August - September Update

Here it is October 2nd and I am now just getting the opportunity to write my update post of August and September. Since my last post documenting the retirement of EMD GP30s from service, there have been quite a few changes to the layout that everyone needs to get caught up on. 

ACTIVATION OF SD60Ms
July saw the departure of MCIS EMD GP30 and GP60 fleets. To help offset MCIS had purchased a three unit fleet of EMD SD60Ms in 2016 when they had been parked. At the time the units were stored for overhaul and eventual re-activation.  MCIS 6085 and 6086 released from MAC Rail in September and went into service equipped with Soundtraxx Tsunami2 sound. MCIS 6087 expected to be in service January 2019. 

All three motors came from BNSF and have been equipped with PTC equipment to operate over CN trackage rights and GPS for e-DTC operation on home rails.  

 MCIS 6085 (Full repaint by Fogelsinger Rail)

 MCIS 6086 (ex. BNSF patch by VMS)

Both motors were hard wire rebuilt from the trucks up to improve performance. 

IT ALL BEGAN WITH A BOOK
For sometime I have struggled to find the right fit of industries for my Bay Industrial Spur. While it did host a river side cement terminal, asphalt terminal, and corrugated box plant it felt too crammed. After reading Bernie Kempinski's recent Waterfront Terminals and Operations book I was inspired to make changes, all due to modeling a boat...... A good friend and modeler told me earlier this summer "While you have the generic midwest theme going on, a lake freighter would firmly plant your layout on the Great Lakes", and he was absolutely right! Seeing that Deans Marine model on Bernie's layout sold me, now to figure out the plan. 

Part 1 - Location
So like a good plan I started to sketch out ideas on napkins or printer paper to get a feel of what would work. 

Lafarge terminal in Delray, Michigan (Detroit River) - Google Earth 3D

Sketching up the idea

Using the prototype, a common boat / rail served industry all over the lakes is cement. I already had the Graystone Cement terminal but it was against the backdrop. Trying to weight all my options I looked at placing a lake freighter on the backdrop behind the silos but the mock-ups didnt look that good. So how about a full scale model... 6" wide x 56" long.....will need some real estate. 

Mocking up where boat would go with culprit inspirational book.....

After reviewing the space needed for a smaller cement laker / barge slip I was comfortable with sacrificing the space to help create a more immersive industry. It was not until this point that the area finally felt balanced with only having one industry. 

Using my jigsaw I made quick work of cutting the 2" foam out from the river crossing up 60" to the entrance to the layout. I ended up cutting a width of 8" to allow for room for pilings / piers and placing a good backdrop behind where the ship will go. Using the cut foam I traced onto OSB and replaced back in its place. The neat part is the river scene and boat slip are connected bringing a better waterfront feel. 

 View west towards Saginaw River

 View east towards cement terminal

Sheet piling from Walthers, Piling from ModelTrainStuff

This fall will see the completion of the dockside scene with painting the OSB and deciding if I will use water or just clear coats to show water depth. 

Guess with the work done, now I need a boat.... hope I can find something maybe even a barge / tug combo ever so present on the Great Lakes now. 

Part 2 - Find a Boat 

Searching for a 1/87 is not exactly easy and there are kits but to get a modern like boat I needed some help since Bearco Marine does not appear to be in business anymore. Low and behold I found a kit on Ebay that was of the Amoco Indiana tanker. I had talked with a few modelers who had kitbashed the Sylvan laker and gave me their opinions to consider based on what I wanted to accomplish in the end. Taking all the input and being a modern era layout, the Bearco kit seemed like the best choice. Thanks again to Mat Thompson, and Ken Larsen for answering my questions on the lake freighter path. 

The box for the kit was well big.. Ended up doing UPS customer pickup so I could take the directions on vacation and read through them no less than a dozen times. This was a craftsman kit, and the opportunity to build was going to take my modeling skills to a new level. 

Kitchen table for reference...... lots of extra plastic

Selective Compression..... hehe

Part 3 - M/V Graystone Conquest (Launched)

Suppose the easy part of figuring out the location and buying a boat were done. Now came the task of putting my modeling skills to use and build the laker. 

After reading the instructions no less than two dozen times by now, I started on the ship. First thing to do was trace the bow - deck - stern as the hull has alot of excess vacuum formed plastic. 

 Beginning the journey, tools of the trade

 Tracing the bow / drilling out the portholes

Working with a good friend who is a woodworking shop, we used a dremel mult-max to cut down the hull to the right height. From there it was going to be old fashioned sweat to get the ship level and prepared for moving further with the build. The directions are well done and keep you on task in order. Mind you this is all happening outside during the heat of August in Texas.... Call it exercise. 

