T-Trak: Chester Railway Museum module (part 1) - Railroad Equipment

I am a member of the local N scale T-trak club in Albany and operate my Japanese Tokyo module with them. However, sometimes my wife wishes I would run some of "our" (she has an extensive collection of Western Pacific N scale equipment) trains at the shows. Since I am always looking for new projects I thought building a new T-trak module would be fun.

My "triple" Japanese module is nearly 36" long. That is a foot shorter than a regular N-trak module, but it still is hard to store something that big between shows. So I wanted something smaller. I brainstormed a British themed module a while ago and that might eventually be built. But for now, I am sticking with American. So, what should be the theme?

The first idea that jumped out at me was the Chester Railway Museum in Chester, Mass. We have camped there twice in their caboose and loved it. Running right by it is the double-track mainline of the former Boston and Albany (now CSX) railroad. The museum has a station, a caboose, a tank car painted for Baker's Chocolate, a speeder, two old wooden boxcars, and an old steam engine on display. It is compact, has sentimental memories, and wouldn't be too difficult to model. 

One thing I decided was that it wasn't going to be a perfect model of the station or the equipment. I was going for "close enough".

The general arrangement at the museum is interesting. To get there you drive in from the road shown at the bottom of the picture below, swing under the tracks via the bridge on the right, and then pull up to the museum. The ground is slanted, rising from right to left, and it all looks like it was carved out of a hill. Very nice, but not easy to model on a flat top module. So, I decided to have the right side of the module be right before the bridge to avoid that issue. 

In the picture above, northwest (towards Albany NY) is to the left and Southeast (towards Boston) is to the right.

Here is a shot of the dirt access driveway leading directly to the caboose, as well as the grade in general.

The museum grounds feature a disconnected track running along the statino platform and connecting the station area to the caboose. A small speeder is parked near the tank car, and two older wooden boxcars are at by the station platform, nicely painted on the side facing the museum. They use one for storage and the other as a children's play area with toys, games, a model train along the ceiling, etc. The track ends at a display of a wooden passenger car truck, which sadly needs further restoration.

On the other side of the station platform is a bay window caboose painted blue for the Baltimore & Ohio railroad that is used as a kitchen for catered events on site. When we were there last fall they were digging out the area to hold a full size passenger car, and it was finally delivered in late December 2025. I don't know how much of this area I plan to model.

The station property and CSX mainline are separated by a chain link fence. On the other side of the the mainline tracks is a maintenance of way siding that is occasionally used. There is no room on the front of the T-trak module to include it completely, though I might add a track in the weeds with a dummy switch. Or not, I am not sure.

I decided to do a quick search online to see what I could find for a tank car, caboose, and station. Without those key components, the project just wouldn't work. 

Finding a suitable tank car was easy. The tank car at the museum has a dome but if you search online for prototype information on Baker's Chocolate tank cars (such as here and here) many of the pictures of other prototype cars don't have domes. I don't recall the history of the museum's railcar, but it might not have been used in actual chocolate service.

There are several companies that make models of them in N scale with domes (Model Power, Intermountain, Micro Trains, Atlas Industrial Rail) but I picked Intermountain because it had a white platform around the dome. It might not be a perfect match but it was close enough. 

Upon receiving it I trimmed the coupler "air hoses" off, painted the wheels brown, and gave it a light weathering using drybrushed brown acrylic paint. I also rubbed the handrails with the sides of a pencil to darken them a bit. Though it probably could use another layer of overall grime, I didn't want to be heavy handed as they try and keep it in nice shape. Within minutes of working on it I realized that N scale is tiny, getting the wheels into the trucks isn't fun, and it is very easy to break delicate details!

The caboose was a bit tricker. The one at the museum (where we sleep at night) was an old Rutland car built by the New York Central when the Rutland was their subsidiary, currently painted up for the Boston and Albany. 

I couldn't find anything exact in N scale except a laser cut wood kit by American Model Builders. A friend of mine who models the NYC in N scale advised me that this kit was not for the faint of heart, so I passed. Instead, I chose an Athearn model (ATH14447) that featured three important characteristics: it was wood-sided, it had the right number of windows in approximately the right locations, and the cupola was also in the right location.  

