Bridges

Hi Everybody,

As I said in the last posting that I have some photos to show you. They didn't scan as well as I had hoped but they are still good enough. These photos were taken in the late 80's. Sense then, the railroad has gone threw some changes. Sadly, the mill for which mine was modeled after is gone. The siding that went down to street level is still in place and the area that the mill sat on is now a transshipment lot. None of the changes included the bridges.

The first photo is at the south end of the three deck girder bridge north of Gilbertville. This is the bridge that mine was modeled from. Looking at the second photo shows the shoes on the mid-river pier under both girder ends. It was a long walk in from the grade crossing that the railroad crosses before diving into wooded country that follows the river to the river crossing.  I haven't decided yet on what kind of pier and abutment arrangement I'll use. I don't know when the concrete pier was put in but I would guess shortly after the 1937 flooding that nearly wiped the Ware River valley off the map. The B&M's Central Mass branch took heavy damage to the point were the trackage south of Ware To Wheelwright north of Gillbertville was abandoned and trackage rights were obtained from the Boston & Albany to run on the Ware River branch to Wheelwright.

The next bridge going north is the second crossing of the Ware River. It is identical to the one north of Gilbertville but is two decks instead of three. As you can see on the north abutment in the second photo that the concrete has had some weathering to its edges. You can see in the first photo that the bridge uses the same type of shoe on both bridges.

                                                             

There is one more bridge that I'd like to share with you. After the mill siding and the mill are in place, the next bit of trackage will be at the front of the layout. The road that runs out from between the two mill buildings come straight to the edge of the layout. This means another bridge is call for. And it just so happens that the road passes under the north switch of the run around at Barre. This bridge will be a thru-girder with a concrete bottom so the bridge will be a ballasted bridge which I think would be more appropriate under the switch that a open deck would be.

Back before WWII there were three set of tracks running along side of each other leading up to the bridge. On the opposite side of the branch was were the B&M trackage was. It too crossed the highway on their own bridge. The third railroad was the the trolley from Palmer. It was located on the nearside of the branch. Before getting here the trolley track left the railroad embankment and crossed under the railroads in the street and continued on to Ware.

I show you this bridge as it will be what I copy for the over pass. The abutments will be of cut stone. There are many examples of stone railroad bridge abutments all around Western Mass to choose from. I'm thinking of making them using plaster castings.

Hope you enjoyed some of the history of the area of country I live in.

See ya next time.

The first project is finished......Well..almost

Hi Everybody,

Yesterday, I sat down at the work bench and started spiking the rail down on the bridge deck. it was slow at first, figuring out the best way to place the tie plates and spike rail. I got about 3/4's of both rails spiked to tie plates when I quit for the night. This morning I picked up where I left off last night.

There is still some more work to do on it. Paint the rails and tie plates, add N-B-W's and some weathering using weathering powders. The straight pins you see are there holding the girders in place. Not sure if I'm going to use them. My freind Phil (you remember Phil) did this when he built the bridge. Good thing too because I had to make a new deck. for the P48.

I was thinking of replacing the shoes for something else, but the only ones I found are made by Keil-Line, but what he has are for the really big thru-truss bridge, not this little country line plate-girder bridge. So I got out my photos of the Ware River branch and checked to see what the Central had done on these bridges. When I go into work this week I will scan them and will share them with you in the next posting, which will be more likely to be on the bridge photos.

See ya next time.

Couldn't wait any longer

Hi Everybody,

That's right. Can't wait forever, so today I gave the old eyes another chance. It must have been eye strain the other day, because I was able to focus on the pliers and spike. So I got out the bridge deck and stated spiking down rail.

I've only gotten the rails roughed in. It's been a long time since I last spiked down rail. And it was much simpler too. On2 doesn't require tie plates, so the use of tie plates is a skill that has to be worked at. Won't take long either. I think it will be easier at the layout. With the track so high off the floor it will be closer to eye level and I won't have to bend down all that much. That's one reason I chose to build it high. And that boxcar rolls so smooth it's unbelievable. I don't know if it's that the wheels are turned rather than the way commerical wheel sets are made or if it's the prototype contour or both but it does roll smoothly.

Also during the week an order from Micro Mark which contained some casting resin and a pouring ladle for pouring low-temp metal for car weight arrived. There are some parts that I have made  patterns for and made the casting molds for. When I was modeling On2 I had to make parts like body bolsters. So I made them to the prototype and with the cars so low to the ground, nobody could see them. One pattern I made is for a replacement body bolster for the Lionel PS-1 boxcars. It's more than likely that it is totally incorrect for the car, but I'm not all that concerned about the under body of the cars. If I start detailing every car to the ninth degree, I'll never get anything done. Beside, I believe more people look at the exterior of the car than getting down low enough to see the underbody.

