My first train set

Image from Walthers 1988 HO catalog

 As the holiday season draws near I was discussing the Toys for Tots campaign in general, and train sets in particular, with some friends. Getting started with a train set (assuming it is a decent quality one) is probably the way most of us got started. In the 1980s, it likely was a Tyco or Bachmann package. Mine was the HO scale Bachmann "Workhose EMD GP-50" set, which was labeled as "NEW!" in the Walthers 1988 catalog. It was powered by a high-nose GP-50 engine painted in Erie Lackawanna's maroon and gray scheme. I received it when I was around 7 years old. 

NOT my engine! Item #41-0612-G4
Remember when Bachmann bragged about engine lights?

I still have the engine. It sits proudly on my display shelf. The rest of the set was slowly lost to the passage of time. I remember the caboose, D&H hopper, and L.V. reefer, but I don't remember my set having the crane shown. I did have a Bachmann Union Pacific crane and boom car with spot light but that isn't pictured in the ad. I doubt I had two cranes, so either the U.P. one came with the set or my parents bought it separately. It was too long ago to remember. The D&H hopper was bright red and I eventually made a stone load for it. 

My dad modified the engine to have a Kadee coupler on one end and left the hornhook on the other end. That way, I could run both types of equipment if I wanted. Later on, the body shell was damaged so much that it sat loose on the chassis and I could not only flip the frame around to get the coupler I wanted but I could also spin the body to run it long-hood or short-hood forward. I loved it and ran it to death. Literally. After more than one trip to the concrete basement floor from the train layout the internal printed circuit boards cracked and my father had to hard-wire the two halves back together. The handrails broke off little by little until nothing remains today. Finally, after about 15 years the motor finally burned up. Someday if I find another one at a train show for cheap I will pick it up.

Bachmann also released an N scale version 

Since then, I have moved onto bigger and perhaps better things but I still like prefer high-nose engines, still think that the Erie Lackawanna was a classy railroad, and unlike most people believe that Bachmann made some good train sets. My second engine was a Bachmann Santa Fe F-unit that my parents purchased for me in a strain store. I think every kid ended up with one of these engines at some point in life. I sometimes wonder where I would be as a modeler had I received that as my first engine, or if my first engine was a Union Pacific low-nose geep, or even a steamer (that engine probably wouldn't have lasted me very long). Hum... 

Perhaps this Christmas season you might want to consider passing along the gift of a train set. Or, maybe make one up from extra pieces in your own collection. You never know where it will take the next young modeler.

Ballasting Keis Distributors and Norlite

Compared to my previous ballasting adventures lately, the two industries on this next section of the layout should be fairly easy. However, before I could dig to the process I had three more Micro Engineering switches to replace. All three of these had failed, and like before I didn't have the patience to try and replace the throwbars with new ones made from PCB ties. Unlike my Menands section, this was easier as the switches didn't form a ladder and I didn't have to try and cram them all together. Still, it is much more fun laying track when you aren't cutting and piecing together tiny sections of rail.

Keis Distributors
Once that was done, the ties were painted and then the ballasting could begin. The Keis siding is an interesting study in economics. I have talked with people who worked for and with D&H as well as engineering consultants and it appears that these two sidings were fairly new and also rarely, if ever, used in the 1980s. The ballast looked nice and clean in 1984. In fact, if you go to the building today (it is a Window manufacturer now) the sidings are still there, and still are in great shape. The switch to the mainline was pulled a long time ago, but I can see exactly what the ballast looked like at the time I am modeling.

A neat detail is the gravel MOW road crossing the
siding on the left hand side of the tracks.

I plan to go easy with the weeds on this section, as it didn't appear as though they were able to grow on Keis sidings. I have a theory on this, though there is no way to really know for sure if it s correct. I bet a lot of the growth on the other sidings was because one of the customers was an Agway, and perhaps loaded cars with grain coming in or going out spilled and the contents took root? That, combined with a lack of interest by the D&H in a minority customer, let the track go wild. Here, the tracks were installed or relaid with a lot of car because the customer was going to ship in or our a quantity of chilled beer, and perhaps the D&H wanted to put that new relationship on good grounds. Sadly, I guess it never came to pass.

