A Long way to go.

There is a long way to go to meet my goal of getting a layout room ready for the layout. The original goal of having the hobby space ready in 2017 has long past, but I'm not sulking or wishing I'm done. Well, maybe just a little bit. The layout is currently in storage. I continue to work in my hobby of model railroading and other Cornwall Railroad projects. I have been hanging out at Tom Jacob's Reading Cross Line layout, and this is where I spend most of my hobby time. So with my time being spent at Tom's, the progress on my projects has diminished. 

If you haven't heard about Tom Jacob's Reading Cross Line Layout, here is a link to the Facebook Group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2017109971860776

Look for the Laser exploits. I have given Tom the drawings of the 16th street yard office I made in 2018 of the building. He has converted the drawings so the Laser cutter can use them to burn a model of it. It is still in progress. Since, I only drew the mortar lines Tom is learning a lot about brick work and has a lot of bricks to fill in before progress can continue. If you do visit the Facebook site, look around the June time period. He is working on the goal of having the layout ready for operation, so work on this project has a long way to go also. Here is the beginning of the project on June 18.

 

That's the most progress that has been made on any of the Cornwall RR projects. I hope to have the layout out of storage by the end of 2021. I have long way to go, but progress is still being made on the Cornwall RR.

 

 

Cornwall Railroad Company Yardmasters Office

In between 1916 and 1923, the Cornwall Railroad Company constructed a two story brick structure. I'm currently in the process of drawing this building up in CAD. Once I have the drawings completed, I will be starting the build.

I came across this specification sheet for the building while doing research at the Lebanon County Historical Society. It gave me a good overall idea on the buildings footprint and size and materials used.

Photos of the office building: Taken in the 70's by Nick Kulp

These photos along with my drawing should be able to get a decent model of the building. Will post photos of the model being built.

Cad Drawing in progress:

Mock up model is completed. 

Another Ore car project. Cornwall Railroad Wooden Gondola's

Last year (2017), I started a project for a good friend and fellow Cornwall modeler Mark Cain. He model's Cornwall Railroad circa 1907. He always wanted to have models of the wooden ore cars used in his time period.  In order to gain car building knowledge, I am scratch build some prototypes of these cars (series 100-250) in HO scale (1:87.1). Mark had drawn a preliminary drawing, so I volunteered to build the prototypes and make the masters and molds. These wooden gondola were wood with iron hardware construction. They lasted into the early twenties and were retired in the late twenties. 

Regular type gondola Donaghmore Yard just south of the interchange with the Lebanon Valley RR (Reading) in Lebanon Pa. 

Hopper type gondola next to Ore Roasters. Cornwall Pa.

The cars are going to be constructed of styrene sheet material. Here are some photos of the models in process.

July 2017. There is a small mark on the metal square. I used this setup to make sure I had the correct height for the car. 

July 2017. You can see these cars sat very high. As a matter of fact we found an error on the drawing. This car is about seven scale inches too high.  

July 2017. Drawing and paper pattern installed for Hopper.

May 2018. Hopper needs doors applied. Currently trying to figure out brake rigging before adding the sides to the top. 

May 2018. Side Board for hopper type left. Side board for regular gondola right. Stakes for sideboard and stake pockets also shown.  

Side Projects

This drawing shows a scratch building project I'm working on. The Cornwall bought these sometime in the 1920's. The number series was 600-629. It has a lot of features similar to Enterprise Railway Equipment Company found in Car Cyclopedia, so I'm borrowing from these drawings. Looking at building all 30 of these beauties since they lasted until 1964. Below is a  photo taken of this series in 1953 by  Richard Jay Angelo. The location of the photo is in Cornwall PA at the loading pocket building. 

Some Rework

I have been working on the shop complex module. Found a weak point in the layout after attaching the backdrop. The support structure was too narrow and the ends had dropped almost 3/4 of an inch. I was adding 2X2 inch legs to support the ends and I did not like that at all.The past few months have been spent redesigning and rebuilding the base. While the layout was resting in pieces, the access hatch had warped. Not a big deal, wood does this, but it does add to the to do list of fixes. Here is the reworked benchwork.

The base was expanded to prevent the outer edges from sagging. 

Open Access Hatch. 

Elevations and Roadbed

The test section. 

My carpenter friend had some leftover four inch wide primed poplar material that was 3/8" thick. He gave me a few six foot boards to try. The photo of the test section shows the initial test. I had ripped the material into about 1/4" strips. I laid three strips on each side of the center line. Five strips was enough to support the ties, but then I would be off center. I nailed them to the plywood using 3/4" x 18 wire brads. I sanded the top of the roadbed to a smooth finish. I determined the test a success! After getting more material, I proceeded to lay the roadbed for the rest of the shop complex.  

Shop complex roadbed laid.  

I'm not worried about the sound reverberating through the plywood. You don't really hear it when there is a room full of operators and the sound decoders making their noise. It doesn't bug me when I'm operating at Steven Mallery's, so I doubt it will bug me on this layout. Steven was right about this form of roadbed being expensive, but with my connection to getting leftover material that would be headed to a landfill otherwise, it is green and inexpensive solution for me.

Before plywood was cut for adding Elevations

Back tracks not part of Shop

There are two tracks that are not part of the shop complex. When my friends came over for our little round Robbin group we have going, I invited my carpenter and fellow model railroader to help us layout the land contours. He bought his battery powered nail gun along and laid these two road bed sections in a little less than an hour. It took me about five to lay the shop complex since I had to drill holes and tap the brads in by hand. He did let me try laying it with the gun, but I kept missing or splitting out the wood.

With Elevations added.

    I'm currently in the process of adding backdrops to the module. The black object in the center of the above photo is the beginning of the engine house / car shop building. Below is a shot showing the other side. 

The survey crew is done! Let the grading begin!

Putting it together. 

Getting the track plan onto the benchwork was a bit of a process. I designed the layout using CADRAIL. It took several sheets of 8 1/2" X 11" paper and a few rolls of tape to put the full scale track plan together. When all the bits of paper became whole, I secured it to the layout using push pins. I marked the center of the tracks and building corners using 3/4" 18 gauge wire brads nailed into the plywood. It reminded me of the movie Hell Raiser Pinhead character looking at all the wire brads sticking out of the 1/2" plywood and taped up paper. The push pins and drawing were carefully removed. I left the brads in as survey markers. Using a pencil, I made lines in between the brads for the track centers and building outlines. I pulled all my survey markers out and was getting excited to see the layout in its rawest form. Track centers done! Now, how am I going to duplicate the roadbed that I saw on a fellow modeler's layout? The modeler I'm talking about is Steven Malley's Buffalo Line. To see it in action follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3sxMeqhRm0

 Steven explained  that he uses 1/4" clear pine lattice material from Home Depot. I started looking at the material, he was right it was going to be expensive! Did I give up on the Idea? No, I was very impressed with how well his layout runs. I'm not using the exact material he is using, but I have a carpenter friend that hooked me up with something that will work. Next Post, I'll explain the roadbed I'm using.