A Second Opinion

 My wife is brilliant! (She said I am allowed to say that). Why? You'll see soon enough.

I decided to finish the scenery at the north end of Clozet Tunnel. I had originally planned to use some structures to block the view of this portion of Clozet Tunnel, which is a fairly large hole in the wall, instead of a tunnel portal.

After several years of delaying work on this area, mostly because I couldn't make a structure view block work, I decided to go with a normal tunnel portal.

The first step was to make the tunnel portal. I used the drawing I had for Crozet Tunnel, I just slightly modified it. I cut the parts on the laser and assembled the tunnel portal with about 12 inches of brick lining. Placed in site, the tunnel sure is a deep dark hole.

Next I mocked up a piece of hardboard against  the existing fascia and laid out a cut line. I used my Festool Carvex jig saw to cut the profile (BTW the Carvex is rapidly becoming my favorite tool.)  I glued the fascia in place and started using card board strips, foam pieces, and rosin paper to build up the hill.

Next I started the rock carvings for the portal. That took the better part of a day. With the rocks installed and rough painted, I asked my wife to look it over and get her feedback. She looked at the tunnel for about 30 seconds and suggested that I trim back the fascia to allow a better view of the tunnel. Wow, she was right. There was something I didn't like about the hill side and she nailed it. The fascia was too overpowering for the scene. See, I told you she is brilliant! The animated gif above shows the difference.

So the next day, I got out the Carvex again and trimmed the fascia back so that the slope of the hill was consistent. By removing this section of the fascia, the area is more open. Since my workbench is immediately to the right of the tunnel, the more open fascia is much less claustrophobic.

That rock facing needed some patching, but that was an easy task.

With the tunnel portal, the backdrop required some rework, which I enjoyed immensely. I painted some large trees as I plan to trees on the top of the tunnel.

With the backdrop painted, I gave the terrain a base coat of scenery. Once that is dry I'll add static grass and other details.

Panorama of the scene with wet base coat of scenery. Masking tape protects the track.

  While I was working on the tunnel, some contractors arrived and installed new carpet in the stairs to the layout room. With fresh paint and new carpet, the entrance to the layout is much nicer, though some of my model railroad friends claim they can't tell the difference. Oh well, I can.

Tsunami2 Steam Decoder

I installed a new Soundtrax Tsunami TSU-2200 Steam Decoder with current keeper in Engine Haupt this evening. If you are keeping score, this is the third decoder I have installed in this loco. The previous Soundtrax Tsunami decoder and current keeper started having trouble that seemed to get progressively worse.

I am happy to report that the new TSU-2200 seems to be working very well, see video below. The install was pretty easy, as I just had to cut out the old and solder in the new decoder to the existing wires. Installing the Current Keeper was really easy as it has a plug that fits the decoder. All I had to do was trim the plastic insulation on the decoder a tiny bit to allow the plug to slip in.

As usual, I couldn't get my Easy DCC to program the decoder address. So I had to get out the SPROGII. Of course it was set up for HO locos, so I had to convert the SPROGII  from HO to  O scale locos. I actually set it up so I can now do either scale without further set up. Thankfully, the SPROGII worked. While I had it on the SPROGII programming track  I did some basic programming.  Then I used Ops Mode programming to tweak some of the CVs while the engine ran on the track . The only CV I can't find is the simmer and hiss sound when the engine is idling. All my other steamers make noise when they idle. This one doesn't. Anyone know what CV controls that? I need to repair the wood pile as some of the logs fell off during the decoder swap and it will be ready to roll.

While I was playing around with locos and my iPhone, I hooked up a DC power pack to PoLA and test ran the new Key Imports HO scale PRR B6 0-6-0.  It runs well and has surprising tractive effort for such as small loco. This engine is for a project for my next book. I plan to install a sound decoder and current keeper in it too.

Infrastructure Improvements Wrap Up

I am just about finished with infrastructure improvements for the basement and the layouts. I finished repainting all the common areas that I planned to repaint. I did not target the areas with backdrops, fascia, or valances, though I did touch up a few places on the fascia. We are supposed to get new carpet for the stairwell in a week. That will be the last of the planned improvements. Hopefully it will give the overall layout room a neat and clean appearance. I also took the opportunity to reshuffle the wall hangings and swap out some of the old pieces with new.

New lights eliminated back lighting at Falmouth

Next I installed new LED light strips to replace several of the problematic fluorescents lights. Thanks to a tip from Frank Hodina I ordered an 8 pack of these LED lights from Amazon (click here). Combined with some 18-inch long LED light strips I got from Home Depot I was able to greatly improve the lighting in my layout room and shop. These lights are supposed to last 50,000 hours. I hope that is true since I had bad luck with the flourescents. Nearly every one of the fluorescent lights I had in the layout room have failed over the 8-12 years they have been installed. Usually it was a bad bulb, but I also have several ballasts go out too. They were a real pain to replace.

The LEDs also use less power, create less heat, do not emit much UV, produce a consistent color light, and are linkable making wiring much simpler.  These fixtures are also very light weight. I used hot glue to install them. I was able to put them in locations that help avoid the back lighting that my existing light system created.


Like many of us, I have way too many books and magazines.  I wanted to add more book shelves to the layout.  To do it, I added a display shelf under the Borax peninsula on PoLA.  I used the same Ivar shelf system I used elsewhere in the layout. I put various models on display in this area since it is visible from and back. The shelves freed up from no longer displaying models are now holding books.