I disassembled it by removing some truly miniscule screws, and then removing the cupola. This allowed me access to crack the clear window glazing from the inside. The roofwalk was also scrapped, though I kept the smokejack. Then, I used metal and nail files to smooth the roof and remove any roofwalk support nibs.

I used two small jewelers files to open up the windows to a larger size. There was barely any room to slide the file in and out of the opening before hitting the opposite wall. But, the plastic cut pretty easily. Then, I used a small chisel blade to remove the exterior window frames. Next, the windows were framed with Evergreen #8102 styrene on three sides, and some 0.060" Plastruct L-angle on the top. These windows and gutters were likely later additions added by the museum when they restored the caboose for camping service on the property.

The cupola was butchered by cutting most of each of the walls away, leaving just the corner posts. These were then shortened in height.

Finally, new window "frames" were added by taking some scribed styrene and cutting away portions to leave only one vertical row of siding (to represent the frame) with the rest gone (to represent the window opening). Fiddly, because everything was so small, but hardly noticeable from a foot away.

Lastly, the roof was given a layer of single-ply tissue paper and flooded with thin superglue.

Unfortunately, when I woke up the next morning it was a disaster. Excess tissue soaked with glue bent down and attached to the sides of the caboose. I spent the next hour doing my best to scrape, chisel, and sand away excess tissue paper stuck to to the sides. Two windows had to be rebuilt, and some wood siding was scribed with a knife to try and restore the look of wood boards. I was disheartened but pushed on, figuring I wouldn't really know how bad it looked until it was painted.

I used red primer to paint the caboose, which was a good match for the final color of the car. It was sprayed with clear gloss on the sides and then custom decals by Precision Design Company were applied. They aren't inexpensive but the company is great to work with. Mine went on fine, though I botched them a bit on one side and had to redo them (thank goodness they include spares!). Because of the window spacing I had to relocate the "NYC" oval emblem to the end of the caboose instead of between the windows, but I can live with that.

I didn't reattach the body to the body to the frame as I might want to add lights, and this will be simpler with it disassembled.

Also on site is a small 0-4-0 steam engine #74 named "LUCY". Trying to find an exact model of this in N scale was impossible, but again I only needed something close enough. 

I don't think it has an actual connection with the museum or the granite quarry across the street. It was looking a little rough around the edges, but she is cute and colorful.

In my collection I had a pair of small steamers which might work: a Bachmann "Docksider" 0-4-0 and a LifeLike saddle tank 0-6-0. Neither ran well so I didn't mind sacrificing them for the project. The Bachmann engine's length and wheel arrangement was correct, but the LifeLike's saddle tank assembly was closer to what I needed. So, I started with that.

I disassembled everything, and since it never had to run again I didn't have to be too careful. I removed the valve gear by pulling the crank pins, which allowed me to remove the center axle and the gears on the axles. I glued the chassis back together and had an 0-4-0. The frame was too long, so I took it over to my bandsaw and removed about a quarter-inch from the rear. I used a belt sander to shorten the cab to match.

Then, the boiler shell was modified. I carved away some grab irons molded on the saddle tank, the two extra sand domes, the water filler hatch, and the headlight. I used files to smooth over the areas, and also plugged the two dome holes some styrene rod that I had on hand that fit perfectly. 

After only about an hour's worth of work, this is what I had. Is it perfect? No. But the real thing looks a bit rough around the edges too. If you compare it with the prototype above you will note that I didn't replicate the large headlight on the front. I found it a bit ugly so I omitted it, though I may go back later and add something.

I then painted it up with black, green, silver, and white paint. There was a lot of touch ups using toothpicks to get the black, white, and silver exactly where they needed to go. And I didn't paint the wheel rims white as I knew I couldn't do it cleanly, but I did do the side rods and crossheads. 

Alas, it wasn't meant to be. Though it looked resplendent in its green and black scheme, both my wife and son pointed out that the prototype engine was all black. I had painted it from memory using a black-and-white printout of the engine, and my memory was faulty. 

So, I had to repaint it black. With a red roof (another detail I didn't notice with my black and white picture. Then I looked at more pictures online and saw that the front buffer had wood boards painted green (perhaps that was what I was thinking of?), and a number plate that was red. The window frames also should have been green but I decided to quit while I was ahead.

Finally, I ordered some decals and again I turned to Precision Design Company. Though I was planning on just putting the number 74 on the cab, they drew up the artwork for the name "LUCY" and a white box around the number as an option. And did they ever go on easy. Though the entire model is only about 1.5" long, it came out great.