Current pictures show the ballast as a dark gray, and pictures from 1984 don't really dispute this. While I don't think the current colors of the mainline ballast match those from 1984, I used Woodland Scenics' solid gray ballast on the two sidings to give the appearance that it was more recently installed than the mainline. I think this will reflect the history of the sidings (and hopefully not just look like I ran out of one color of ballast and substituted another on a whim). One thing I noticed though is that the WS gray ballast acted differently from other WS gray blend ballast I had been using. It was finer, dustier, and floated more with the glue. And, it isn't as dark a gray color on my layout as it looks in the bag. But, I have terrible lighting on this section of the layout and once I hang another set of lights I hope it will look better.

Mainline between Keis and Norlite. Note the ballast in the middle.

One interesting detail is the condition of the mainline between Keis and Norlite. As I have noted before, the D&H mainline (in fact, all tracks) on the Colonie Main were in a state of neglect (though certainly not as bad as in, say, 1986) and there were lots of opportunities for a weed spray train and a ballast train to get to work. However, there are some areas that look as if a ballast train did drop some stone but in a weird pattern. Note the picture at right. Between the rails is a lot of ballast that covers the ties but just for a short length. Also shown are "dual lines" of black oil drippings along the center of the track. Instead of one line of weathering down the middle, many pictures show two distinct trails. I don't know what causes that.

Norlite Lightweight Aggregates

Before it lost its rail service in 2011, it was a bare track on the ground that was filled with front end loaders or some other heavy equipment. They would load two or three open top hoppers with vetrified shale. The track leading in was probably was ballasted at one time, but the dirt and mud from below likely came through and partially buried the track. Then, likely some of the shale that spilled while loading might also end up on the ground on and around the rails. For now, I am ballasting the track with the same stuff I used on the mainline but there will be a light bit of weeds as is shown in the picture. I don't want all my sidings to end up green (even if prototypical).

Recently I was talking with someone at Norlite who worked there for decades and has access to photos I don't have, in the mid-1980s there might have been a structure that was used for loading the cars. The pictures I have from 1984 don't show this, but the track might have been longer and the structure just out of view. The round tube things in the picture above don't appear to be the structure he is talking about but I can't be sure. He might be confused, but he is looking into it more. The current siding is only about 16" long on my layout so there isn't much to actually ballast. And, if I need to redo the area based on future research it will be pretty easy.

And with that, I am only 5' of ballasted track away from completing my requirements for my NMRA badge! And, I just ran out of my diluted matte medium adhesive which takes a while to make. Grrr.

Then and Now: Mechanicville Yard diamond

I posted last year some of my memories of railfanning in Mechanicville Yard, which is now completely different than what it used to be. Up through the 1970s there were two independent rail yards in the area, one for the Boston and Maine and the other for the Delaware and Hudson. The B&M yard was a hump yard, as was the D&H's. At the eastern end of the yards, the B&M came in from the northeast and the D&H from the southeast. Each railroad could reach its own yard, but a diamond track right next to the XO Tower allowed trains to cross into each other's yards.

Here is a shot from June 1984 showing a B&M train heading southeast on the D&H.

Per the Saratoga County website: "By the mid-1920's, the local yards were switching 4,000 cars a day, making Mechanicville the third largest reclassification yard in the US. At its peak, the B&M and D&H's combined employment reached 1,100 prior to WWII." Then, during the mid-1980s when both railroads were owned and controlled by Guilford Industries, they closed one of the yards and essentially combined the functions into the other yard. As part of the rationalizing process, the diamond that the B&M used to gain access into the D&H yard was taken out of service. What was once a large classification yard was downshifted and most of the services were transferred to East Deerfield. Unfortunately, this was easily accomplished because traffic levels by the mid-1980s were down considerably and the few through trains that run through Mechanicville were more easily blocked elsewhere. 

The diamond was still in place in March of 1985, but by 1986, the diamond had been removed and the the yard throat arrangement was reconfigured. The D&H then tried to close the yard in the late 1980s but Deerfield couldn't handle the overload of cars. So, Mechanicville Yard was once again pressed into service but it wouldn't last forever. I believe it was finally closed in the early 1990s. All of the land south of the tracks was sold, and right now there are some private companies in the old yard buildings. Also, the Town of Mechanicville itself has its DPW Office on some of the land.

