Construction halted

Construction on the Citrusville layout has been halted.  The primary purpose of this layout was to confirm if Atlas code 55 track was reliable enough to use on a larger layout.  At this point I have shifted my construction efforts to my larger ATSF Pekin branch layout.  I hope to still finish the Citrusville layout at some point in the future, as I found it to be a fun switching experience.

Week 8 contruction progress report

This week I installed the remainder of the ground throws.  They were attached with a combination of glue and track nails.  The ground throws are working reliably, and will hopefully continue to do so after the scenery materials and glue go in around them.

Caboose Industries ground throws installed and foam carved.

Next up I roughed and carved down the foam a bit in the large open areas using a Stanley Surform. This should help avoid the completely flat look.  I gave the foam a coat of light brown paint to avoid seeing pink spots in between the dirt and grass.  Next time around the smart thing to do would be to paint the foam before laying any track, that way any pink foam showing through could be avoided.

More foam carved to avoid flat look.

Foam painted with a light brown dirt color.

I airbrushed the rails a dark brown to get the rusty rail look.  Immediately after airbrushing each segment I cleaned the paint from the top of the rails using a piece of wood soaked in rubbing alcohol. When compared side by side the painted rail looks a lot nicer than the shiny rail sides.

The middle track looking much nicer after an airbrushing with a dark brown.  

The top of the track was cleaned immediately after airbrushing with a block of wood soaked in rubbing alcohol.

I started giving the open areas a dusting of Woodland scenics earth ground foam, and then a scattering of Woodland scenics burnt grass ground foam.  This was done using the old and reliable method of wetting the foam and ground foam with rubbing alcohol and then following up with Woodland Scenics' Scenic Cement.  I suspect this base coat may end up being a little bit darker than what Southern California looks like, but I should be able to lighten it up a bit later once I've had a chance to compare the look to some photos.

I ballasted one siding with Woodland Scenics fine cinders ballast.  The rest of the sidings will also receive this ballast, but the main line will get Arizona Rock & Mineral's Santa Fe Mauve ballast.

Siding ballasted with cinders.

Siding looking a bit buried in the brush.

After adding dirt and grass around the ballasted siding I feel like the track is looking rather buried in the brush.  This is fine for the sidings, but I wish I had elevated the main tracks using roadbed.  I'm not sure if the transitions between roadbed and the ground level tracks would have worked well in these short distances, which is why I laid all the track directly on the ground.  On the next layout I'll have to be more careful with maintaining elevation differences between mains and sidings.


In the next week I hope to make good progress on scenicing and ballasting, and perhaps start building citrus trees.  I think I need 25 - 30 citrus trees, with the majority of them going in the area next to the staging tracks.  While partially blocked by the Sunkist building, one can look down the length of the layout and see this area, so I think it will look nice to have a large citrus orchard placed there.

Week 7 construction progress report

This week I completed the last of the trackwork on the layout, including staging.  After running an operating session, involving a five car freight train and the short two car passenger train I came to the conclusion that the layout staging tracks are a bit too short.  I built a removable 1 foot staging extension, which allows the freight train to add three to four more cars, and the passenger train to add two cars.  This allows for a good amount of switching activity on the layout, and an operating session can keep me busy for an hour and a half.  Between the cars already positioned on the layout and the incoming freight train a total of 20 freight cars were on the layout.

1ft staging extension

The next step was to start installing ground throws.  For the turnouts where I plan to use the frog juicer to power the frog I'm using a basic Caboose Industries 222S ground throw.  For the ones where I need the ground throw to route power I'm using the Caboose Industries 224S.  The first ground throw was attached to the foam with two track nails.  After a little bit of use it already has a wobble to it.  I think I will pull it up and reinstall it using glue in addition to the nails.

Caboose Industries 222S ground throw

I installed my first n-scale sound decoder.  I put a MRC 1957, which is a drop-in decoder, into a Kato F3. While this thing is billed as being drop-in, there is still a bit of work involved in getting it installed.  Having come from ho-scale I feel like this decoder sounds mediocre, probably due to the tiny 13mm speaker.  Not sure that spending $70 on sound is worth it.

