THE SKY IS RISING!

Rather than playing “Chicken Little” (sky falling…), I did the opposite for the wall the major mountain grade is mounted on.  I applied my standard multi-band sky treatment (http://espeecascades.blogspot.com/2012/11/backdrop-sky.html)to about sixty feet of wall.  This completes my expected sky treatment on walls, as I do not expect to need any sky color behind Cascade summit—the terrain will reach the ceiling before the wall behind that scene.  I remembered how applying the sky treatment immediately transformed a layout area when I applied that treatment to the McCredie Springs “nook” area last summer.  Completing that effect for the rest of the railroad has been on my active list since that time, but operating features of the railroad always took precedence—right up until my enforced operations break this winter.  (http://espeecascades.blogspot.com/2016/01/house-maintenance-pause.html)

Sky treatment applied to wall behind Cruzatte.

Cruzatte wall before the sky treatment.

Completed sky treatment blends with previously applied sky treatment in the nook to the left.

Sky treatment extends to the Salt Creek Trestle scene.

The next step will be a basic hillside treatment approximating where I expect to build up the terrain and extend the tree line above that.  Meanwhile my operating crew and I (whenever that happens again!) can enjoy the introduction of this real world element to the layout space.  I have already seen how my eye and brain accept the completed sky as belonging there, even when viewed above the backdrop spine behind Springfield.

CORRECTING A HUMP AND A SAG

As my railroad settles in, I have found a couple of roadbed issues that demanded attention.  The first was a hump in the roadbed and track in the middle of my Cruzatte location.  This one developed because I fit a modest width plywood roadbed piece between two eight-feet long pieces without proper (e.g., full width and beyond) splice plates underneath.  As I set the grade through Cruzatte, I allowed this filler piece to form a vertical kink—a hump.

Cruzatte roadbed hump.  Short filler roadbed section is on the right.

The hump became very obvious once I built the mountain operator platform and we began walking along this stretch of railroad.  I built the roadbed through this area using ladders and stools—not the best spots from which to observe something like this hump. 

The correction of the hump was straight-forward.  I removed the track.  Since I lay track using Dap 230 adhesive caulk, I have found I can flood such an area with alcohol and then easily pry up the track using a putty knife.  Once the track was removed and the area dried overnight, I used my belt sander to sand down the cork roadbed.  Final trimming was done with a Stanley Surform® and a sanding block. Relaying the track and re-installing the track feeders completed this job.

Cruzatte roadbed shaved down to remove the hump.

Cruzatte roadbed hump corrected. 

The second roadbed problem was at the RR-West end of the Salmon Creek mainline bridge.  Here, a dip or sag had developed.  I am not quite sure how I built this sag into the roadbed, though the fact that the roadbed splines that pass through the middle of the bridge (concealed by the cosmetic bridge girders) at less than standard roadbed height is the likely culprit.  See my posts on this bridge construction at:  http://espeecascades.blogspot.com/2014/04/salmon-creek-mainline-bridge-1.html  and http://espeecascades.blogspot.com/2014/06/salmon-creek-mainline-bridge-2.html 

Salmon Creek roadbed dip at the RR-West end of the bridge.

Correcting this dip required removing a couple of pieces of track, including half the track on the bridge.  That took some care to avoid damaging the bridge handrails.  In the end, the piece of track from the bridge needed to be replaced, as the ties broke away from the rails in several places.  

As it happened I also had a section of track lifted up from the roadbed just up the line from this area, so another section of track was removed.  The track had bowed up because the roadbed shrunk a bit over the past month, likely due to the dehumidifier in the basement as part of the house maintenance issue cited in the last post.  I could work on both problems (the bridge dip and the track lifting) at the same time.

Track hump caused by roadbed shrinkage.

With the track removed, I started filling the roadbed dip with balsa sheet glued on top of the cork roadbed.  The balsa lends itself well to shaping with hand tools and is plenty strong enough to support the track.  I needed to install about a quarter inch of filler material at the deepest point of the dip.  The top layer was a relatively smooth section of 1/32 inch thick balsa sheet.

Roadbed dip filled with balsa and sanded to fair back into the existing roadbed.

Salmon Creek mainline ready for service.

As noted above, I had a couple of instances of track popping up off the roadbed, likely due to roadbed shrinkage with the dehumidifier used in the layout space as part of the house maintenance issue.  I had quite a track bow at Wicopee.  In  the end, I needed to remove close to 1/8 inch of rail from one piece of track to refit the track. 