I also went and repainted the cab roof bright red to match pictures I found online, and I also added a black oversize headlight on the front made from a cut piece of paintbrush handle.

For the speeder, I first bought an old styrene or resin kit from Durango Press. However, after destroying the walls just trying to get them separated from the sprues I punted and went with a 3D resin casting that I purchased from Anthony Kochevar. For those with 3D printers, the file can be found here. Anthony sent me a painted one and his work was fantastic. It is roughly the size of a marble yet has so much detail packed in. 

With the rolling stock done (except for the two wooden boxcars and the B&O caboose), I decided that the project was indeed feasible and moved on to building the station itself.

Favorite Engines - Conrail RS3 "hammerhead" #9920

This engine is one odd duckling! Some would say ugly duckling, and I would be hard-pressed to disagree. It also has an interesting, if not tortured, history. But, it is local (to this Rochester boy) so I like it all the same. 

The engine was original built for the Pennsylvania Railroad with a high short hood. That hood housed dynamic brakes and steam generator equipment for heating passenger cars. The reason for this unusual equipment was to allow it to pull passenger trains in a pinch, and it was one of a batch of five locomotives designed with these unusual features. Because of its appearance, they were nicknamed "hammerheads".

The engine was later part of the Penn Central merger, and through some paperwork exchanges it became a Lehigh Valley engine. Now numbered #211, it was used in western New York mostly in the Buffalo area but it did make it east to near the Rochester area. It lasted into the Conrail era and was selected to be part of the RS3 rebuilding program in their DeWitt shops in Syracuse. Much of the internals were removed and replaced with EMD parts. Conrail #9920, as it was renumbered, worked in Pennsylvania steel mills and in 1981 was stored.  In the shot below from November 04, 1979, in which it still is probably undergoing rebuilding (notice the shiny paint), it is odd to see the cab number is incomplete. 

 

A year later, this shot taken in Reading, PA in 1980 shows the engine evidencing wear and tear. But at least the cab number is complete!

Five years later, it was purchased by the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum and it can be seen (and ridden behind) there today... though it was repainted in L.V. colors again. The postcard below shows #211 on the track connecting the R&GVRM and the nearby (and located at the other end of the track) New York Museum of Transportation. 

I can't say exactly why I like it, but I am always drawn to local railroad subjects. This engine isn't exactly "local", as it likely never made it into Rochester directly (except when it was being transferred to Syracuse), but it just feels homey. A few models of the engine were produced, but none that I know of were painted for Conrail. Perhaps it will go on my project bucket list for some day...

Railfanning with Harrison

A couple of weeks ago I rushed home from work so that we could quickly drive to Mohawk River Lock 10 near Amsterdam, NY to go railfanning. Despite the heat, it was lovely and lots of clouds did provide some respite. We were quite lucky, as within our first hour we saw 4 trains including three freights. We left after a fifth train, Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited, went by.

Harrison absolutely loved seeing the trains. Between them, we spent the time eating dinner, kicking a ball around, and looking for ducks. Several other members of the "Tuesday Night Group" were there railfanning and they had a tent set up for even more sun protection. They are pros!

We even brought Harrison's little Adirondack chair so he could sit and relax with us. However, he was too excited to remain still when the trains went by.

Then, this past Wednesday (July 10) we went out to eat and had some time after so I suggested going downtown to watch a few Amtrak trains pass over the Livingston Avenue bridge. There is a nice park next to it where you can get eye level with the train. On the way we spotted the C.P. local switching Surpass Chemicals in Menands, and we drove there and watched them cut off some tank cars. We even were able to talk to the crew. Harrison loved that.

Then, we drove to the bridge. Imagine our surprise when instead of the normal one eastbound Amtrak train crossing the bridge and pulling into Rensselaer station we saw TWO passenger trains running parallel over the bridge! This picture doesn't shot it well, but there are two trains running parallel to one another behind us that Harrison is staring at.

Within five minutes the westbound Lake Shore Limited left the station and crossed the bridge.

Next, the C.P. local traveled nearby heading south back to Kenwood Yard, shoving the train through the concrete canyon. Finally, the eastbound Ethan Allen Amtrak train (with engines on each end) crossed the bridge into the station. All of this occurred within a fifteen minute window.