Kato F3 opened up.  Note the various front coupler parts on the left.  Those parts are not fun to re-install.

The wheel pickup tabs had to be insulated with kaptop tape where the motor contacts used to touch them.

MRC 1957 sound decoder installed in Kato F3.  This is before the holding clip goes back on top of the motor tabs.  Note the tiny 13mm speaker built into the decoder.  It may explain the PC-speaker-esque sound quality.

The below pictures show the current state of the layout.

Right side of Citrusville.  The foundation of the Co-Op shed is seen at the left.  The Del Monte cannery is at the top right.  The foundation of the freight house can be seen at the far right.

Middle of Citrusville. Hughes Aircraft can be seen at the left.  The Co-op shed can be seen at the left.

Left side of Citrusville.  The Sunkist packing house is seen at the left hiding the two staging tracks behind it.  Sunkist has four loading doors spaced for 40ft reefers.  During operating sessions one of the empty staging tracks is used as an off-stage ice house track.

In the coming week I hope to install the rest of the ground throws, and to start ballasting and scenicking the layout once those materials arrive.  I hope to fit a few citrus trees in the space between the Sunkist track and the main line running in front of Hughes Aircraft.  I'm planning on attempting to build some orange and lemon trees using the CMRS method.

Week 5 and 6 construction progress report

I was able to find some free time during a few evenings in the last couple of weeks and made a decent amount of construction progress.  I started out by attaching terminal blocks to the ends of both benchwork sections, and ran 14 gauge power bus wires between them.  I then connected the two sections via jumper cables made from stranded lamp wire with Andersen Powerpole 15 amp connectors.  I'm using the same kind of cable to connect my Digitrax Zephyr DCC control station to the layout.

Next up I soldered 22 gauge feeder wires to each piece of track, and to each turnout frog. Soldering to n-scale track has turned out to be quite a bit trickier than soldering to the larger ho-scale track I'm used to.  On the flex track pieces I generally soldered the feeders to the underside, but with the turnouts I sometimes soldered the feeders to the track joiners.  We'll see if this results in reliable power connections.

Next up I started gluing the track to the foam top.  I made sure to test fit everything, and drew the outlines of the track to the foam top to know exactly where it went after spreading down some glue. On these small layouts every inch counts, so it was important that every track and turnout went in the exact right place.  I did the track gluing in several stages, and after each stage dried, I drilled holes that the feeders were pulled through, and soldered them to the power bus.  The frog feeders have not yet been attached to a bus.  I was hoping I might not have to power the frogs, but my Bachmann Alco S4 switcher hesitates on the frogs, so I'll be adding a hex Frog juicer to power the frogs.

Once the trackwork was glued down I was pretty happy with how it turned out.  My cars seem to roll across the track and turnouts well.  The Atlas code 55 switches do appear to be made to tight tolerances and that Alco S4 seems to not be quite in gauge.  I still need to figure out how to widen the gauge on it a bit to get it to roll through the frogs smoother.

Left side of layout.  Co-op shed at right.  Hughes manufacturing in the middle.  Sunkist packing at the left.

Layout seen lengthwise.  All trackwork in place, although the tracks on the far side still need to be glued down.

Right side of layout.  Freight house at bottom right.  Del Monte cannery at top right.  The depot will go in between them.

At the end I staged a photo-op, with a freight train waiting to roll out of town as the Citrusville Chief arrives.

In coming week I hope to finish gluing down the staging tracks and the Sunkist packing house track on the left side of the layout.  After that I need to add ground throws to the turnouts.  Six of the turnouts on the left side of the layout will have their frogs powered by the Frog Juicer, while the remaining turnouts frogs will each be powered by a Caboose Industries 224S ground thrown.

Week 3 and 4 construction progress report

Progress in the last couple of weeks has been slow due to needing to wait for various mail ordered kits and parts.

I glued 3/4" foam to the top of the benchwork.