So the arrival of the casting resin means I'll be starting to build some rolling stock. When I do, I'll let you know there is something to look at. And with that I'll say,

See ya next time.

Boxcars and books

Hi Everybody,

The B&O wagon-top boxcar arrived Friday. Take a look.

Looks real nice. You can't tell very good but I've swapped out the Weaver trucks for a set of Rich Yoders P48 Bettendorf trucks. The couplers will be replaced soon with Protocrafts couplers.

In the November 1982 issue of Mainline Modeler (sad day when Bob ended publication) is an article on the M-53 along with a set of plans. As Gene Deimling has said that as good as this car is, there are still items that need corrections or addition to. One item is the lower door guide. It is not correct for the Youngstown door. Because of the factory paint I'm thinking of just leaving them as is. However, one item that is missing and creates a hole in the looks of the car just above the couplers. In the latest issue of O Scale Trains is a review of the car. One of the accompanying photos is of the Duryea center sill at the end of the car. Clearly in the photo are two guide plates that are riveted to the bottom of the end over the outside edges of the center sill where there are two rails that these guides have passing threw them. It's an easy add-on.

I hit the jackpot last night. Nooo, not that one. I won on eBay a pristine January 1959 Equipment Register. 59 is a hard year to find equipment registers for. Hope none of you folks were bidding on it. These books are really great for assembling your freight roster. If you have never seen one or doesn't think it'll help you. Well think again grasshopper. At the time of date the register lists every operating railroad in the country with every car in that railroads roster. It won't tell you weather a 40ft boxcar is an ACF or a Pullman-Standard but does give basic dimensions. The register also include interchange points on the railroad and with who the interchange is with. If for nothing else, you can look to see if that certain car was on the railroad at that time or not. And even though I'm modeling the fall, January is close enough.

Went and got the eyes checked yesterday. Now to find the glasses I want. I'm now getting antsy to get laying rail. Would also like to start building some rolling stock too.

See ya next time.

New eyes needed

Hi Everybody,

I came to realize during the week, that if I'm going to do all this fine detail work that I'm going to need new eye glass prescription. I sat down at the bench to start spiking the rails to the bridge deck and even wearing my opti-visor I couldn't focus on the tip of the pliers and the spikes to put them into the pliers and put the spike into the hole in the tie plate.  So yesterday I made an appointment for next week end for an eye exam. But that doesn't mean every thing will come to a screeching halt either. There is a lot to do that doesn't need 20/20 vision. The lighting still needs to be installed. There's more bench work to be built.

During the week I discovered where the CV van is located. It is now at the Connecticut Eastern Railroad Museum in Willimantic, CT. So I'll be sending off an email asking for permission to get up close to it for photos and take some measurements.

I bought a Weaver B&O Wagon-top box car yesterday. I started out to buy the Rails Unlimited's Wagon-top boxcar kit. Ted wrote back saying that he has discontinued the car and said the Weaver car was better than his kit. I also read in the new O Scale Trains the review of the car. So a car with a new paint date of 1956 in a new red color rather than the original brown is on it's way. The car is also equipped with a Youngtowns door.

I am going threw all the rolling stock and pulling out cars that were built after Oct 1959. There are some Atlas cabooses, Quality Craft Thrall Door boxcar kits, A "State of Maine"  PS-1 50ft boxcar by Atlas that has to go. Its from the first run of these cars. Plus some other cars, it's all going up on e-bay.

OK that's all there is to report for now.

See ya next time.

It's the little things

Hi Everybody,

Well, I certainly didn't mean to be away for a month, but I was. But I did do some projects during this time. First was gathering all my code 100 switch part together and get them ready to go on the railroad.

The first part to be worked on was the frog. I have decided to not power my frogs. One less thing to do. And with 8-wheel pick up on my locomotives I'm not concerned about dead spots. And more prototype operation to boot. When was the last time you saw a switch crew stop their locomotive beyond the frog and make the brakeman walk that far?

So, the frog is by Red Cliffs Miniatures. It's a #6 and it comes with joint bars on both rails on the wing rail end which is very nice. But they cause a problem when it comes to track power. So I cut the joint bars off, squared up all four ends, glued .010 styrene to the ends. When dry I carved the excess styrene off leaving the shape of the rail cross section. I then glued on plastic joint bars to the rails. Now when the four rails are slipped into the joint bars the frog will be insulated.

I've also started cleaning up the points and the head bars. I'm still playing with how to make them to operate from a wire coming up threw the roadbed from the switch motor. And I've got to find a clevis big enough to fit over the end of the head bar to reach the switch stand which will be made to change the target position when the points move.