Track bowed up at Wicopee.

Adjustments to the roadbed are known issues for new track.  Both the full-size railroads and model railroads go through these adjustments.  Indeed, the prototype Cascade Line was not cleared for passenger train service for at least six months after line completion as the roadbed and track settled in.  For my model railroad, it will be good to just run the current railroad with only modest scenery efforts for a year or more so I can more easily spot and correct any more roadbed settling issues.

HOUSE MAINTENANCE PAUSE

My title for this post should strike fear and recognition in the minds of some of my readers.  Others will at least recognize the theoretical possibility of a necessary diversion of effort. 

Shortly after the January 2, operating session, we noted a stain on the ceiling above my Oakridge engine terminal in an area where we had noted bowing of baseboards on the main floor above.  The signs were unmistakable, though not expected for a relatively new house (four years old).  Investigation led to a call to a national removal and remediation contractor plus starting an insurance claim.

It is sufficient for this blog to report we have spent the past three weeks with the constant drone of equipment—24/7, as the saying goes.  Areas of the railroad directly under the affected spots have been covered with screwed-down hardboard.  This will not be removed until the reconstruction is complete.  Only then will I discover whether any damage occurred on the layout.  I expect a significant inspection and potential repair effort.

Fans blowing into the ceiling above the Oakridge engine terminal (covered by hardboard).

Suffice to say, my attention has been on the “thick ceiling” above the railroad.  Further, the basement and much of the house has been inhabitable due to heat and noise for most of January.  I am attempting to work on some of my long-deferred projects, but the noise has had an impact on my motivation.

BANISHING OPERATING GREMLINS

My seventh full mainline operating session began with two operating gremlins that needed to be banished immediately.  Operational glitches are well known to layout owners, especially this one with a “raw” railroad still a-building.  One learns to deal with them and hopefully, rapidly, find a solution.  Solution time becomes a bigger issue as the crew size grows.  I had twenty operators awaiting my trouble-shooting.

Gremlin # 1 showed up at Crescent Lake as the first train arrived from Cascade Summit.  At the same time, the first RR-East train was preparing to depart once the west train cleared into Crescent Lake.  I spent quite a while trying to find the source of the problem.  Eventually, I removed all the motive power from the tracks in Crescent Lake—no small feat, given the elevated location.  I started putting locomotives back on the track, one at a time.  I needed a throttle, so I grabbed one from a nearby operator.  That turned out to be the key, for I discovered this was a guest throttle that I had not been aware of.

In common with the Willamette Model Railroad Club, based in Clackamas, I use NCE DCC equipment.  Usually, this is a happy joining of my operation with theirs, as I draw a core portion of my crew from their membership.  On this occasion, though, that worked against me, as one of their members, new to my layout, brought along his personal throttle.  “Of course” it had the same throttle address as one of my throttles.  With that, my command station got quite confused and produced various strange effects.  Once recognized, that problem was resolved quickly.

As a side note to this, although I changed the throttle address on the guest throttle to an unused number, my throttle with the conflicting address refused to operate properly during the session.  The guest throttle was fine.  Upon expert consultation, I found a basic full power cycle (command station turned off and later turned back on) and a throttle ID reset on my throttle brought it back to life.  Whew!

The second gremlin took a bit longer to reveal itself.  Initially, operations in Eugene appeared normal, but then started going into a short detected in the power district.  This one took a bit longer to find.  I added almost a hundred cars to the layout in the past week.  During my set-up, I found one of the new lumber boxcars was creating a short.  I found that one of the wheelsets had a dead short across the wheels and axle.  A replacement wheelset was inserted (ironically from the same manufacturer) and corrected the problem and I didn’t think much more about it.

Flash forward to the operating session.  The problem at Eugene smacked of a similar issue, but now there were well over a hundred cars in the classification yard.  Eventually, my crew and I confirmed the issue was with a car in that yard.  We then pulled one string of cars at a time onto the switch lead (a separate power circuit) and identified what string of cars the offender was within.  As soon as I saw that string though, I immediately suspected another one of those new lumber cars.  Sure enough, that was the car!  Whew!

Operations at Eugene and in Springfield have settled back down after “Gremlin-2” was chased away.

