Making Mountains out of Mole Hills or in this Case Foam

Making scenery can be the one of the most daunting aspects to building a model railroad. I read a whole libraries worth of books and magazines to figure out how they built these amazing models but to be honest they can be pretty confusing to say the least. Every author has a different view on how to make scenery. I had previously tried my hand at hard shell scenery but quickly grew discouraged with it because of the mess and I quite frankly hated the look of it. So I shelved the idea of a model railroad.
Skip forward 6 years and my wife had a porcelain Christmas village she wanted to set up under the tree. So we went to the store to look at some accessories for her village and they had a video on how to build department 56 villages with Styrofoam. We then built a mountain out of foam that my G scale train ran through. But again the same problem of mess was there. they said on the video to use knives to cut the foam but the bead foam just made a heck of a mess and it stuck to me, the carpet, the walls, heck even the ceiling. I got banished outside if I needed to cut anymore foam and December is a sucky month to be banished outdoors in Utah.
Last year we again put a village under the tree but we are now using On30 that scales properly with the village unlike the G scale which is like twice as big as the buildings. we had managed to acquire a hot wire tool from department 56 that we used to build some hills but to be honest I wasn't that impressed with it. It was hard to use and couldn't cut that thick of foam but it did not make near the mess that knives did.
Now we move to 2009 and I'm at The Big Train Show and my wife and I see this booth selling the Foam Factory hot wire cutter. they had this display set up that showed how easy it was to cut the foam in multiple thicknesses and densities. I was hooked but so was the CFO. She plunked down the plastic and we caught a flight home. Now it was time to play with some foam!
My Father in Law had built a test shelf to see how things would go together for the real layout and I started playing with different ideas on that shelf. I was excited at the possibilities my wife was excited and my Father in Law was excited. We now needed to lay a shelf. But hold on First we (that's my Father in Law and I with directions from my Wife and Mother in Law) needed to paint the room a different color.

The original color was brownish pink color highlighting the sun in all aspects to the arizona sky invoking the subtle color changes found here from sunrise to sunset the paint manufactures called it Desert Rose, My Mother in Law called it Butt Ugly (in so many words) and it had to go! She picked a more traditional Tan color and Lamont and I started painting but that desert Rose was not going to be covered up without a fight. 3 complete coats later we were ready to place the first shelves.

Taking A Ride To Carma Gap High Bridge

Finally finished the track work to the Carma Gap High Bridge. Went to the end of the line then backed up to Lamont Siding. Hope you enjoy. By the way I seemed to have lost Sulley

A video of some of the PG & YV

I took this video on Christmas day using my wifes video camera on a flat car.

Between a Rock and Open Air

Well what do you do when yo need to bridge a 6 foot gap? You build a bridge of course. but in this case we didn't want just a run of the mill bridge like you see on most layouts. We decided to build a arch bridge that had the same curvature as the doorways in the house and like I said it was going to need to be 6 feet in length. Also I decided to hand lay the track across the bridge which is something I've never done before.

The first step was to get a measurement of the needed distance for the bridge. We needed to make sure it was level and straight. We then went and made a template for the curve of the arch. We cut up some 1/8" X 5/16" X 7' pieces of oak and glued 3 pieces together and then clamped them to the template. We then waited a couple of days for the glue to set. We then glued up the second arch.

Now it was time to build the sides of the bridge one piece at a time all 26 pieces were fitted then sanded then fitted again. in most cases 4 to 5 times before they were right. Once one side was done we did the second side. Then we added the cross pieces between the 2 sides after this we added the 2 sides I added the 44 hand cut gussets to the bridge and fitted the 3 beams that would support the crossties.

While waiting for the bridge to dry I hand cut over 200 bridge ties out of popular wood sanding each one. By now the bridge was dry so I took a piece of code 83 flex track and marked each location for the bridge ties. I then started gluing down the ties. Once I had about half the length down I started laying the rail nailing ever other tie. But now I needed to go to work so I had to stop work on the bridge.

When I got back from work it was Thanksgiving so we moved the bridge up out of the way. That was a big mistake! The next day my Father in Law was going out the door when my wife and I heard a crash! The bridge had just fallen 8 feet to a tile floor. It was TRASHED! The only saving grace was the weight of the track had caused the bridge to land on the track side. The bridge sprung just about every one of its joints, I think the gussets caused the bridge to semi stay together. So I picked up the pieces, a bottle of glue, a rotary drill, and a crap load of nails. I then glued, drilled, and pinned every single joint again. once that was done I started relaying the track all over again.

Once the bridge was done this time I again had to go to work for 2 weeks. when I finaly got home it was Christmas and everyone was busy for the season. Today my Father in Law and I stained and lacquered the bridge and hung it. Next move lay the track to it but there seems to be a village in the way.

