Last Look at PoLA?

I noticed the the 2020 issue of Model Railroad Planning is out. Inside is an article about my former PoLA layout. I wrote and submitted the article several years ago, before I took down PoLA and sold it to my friend. Is this the last look at PoLa? Maybe, maybe not. I suspect it will pop up a few more times before if gets to really say farewell.

The rest of the issue looks good. MRP has consistently been my favorite model railroad magazine (journal?) As one of my friends, who agrees with me says," too bad it can't come out 12 times a year."

PoLA has been mobilized

The staging area in the closet was the first section we removed.

Over the past two days, Tom Pierpoint and I worked on removing PoLA so it could be reassembled in his basement.  Although I did not build PoLA in a sectional style, I did use open grid benchwork. The top surface was foam and taskboard.   So it was fairly easy to cut into four sections plus the staging yard. In the new location, Tom will not have room for the Borax extension, so we did not salvage that part.

Portable staging yard

Steak knife cuts though the foam and paving

First we identified where the cuts would be and cut the bus wires at those locations.  Then we used a moto tool to cut the track at the proposed section joints. Next, I used a steak knife to slice through the foam and the areas paved with task board. A few cuts with my Festool Carvex jig saw on the 1x2 open grid frame members and the layout was in sections.  Tom remarked that the Carvex had a lot less vibration than his jig saw. Festool strikes again!

Where did Bernie put those screws?

The open grid frame was screwed to the walls and legs in a minimal number of places. With those screws removed the sections came right off.

First layout section

Tom rented a box van. We loaded the pieces into the van and used some bungie cords to secure them. The construction technique I used to build  the layout resulted in light weight and very easy to move sections. One person could easy handle a section.

Tom plans to install the layout on benchwork that he previously bought from a commercial benchwork vendor.  He wants to back date the layout in such a way that it could be easily go back to PoLA in the twenty first century.

All loaded up

The new flooring tile

The next step for me is to continue to clear the basement of as many items as possible. I found a contractor that will repair the walls, install the damaged trim, put ceramic tile on the floor and paint the walls. We chose a medium grey, wood look tile and will have dark blue walls with white trim. It will be a whole new look for the basement. My niece, who is an interior design architect and decorator, suggested the color scheme. She also suggested painting the ceiling in the front room dark blue to match the valance. My wife agreed. So we will do that too.

I am starting to feel better about all this. I am excited to start the Aquia Line expansion, but not until we host the North East Interchange in November. And I have some ideas for a small switch layout in my office too.  Finally, some light at the end of the tunnel. I hope it is not an on coming train.

Final Op Session on PoLA

Amongst the remnants of the flood clean up we held the final op session, number 27, on PoLA today. We did not operate the Aquia Line.  Michael Spoor and Shawn Fenn were the final operators. Marty McGuirk and Doug Gurin stopped by to see the farewell.

Shawn is a happy conductor

Michael is the smiling engineer

The session started off a bit rough as the two GP-60s we used last time did not want to run properly. They exhibited all manner of DCC craziness from having the primer mover engine sounds racing at idle, intermittent operation, runaway engine, and loss of throttle response. We tried a to reboot and even reset the decoders, but nothing seemed to improve. This was very odd, since at the last session these engines ran great.

So we swapped the power for the PHL Genset with Tsunami 2 and a Keep Alive and all was well.

At the end of the session, Reverend Marty McGuirk offered a brief benediction,

"PoLA you served us well. Those who didn't like it can go to hell. Amen."

We then proceeded to pop open some beers and toasted the layout. With the ceremony out of the  way, the guys got to work boxing up freight cars.  Amazingly, we found boxes for almost all the cars.

Doug Gurin stopped by for the farewell.

With the cars put away it was time to eat. JD and JB, who were at the Nats-Dodgers game, stopped by to join us for dinner. JD brought the BBQ wings, I made steaks and veggies on the grill, Mom made 3-layer venetian cookies, and Alicia made a fresh fruit salad.

Michael didn't stay for dinner but Shawn did. He regaled us with tales of his wife's role as lead attorney for the FTC in the recent Facebook privacy lawsuit, in which the US Government prevailed.  Congrats to her and her tiny team of lawyers. They took on a giant and won.