With the two significant gremlins banished, operations settled down into a good experience--I hope for all.  One local wag notes that as the layout matures, the “Gremlins” grow up into AMC Pacers.  (Friends of CC and DM will understand the pun-dency.)

Notable Winterail Producer, Vic N., is seen running a train (and taking video with a camera in his right hand) at Wicopee.

John B-1 and Rick K.  work Westfir with the Oakridge Turn.

John B-2 dispatches while Dave C. (behind the ladder) works the “Santa Clara Tower” position.  The move of the ready engines down to the new diesel service tracks made this operating position even more important.  It was great to have one of my most experienced crew members take this on and help to define the job.

Looking in on the Eugene Arrival/Departure Yard throat and diesel servicing tracks.  Dave C. and I had a good discussion on the Tower Operator position.  Dave suggests moving the panels into the hostler pit, seen just beyond the caboose track.  This would relieve people congestion in the passageway.  This will take a while to implement, as the hostler pit panel actually needs to be a parallel panel to the aisle panels.  Switch control is needed in both locations.

This operating session saw the introduction of a more formal crew call board than my previous efforts.  Rick K. devised a different system than my initial thoughts for a crew call system.  His design reflects actual railroad practice where the crews are listed in order and the trains assigned as they become known.  In common with my WMRR Club friends, I designed a call board to have all of the jobs listed and then have the crew tags placed and moved as the train line up is fulfilled. 

New crew call board.  Names are blanked out with tape to maintain privacy.

The new board began with my idea of listing all trains, as can be seen in the photo.  Rick K. suggested we merge the two ideas and use my new call board to list the crews and then have the crew caller/dispatcher assign the trains.  That is what we will do next with this board, as one can see I already filled all available train slots.  There is at least another pair (EB/WB) of trains to be added to the line up and probably more.  Rick’s suggestion adds life to this board, as I never expect to fill it with crew—I don’t have that much space for crew or additional throttles!

A NECESSARY INVISIBLE TASK

As I close out 2015, I reflect back upon a very successful year for my HO scale SP Cascade Line.  All of the hard work in the first two thirds of the year paid off—just in time—with a successful operation and layout tours for the PDX2015 NMRA National Convention.  After a break from the intense work to meet that goal, I continue to flesh out the railroad, notably with tracks associated with the Eugene Arrival/Departure Yard, which serves as lower level staging.  Monthly operating sessions have become the driver for much of the work. 

During November, I completed laying the remaining staging loop tracks plus the five tracks associated with the diesel servicing facility for Eugene.  I did not get those tracks wired for the early December operating session.  That necessary, but “invisible” task has consumed my railroad efforts during December.  For me, wiring often is a thankless task—not much visible progress.  Still, it is absolutely necessary to make the locomotives go and the track switches work.

The core work is now complete, allowing me to activate all of the Eugene staging tracks and use the diesel servicing facility.  Three switches at the “back” of that facility still need to be controlled, but the switches at the “front” of the facility will support the necessary functions.  With that, I can move all of the unassigned motive power down to the new service facility and ready tracks.

Eugene diesel service tracks ready for business!

Moving the ready for assignment motive power down to the ready tracks has been a long term goal.  Ever since initial test operations were started a year and a half ago, my crews have been using the car repair tracks as a defacto engine facility.  Along with this, they sent out full trains from the Eugene classification yard.  That ends with the new service and ready tracks. 

In between wiring efforts, I took “daylight breaks” to pull more locomotives and freight cars out of packing materials.  Couplers and decoders have been added, as appropriate.  I am pushing toward adding four trains’ worth of equipment to the railroad for the next operating session.   I have yet to create a waybill system for the cars that I desire.  Work I did for the California Central Club fifteen years ago defies recreation.  Sigh.  Nonetheless, I am making progress!

Trains lined up in Eugene staging, getting ready for the next operating session.

Here is to a great new year!  May 2016 be as successful as the past couple of years have been for my SP Cascade Line.

MAINLINE OPERATING SESSION - 6

Operations on my SP Cascade Line are settling into a monthly pattern.  This is a VERY good thing!  The BIG push to get the layout ready for the NMRA National Convention in August now pays dividends in the form of an operable railroad and a fairly sizeable crew of folk willing to show up for operating sessions. 