This picture from June 1986 faces east and shows the diamond castings still bolted together but disconnected. It would make for a neat model.

Of course, Mechanicville was given a new lease on life as part of Norfolk Southern's "Patriot Corridor" plan. They rebuilt the yard in 2012 into an intermodal facility with five paved tracks to allow for COFC cars to be loaded and unloaded, and another two shorter tracks for autorack loading or unloading. And it has been slowly getting busier. Governor Cuomo even announced in August 2019 that another $1.5 million dollars would be used to increase access into the yard for trucks. So, while it might not be the hotbed of activity that it once was it certainly is becoming a place to keep your eyes on.

April 2016 found this Pan Am train leaving east on B&M tracks.


Now, if only I could find a copy of CHR's XO Tower kit!

Southworth Tractor and Machinery Co. - info update

Every once in a while you learn something new about what you are modeling in the most unusual circumstances. For me, it occurred recently during an operating session at another person's layout. The host and my engineer (I was the conductor) were talking about the efficiency of the switching moves we were performing... or perhaps the lack of efficiency on my end... and he mentioned that when he was working at Southworth Machinery (see here) he would see the train go back and forth without any sort of reasoning.

As it turns out, he was an accountant in a financial firm that would audit the Southworth books on occasion. He was given a temporary office in the upper corner facing the tracks and could watch the D&H switch the three sidings while running the numbers. More interestingly, he commented that when he was there (the late 1960s and 1970s) Southworth would receive huge Caterpillar tractors on flat cars that were so wide that the wheels had to be removed and shipped on separate cars. He didn't recall ever seeing them ship out stuff via rail.

Of course, by the 1980s things might have changed. The picture I have shows a boxcar spotted on the track, perhaps with large machinery parts inside.

Regardless, it is an interesting detail to model. I was planning on just putting some generic tractors on a flat car for service to this place but now I will look into something more realistic.

Roster Review: D&H C420s in 1984

#407 (March 1982)

Conrail's formation was a difficult time for the D&H. While they suddenly grew in route miles practically overnight, their resources were also stretched to the limit to cover the new territories. On paper, the government had a vested interest in keeping the D&H "competitive" with the newly formed Conrail. So, when Conrail was formed on April 1, 1976, the D&H was given several Alco C420 engines from Lehigh Valley (which was going into Conrail) as part of the deal. The D&H was so strapped for engines that it pressed them into service with minimal cosmetic changes, some of which were never fully corrected. Guilford later renumbered their engines but my comments above reflect the 1984 road numbers.

#414 (June 1981)

Engines #404-415 were originally built for the Lehigh Valley, and on the L.V. they had those road numbers. When the D&H received them they kept those numbers which presumably meant one less thing to have to paint out or change. The L.V. paint scheme was an attractive Cornell Red with a yellow stripe along the lower portion of the body and white diamonds on the front of the nose, with white flags on the sides of the nose. As the engines came to the D&H, most were in the red scheme. While most of them were finally being repainted into D&H colors, #409 and #414 kept their red with patch outs until retirement in 1986.

The L.V. also had an alternate scheme, nicknamed the "Yellow Jacket," which consisted of solid light gray with a yellow lower body and a yellow nose. Three of the engines inherited by the D&H arrived with this coloring, #412, #413, and #414. They too received hastily added patch outs.

#415 (November 1984)

The patch outs didn't really flatter the engines, but it allowed them to get to work quickly. Over time, most of the engines got their chance at the rainbow factory that was the D&H paint shop. In late 1977, engines #405 and #407 were repainted into the solid blue scheme with a yellow nose. This striking scheme was to be the new D&H standard scheme, but it didn't last long. Two years later in 1979, engines #405 (again!), #411, #413, #415 were painted in the striking blue scheme with yellow "zebra stripes" on the ends, and all four stayed like this until their end on the D&H.

Then, in the early 1980s when the lightning stripe became the default again for the D&H, they repainted engines #404, #406, #407, #408, and #412 including large numbers on the sides of the hood. Interestingly, the numbers don't seem as large as those on the RS11 engines. The engine below has nearly all of its added lettering faded out, and the old "Delaware & Hudson" lettering is ghosting through. It will make an interesting prototype to model.

