A journal following the history, design, construction and operation of Bernard Kempinski's O Scale model railroad depicting the U. S. Military Railroad (USMRR) Aquia-Falmouth line in 1863, and other model railroad projects.
©Bernard Kempinski All text and images, except as noted, on this blog are copyrighted by the author and may not be used without permission.
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October 7, 2009

Track Laying Recommences

After working backdrops for several weeks, I started again laying some track. Here are some photos showing progress between Falmouth and Stoneman's Switch.


Gluing ties, adding rail and spiking. The track gauges are home made laser cut from acrylic. I cut the ties on the laser to have a rough appearance. They are 1/8th inch basswood. Then I stained them with a mixture of white, burnt umber and oak oil based wood stains. The white stain has some pigment that dries in an near opaque layer. I like the look it creates - a nice weathered look.









The turnout roadbed is a piece of 1/8th inch soft plywood cut with a hobby knife. I used the paper turnout template to get the right shape. A section protrudes at the lower right for the switch stand. This is not birch aircraft plywood, but a softer hobby plywood that is easy to cut with a knife.














I used roadbed sections that I laser cut from 1/8th inch lightweight plywood with kerfs to make the curved sections. These get glued to the wood splines underneath.




















The bridge over Clairborne Run is starting to take shape. It will be a crude trestle made using the plans from Haupt's book on Military Bridging.















The roadbed gets a coat of wood putty and light weight Spackle . After sanding it gets painted. Once the paint dries, the ties get glued down. This is the roadbed by Stoneman's Switch, a key point on the plan. There is one double ended and one stub siding here. This is the primary passing siding on the layout.

2 comments:

  1. Downloaded the link for the Haupt book. Thank you for posting it, a lot of very good info in it .I recall that someone in the Civil war rail group was looking for info on pontoons used in the war, hopefully they follow your site. By the way , what size do you use for spacing on the passing sidings. Thank you ,Gary

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  2. The sidings are 3 inches apart.

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