Hay, let there be light

Say hay! Finally have some forage to haul.

I took a break from building warehouses for Aquia Landing to do some miscellaneous jobs on the layout. I have 5 new warehouse buildings in various states of assembly.

New light over Burnside's Wharf. Some of the new warehouses
are also visible in the image.

First odd job was to add a new light over the Burnside's wharf area. My operators have complained about that area being dark and hard to see when switching. For the light I used a new low profile, recessed LED light that only draws 15W but puts out 850 lumens. It was pretty easy to install and the results are great. It is much easier to see the link and pins there now. I also like how the backdrop is much more evenly lit now too.  It pays to listen to your operators. This has got me thinking about retrofitting the rest of the lights too.

I also added some ballast to the wye tracks. I find that doing a small section of ballast at a time makes for better results.

Hay warehouse in Alexandria, VA

Two  of the major scenic shortcomings of the layout are been the lack of forage and not enough supply wagons.   Modeling forge is important because it was the predominant cargo on the line. So tonight I made about 140 hay bales. That should be enough to create loads 4-5 cars. I'll probably need three times that many in total for car loads and scenery at the wharf and stations.

Flat car laced with forage at City Point

The mechanical hay press was invented about 10 years before the civil war according to this web site and documented in this booklet from 1842.

To make my bales, I used balsa blocks for the basic shape. I tried to add some variation in size and shape as hay bales in this era were not uniform, as you can see in the image at the left.  The bales were pretty big, about 300 pounds.  Mine are 0.9 inches long and half inch square cross section.

Then I painted them with a mixture of straw color acrylic paint and white glue. Then I sprinkled on a layer of static grass that was mixed with clippings from cheap bristle brushes. Once dry, I glued the blocks together and wrapped them with baling twine.

I used Woodland Scenics harvest gold static grass with some clippings from cheap bristle brushes. Hay comes in different types and colors.  I went with hay that is not quite so green, since I model the late-March time period, so the hay  would be a few months old.

Note the hay bales on the roof of the barge.

Open House for Cub Scouts and Neighborhood Children

Can you see "The Penguin?"

Wow, what a day! We never had more fun with the layout. Even Alicia was down in the basement enjoying the visit.  Today we hosted an open house for a pack of cub scouts and the neighbor hood children. Derek Trunkey organized the cub scouts, while Sean Heather organized the local kids. Mike Spoor, an experienced model railroader,  was visiting and he helped out. We planned the event in three waves. First was the cub scouts, then the neighborhood girls, and last the neighborhood boys.  There were a total of 19 children.

Each wave entailed watching a 6-minute video describing the layout and background, then the kids took turns running trains and doing a scavenger hunt.

The scavenger hunt was a YUUUUGE HIT! The children and their parents had a great time looking for the items. Some of the items were obvious, some needed a little explanation, and a few were well hidden, like the penguin hiding in the first image, or Gumby hiding in the tunnel. Turns out, most of the kids did not know who Gumby was!

The kids kept their scavenger sheets as souvenirs. Some of the children had a hard time seeing the layout details because they were too short, but I had hidden a few items that they would have a better view of seeing compared to taller people.

Every kid from ages 4 to 10 got to run a train.  There were several derailments, many due to contraction of the layout due to low humidity (see more below), but the kids didn't mind.  Here is gallery of some photos.

 


The event was so successful, that we are planning a follow-on event where each child will get a chance to assemble a building. I'll design the building kit so it can be assembled without sharp tools and with simple white glue. Some of the children suggested this, so you know it's going to be be effective. They want to learn how to make a model railroad!

The low humidity caused the usual track problems, which manifest in some of the turnouts that become too tight as the wood bases shrink under them. The solution seems to be a whole house humidifier. We plan to upgrade the HVAC in the house, so that will be an add-on to the new HVAC system. We may have to move that up on the priority list.

Engine Haupt wasn't running well, with several stalls. It needed a tune up that was mostly an adjustment of the pick-up wires, and a wheel cleaning. Right at the end of the open house Fury stopped running, though it had sound and the motor was grinding. Something was jamming the drive. I took it apart and discovered that the rear universal popped out and was jammed. It was a simple fix and it was back in operation.

All in all a great day.

In memoriam John William "Bill" Worthington

It is my sad duty to report the passing of my father-in-law, Dr. John William "Bill" Worthington on January 24, 2018 at his home at Charter House in Rochester.

You can read his official obituary here. But I'd like to take this moment to reflect on the great times we shared together.

Bill was a brilliant doctor but you would never know that if you just talked with him.  He had a quiet, modest,  thoughtful manner.  He graduated high school at age 16, and then went to Franklin and Marshall College on a special pre-med program with the U.S. Navy during WWII.  In his typical understated way, he once described to me how each Monday morning they had a formation of students. Those who  did not make passing grades were immediately dismissed and sent to serve on  warships in combat for the Navy. "That was a good incentive to study," he quietly said. He graduated F&M and went to Duke Medical School. He then served for several years in the U.S. Navy as a doctor.