After dinner JD and JB went home with some goodies in an effort to help me purge stuff. There's more where that came from.  We'll begin PoLA disassembly next week.

The layout is dead, long live the layout!

John Drye and JB Weilepp take home goodies. The small layout was an N Scale Civil War era layout I started building in 1991 and never finished because the engines were not good enough. JB got some donations for the NVNTRAK club.

Bulk Carrier Superstructure Construction

Photo etched rails visible on deck

Superstructure is coming along

The boat deck is still unpainted acrylic. The stack is not
yet glued in place. 

After a long break, I restarted work on the bulk carrier for the PoLA layout.  As you might recall, this is a fairly large ship model at 62 inches LOA and 10 inches beam. I posted about its construction several times before, such as here,  here, and here.

The superstructure is a combination of 1/8th and 1/16th inch laser-cut, acrylic parts.

I add styrene parts to the basic acrylic shell to help detail it.

The superstructure is just about ready for the base paint. Then I'll add the hand railings and stairs, which will come from a new etching that Alkem Scale Models is going to introduce soon.
In fact, all the pilot etchings were sold, even before I advertised them, as visitors to my layout, upon seeing the pilot parts asked to buy them. I sold all that I had on hand, but a new large batch is coming.

This ship has a lot of hand railings, so the etching will come in very handy. I will also need a lot of railings for the borax silos too.

Wet sanding in sink

More weathered cars for PoLA

I weathered 7 more cars for PoLA today, including some with hand painted graffiti. When I do graffiti on a model, I look at actual graffiti on cars to get ideas, but I don't copy it exactly. It's more fun that way. Here are 5 of the 7.

Why did the train cross the road?

Prototype scene of traffic sharing road with train on Fries Ave in April 2000. Photo by Dave at EJ&E Archive.

After our unsuccessful attempt to get the "simple" grade  crossing warning lights wired up using the materials I had on hand I decided to tackle the project anew. First step was to read the directions, again.

I am using a Logic Rail Grade Crossing Pro. It is a full function grade crossing circuit that can handle flashing crossing lights, motor control for gates, and a bell circuit. The user has to provide the lights, gates, motors and bells. In addition, if using LEDs, the user has to provide the appropriate resistors.

The wood screw in the center secures the
circuit to the benchwork

The instructions include a chart to tell you what resistance to use for the LEDs for several power supply voltages. I used a 12V power supply, so I needed 470 ohm resistors. Of course I didn't have any on hand.  Luckily, we have a store in the area that sells some electronic components and is open on weekends. My go-to stores for that kind of stuff used to be Radio Shack as it was close to my house, but they went bankrupt. There is a good electronic supply shop in Alexandria, but they have regular business hours during the week and are closed on weekends, which makes it hard for me to get there during a normal work week.

Even though I was only using the crossing lights, there were still 14 different wires that had to be attached to the circuit and run to different spots on the layout. I made a wooden chassis with a terminal strip to try to help keep all the wires organized. I engraved letters on the wooden chassis for each connection. The large letters are easier to read when the circuit is mounted on the layout upside down.  I also built harnesses for the wires that I ran to each signal and photocell. I used heat shrink tubing to make the harnesses. Unfortunately the magnet wires that came with the signals were fragile -  two broke in the harnesses and two others shorted inside the tube. So I replaced all the magnet wires in the model signals with 32 gauge stranded wire.

The Grade Crossing Pro uses a series of 4 photocells to determine train occupancy and direction.  You put the two photo cells on each side of the crossing and if you wire them correctly they will control the crossing in a realistic manner. The circuit includes potentiometers to adjust the photocell sensivity.  I found that the adjustment would only work well when all four photocells were hooked up. Then it was simple to adjust for room light.

If I turn off the room lights the grade crossings will trigger if their power is on. So I have to make sure that switch is also off when quitting for the night.

Here is a video showing its operation.