#412 (March 10, 1984)

#410 (December 31, 1983)

Another oddity in the roster class occurred when engine #410 was involved in a collision and severely damaged in the front sometime in the early 1980s. It sat at the Colonie shops for over a year before being repaired. To fix it a new nose was required, so the D&H reached out to the Norfolk and Western Railroad and purchased a spare high-nose replacement. Then, the D&H cut it down to make a pseudo-low nose hood and mounted it. It was unique to the C420 class as those short hoods did not have the characteristic Alco notches in the corners, though other Alco engines did. When finished in March of 1982, it was also given a coat of lightning stripe paint. Because of the hood, the engine is immediately identifiable.

#401 (February 26, 1982)

Finally, the D&H later acquired one more C420 engine in November 1980 from Conrail. It was an ex-Lehigh and Hudson River Railroad engine and came painted in light gray hoods and cabs with a darker blue long hood and area on the front hood. Again, the D&H merely patched out part of the engine and kept the road number of #401. It remained in this patch paint scheme through October of 1984, when it was renumbered #420 and became the first and only Alco to receive the Guilford gray and orange paint scheme (see the picture at the end of this posting). Why Guilford chose this engine is unknown, but there you have it.

#405 looking terrible! (December 30, 1984) 

Thankfully, modeling many of these engines is a snap thanks to Atlas. They offer #405, #407, #411, #413, and #415 in the correct D&H paint schemes, and #410, #409, and #414 in their appropriate L.V. schemes. They will require some patching, but it shouldn't be very difficult. #401 is available already in the patched out L&HR scheme. They also offer models of #410 but don't indicate whether the front hood is notched to represent the engine after its rebuilding. So, when the time comes that I want to collect some D&H engines that aren't blue or gray (or both), I think I will add a L.V. patch out or two.

#420 (February 1986)

Since the repainting of #420 (formerly #401) occurred in October of 1984, and I model in May of 1984, I won't be featuring this engine on my layout. That is too bad, as I think the paint scheme actually looks pretty good on it. It also appears that when they repainted it they added the ditch lights which are also present on a few other Guilford locomotives that were repainted in 1984.

Ballasting Colony Liquor and Agway

There are three sidings coming off the main line leading to three different industries in this section of my layout. Based on photographs taken at the end of March 1984 (just two months before my layout's set time frame) at least two of them were still receiving cars. Despite the pictures showing the full effects of winter's desolation and spring's mud, it is still quite obvious that the tracks were not kept to a very high standard. In this first picture, the first siding to the left which went to Southworth Tractor was buries in the weeds. Ties were sometimes visible but mostly it was just two rails sticking out of the ground. The boxcar was likely parked at their concrete loading ramp alongside the rear of the building.

The second siding, which breaks off the parallel side track just after the first switch, is just as covered with weeds and dirt. The track actually extended quite a bit further out and then turned and ran parallel to the Agway building. Even today, there are remains of this track including some old ties in place. I am not sure if they received rail traffic in 1984 as all I have to go by is this photograph. However, as a modeling note I plan to model it so that it also can receive cars. However, I will try and make this track look even worse than the first. You can see that in this picture the three tracks appear to be at three elevations.

Finally, the side track curves and ends up at Colonie Liquor. This is a neat industry where the rail stop was positioned so that a boxcar spotted here would stop with its side door directly in line with a loading dock that was installed at a 45-degree angle at the corner of the building. This track had some evidence of spillover ballast from the mainline in areas and weeds as well, though the ties were visible (and there appears to be piles of old ties near the end of the track. Unlike the first two sidings, the rail heads on this track also appear to be a bit more polished or shiny which might indicate it was receiving cars more frequently.

The real challenge was that all my photos showed the area in late March (late winter), but I am modeling late May (full on spring season). Thus, in my mind I started converting all the brown dead brush to vibrant green brush. But, I really had no idea how bad the weed control problem was at that time. This is typical of the area. With that image firmly set, I was ready to proceed. For starters, I decided to do the siding to Colonie Liquor. It was not only longest but it appears to be the best maintained. In the past I have ballasted track and randomly sprinkled ground foam on it to look like "weeds" but never had I set out to model track that was half-overgrown.