About 20 minutes later we saw a CPKC light-engine move of two road units traveling south, presumably from Mechanicville to Kenwood Yard. That adds up to seven trains in my book (the CP local counts as two because we saw it in two different areas doing different things).

Harrison and I have never had it so good! Perhaps he is my good luck charm!

The Great British Train Show (finally!)

In May 2018, I was reading a blog post by Trevor Marshall (whose current blog, The Model Railway Show, is linked to on the right) about a train show he attended in Toronto, Canada. Called The Great British Train Show and sponsored by The Platelayers Society, it was a train show featuring only UK-themed layouts, vendors, and displays. As someone who loves British Railways, this sounded fantastic. And Toronto wasn't that far a drive from Rochester, NY, my hometown, so it seemed a doable trip. In researching it I found out it was held every other year so I would need to wait until 2020 to go. But that was fine.

I had to get a passport because I hadn't been out of the country since 2003... when ironically I had gone to Toronto. My wife had to get one too. And we had to book a hotel. No worries though as we had plenty of time. However, come March 2020 Covid hit and the show was cancelled. So I had to wait until 2022. This was disappointing but it couldn't be helped. However, we were expecting the birth of our son Harrison in May and that made it very difficult to try and plan an international trip to go to a train show. It turns out he arrived a few weeks early in April, right before the show, so it was a good thing we didn't make plans. So, 2024 it was...

And we finally made it! Since it had morphed into a full-family trip, we decided to do some other things too like go to the Zoo and Aquarium. Unfortunately, about three hours in to our trip I realized I left my camera at home on my desk where my back-up battery was charging. Oops! My wife graciously offered to take lots of pictures, which was wonderful of her.

When we got to the show on Saturday morning at 10:00AM (well, we actually got there Friday morning and over an hour early but discovered I had written down the wrong day for the show!) the lot was nearly packed with cars. Though the building didn't look all that large, it was filled with stuff I had only read about in British train magazines. An entire ice rink was filled with displays, layouts, and vendors and I didn't know where to start. So I let Harrison take the lead and we went to the layouts featuring the most movement. Actually, we didn't get more than 10 feet in when he spotted Toby and Henry pulling trains on a large layout based on the Island of Sodor.

It was a nice layout, and like the original show it was done in Gauge 1 with scale models featuring what I assumed were 3D printed faces. Not shown in these pictures are Toby or Percy but they made appearances too. As we were walking around Harrison let out a loud cheer for the layout, and I could hear the layout's owner say "Now that's what this is all about!" And he was right. 

I got started on Thomas the Tank Engine in 1989 when Shining Time Station was broadcast on PBS. My son thinks he loves Thomas, but in reality we both do. Some things from childhood never leave you. They had a nice display of S.T.S. stuff from a guy named Adrian who has a podcast (here and here) and managed to get many of the surviving members on it for a reunion show. He also had actual props from the show on display, which was really neat. This might have been the highlight of the trip for me.

As we walked around we came across a 3.5" gauge train display. Normally, these trains are used outside in the garden and are considered the smallest "practical" live steam scale... you can actually ride on them. The were eclipsed in the 1970s and 1980s with larger gauges but as can be seen they are still are hefty. This gentleman started to build some but his wife would let them in her garden, so he just turned them into push toys. They are largely made of steel riveted together, with some cast and molded parts. What a wonderful bunch of toys for his grandkids to play with!

Next was a layout made of Trix Twin Railway products. These are OO gauge (roughly HO gauge) trains that run on three-rail track, much like Lionel O gauge trains do today. They have a certain tinplate charm to them and it was fun to see them go round and round. The third rail proved as advantageous to wiring them as it does to Lionel trains today.

A similar layout featuring Hornby Dublo trains was nearby. Also three rail, this system let two trains run on the same track by having one train pick up power from one outside rail and a second train pick up power from the other outside rail. Two transformers could be hooked up to the layout thusly.  

By far the most interesting layout on display in my opinion was O scale narrow gauge (16.5mm scale, or O scale trains running on 2 foot track... similar to what we call On30 in the States) modeling India's Darjeeling and Himalayan Railway. Having only seen a couple of models of these trains in larger scales before, and never set in a proper layout featuring Indian scenery and structures, it was fascinating to watch. 