War on Two Fronts

I started the layout revisions for the former Burnside's Wharf area of the Aquia Line layout. I use some pink foam I had on hand and the warehouse from McCook's Landing to quickly mock-up how it might look.  I immediately liked it.  This test convinced me that the revised plan is superior to the former plan. The revised design gives me nearly the same level of operation potential and looks a lot better.

The other cool thing abut this plan is that it gives me an additional option if I decide to expand the Aquia Line. I can go with either an extension on the Falmouth side, or run a more complete rendition of Burnside's wharf as roughly shown as the track plan at the right. But that is in the future. For now it was time to initiate hostilities at Aquia Landing.

It was a simple task to cut the foam pieces to fit and glue them down with Alex Plus caulk.  I also puttied in the gaps with fast and final spackle.




While the glue was drying on Aquia Landing, I shifted fire to the PoLA layout to continue to work on the Borax silos. I had to do some fit adjustments to the top plate of the silos. Then I proceeded to scratch build the unloading shed. I used a laser cut acrylic core, with some plastruct I-beams inside and Evergreen styrene corrugated siding on the exterior.

I had previously measured the height of the structure to insure that the stairs would fit in an even number of flights. My model is selectively compressed so it will only have four flights of stairs, while the prototype has six. There is a lot of cool detail on top of the loading shed. It will be fun to build that.

Updated PoLA Plan

In between golf, chores, and binge watching Game of Thrones, I did an update to the Revised PoLA plan based on some feedback from the client. He plans to reuse an existing staging level with a helix. Since he already had those built, it wasn't a big deal to modify the plan to include them. He also asked to include the option to include some ship models on the layout. Finally, he asked for suggestions on what to include in the second room, which the first design listed as future expansion. This version reflects those changes as well.

A Revised PoLA for a Reader

One of the readers of my book, "Waterfront Terminals and Operations" asked me if I could develop a modified plan of my PoLA layout to fit his space. He was currently modeling a plains railroad in HO scale but was unhappy with its design. In particular he felt he had tried to cram too much stuff in his layout. He liked the PoLA design for its operation potential and manageable scope. He also requested wide aisles to ease access. He has two rooms available for his layout with an assortment of doors and windows. The overall space is 31 by 15 feet with a few obstacles here and there.

Here is the plan that I developed for his space. It's an enlarged version of my own plan with longer sidings and a few extra industries. Initially his back room is reserved for staging, but the layout could easily be expanded in that space later with some of LA's shoreside industries.


This layout supports a lot of varied operation. There are industries for tank cars, auto racks, covered hoppers, box cars and a break bulk terminal that can accept just about any type of car including double stacks, gondolas, depressed center flats, steel cars, etc.

The long sidings add interest to the operation especially when combined with industry spot numbers. For example, switching the single siding at Vopak can be quite involved when cars have to be placed at specific spots.

Some of the sidings are quite long, in contradiction to normal model RR design practice where designers try to cram more, but smaller sidings into a design. I don't like that approach. First, most of the industries on a modern layout have long sidings to provide the rail transportation service they require. Otherwise, they probably use trucks. So designing a layout with longer sidings is prototypical.

Secondly, switching long cuts of cars on a layout feels more  prototypical than the usual one car out-one car in used on some layouts. It  requires good engineer - brakeman coordination. It also presents an imposing spectacle. Watching a string of 15 auto racks going in and out of WVL is really cool. See the video below for an example.



The same concept would apply when switching Pasha, where there are 4 parallel long sidings. This could almost quality as a model railroad yard. Switching this industry can be akin to working a yard with sorting and blocking. The operation can be made even more involved if some cars on the long sidings must remain, while other cars deeper in the siding must be pulled. I do that on my layout when I have more advanced operators to make the tasks more interesting.

Reconfiguring the Borax Pier

I finally had a chance to work on the layout this weekend.  First, I looked at some ways I could get rid of the Borax peninsula by making the silos and wharf parallel to the back wall, similar to the way I first had the layout, but with deeper bench work. Using the ship and silos as mock-ups I realized none  of the ideas were satisfactory, so I decided to leave the track and benchwork as is.

