The Glade 4.0

I am now experimenting with decoder programming. That's another can of worms.

That, more than the expense of the system, is my biggest source of trepidation with DCC. The tender problem really makes me wonder what was going on with it.

After getting these new cars and locomotives, I've also come to the conclusion that eventually most of my existing rolling stock will have to be replaced. So much of it is cheaply-made stuff from back when electric toy trains were more common (70s and 80s) and just doesn't look that good even though the metal wheels make it run better.

Speaking of that, a piece of advice for anyone with a model railroader in their family: If you want to buy them something for the layout, just stay away from the caboose. Buying a model railroader a caboose is like buying your dad a necktie. He'll appreciate the thought, but most likely it will be cheap and not look right compared to the ones he buys for himself. Also, like the necktie, everyone ends up with too many of them. I have a shitload of useless neckties of various levels of tackiness and disrepair. I also have too many cabooses, and of the 8 or 9 I have, 1 (the one my mom got me for Christmas, in an exception that proved the rule) is excellent, 2 more are decent, and 6 or 7 are atrocious wastes of plastic. A train only needs one caboose at a time. Rolling stock of almost any other sort is more useful and more likely to be genuinely appreciated, and box, hopper, or gondola cars are pretty era-nonspecific, applicable to many railroads, and not likely to cost more than a caboose anyhow.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

DE the first time I went to PA to visit my dad and stepmom, they took me to Strasburg Railroad. Very cool place with a shop to buy trains and all of their paraphenalia. As we were walking through I kept note of what Dad said he wanted to get, and I bought some of it for him when he stepped outside. He got what he wanted/needed and I got to see the happy gleam in his eyes!

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

That's great, Jas. I've been to Strasburg quite a few times since I was 4 or 5 years old, and have taken my own kids. Not the youngest 2 yet, but we will try to go when I'm able to get up that way and visit my mom.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Starting on the mountain. I can't let you get to far ahead of me.

Nice tall mountains! I presume the computer inside is for programming the decoders?

I've got my track issues (outside the yard, which I really haven't dived into yet) resolved, except for 3 things:

1) The monster still only runs on one loop. I can make it run on the other loop if I smooth out the track between the wye turnout at the siding and the bridge right before the #2 turnout, which is really ok, just too abrupt a change in grade for the length of the monster. Getting it to go over Block #7 and #8 is not going to happen. When coming out of the #1 turnout, the rise coming into it from the yard followed by the fall afterwards as it goes into the turn around the back of the layout (block #7) is just too much to overcome, and I already messed with it enough to get the NYC diesel over that area. Coming out of the tunnel in block #8 to cross the bridge might be doable, and may end up needing work anyhow for the other locomotives, but there's no point in getting the monster to do it if it can't get through block #7. I'm ok with that though; the fact that the monster runs on this layout at all is a miracle, and it now does the loop through the yard with no issues.
2) The bridge needs to have a careful eye kept on it. It is not secured down yet because of all the work on track, so running trains over it can cause it to start creeping. I'm leery of securing it down in case I run into other issues. Still, trains can run on it for loop after loop before it creeps to the point of a derailment.
3) Where the double bridge meets the tunnel, on the yard loop side, there is a small but visible kink in the track. Amazingly, everything seems to negotiate this kink just fine. It is a little worrisome though, and doesn't look very good. The kink results from accumulating errors in the track plan. The double bridge was the last thing installed. When I put it in, it didn't fit exactly, and getting the pilings in place around the river and the tracks beneath has been a major chore. They fit now, but previously, there was 5" of track in 2x 2 1/2" sections on the end by the grade crossing, and another 5" in a 2 1/2, 1, and 1 1/2" section at the tunnel end; I did not have enough 2 1/2" to eliminate both of the smaller pieces on the tunnel end.

Anyhow, in the process of working on getting the monster and the NYC diesel to go around the yard loop reliably, that bridge exit-tunnel entrance spot was trouble because it was practically impossible to get those 3 little pieces of track to lay flat; they hung out into space because the gap is longer than the 4x 9" bridge sections that make the double bridge. I eventually shortened the grade crossing side an inch, and replaced those 3 small pieces with a single 6" straight section. That's when the kink appeared. I suspect it was always there; it just wasn't easily seen because the kink was spread across 3 joints rather than just one. I made the kink a bit smaller by inserting a 3/4" section back farther in the curve to bring it more in line with the bridge, but it's still there. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to cause any derailments, even running at 75% on the throttle.

