheap and easily repurpose it into your layout.
Horn hooked devils
Horn hook refers to the old cheap style couplers that were more common up until 20 years ago. They are terrible for any type of operation as they aren’t easy to uncouple plus they are ugly and this is where we get to my point. Horn hook cars are usually significantly cheaper to pick up, between $1-$5 because in most cases they aren’t prototypical, have cheap paint jobs etc… However there are diamonds in the rough that are worth conversion.
Chessie 40ft conversion
As we all know I collect Chessie System, almost all my train posts revolve around it in some manner. I was browsing the used section of Just Train Crazy and came across a blue 40ft Chessie Box car for $3 with the horn hook couplers. I immediately picked it up with the plans to convert it.
Parts:
Box car : $3
Kadee Couplers: $2 ($1 per coupler)
Metal Wheels: $4 ($1 per axle)
Total for car: $9
So it may not be as pretty as a $30 RTR but for filling your fleet not everything should be perfect anyways
Steps:
Now in some cases like with this car the trucks sit close to the body and this may reduce the angles they can take as the wheels would touch the coupler box. In this case the min turn radius this car can handle is 18″ but that isn’t a problem for me. A different brand I did the same conversion to had no issue with the wheels and handled down to 15″.
For the price of the car I won’t complain much.