 However, I decided to modify the borax wharf to allow a bit more sea room for the ship.  The tracks stayed where they were. I removed a wedged-shaped sliver from the wharf. This allowed me to move the ship a few inches away from the edge of the benchwork.

The task was easy because I used foam and task board for the terrain in this area. Both are easy to cut with a knife. The ship's hull will hide most of the cut area, so patching the gap will be easy.

The ship looks better with a little bit more water around it. The extra water surface will help protect the fine details on the ship from errant sleeves and elbows as people move in the narrow aisle between the borax peninsula and  Aquia Landing.

I also purchased 12 more feet of 3-inch PVC pipe to make bigger silos. The pipe is much less expensive if you buy it in longer pieces.

I cut the pipe on my chop saw, a messy job that took more time to clean up than to cut.  The new silos are 10.75 inches tall and 3.5 inches OD. The new silos better match the cargo ship in volume capacity. They also act as a nice view block.

"Go big or go home" - Auto Racks Test

"Go big or go home," is a popular saying these days. It really doesn't make sense because who would n't want to go home? It is a nice place where the layout is. I like to go home.  So how about going big at home? That is exactly what is going on here. PoLA is going big. This photo shows a test run of a train of auto racks on PoLA.  I am looking at another expansion of PoLA, but before I proceeded, I needed to verify that auto racks will fit on the layout. The visible part of the layout is no problem. It's the 19 inch radius and 54 inch vertical clearance under the stairs that had we worried.

So I ordered up a batch of auto racks from Mainline Hobby, with the intent of doing the test. If it was a no go, I'd sell the cars on ebay. Less than 24 hours later the box with the models, a very large box, was waiting at my front door.  I opened the box and set the models on the layout. The Atlas articulated sets required some assembly. One of the screws was so tightly inserted that it stripped when I tried to unscrew it. So I drilled it out and replaced it with a screw from my stock.  When Alicia saw the cars on the layout she asked, "are those the same scale?"

Now the big test. Ta daa -- All cars made it through the staging track curve both backing and pulling. Pulling gives more clearance between cars as the couplers stretch out, but they can back through too, even though the inside ends of the cars touch.  So, we can proceed with the expansion plans. Whew!

Don't worry the Aquia Line is still here. The new PoLA expansion is basically 2x8 feet, but it will double tank car siding capacity and add a whole new industry with capacity for up to 14 89-foot auto racks.

Back to Back Op Sessions on PoLA

Switch list and drink in in left and throttle in the
right, Phil looks like an old pro at this.

Phil Hoffman stopped by tonight for a op session on PoLA. Phil used to live in Maryland, but moved to Mississippi where he works for NOAA at Stennis Space Center.  He was here on business, so I set up a session for him.

Getting ready to spot tank cars at Vopak.

Phil did a great job. I left him on his own while I worked on a presentation for a talk next week in Tulsa, OK. In about two hours he was done with all the switching work and had the train blocked for the return to Watson yard.

Well done!   Phil is normally an N scale modeler, but after tonight, he is switching to HO.

Bow Bulwarks

Mocking up the superstructure.

Over the past three days I added the decks and the bow bulwark.

The decks are laser cut 1/8th inch acrylic. I used 2-part epoxy to glue the deck pieces to the wooden hull. There were a few places where I had to sand the deck to make it even with the wood hull sides.

Making a paper template

To make the bulwark on the bow I first cut a piece of heavy kraft paper to make a template. Then I cut an outer and inner layer with 0.020 inch styrene. I glued the bulwark to the hull with CAA. Because it wasn't perfectly symmetrical I had to do some sanding to get the two sides even.

I added putty to smooth the bulwark to the hull.

While the putty died, I drew up a mockup of the superstructure. The railings and stairs are the next Alkem Scale Models products. Stay tuned for them.

One other thing I realized is that the 2.5 inch diameter silos I originally used for the borax factory look kind of wimpy next to the ship. So I bought some bigger 3.5 inch PVC tubing that I will cut to make a more massive silo complex.

Paper the,plate to cut bulwark

Gluing styrene bulwark to hull

Bulwark glued to hull

Puttying the bulwark to the hull.