I wanted to make sure that there was lots of dirt showing, but the ties still had to be visible an prominent. Since I had put this track on N scale roadbed, I needed a bit of fill material. I used one of the Scenic Express samples I had obtained which was a gray blend and randomly sprinkled it along the track, including the sides where it formed the ballast slope. Then, I took some W.S. "brown ballast" and tried that... yuk, it didn't look like dirt at all. I sprinkled a few cinders here and there but figured by the 1980s most of the cinder ballast would have finally sunk in the ground. Pulling out my actual real dirt, I applied that liberally here and there. I then went over the area with some find W.S. ground foam. I didn't want to overdo it here, as the other two tracks would be really overgrown and those should get the full treatment.

When I stepped back, it looked like a hot mess. But, the colors seemed right. The dirt brown looked like the dirt from the area (as it should be), I had only used dark green foam which would have been appropriate for May. The ballast was a gray blend similar to the stuff I used on the mainline but not quite, reflecting perhaps a change in ballast supplier in the past. And, some of the worn out ties were visible. The splotchiness matched the pictures, and I was really happy with it. The two sidings into Agway and Southworth Machinery were given a similar treatment, though I made sure to bury those ties even more into the dirt. Scenery materials were actually mounded over the rails in places (intentionally and otherwise) and then I ran a truck set over it to cut flanges. I also used my finger to try and bring the level below rail height where possible to make track cleaning easier in the future.

Admittedly, this looks a bit garish. This is just the initial layer of ballast. During scenery application, I will add broken ties, static grass weeds (which I am currently researching), weathering down the middle of the track, paint to the sides of the rails, etc. Right now, it just stands out as an extreme green area. But, I am quite pleased with it.

The same area looking north (note the 

switches on right) on September 04, 1986

By the way, the picture on the right was taken looking north in 1986. By this time, maintenance had been deferred so much that many portions of the Colonie main line were buried in weeds and grass that you couldn't easily see the rails! And that didn't include the sidings. You can see the switch ladder arrangement leading to the sidings on the right of the picture, buried in the grass. I assume by then none of the three businesses were shipping by rail, but I can't be sure. This is the look I was going for, but to a slightly lesser extent because I was modeling a little be better maintained D&H in 1984. The colors are really vibrant in the picture, with many shades of green on the left and reds and browns in the middle. And the trees haven't even started turning colors yet! The tree row on the left will eventually become the backdrop for this layout section.

And here is the mainline in more recent times. The tracks are well maintained, the sidings on the right to the buildings are gone except for some times and a few pieces of rail, but you can actually see the track. There are some weeds growing between the rails, and I will likely go back and add that to my layout when I am doing more scenery work. You can also see all the colors of the ties (which appear more solid orange/brown in the 1984 pictures above. The oil stains in between the rails in 1984 don't appear as visible here either.

Visiting the Isle of Shoals Tramway

My wife and I recently had the extreme pleasure of visiting with Rich Chiodo and his Isle of Shoals Tramway, a gorgeous garden railway in New Hampshire. Built to a scale of 7/8 = 1' (which is 1:13.7), his models use G scale track to represent 2 foot prototypes. And it has a true Welsh narrow gauge theme throughout. I saw an article several years ago in a magazine about it and I wrote him asking for information. He kindly extended an invitation to visit and five years later things worked out. It is an outstanding garden railway and has proved to be worth every part of the long trip to see him. However, there was a greater reason to go visit then to just see his trains. Read on to find out more...

I have a lot of interests when it comes to trains. If you are a train buff too, then I don't need to explain it. One of them is garden railways. I have always wanted one. When I was probably 10, my father took me to a local hobby store and they had an outdoor layout on the ground. I remember several things from that adventure: it was sleeting or hailing that day so we didn't stay outside long but the train kept running; it was pulled by an LGB mogul (in the early 1990s, probably all trains were pulled by LGB somethings...); and the track arrangement was a folded figure eight and it had a diamond crossover. It was a big train. I love big trains. I was sold. Years later my mother even said I could put a train in our garden but I couldn't see how it would work.

Fast forward to 2004 and I moved to Albany for school. Thinking bigger was better, I purchased a pair of USA Trains undecorated 44-tonner models and detailed them to match the engines on the Arcade and Attica RR (even though one was technically a 65-tonner). I built handrails from soldered brass and purchased extra parts from manufacturers. Then I had them custom painted for the A&A. Since I lived in an apartment with no room for a garden layout outside or an electric layout inside, they sat in boxes. I did start subscribing to Garden Railways magazine though, and formulating ideas for the future.