I had thought of taking a “bye month” in December as many have other obligations during the holiday period.  My regulars convinced me otherwise, so we held a “casual” session on December 5.  This coincided with an annual swap meet a half hour down the road, so we settled on a later start and a short session.  A dozen folk showed up, mostly my “regulars.” A good time was had by all.

My track laying of the past month was just that—track.  I did not complete getting electrons to those same tracks, so the railroad physical plant remained the same as the previous operating session other than a couple of repairs.    My restaging effort was modest for this session as it was to be “casual.”  I moved the Marcola Turn out of the Eugene Yard where it was left at the end of the last session and staged it in Springfield, ready to do its work.  Similarly, the Oakridge Turn was ready after a couple of key cars were added, so it, too, was moved out and over to Oakridge to start the new session.  Both of these actions cleared critical spaces in the Eugene classification yard, which helped a great deal.

Another bit of staging action was to move full trains to their appropriate staging yards.  This is necessary because the train composition of RR-West trains--lumber drags and mixed manifest freights--is quite different from the RR-East trains, still with mixed manifests, but the lumber empties are now solid blocks of lumber box cars and empty flats. 

The first such train I needed to move from Eugene to Crescent Lake ran into a problem in the Eugene Arrival/Departure Yard reverse loop as I moved to turn it around.  About a third of the way into the loop track it started derailing.  Inspection found about ten inches of the outer rail had popped out of the Micro Engineering flex track to create wide track gauge.  I spent fifteen minutes spiking that rail into the correct position.  After that, the re-staging went very well.  What a joy to run trains on my own railroad!

Eugene Arrival/Departure Yard.  Note there are now twelve loop tracks (on the right) and five widely-spaced tracks for the new diesel service facilities.   The new tracks have blue flags on them (blue painters tape) showing they are out of service yet.  Just beyond the caboose in the distance is the track where the outer rail popped out of its flex track spikes which required manual spiking by me to force it back into gauge.

With a modest crew size (not the “full” crew of twenty), operating jobs were parceled out amicably.  One “newbie” (welcome Rodger C!) was paired with an experienced operator (for my layout) for his initial runs, but otherwise we used single man crews.  Dave H. dispatched, releasing Rick K. to run one of the locals.  I should have insisted at least one other person help David B. in the Eugene Yard, but neither he nor the operating scheme suffered (much). 

Rick K. works the First Springfield Switch Job, which services the depot side of the Springfield mainline.

Tom D. guides a train into Wicopee.

Norm A. finishes up work with the Oakridge Turn as he prepares to return to Eugene by way of Westfir and the other half of his work.

Dave H. serves as Dispatcher as Rick A. looks on.  Rick A. actually was studying the workflow and had a very useful suggestion at the end of the session.  I hope to see that play out within a couple of months.

Rodger C. (now operating alone) watches his train as AMTRAK Number 11 climbs toward Cascade Summit.

John B. (near) takes a break from his Crew Caller duties to serve as a helper engineer for the freight Mike B. (rear) has just brought into Oakridge.

My faithful companion Phreddie takes it all in and wonders when the next treat will come his way!

Now that my railroad is settling into a monthly operating pattern, I need to develop a balance among construction projects, repairs, tweaks and tuning for operating glitches, staging and other organizational duties for operating sessions.  This “casual” session with a smaller crew composed mostly of my regulars helped bring much of that into focus.  I had sufficient time to brainstorm several ideas for operations organization with my regulars.

FLESHING OUT THE EUGENE LOOP TRACKS

I have expanded the Eugene Arrival/Departure Yard to twelve tracks per my design.  These are reverse loop tracks.  I have been slowly expanding this last key part of the railroad with first a single loop track for the “Golden Spike,” then expanding to six and then seven tracks for full mainline operations.  All twelve tracks are becoming important, though, as I start forcing the issue to have all trains depart from the “Arrival/Departure” Yard, as designed. 

Eugene Arrival/Departure Yard (reverse loop staging) with most of the planned twelve tracks laid.

The inner loop track (Track 12) has a gap in its middle right now.  I must complete building a turnout and install it for access off this track into the diesel fuel and sand facility.  That facility will be along the “right side” of the loop.  Laying the switches and tracks for that facility is the immediate next project.  With switch machines installed and track and machines wired, this will finally move the arrival and departure operations down into this area.

“Right” side of the Eugene Arrival/Departure Yard.  The diesel fuel and sand facility will go in the open space to the left of the twelve loop tracks.