What next. While watching the staining dry I noticed that the head blocks really weren't long enough. I had used 12 foot ties and when looking along the ties I realized they needed to be longer. I removed the two 12 ft head ties and glued in two 16 foot ties. Now with all that tie sticking out into open space, you know they're going to get broken. So I added a block of wood and homasote under them.

Now I don't have to worry about them.

Last week my friend Phil Opielowski and I went digging cinders. Yes, Real cinders from real steam locomotives. You see, the Ware River branch in the steam days used cinders for ballast on the branch.

That's about 5 gal. of cinders right there. Now I've got to reduce all that into scale ballast. Boy it's nice when you have friends in high places. The MassCentral general manager is a personal friend of both Phil and myself and he gave us permission to go on railroad property. Even showed up and BS'd with us for a while.

One of the other projects I've been working on is the new decking for the 3 deck girder bridge that will be down at the other end of the Barre section. The basic bridge was built by Phil and it is a compressed version of the deck bridge north of Gilberville on the Ware River branch.

Here it is drying after some staining. N-B-W's still to go on along with the rails. Will be spiking the rails onto the deck this week. I will be doing this spiking at the work bench.

I have found the caboose for the railroad. The Central Vermont Ry had three U.S.R.A wood, center copula, 4-window cabooses. These where sold to the St J & L C as their #80, 81, and I think 82 but I'm not sure. And why this caboose you ask?

You did ask, right?

I've always liked center copula cabooses, so naturally I was drawn to it. It is a very simple design without a lot of garnishing. As far as I know and can remember this car hasn't been produced in O Scale. And I like having something no one else has. So the search went out for a set of plans. The good people on the Proto48 group helped in finding a drawing by Chuck Yungkurth in the Jan. 1979 issue of Model Railroader. I was able to find a copy at "Railpub" on the net. When it arrived I took the drawing into work where I was able to blow up it in 1/48 scale. From that I am now drawing the caboose in CAD to which the construction drawings will be made from.

Looking at the car and figuring out how I want to build it, it became apparent that it would make a great candidate to be cut out on a laser cutter. There is a cutter at work which is used to cut plastic blanks for printing on. I've got to find out it's perimeters so I can design accordingly

Now the only thing I'm missing for the caboose is what the frame looked like. The Yungkurth drawing doesn't show very much. There's a trolley museum down in Conn. that used to own one of the CV vans, but don't know if they still do.

"Road Trip!"

See ya next time.

Getting started.....Again

Hi Everybody,

Sorry about being away so long. But with the joys of owning a basement covered by living quarters means you have to spend time away from the railroad. But I decided last weekend that I was going to spend this weekend working on the railroad. And so I did.

I began by detailing the ties(for no better word). I was a little worried about using the fine tooth saw on the ties. I was worried that a big group of ties are going to all have the same grain pattern(is this considered rivet counting?), so instead of using the whole length of the saw blade, 6 inches long, I found that by using only an inch or two, I would have better control over how the ties, even ones side by side, would be different.

What do you think? I didn't find myself trying not to do the same thing on each tie. I found it quite fast doing the gouging and adding checks. With the ties in their natural wood the results can't be seen as well as when they are colored

This is the "Early American" minwax stain I decided on. I thinned down the stain with mineral spirits to make more of a wash than a stain.  I then started coloring in different patterns to see how they would look. In the end, the coloring all came out the same.

I also used a black wash I made as well as a light gray and a earth wash. After doing all the ties differently and as you can see in the above photo, they basically all the same coloring. So I decided on the following,

First coat is a coat of the black wash. One or two coats.

Second coat is the brown stain. The amounts vary from tie to tie.

Third and Fourth are washes of the gray and earth. Don't forget to do the sides and ends of the ties too.

I let it dry for a while here. When I came back there was too much gray so I kind of dry brushed some brown stain on to cut down the gray. By kind of dry brush, is after dipping the tips of the brush into the stain and squeezed out most of the stain on the jar lip. And to mash it all together with a wash of black.

I am using the light from the same light that will be used to light the railroad. Right now I only have one bulb, one of the compact fluorescent lamps. The lighting should go up soon too.

Now these tracks are going to be buried under dirt and ballast so I was able to practice on these ties before going out on to the rest of the railroad.

Another piece of news. The track will be ballasted with cinders. My friend Phil Opielowski, the builder of the mill, told me where real cinders can be gotten. We're going to try and get to the location this week, which happens to be Templeton, MA. The Ware River branch past threw town and the station area is still covered with cinders as well as the roadbed. As the Hopedale has past the change over from steam, the roadbed and ballast is still cinder.

See ya next time.