The new cars I got for Christmas turned out to be invaluable in finally getting the track issues worked out. I needed a train of reasonable length with high-quality, consistent performance so I could tell what problems were track and what were rolling stock. With the NYC diesel, the boxcar and caboose from my mom, and the 5 new cars I got, I was able to do that. A major lesson learned there; when diagnosing track problems, do it with new stuff, or at least stuff you know performs consistently. Also, 3 of the new cars have larger-diameter wheels, which helped me find a few other things. The NYC diesel was also invaluable; it's small enough that it reflects the other engines and doesn't have the monster's idiosyncracies, but sensitive enough to poor track to find the problems.

I do plan to cut and insert some sections of pier girder at the double bridge on the tunnel end to clean things up. Another trick I discovered was to use a 5" section of metal bracket I had; this slipped under the track at the tunnel entrance on the other track and makes it nice and stiff; the pier there previously wasn't doing it.

Here is the monster pulling an extra-long test train. I added my 5 tank cars to the new cars to see how a longer train would do; including the caboose that makes 12 cars. You can't see most of the train, but what you can see is that the front of the monster is poking out of the tunnel, while the caboose is poking out of the other end. This long train successfully made 10 trips around the yard loop with no derailments. (2 pictures) (Note: the monster was actually not running at the time of the picture; I had to stop it to get the shot.)





Below was an interesting spot. I had no problems here, until a few runs with the monster after the above changes to the pieces leading into the double bridge. You probably can't tell from this picture, but the section of track directly behind the crossing was not level; the rail closer to the camera was just slightly lower than the farther rail. This was causing the front truck on the monster's tender to derail; the wheel flange would just barely slide over the rail.



In this picture you see the fix. A very thin piece of cardboard under only that rail brings it up so the wheel flange doesn't slip over it.



That's one thing I have discovered so far: You really won't be able to tell what will cause a derailment until you test it, and look closely at exactly where the derailment occurs. If I didn't have the monster, I would have never noticed that since it only bothered that unit.

Another lesson learned: next time, I'll use foam and/or roadbed like Jerry did. Although I can scenic over these little shims I have all over the place I probably would need a lot fewer if the track was on something to smooth things out.

Going to be getting back to the mountain next. I plan to experiment with using drywall mud instead of plaster for the back half and see what comes out better.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The PC will eventually run everything. Trains,turnouts,signals, etc. I have had my share of trackage issues too. That double crossing was tricky to align. My biggest issue was that curved turnout on the inner track in the mountain. A curve straddelling an apex was a tough combo even with a Walthers $45 turnout. The reason I bought that 4-8-4 and 4 axel trucked tender was to check trackwork. I could have got a 2-10-2 but it had less axels on the tender. 8 drivers and 4 axel trucks are about the extreme anyhow for most locos. The articulateds driver groups pivot sideways. I would hope they pivot up/down as well or they would be impossible on all but the most gentle of rises.

The Allegheny has plenty of play up and down on both the drivers and the lead and trailing wheels.

I had not noticed that your number 3 turnout was curved until you mentioned it just now. That's a definite design improvement. Most of my problems have been with #1 next to it, and a curved turnout might have been better there. I don't think I could have sunk that much money into one turnout though... then again, the Atlas turnouts have not impressed me. For code 83 it might be better to go for more expensive brands.

I must say, I'm really envious of your 6'x11' size too. If I could have got even 6'x10' I could have reduced some of the grades and widened the curves and probably had a much easier time of it with the track laying.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Of to the store to get a few tiny screws to experiment with the new coupler boxes (I got 2 pair) that attach to the body of the car rather than the trucks. I have no gauge yet so the new cars will have to act as height gauges. Also going to pick up the drywall mud; hopefully tomorrow there will be a picture of that on the mountain. I'm ready to start on the mountain again, but in the meantime now that my major track issues are resolved, I'm noticing minor ones that I wasn't paying attention to before in the quest to get things to stop derailing. Some are clearly caused by older cars, not the track. For example, my green Burlington Northern boxcar has a damaged truck that doesn't seat right in the socket that holds it to the car. Going to try to replace it with a new truck entirely and new coupler boxes when I can order some. It will be an experiment.

