Proviso Signals Painted

Got the westbound signal bridge painted and connected to the signalling system.  Later today I will be posting pictures of the eastbound signal bridge and maybe even a video of the signals in action.  Right now, I'm off to church and then a family lunch.

Proviso Signal Bridge

Its been quite a while since I last posted. This is mainly because I have not spent much time on the railroad as of late due to being very busy at school and then being out of town over spring break. Summer is just around the corner though and, as an educator, its the time I get the most done on the railroad. So, postings should be picking up dramatically very soon.

I did get a chance to build a signal bridge for the east entrance to the Proviso Yard off the UP double track mainline. The bridge is a plastic kit from NJ International, while the signals were assembled using BLMA brass searchlight target signal kits and Red/Green LEDs from Scale Models Division. I modified the kits a bit and only used the Targets, visor and mounts. The LEDs themselves serve as the casing of the signal heads.  I will be painting the signal bridge and signals this weekend.

I only have one more signal bridge to build along with a couple of dwarf signals to complete the signaling system on the UPRR Geneva Subdivision.

Weathering Begins with Alunimum Coal Porters

I counted all the cars I need to weather on the Geneva Sub and the total comes to 135 cars. This includes counting my double stack cars as 5 or 3 cars depending on how many wells each has. I also have 7 locos to weather. This is quite a bit more than I realized. I started in on the project yesterday with my Kato Bethgon coal porters and a few Fox Valley hoppers. In all I weathered 32 cars. Seems like a lot, but I do more of an overall weathering as opposed to detailed weathering so its not too involved.
I started by removing and cleaning all the wheel sets. I did not originally plan to clean the wheel sets, but figured while I had them off, this would be a perfect time to take care of it. I kept the wheel sets separated as to car type and those with and without resistors. I then took my air brush and very lightly spayed each car Floquil rust aiming from the bottom and making sure to get the trucks. I sprayed heavy enough for the rust color to be seen, but light enough for all lettering to still be fully readable. I then switched color to Floquil earth and again lightly sprayed each car this time aiming from the top down and just a bit from the sides. Again I sprayed heavy enough for the earth color to be seen, but light enough for all lettering to be fully readable. I gave the cars a couple of hours to dry to the touch, replaced the wheel sets, put them all back on the layout and then shot the video below.
I know this isn't the best technique for weathering, but its a great way to give all the cars a realistic weathered look and it greatly enhances the overall realism of the layout. I know my loaded coal train now looks a lot more realistic. At a latter date I can always add weathering detail, but with a large layout to build I know that won't be for a long, long, time.
So, I'm down to about 100 cars and 7 locos left to do. I think this weekend I will try to do all my double stack cars.

All Resistors Installed, on to Weathering

Just finished installing the last of the resistor wheel sets. I did just over 300 in all. Every regular freight car has a resistor. I only did every third car on the two 40 car coal trains since they are permanently coupled together. Now its on to weathering. I have 5 locomotives to weather and close to 100 freight cars to do. I think I am going to hold off on body mounting all the couplers and instead concentrate on filing points on turnouts and body mounting only those cars that exhibit derailment trouble. Once I get all the rolling stock caught up, I will install the BNSF loop and then start ballasting, roads, structures, bridges details, etc.

Resistor Wheel Set Video

Here's a video showing how I install resistors on wheel sets so that each car can be detected by the computer controlled signaling system.

Body Mounted Couplers and Resistor Wheel Sets

    I have embarked on a project that's a long time coming.  There was a time, about ten years ago,  when all my rolling stock had body mounted couplers.  It really help with eliminating derailments, especially when back up long strings of cars.  For some reason though, I got away from doing this and almost all the cars I have purchased over the past ten year have retained their truck mounted couplers.  This was not that much of an issue on the old Rochelle Sub as the manifest trains did not surpass 20 cars in length.  On the Geneva Sub, however, manifest trains can easily exceed 30 car lengths and sometimes top 40.  Truck mounted couples together with long train lengths can caused derailments when backing up a train even on #8 hand laid turnouts. Having half body mounted and half truck mounted adds to the problem.  Derailments occur in the proviso yard when the yard crews are sorting and building trains.  The derailments are rare, but do occur and can be a distraction from the realistic operation of the railroad.
    So transitioning to all body mounted has begun.  I started with the 25 Athearn tank cars.  These are beautiful cars with a lot of delicate detail. I did 10 of them yesterday and the first few took quite a while due to detail coming off from my handling of the cars.  Once I concentrated on not making contact with the detail, things went along much quicker.  I basically clipped off the coupler from the truck and glued it to the end walkways and underframe of the cars.  Some of the cars required a piece of sheet styrene between the walkway and coupler in order to get the coupler to the correct height.
  Another project that I will be working on simultaneously with the body mounted couplers is resistor wheel sets.   The signaling system will work much more reliably when all rolling stock is detected on the layout.  Right now only the locomotives and last car of the train are detected.  The resistor wheel set are made by gluing a surface mount 10000 ohm resistor to an axle and using conductive paint to make the electrical connections between the resistor and the axle and wheel.  Eventually, I will have one resistor wheel set on every car on the layout.

Staging Yards Expanded

    I decided to expand the length of both staging yards today in order to better handle longer trains on the Geneva Subdivision.  Ended up adding 22 inches to both yards which will add about five cars to the storage capacity of the tracks.  Not a real exciting project, but one that I wanted to do for some time now.  Maximum storage length is about 44 coal cars with 3 locomotives.  While most trains are shorter than this length, the expansion will give the railroad the ability tp handle the extra lengths when necessary.

East Staging Yard Before

East Staging Yard After

 

West Staging Yard Before

 West Staging Yard After