A Taxing Work session

We had a work session on the Aquia Line today, April 15. If you are in the USA, this is normally the day that income tax is due, but since it was the weekend, we get a few days reprieve.  To escape tax preparation, Joel and John Salmons, Doug Gurin and Michael Spoor arrived to work on the Aquia Line. It was a very productive session.

Joel working on hay bales

Big pile of hay bales

First Joel got to work baling hay. He was eminently qualified for this as he spent his teenage years baling hay in New Mexico.  While he was wrapping bales with twine, Michael assembling the bales into a large pile. This pile will reside on the wharf at Aquia landing to designate the forage loading area. Way bills for empty cars will direct cars to the forage track at Aquia Landing.

John working on roof battens

Since he is an architect in training, John got the windows and roof assignment. He installed the last 16 windows on the wharf structures and then started detailing the roofs.

Doug got the  assignment to start the  Burnside Wharf. He cut away some of the foam and prepared the bottom surface for conversion to water.

Swamp scenery is drying

While they were working, I adding scenery and ballast to the narrow shelf where the Aquia Landing yard tracks are. This area depicts a narrow  spit of sand that is surrounded by grassy marsh. I used static grass and some paint to depict the swamp grass.  I am almost done with all the ballast for the railroad.

My mom and Alicia provided the snacks and then dinner of home made ravioli.

Painted schooner at Burnside's Wharf

After dinner, I continued to work on the Burnside Wharf area. I painted a schooner on the back drop. Since the majority of the schooner is hidden behind the wharf shed, I only need to paint the masts and some of the rigging.

Once the blue paint dries, I'll add pilings and beams to depict a wharf.

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."