In the meantime, I have 3 working consists: a boxcar one, a tank car one, and a coal hopper train. Obviously they can mix and match, but enough reliably working for some operational interest while I police up track problems and get to serious scenery work. Here, NYC #5607 has just hooked up its caboose and is getting ready to depart the yard with a series of just-filled tank cars from the refinery. Consolidation #1257 has just arrived at the coal mine, and is getting ready to drop its caboose in order to back in and start loading hoppers. Meanwhile, an express freight led by #9710 is crossing the bridge on its way to its destination.



Obviously the scenery isn't in place and the steam locomotive and the BN diesel are totally wrong for the Allegheny Mountains, but (I decided to switch from the rockies to the Alleghenies since my eventual plan is a larger layout in that area anyhow) that's what I imagine is going on.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Finally managed to get to the drywall mud this morning. I'm waiting for it to dry, but here are a couple pictures. I don't know how obvious the patches to the plaster with it will be in the pictures, but they are there. I used it to clean up some exposed areas around the tunnel and bridge, and to smooth out some folds and gaps in the plaster than looked more like paper-towel covered in plaster than rocky irregularities in the ground. For that purpose, it worked well.



I also did a relatively narrow section of mountain with it. I'm waiting to see how this works out. Although it did seem like it would produce acceptable results, it also takes an awful lot of mud for a small area. It's also heavy during application and had to be applied carefully. I am not sure it will be a substitute for plaster. On the plus side, it does not fold into unwanted shapes like plaster paper towels, is far less messy, and allows you to work at a much more measured pace because it does not start drying nearly as quickly as plaster, even with retardant added. It does take a lot more mud for a given area than I had expected, though.



Finally, an alteration I made this past week, while policing up some of the more minor track issues:

I have to credit Jerry's idea to add a yard on a peninsula for making me notice that this could be done. I used entirely Atlas sectional track, and the curve sections are all 18" radius or 22" radius. Atlas also makes 1/2 18" radius and 1/3" radius pieces, several of both being part of this layout. Normally, 3x 18" radius pieces make a 90 degree curve. The 1/2 or 1/3 pieces cover only 1/2 or 1/3 as much of the circumference of the curve, but still curve at the same rate.

The number 7 turnout, that leads into that small spur where Jerry wants to put his yard entrance, had a 1/2 18" piece both between it and the #6 turnout (the one that goes either to the yard or to block #2 that allows a train to pass by the yard) and between it and the #8 turnout (the first yard turnout that splits it into the eventual 4 spurs). I removed the one between #6 and #7 and added a full 18" radius curve piece between #7 and #8. This moved #7 to the right, allowing a substantial increase in the length of that short spur, removing the little 1/3 18" piece that was in it, and making it straight along the edge of the table. This also added more space for eventual scenery behind it.



It's now large enough for the monster plus a caboose. Better yet, I can now add an engine depot there. I also altered electrical block 12 yet again so that this spur is its own block, allowing an engine to park there while block 9 is used for yard movements all the way out to turnout #6. There is not enough room of course to allow movements out of the spur without intruding block #3 which is main line track, but the 1/2 18" piece was hardly enough to allow that anyhow so nothing was lost there.

I would love for this spot to be the monster's home, but unfortunately it is way too accessible to tiny hands for that to be a good idea.

I'll inspect the mud tomorrow and see how it turned out. I want to get this mountain fully covered and start moving on to trees and other aspects of that portion of the scene. I also need to replace the switch machine at turnout #4; the "backwards" switch the kit included and the plans called for is... not a good idea. It essentially limits the layout to one-direction-only operations, and makes backing up a major issue with both steam engines and the NYC GP7.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I am currently redoing the mountain framework. I decided the cardboard structure would not handle being removed as a whole unit. I am building a foam board internal structure. Hopefully it can survive the removable feature I want. If it does, then I can start sculpting the rock surfaces. I got the tunnel portals already, but the foam construction is going slow as I am building it from the center out.