I think Ikea is discontinuing these shelves, so I was unable to order extra shelf pins. But my local hardware store had some double threaded studs that worked perfectly to secure the shelves.

During the last op session Engine Haupt was acting up again. I think the decoder and perhaps the current keeper on it are bad. So I ordered a new Tsunmai 2002 steam decoder and current keeper. George Bogatiuk at Soundtrax suggested this approach as the new decoders are more efficient. Hopefully this is the answer, as Haupt is a good runner, heavy puller, and sounds great,... when it runs.  Yes, I hate DCC.


We had a busy Easter weekend. My brother and new fiancé visited. After a triple party to celebrate their engagement, my mom's 94th birthday, and our retirement from government service, my brother did an informal op session on PoLA.
A few days later, my friend, Bayo Adedeji, stopped by with his 10-year old twins, Alexander and Ariana to run some trains. They are on spring break. This is the second time they operated the layout.  Hopefully, they will come back again.

Last but not least, Seth Neumann and Steve Williams of Model Railroad Control Systems sent me this test video showing progress on the Telegraph system.  They are nearly ready to send the Arduino systems to me for installation on the layout. I'll post more about that as it gets installed.

Revised Track Plan

This weekend was infrastructure improvement time on the Aquia Line. With help from Alicia, I began repainting the common areas of the basement and ordered new carpet for the stairs. This was a task that I have planned for quite some time, but I finally decided to get it done.

To take a break from the painting work, I worked on the track plan for expanding the Aquia Line into the crew lounge. This plan is similar to the previous plan, but I angled the peninsula. The opens up the central aisle a bit and puts Falmouth on less of a curve. The trade off was to make the benchwork by the new Stoneman's Station narrower. There is also a slight choke point at the top of the Roberts Ridge peninsula, but that is not an active area for operations, so it shouldn't be a problem (so that's where everyone will congregate if Murphy is around).

I also showed a possible continuous run connection. 

I did some line of sight testing in the room. With this design (and the previous too) an operator in the pit near Stoneman's Station cannot see Potomac Creek Station. So there will be a TT&TO pucker factor as crews move from Potomac Creek to Stonemans and vice versa. That's a good thing as it "lengthens the run."

March Madness - a Snow Storm on the First Day of Spring

They say March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Well the lion got in a late roar and dumped abut 6 inches of heavy wet snow on our area. Late snow is unusual for Northern Virginia, but recall that there was a heavy snow storm storm when President Abraham Lincoln made his Easter visit to the Aquia Line in 1863, as well as several other storms that winter.

Of course the snow caused the local schools, many businesses, and the Federal Government offices to close down. With an unexpected day off, I tackled several miscellaneous tasks on the Aquia Line. Most of the tasks were in the maintenance and rebuilding category.

First, I tuned up several freight cars. Through test operation I found several cars that were derailing in various places. I discovered that some of my cast metal trucks did not have the king pin hole exactly on the center line. This caused the couplers to be offset too much on certain curves. The offset couplers then jam the links and caused derailments by lifting the car and wheels off the rails.

The off center problem  was due to the rubber mold wearing as I cast the metal parts for the trucks. To fix that problem, I cracked open  the offending trucks and replaced the bolster beam with new laser cut parts that had the king pin hole precisely centered. They also had consistent tabs to fit in the slots of the cast metal truck side frames. With these changes, those cars performed much better.

While I was doing freight cars, I also finished up the decals for a new box car. This is now the 28th car on the RR. I also built two more sets of trucks for cars 29 and 30.

But I still had some derailment trouble. All three turnouts to the wye at Aquia had problems. These are key turnouts and must work reliably. The easiest to fix was the switch on the Burnside Wharf side of the wye. My operators from last week reported that the stubs were not clearing the stock rails. Sure enough, one stock rail was too long. That was easy to trim.

The center wye switch had become tight in gauge after I ballasted the track, probably because I was too enthusiastic with dilute glue and wet-water  when I applied the ballast. The excess water caused some of the ties to wrap a little bit. However, I was able to salvage the turnout by slightly re-gauging the track without having to pull the ties and totally re-lay it.

New extended lead and switch stand WIP

The biggest problem was in the south end of the wye. The lead to the turnout was too sharp. While it worked most of the time, certain car-coupler combos still had trouble. The frog was ok, but the lead in the stock rails was the problem.

To fix it, I pulled up  the stock rails, added three inches  to the lead and and re-spiked the track. In the process, I was able to move the switch stand to the foreground, where is it much easier to access. It all works much better now.

One other niggling problem we had was that certain freight cars interfered with the transfer bridge on the car float. I was able to sand the transfer bridge post in the center that was causing the problem. Most cars now fit, except two flat cars with home made stake pockets. I was able to use my new Proxxon disk sander to take off about .040 inches off each side of the cars. They now fit and the cars still look fine.

I recently purchased the Proxxon sander. It has proven itself to be one of the most useful tools in my shop.  How I got along without it for so long is a mystery.  It's for sale direct from their website with feee shipping. And their price is lower than most discounters, like Amazon.

Finally, the USPS brought a package. I guess the, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" is true. Anyway, the package contained an O scale 2-8-0 2-rail locomotive that Jeremy Drummler purchased for me at the 2018 National O scale Show in Chicago last weekend. Thanks Jeremy!

It is shocking to feel how heavy this loco is and how much bigger it is compared to a ACW 4-4-0. The engine weighs 4.1 pounds and the tender is another.  Wow.  The loco is for a new layout project for my next book. More on that later.