LET'S LAY SOME CURVES

As nice as it is to not have to worry about curves it just ain't practical sure walls are straight (sort of) but they attach at what the home builders of America call... wait for it... CORNERS!!!! You have 90 degree corners, 45 degree 22 degree etc etc etc and track doesn't make those corners with out... wait for it... CURVES! (not as excited about those) So how does one make curves? Well you could run down to the nearest hobby shop and buy up their stock of curves and don't get me wrong its real easy and your curves will look great and should be the right radius that you want, BUT that method is going to get real expensive unless you will only have 4 corners for your square room. I say square because that's about the only way that a drop in piece of track is going to work. and that's if all your pieces equal out correctly and.... forget it this is the real world and short of putting your layout on a plywood sheet your going too need a lot of odd sized pieces. As for those odd sized pieces they will usually come in a 4 pack and all you wanted was one piece.

Or you can Hand Lay that track and trust me that is a joy in of itself! I will tell you about the joys of hand laying track in another post on a bloody bridge I needed for Carma Gap.

Or we can use flex track which is the way I'm doing it. But again the problem is the dreaded curve. Now I have one Forney that requires a minimum radius curve of 22". But how do i make sure I have this radius curve? Well there are many fine ways of doing it, some are damn expensive some are just tedious (like speeling). I my self used a piece of 22" curve that bachmann made and just followed the curve of that it may have gone a little wider but it NEVER got smaller. Its quick and dirty plus I already had some extra from the tunnel project.

When you get to the curve place the correct radius curve in place then trace the the piece (that's why I like the bachmann track its got the roadbed molded on) if you want to draw the center line you can but the tracing of the whole piece seems to work better for me. Then I remove the curve and lay the cork right on the outside edge of the marks. I fount laying the high side of the curve gets a smoother curve and makes the second piece of cork lay in much easier. When you get that first piece down pin it down. use more pins than you think you need that way the cork doesn't try to straighten out. Now WAIT! don't mess with it let your glue set up good and tight (here in Arizona I give it 30 minutes) now you can put in the second piece of cork And again wait for the glue (the glue I use is just regular wood glue which you can get in gallon jugs). Once the glue is set remove the pins by giving them a little twist and slowly pull them out being carful not to pull the cork up with them. Now SAND the cork! Don't Skip This Step! The cork will have high and low spots between you 2 pieces, just sand em out the train will thank you in the long run. Now its time for track! And would you look at this you already have a premade center line between your 2 pieces of cork! Joy of joys! Just lay down some more of that wood glue spread it thin slap your track down and spike it in place. wait for the glue to set clean up any splatters and run you train!

Just a note of precaution do NOT join your rail right at the start of the curve or you will get kinks in the joint. Give your self about 6" of straight track prior to the curve your track will be much smoother, Also at you joints you may have to file them down abit to get them smooth the clickity clack sound is nice BUT sudden elevation change can cause derailments.

It's Too Darn High!!!

This is a coment I regularly get. Well the answer is very simple. See the Ladder? Well get it now its not too high. Remember that I'm building a Shelf layout that runs around the room out of the way of everyone its nice and safe up there away from currious children that may want to "See" with their hands (like my son).

Well yesterday was Christmas and my CFO decided that the DCC system needed an upgrade so for Christmas we got the new Pro Box for the bachmann Dynamis System and I have got to tell you it is one cool present. It allows me to hook up 4 more infrared sensors so the room wil be totaly covered and i wont have ANY dead spots. Also the sensors have a much better reciever range and angle so that I don't have to have the control facing directly at the sensor in a narrow area of reception. now if I want I can sit on the couch and just run the trains without having to be right next to the sensor. I'm really excited about this DCC.

And to show appreiciation for a great year the Engineering dept decided to bestowe the CFO with a gold necklace wich was delivered by our newest locomotive.

Building a Tunnel from a Chimney

First step cut a hole, then cut another hole. There you have it! A tunnel through a chimney! easy huh?

Well if you want to stop there that's your call BUT now you have a big gnarly hole that quite frankly looks pretty sucky. Guess we have to give it some sort of portal. But why stop there? We were planing on scenicing the whole railroad and a tunnel portal just sorta hang there on the side of the wall does look kinda silly. So I installed some Foam rockwork around it to give it some ZING. Yep that works but i still have this big gaping hole you can see into an d it doesn't look like a tunnel. Time to pull out those model mags again. Eureka they tell me I need a tunnel liner! But how to put in a tunnel liner on the other side of a wall? I can barely put my arm in to retrieve a lost car let alone do any actual work inside? Hum maybe if I bribe my 7 year old son with candy he can install the liner. No that wont work he's too short to even reach into the tunnel when standing on the scaffolding. guess i could form a 2 part liner. after all you can only see one side and the roof when on the ground. So that's what I did, at least on that side.