The drywall mud does not look like it will be a good choice for covering large swathes of mountain by itself. It might work better on a Homasote hill later on, but with the cardboard-strip frameowrk, there's just too much mud for not enough support. It seems ok, but I feel like it's distinctly weaker than the adjacent plaster, and there were obvious cracks in it from the drying process. I covered these with more mud, but if it starts falling apart there may be nothing for it but to rip out that section and redo it.

On the plus side, the mud did a nice job of filling in cracks and crevasses and smoothing over the obvious edges of paper towel in the plaster portion. I think the 2 are much better in conjunction than used separately.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I have been a little stymied now for a few weeks. The drywall mud is a good supplement to the plaster but impractical as the hill surface on its own, at least with the cardboard strip network. The idea of doing plaster always gives me cause on account of the incredible mess.

This will only be aggravated by what you see below:


Specifically, the concave center of the mountain. The legs of this layout are 42" in length. That puts the bottom of that area around 48" and the top of the mountain close to 60"; I haven't measured exactly. That makes it really hard to reach over the mountain and into the center of that area to work on the inner portions.

I haven't figured out precisely how I want to do that yet, and unfortunately that means when I go in to work on it, I end up just running trains and finding minor things to piddle around with before being kicked out so the baby can nap.

I need to keep in mind this is a long term project, and not try to rush everything. However, if anyone has a brilliant idea about getting at that concave without covering myself and everything else in plaster, I'm all ears!

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

How about building a sectional chicken-wire or window screen mountainside? You could then place the whole side of the mountain at once, then mud it in to the rest of the terrain.

Since my layout is 6x11 that problem is worse for me. The top of the mountain is 65 inches from the floor. I envisioned this in planning. I chose to make the mountain removable as a whole unit. I abandoned the cardboard and lattice as I realized it would not neet this criteria. This is where I am at currently. After the cloth is applied, very little plaster will be needed as the rock surface shapes came out nice. I just finished the frame core. I still have more peanut layer to do but I wanted to do some plaster cloth to see what the surface would look like.

That's a good idea. I may give this a shot.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The basic mountain shell is ready for finishing. Got to get back to work on the add on yard.

Nice work Jerry! I do have 2 questions; how did you make the tunnel entrances, and what's the purpose of the closed-up tunnel entrance in the center?

I finally got back to work on the mountain; the last couple weeks it seems like it's been impossible to find time for the train, but I did go with the suggestion to use screen for the last portion. Tonight, or Monday (not going to be home tomorrow), the plaster is going on come hell or high water. I need to get done with the tunnel; it's become a roadblock to doing anything else. Here's the screen on it:





A couple pictures from the back of the layout since I don't think I ever posted any before.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Those are from Woodland Scenics. They are plaster. The closed up one in the middle will have simulated steel doors as the entrance for the NORAD installation instead of a common quarry scene.

Finally, a little more progress. I managed to get at that center section without wrecking anything although it was not easy. Going to finish plastering the mountain this week I hope. I'm not sure if I will rough in more terrain next, or start improving the mountain first.







Not part of the layout, but sometimes she likes to watch me work on it!

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I bet she likes watching the trains run too. A couple more years and you 2 will be fighting over who is the engineer!!

She has 2 older sisters to fight with over that, too.

Some more work today. I started putting some screen down in preparation to do some work on the riverbed:



And another appplication of plaster paper towel to the mountain. Gaps will be filled in with mud when it'd dry:





We've come to the conclusion that we won't be renewing our lease a year from now. Therefore, we'll be moving so this layout won't reach the state of completion I originally envisioned in this house. Depending on money and space I may try to move to a larger layout, if only to get some wider curves; even being able to move to all 24" radius rather than the present mix of 18" and 22" would be an enormous improvement, especially for the Monster. If not, I'll try to move this one and resume work; if you look back to the original pictures you'll see where it is modular in the center.

Either way, I do want to try working on the river since my eventual Pittsburgh layout will definitely have at least one of the three rivers in it, and rivers seem to be a tricky aspect of scenery.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

What are you going to use in your river?

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I'm not sure. There's a few techniques I've read about; I need to review them.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

We did some hot resin rivers for minis a few years back The results are great, and the price is fair. It's a bit of a chore and you have to take proper precautions to cook and handle it though.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"