Some O gauge clockwork (wind-up) trains were also on display and running. These were temperamental and any bump in the track could cause the very lightweight trains to derail. They only ran about 30 seconds per wind-up, which must have been frustrating for kids wanting to really play with their trains. I can see how electrically powered ones because so popular. But, the models were in excellent condition for bearing nearly 100 years old!

The show was sponsored by Rapido, who had a bunch of their current and upcoming models on display.

Some random shots of other layouts. Most layouts in Britain are small and usually feature a branchline terminus or an engine shed (to display lots of engines) as themes, with a hidden fiddle yard or treverser track off the side. There were another 10-12 layouts I don't have pictures of, including one in N scale finescale (crazy, huh) and many in OO and O gauge. 

One of the nicer O gauge layouts was Roweham" by Brian Dickey. Not only did it operate well and look great, but behind it serving as operators and/or hosts were three people whose blogs I follow (here, here and here) and whose links are on the right of my own blog. It was nice to finally meet them in person, especially Pierre Oliver who had done a lot of custom weathering of my D&H HO scale engines before he retired. Sadly, it was not a layout that my wife took pictures of... sigh.

One thing I noticed is that many of the modelers used hook and loop/link/chain couplers just like their real-life prototypes. While this did replicate a lot of "realistic operation" that everybody seems to strive for nowadays, it was frustrating to watch someone take 5-10 attempts to get one set of cars coupled together. And that was in O scale. They called it "fun" but to the audience I thought that there had to be a better way. Reaching over a backdrop with a tiny hook and flashlight (a necessity!) in attempts to snag the end loop of the chain and carefully drop it over the coupling hook on the other car was tedious at best. If operating by themselves from the front of the layout, I am sure it would have been easier. Thank goodness for Kadee couplers!

I could have spent literally all day here looking at stuff, but we had other things to do. Perhaps next time in 2026 I will budget an entire day of our trip to this show. I had an absolutely wonderful time and came home with a few goodies that I didn't need but thought would make nice souvenirs. These included book on the Great Western Railways for $3 (Canadian!) and three old Hornby O gauge timplate cars that I was told would run on Lionel O gauge track (they do). 

But those weren't the only trains we saw on the trip. The next day, we went to the Aquarium in downtown Toronto and across the street is the Toronto Railway Museum. We didn't go into the museum itself (a wedding was just ending), but we did walk around the exhibits outside.

They are also located right near the Toronto Blue Jay's baseball stadium, which means that people attending the aquarium or a ballgame can get exposure to trains along the way. That is a good thing.

Outside on display for anyone to see and touch were engines, passenger cars, and cabooses surrounding an actual, working turntable. A cleverly designed 7.25" gauge train snakes through the area, but it wasn't operating when we were there.

Another look at some of the displays. A giant 4-6-4 steam locomotive dominated the coal loading facility.

D&H #4075 on Adirondack Railway (1980)

I haven't posted in ages, but I haven't had time to work on my layout in ages. So it goes.

Here are two shots of my favorite D&H RS3 #4075, formerly Boston and Maine #4075 (which the D&H got in a swap with the B&M when it needed locomotives with steam heaters for its passenger trains). It is probably the most photographed D&H Alco (aside from the PAs), because there were so few RS3 engines remaining in the 1980s and its color just stood out.

In 1980, it was loaned to the Adirondack Railway for use on their trains between Utica and Lake Placid where the Winter Olympics were being held (including the "Miracle on Ice" hockey game between the USA and the Soviet Union). 

Here are two shots in my collection showing the engine at work that February, 1980. The first one is captioned to be located somewhere in Utica.

This second one features a smaller station and is probably somewhere along the route.

Someday I will take my family on part of the line on the Adirondack Railroad.

D&H #5016 on train maintenance duty (7-28-1983)

Here is a shot of RS36 #5017 from July 28, 1983 leading a track maintenance train. It is somewhere near Sanataria Springs, NY. I knew I had this slide somewhere in my collection and I looked forever for it, finally finding it in the wrong place. I had referenced it earlier on my blog.

I don't think anyone offers an HO scale model of the ballast cleaning equipment, but it sure would  make for a neat train. Note that everything in the train is yellow including the former passenger car, whereas most D&H maintenance equipment during this time period was solid blue. Maybe Colonie was still out of blue paint?