While the publication, and the hobby itself, has evolved over the decades (I have back issues to 1985), there were certain concepts that I came to realize that I wanted on my own layout. First, without a doubt, it has to be simple. If you read the magazine today you will notice a recent trend to put a model railroad in the backyard. That means lots of track and switches serving industries, with car cards and planned operations for the trains, and an overall complexity that mimics indoor layouts. I won't say this is a bad approach, but it isn't my approach. I want to have a garden with a train(s) in it that I can watch at my leisure and let it run and run around without fear of derailments. Extra switches and sidings I won't use, so they are out. 

Second, it has to have a British narrow gauge railway theme. I want to scratchbuild structures that look like they came from across the pond. Signals, details, and even the trains will evoke British narrow gauge practice. My favorite Welsh narrow gauge line is the Talyllyn Railway and while I may not ever make it there I want a piece of it here. My layout will be built to the scale of 16mm, or 1:19. This is appropriate for 32mm track, but I am using 45mm track so that all G scale stuff I own can run. The gauge will be wider than 2 feet, but I don't care. And most others won't even realize the difference. When no one is looking I can run other stuff, but at its heart it will be a little part of Wales right here.

Third, it has to be a raised railway. I don't mean raised a foot from the ground like some layouts are shown in magazines, and I don't mean on posts like some dedicated live steam lines are. I mean a full garden, raised 2-3 feet from the ground, in nice stonework. This makes access easier for maintenance, and it also means that due to the height of things you can't see everything. This is important, as if you can sit and see over the whole layout you lose the adventure of the train disappearing and you also lose the feeling of isolation from different areas of the garden with their own independent vignettes.

Fourth, it has to be a green garden railway. That means lots of greenery here and there. I joke with my wife that I might just cover the whole thing in moss and leave it at that. I hate weeding, but if she wants to do the work she can install plants. Otherwise, it will look like a green explosion with low maintenance plants and trees that add color and texture but not a time commitment. I am not a gardener and don't really want to spend time on all that, but I do know that some plants stay green year round and they would be perfect for the railway. And it doesn't really matter to me if the plants are too large to be in scale with the trains. That isn't the point. The emphasis will be a background of green for the trains.

Fifth and finally, it has to be track powered. I plan to run live steam, battery, and electrically powered trains. Not all at once, mind you, but all just the same. I might go to a train show and buy an engine and want to run it that day. Not wait a month or a year until I have it converted to battery power. Or, my wife might want to see something run and I don't want to charge the batteries first. I will someday own live steamers and they will run too, but above all track power must be an option. Track cleaning will certainly be required, but I am okay with that. I plan to use nickle silver or stainless steel rail, which costs more, but are better for track powered layouts. Since I won't need much track, costs will be modest.

The big question on my mind for years was: IS ALL THIS EVEN POSSIBLE? Frankly, I wasn't sure. Some layouts have one or more of these items but none have all of them. And the whole raised stone structure is quite rare here in the USA except where it was done up a foot or so just to elevate it from the ground, never the full 2-3 feet. Then I saw an article about the Isle of Shoals Tramway and I realized that it was exactly what I was dreaming of. It had nearly everything I wanted (it didn't use track power, but that is an easy change) and I decided to reach out to Rich to see if I could visit and study his garden first hand. I wanted to pick his brain, explore his creation, and use it as a feasibility study for my own future line. And I am happy to report it exceeded my expectations! 

Rich was a generous host and showed my wife and I all around his garden. While I had read at least two articles about it (it was featured most recently in the December 2018 magazine) there were lots of things that jumped out at me. His structures really had to be seen to appreciate the craftsmanship that went into them. Many had interior details and lighting, and he had some ingenious ways of accomplishing both. His buildings feature stones he "cast" himself out of Bondo and cut into shape, colored, attached to the exteriors of the buildings, and then weathered. His windows have real glass. His roofing featured realistic weathering and small scale rail to accurately represent the seams on the real roofs.

