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.