Now the other side was a little trickier. The hole we cut was smaller and i couldn't even put my arm into that one had to come up with a different idea. So I thought if I cant put a liner in this side I would just have to come up with a way to hide the tunnel. Model Railroader to the rescue again. There was a article about camouflaging the entrance to a tunnel by using trees. Well in O scale that's alot of trees but if i combined the trees with some sort of scenery like a hillside the viewer wouldn't see the tunnels hole. So I fabricated up some more of my foam mountains and extended them about 9" from the wall and walla NO more hole! Now i better start painting this thing.

Ok got it figured. The "S" curve was causing the rear of the Forney to swing radically left then right causing anything behind it to snap off the track like the old game crack the whip. So I figured out by just placing a straight section between the curves would smooth out the curves. It worked great so now the tunnel could be nailed down and we could move on to the shelves.

Decisions, decisions. Sectional Track or Flex? Why not both? Sectional is pretty PRICEY even the CFO who don't know a track bolt from a track spike wouldn't go for the cost of doing the whole layout in sectional pieces. Plus the vary nature of the layout dictates that sectional track wont have exactly every piece I would need. So part of the layout will be sectional and the rest will be flex track. it will be covered in ballast anyway so the observer will be hard pressed to see the difference. Rolling on.

This subject will be... NOISE. Not the chuff of cylinders and the ding of a bell. This noise is the trains running on the shelf and its pretty loud even when the trains where going slow. So I decided to run the track on a 1" piece of foam. Boy that kills the noise BUT cutting all that foam is going to be a messy proposition but I'm up for it. The family may not be ready for it but ya gotta do what ya gotta do, Right? That's when the CFO has a brain storm lets go to Ontario, Ca to the Big Train Show!

If you haven't been to it you definitely need to go once. its not just G scale its got something in all scales. This year there was a booth for The Hot Wire Foam Factory. They sold hot wire tools for carving foam for many uses including building the railroad. Now i had a great tool for cutting up all this foam with a lot less mess. Time to try it out and see what we had.

Well the PG&YV even got its first rail fan!

First off to be able to build a layout of this size you need to drive everyone nuts with track laid all over the house and then act like a fool whenever anyone steps on it. Then take over the dining room table and get mad when someone wants to eat at it. Sooner or Later the wife will allow you to build that shelf layout you been asking for!

NOW you need someone who can actually build a shelf. I suggest a Father in Law with a wood shop and possibly a lifetime of building in wood and LOTS of power tools. Now you may have to give in a little at this point. Your CFO may want some painting done or woodwork like crown molding or baseboards. Do this with a cheerful grin because it instills goodwill and the opportunity to get to the store to get needed supplies that said goodwill will allow for less complaining from your CFO of the costs! Its a win / win situation! You should also use this breathing period to finalize your plans like how wide of a shelf, minimum radius curves, and what kind of control your going to use. For this layout we will be using DCC with 22" radius curves and a 5 1/2" shelf for most locations.



After the goodwill tour is completed is time for the shelf to go up! The idea my Father in Law came up with is really classy and looks really complicated BUT its not really just a little time consuming

Now while figuring out the layout we found a location that was going to be a real bear to make an outside shelf! It was where the chimney was so we cut a tunnel through it. We got real LUCKY when we had the tunnel cut we found it already had a shelf right at the same level as the track was going to be! there was just one problem though. the location of the flu required a dogleg to get around it. So with the use of sectional track we laid it out. I then hooked up some power and ran one of the locomotives through the tunnel. It worked great! But then I remembered I still had my 2-4-4T Forney that had a little different running profile. I ran that through the tunnel. It would make it through but it sounded like it was binding up so I put a rail car hooked up to it. PROBLEM it was derailing the car at slow speeds and at higher speeds it would toss the car completely OFF the track! Is my railroad already derailed? I love that Forney and want to be able to run it what am I going to do?

Is This a Phules Erand

Starting this blog to inform whomever that I (with ALOT of help from my Father in Law) have started building a On30 model railroad that when completed will circle around the family room, dining room and the kitchen. It will have approximately 105 feet of main line run a few bridges and some tunnels one that goes through the fireplace.

The name we've (that's my CFO and I) chosen is...

Phules Gold & Yensid Valley Rwy

Only a Real Phule Would of Built a Railroad Here

This is going to be a running account of what we do to transform the vertically challenged location into a functioning Model Railroad. Well we will see how it goes.

Now for those of you out there who live for Christmas to come around so they can turn the floor under the Christmas Tree into their own version of a winter wonderland. For those who have to get by with a quick circle of track on the kitchen table and for those who spend boo koo bucks on model railroad magazines and just dream this might just be your ticket to getting the railroad you know you deserve... as long as the accounting dept will cut the dang checks!