His rolling stock was exquisite. All scratchbuilt, using some castings and a lot of ingenuity, everything was perfect. Lines were straight, interiors were fully furnished the hard way (ex: he stamped his own texture onto the cushion seats in the coaches instead of buying fabric of the correct pattern) and with lights and hand done graphics, they were works of art in their own way. And, built to the British methods of using laminated cardstock for the substructures with lots of details recycled from the smaller scales or other places. Nothing was overdone, and nothing was out of place. He might not have had dozens of cars purchased off the shelf of a hobby store, but what he had was distinctly unique for his line.

One take away that I never fully appreciated from his magazine was the importance of height in creating isolated scenes. While his layout is large (20' x 32'), it doesn't strike me as that because all I could see at one time was a small area. The large plants in the center mounds create effective view blocks and at times there was nothing to see but the area I was standing. The train would puff into view and roll through and then disappear, and that would be that. He had a small rural country station area, two ends that featured track rounding curves with a station halt at one and nothing at the other, and some meandering curved track on the back side with a switch leading to the "operating pit." This is accessed from one side and is a nice spot inside it all to relax and watch the trains run.

As most steam locomotives are, Rich's engine proved a little temperamental while we were trying to run it. However, we managed many laps with his train slowly trundling round and around. It was perfect weather on a perfect day and I couldn't imagine something more enjoyable then to go out to the garden and run a train and observe the nature around you. The simplicity of track power or battery power to allow you to just set a train on and let it go is there, but steam will always be the purest form of the hobby. Rich confided that he does have a battery powered engine on order for times when he just wants to relax and run a train.

I am happy to report that Rich and I are of the same mind in nearly all of our approaches to the hobby. More importantly, his garden railway has demonstrated that while our ideas are definitely not mainstream or easy they do lead to wonderful results. The raised garden structure took an immense amount of time and effort for Rich to build (I will just contract it out) but it certainly enhanced the experience of the garden. He kindly gave me one of his own bricks which I will incorporate into my own structure someday. His green wall of simple plants which he rarely tends proves that you don't need a lot of gardening skills to have a nice garden. He trains ran extremely well and the theme of Welsh narrow gauge came through in every aspect of the line, from the equipment to the buildings to the details to the trackwork.

I went there as a curious visitor and left there as a friend of Rich's. I can't wait to go back again, perhaps with my own trains, and see even more of the layout. Thank you Rich for a wonderful experience!

Collecting real "authentic" dirt

There are several substances you can use to model dirt on your layout, including many commercial ones including some that are just packaged real dirt. I decided to go a step beyond and only use "authentic" D&H dirt on my layout. Part of the reasoning was that I needed some quickly for my ballasting project, and I didn't have time to research various brands. Plus, I had some nice weather in store for the weekend and thought it might be fun.

So, armed with a shovel and an cheap aluminum baking pan in my trunk (I didn't dare use our good baking pans for this project!), I drove over to a place in Menands that is both close to the D&H tracks and pretty much a pile of dirt. There, after examining the ground for the best place to dig, I took a couple of shovelfuls of the brown stuff. At home, I baked it in our oven at 350-degrees for an hour to kill anything living in it that came along for the ride. If you read various forums online, there is a big debate over the need to bake it at all. I said "are you crazy, why not?" and just did it. It didn't smell weird, it was hands off, and it went quickly.

Then, the sifting began. Over the years I have purchased lots of sieves, screens, funnels, and other various sorting devices in preparation for this moment. After seeing Mike Confalone do it on one of his "Scenery Outside the Box" DVDs it looked easy and fun, and so I found three screens that got smaller/finer in size and went outside. The dirt easily broke up on the large metal screen, and the leftover stones and leaves were dumped onto the lawn. Then, two more screenings left me with three different sizes of dirt and rocks. I packaged it up in my cheap food takeout containers and went inside to clean up and watch football. It took less than 30 minutes total.

Some lessons I learned: 
(1) it goes pretty quick but the dirt must be absolutely dry;
(2) a slight breeze is desirable to blow any dust raised up by the process away from your face;
(3) if you overload the filter and it spills into your bowl below containing finer material, you get to start over again;
(4) half of what you gather will be too large, or grass, or leaves, or stones, or blown away; and
(5) pick the right color of dirt. I couldn't get more authentic than real D&H dirt, but if you need red dirt or dark brown dirt you might need to go find it somewhere else than your backyard.