After the Navy, he went to the Mayo Clinic where he became the head of a Section of Rheumatology. He was an Associate Professor of Internal Medicine on the faculty of Mayo Medical School.

He was a generous, kind person, with the highest integrity of anyone I knew.  This is a trait that his daughter and my wife, Alicia, inherited.

He and I shared a common interest in cycling and history, especially American history.  We had many long talks about that subject. We made several trips together to investigate subjects as diverse as his family's genealogy, which goes back to original settlers in Maryland,  whaling in Nantucket, silver mining in Utah, and the gold rush in Alaska.

Genealogy was a strong interest of his. He discovered that his ancestors were very influential in Maryland's development. They even have a valley west of Baltimore named after them.  At the Battle of Monocacy, his ancestors had a farm that was at the center of the battle. It is now been restored as part of the National Park.

He was not a model builder, but he enjoyed seeing my layout and other model railroad projects. He was always supportive and considerate of my efforts in this regard. He told me stories of how he rode the C&O Railroad to and from Elkhorn City, KY as a young man. His father was a minister and so they had passes to ride the railroad.

He will be missed.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Mayo Clinic Department of Development for medical research or Minnesota State Services for the Blind.

Ripple Effect - Adding a Telegraph

Last week I was discussing with Seth Neumann a possible design for a telegraph system for the Aquia Line. I discussed a possible telegraph system in an earlier post. The basic idea is that each conductor would report arrival and departure at each station by pushing a button at that station. The button would activate an Arduino microprocessor to create a telegraph message in the dispatcher's office telling the station and the train number using Civil War Count Code - a simplified form of railroad morse code used by the USMRR as it was easier to learn.  The Arduino would also create a text version of the OS report, in case the dispatcher missed the morse code. The dispatcher would be the only one that has to know the code.

While reporting arrival and departure, sometimes called "O-S-ing" in later TT&TO eras,  was done by the prototype Aquia Line, it is really not necessary on the model railroad, as the dispatcher doesn't have much else to do. The main purpose of this system will be to allow the dispatcher to maintain a train sheet and to create a realistic noise. The telegraph is in effect adding "audio scenery" to the layout.

So having a dispatcher with a telegraph clattering away would be really neat, but it creates a ripple effect on other aspects of the layout especially the layout design. If I am going to have a dispatcher, then he or she needs a work space. Probably an antique style desk.  Then,  I'll need a picture of Lincoln and a period flag based on the photo of the restored station at Ellicott Mills as a guide.

Where to put the dispatcher? Probably the best place is in the home office area. Since the dispatcher will usually be me, and I need to go in  and out of the office during an op session to answer questions, fix problems etc,  I don't want to be trapped in the office with a duck under  section of layout in the way. So if I went with layout design  v19 I would need to make a gate or other section to allow access to the office.

Or, I could change the design and go to a version 20 see below. This version adds a passing siding at Potomac Creek by moving Stonemans and Falmouth into the main room, thus making 5 possible places for meets. The extra passing siding is not that critical as the train density would not change, but the extra length of run wouldn't hurt.

The blob by Robert's Ridge would make it impossible to have a couch in that part of the room. To compensate, I would move the crew lounge to the office area. But then I couldn't have too many book shelves in the office.  I could install book shelves under Falmouth and Roberts Ridge to make up fo r the loss in the office.  The aisle by Falmouth could be a problem especially with two train crews there, so I made the aisle in that area as big as possible.  In this design, I lose the expanded Burnside's wharf, in return for a longer run and easier access to the office.  However, it does keep open a possible expansion of Burnside's Wharf into the office if I run out of things to do later too.

All this just to hear some noise ripple across the layout.

Version 20

A Mystery Track at Aquia Landing?

In studying the few photos I have of Aquia Landing for ideas on construction details for structures, I noticed some freight cars in one photo in an odd place. I had noticed those cars before, but I did not fully realize that the cars are on the north side of wharf adjacent to the warehouse closest to the shore. I base this on the fact that the cars are in front of the warehouse. But it is hard to tell exactly, as the edge of the freight car is right on the line of the corner of the warehouse. Is it in front or behind? That is the key question.

The yellow circle shows the cars to which  I am referring.    This appears to be a single track.

The next photo shows the double track running down the full length of the wharf.   I had always thought the cars in question were on the double track siding. But then they couldn't be on the obscuring the north side of the warehouse, as the double track is on the south side of the warehouse.

Could there be a third track on the wharf, a single track on the north side of the closest warehouse?

The photo at the bottom shows where I think this track could be.

So if there was, what to do about it? In looking at my track plan, I concluded that I might be able to include this track by extending the current track I call the bakery track onto the wharf. I would have to widen the wharf a bit, but it is possible.

The revised track plan below shows how it might be implemented.  The other thing that is becoming more apparent to me is that the wharf has much more of a L shape than I planned. It may be possible for me to make my L shape larger. We'll see how that works out.

Is this the site of the mystery track?