I ran an operating session on the temporarily connected track to figure out if the layout would support a 5 car freight train and a short passenger train at the same time.  The idea is that the freight train comes into town in the morning and starts switching out cars.  The passenger train then arrives, and does a quick turn-around, and departs.  The freight train completes its switching moves, and then leaves town as well.  This plan worked without any awkward switching moves being required.

Once the Walthers Santa Fe brick depot kit arrived I realized the station had a larger footprint than I expected, and didn't fit in the intended spot.  This prompted a re-arrangement of the industries on the layout, and then a track plan change.  The diagram below shows the new track and industry layout. Note that the structure sizes on the diagram are only rough estimates.

I'm still waiting to receive one more building kit, the Walthers Santa Fe brick freight house. Once it arrives I can be sure that everything fits as planned, and can start gluing the track down.  Next up will be wiring, once the terminal blocks I ordered arrive.

I spent a fair bit of time looking for appropriate refrigerator cars to serve the Sunkist packing house. The ATSF/SFRD reefers appear to have been popular and seem to be out of stock most places I looked.  I managed to get a set of three Intermountain 40' RR28 steel reefers, and a set of three Athearn 50' RR30 steel reefers. The paint schemes on these are more appropriate for the 1940s, but since I didn't have any luck finding any in the 1950s scheme they will have to do for now.

Athearn reefers:

Intermountain reefers:

Week 2 construction progress report

I started this week off by ordering some building kits and DPM modular brick building pieces.  I am using Walthers' Union Crane & Shovel as my Hughes Aircraft Company manufacturing facility.  I got it built and painted this week.  This building will fit a single car on the track that goes into the building.  The area in front of the door will fit a second car for outdoor unloading.

Next up was building the brick Del Monte cannery out of DPM modular sections.  This building can fit up to three boxcars for loading and unloading at the doors.  The single story section at the left houses the coal boiler, and will have a tall chimney.  The inbound coal will be unloaded unto the ground, and then brought in to the boiler via the tall ground-level door at the far left of the building.

Del Monte needs to be completed and painted, and the windows and doors painted and glued in. With a modular structure of this size I will need to come up with some way to structurally reinforce it. Hopefully the addition of a roof with also make it more rigid.

I still need to find a suitably narrow depot to fit in the available space.  I may end up trying one of the prototypically correct Santa Fe laser-cut depot kits that are available.

After that the Sunkist fruit packing house will need to be constructed.  I will need to order more DPM parts to be able to start this building.

More week 2 updates to come as I hopefully make more progress this week.

Week 1 construction progress report

After coming up with the layout concept yesterday construction started.  A 4 x 1 ft benchwork box and a 2 x 1 ft benchwork box were built out of 1x4 lumber and 1/4" birch plywood.  By building the benchwork as two separate pieces it will be easier to move the micro-layout upstairs from the basement, and to load it in the car.  At the end I may end up adding a backdrop and a structure to hold built-in lights.

Once the benchwork was built I moved on to arranging the track on the benchwork, to see if the buildings would fit where I envisioned them in the layout sketch from the concept page.

One of the key buildings that determines if the layout concept works is the fruit packing house on the far end of the layout.  This building divides the visible side of the layout from the two staging tracks behind it.  I may end up adding a short backdrop behind this building to help hide the staging area. There are some good resources out there capturing many of the interesting structures that served as packing houses.  It appears that most people wanting accurate models of the prototype end up scratch building a structure, but with my hope to get this layout built and completed in a few weeks I plan on using DPM's modular brick structure pieces.  I built a stand-in paper building to test out the size and look of a potential packing house using DPM's planning templates.  The paper template building is 10 modular pieces long and 2 pieces wide.  As can be seen in the below photo a two piece wide building is a bit of a tight fit into the space.  However, if I slimmed the building down to one piece wide then I feel like it would be unrealistically narrow.  This current building can fit four 40 ft reefers at the loading doors.  While real packing houses may have likely loaded many more reefers each day, I think four is the most this layout can handle, considering the daily freight from the staging area will only be able to fit four to five 40 ft cars.

The photo below shows a short freight with four freight cars, and a short single-coach passenger train hiding in the staging area.

That concludes the construction and planning progress in week 1.