New PECO switches (replacing broken M.E. ones)

This was a long time coming. As I looked around my layout, I had at least half of my switch throwbars damaged and semi-repaired with styrene splints that would likely never hold up. Micro Engineering switches are expensive and beautiful, but I finally had enough of them. Previous blog posts had documented M.E.'s lack of quality and left me frustrated. I purchased PCB ties to solder up new switch throwbars but getting into some of the locations to do the repair was impossible once they were installed. And trying to remove them just destroyed them. So, in a moment of catharsis, I pulled out three of my switches and prepared to replace them.

I printed out Peco code 83 "Streamline" turnout templates online (a #6 is referred to as a "Sixth Radius" on their website) and laminated a couple to add to my collection. Then, I played around with them on site. They are much shorter lengthwise than the ME switches and are definitely not drop in replacements. But, I can make them work. I decided not to reinstall the Tortoise machines so I covered up the old holes in the roadbed. I liked playing with them when I installed them, but I missed the physical action of "throwing" something a la Caboose Industries ground throws. So, I am going in a different direction the second time around.

The beads remind me where to solder feeder wires.

Tortoise machines allowed me to easily power the frogs (well, if installing all those wires was "easy"). If I use Caboose Industries ground throws I won't have that luxury. And yes, I know about the ones with the built in slide switch contacts but they look terrible and from what I have read aren't very reliable. I am leaning towards using a slide switch mounted at the edge of the layout but that gets away from the fun of a ground throw. To determine if they would work, I ordered several sizes on Ebay. If that fails, I am going to use ground throws and power the frogs with Hex Frog Juicers. A big concern is that with Frog Juicers installed with will be nearly impossible to run straight DC trains on my layout. That is very annoying, and something that will weigh heavy on my mind as I try to make the slide switches work.

Ironically, the cost of the unit that powers 4 frogs is about the same as 4 Tortoise machines. And the cost of a Peco turnout is only a little more than a M.E. one. So, I am essentially paying double to relay this track. Ugh. But, I hope to sell the Tortoise machines in the future and recoup some of my costs.

I used code 83 for all three switches, which minimized the number of transitions I needed to make in rail size (before, I had 83 to 70 to 55). As the frogs are part of the switch and not separate like the M.E. ones, you need to leave gaps in the rails after the frogs or you will have shorts. I closed the gaps with styrene superglued in place and then carved to size. Wiring was done just like I did in the staging yard. Peco solders a wire to their frog for your convenience but it so delicate that I cut it off and solder larger gauge wires to the rail that connects to the frog. Parts of the cork and rubber roadbed were sliced away to leave troughs for the turnout control rods to slide through. Replacement ties then filled in the gaps, and everything was given a spray of Rustoleum camouflage paint. I then individually painted the ties like before. It took several evenings, but I am finally happy with how things turned out.

Scale Track Plan (as of 2019)

The very first requirement for the Master Model Railroader: Civil certificate is to prepare a track plan. It doesn't have to be of your actual layout but since you do have to construct other requirements on your actual layout to meet other objectives it made sense to me to diagram my actual layout. Here is what the specifications required:

Prepare one original scale drawing of a model railroad track plan, identifying overall size, scale, track elevations, curve radii, and turnout sizes. Before you start drawing your layout plan, look at requirements 2 & 3 to see what features you are going to want to incorporate in your track plan. Remember: you do not need to build everything on this plan, just the minimum required part of it. The plan should be neat and legible, but it does not have to be in ink or computer generated.

This plan must include:

- Adequate terminal facilities for handling freight and/or passenger cars;

- Adequate terminal facilities for storage and service of motive power;

- A minimum of one mainline passing siding;

- Four switching locations, not counting yards, interchanges, wyes, and reversing loops;

- Provision for turning motive power (except for switchbacks, trolley lines, etc.);

- Provision for simultaneous operation of at least two mainline trains in either direction.

So, over the winter I drew my layout to scale, using 1" = 1 foot. I drew it on large grid-lined poster board that I purchased at a craft store, but the grid lines aren't really visible in the scan above. With the grid lines in place, it looks a lot more like a scale drawing. It isn't perfect, but I do nearly everything in ink (an old habit) and I think it came out decent. I had it scanned at a copy center just in case I spilled something on it before it was time to submit it.