Ensuring stern / main deck / bow all are even and level - good ole visual check

 "Power" tools and plenty of plastic shavings

Test fitting the deck and hull (two complete pieces)

After sanding with 250 / 400 / 1500 grit, time for primer

Part 4 - M/V Graystone Conquest (Outfitting)

First details added (16 watertight door castings)

As I was installing the door castings, I realized that even with a good smooth back the door had a gap between them and the rear cabin wall. For this project I used the Vallejo plastic putty in the fine applicator packaging. This stuff is great. Once the door were properly sealed I painted the forward and rear cabins flat white. The forward, main, and rear deck received aged concrete color with a weathered chalk effect from Rustoleum. The hull received a satin winter gray which was slightly darker than the primer. 

Boat is beginning to take shape

Once the hull and deck are cut to size, test fit, glued together, and painted it now becomes a process of detailing out the boat to the modelers preference. The kit comes with a great assortment of white metal cast pieces that I will be using. Since this is a freelance cement laker, the walkways and vent stacks for the intended tanker kit will not be used. 

From here the kit comes with stripwood and styrene sheets needed to fashion different parts of the boat. I decided to use Microscale Krystal Kleer for the port holes versus the clear plastic sheet. I forgot to mention this has to be done after painting the sections, but before the deck and hull are glued together. 

Woodland Scenics dry transfer decals and self adhesive logo by K. Klettke

The next step was putting down the stripwood along the sides of the main deck for the handrail stanchions which were to be a made from piano wire supplied. I wanted to have a more detailed ship so in short order 1/96 scale brass stanchions were on there way from Maine curiosity of BlueJacket Shipcrafters. This model company does some amazing work and stocks everything needed to detail out your ship. Once stanchions were received used the appropriate size bit to drill holes on 7/8" intervals. I fashioned a styrene template to help keep consistent spacing. 

Keep it simple - use a black sharpie to color the handrails keeping the holes clean for the piano wire

Each side of the main deck has 40 stanchions for a total of 80 on main deck. Additionally threaded through the stanchions are two solid 3' pieces of piano wire for 12' in total on the main deck. 

 Port side main deck completed 

First of twelve liferings placed on stern cabin wall. These are white metal castings painted with inexpensive white and orange craft paints. 

With work completed on the main deck handrails, the next area of attention is the stern. This is where I am currently working. I began with the template supplied in the kit and traced out the shape onto styrene sheet supplied. From there it was a matter of cutting out and trimming to fit. Once in place there are lot of details that will be added. Based on the directions, the stern will be completed before moving to the bow. 

 Template over top of stern with styrene rough fit. 

Styrene sheet cut and fitted. 

This gets us caught up on the work happening on the layout. I expect to have the stern mostly completed by November. This month is travel intensive for work so time may not be as readily available, luckily temperatures are beginning to "cool" off here in Texas. 

Alot of great things to come this fall with the cement terminal and lake freighter. I didnt even mentioned where the corrugated box plant and asphalt terminal went.... until next update.

GM

July Update

Just like that we are a little over a week from July being over. In my opinion the month of an ops session always seems to go really quick, especially when there is work to do in preparation for the session. Lets take a look at work done on the layout this month along with a quick recap from my Friday operating session. 

UPPER HURON BACKDROPS
In my last post I briefly discussed the work planned to install the backdrop for the Upper Huron Scene which would allow me to begin full foreground scenic work. As tempting as it was, its important to always work from back to front in a scene... trust me I learned the hard way on others. 

Planning
Working with Dave at Backdrop Junction I selected his GEN-033H scene which was required for around 16' of wall. In short order it arrived promptly and I wasted no time unrolling and planning work to be done. 

The backdrops are offered in three different materials, I chose the adhesive vinyl which is pretty awesome sticks really well to my Eucaboard backdrop that is painted with latex paint. 

Pre-Install Prep

First thing once out of the box was roll out and take a look at the amazing print. The price in my opinion is well reasonable for the good quality pictures, material, and support from Dave to help deliver what I was looking for. The scene came in two rolls which had overlapping scenes on the end to allow for seamless blending. I prefer no sky, so with sharp scissors I cut it out.

Once the sky was cutout, I then used a sharp hobby knife and hold punch to cut out the leftover sky that is close to the trees and buildings. When I used my knife it is important to have a piece of glass behind to keep a hard surface when making the cuts. I did not do any of this on my couch as the photo shows above... Instead I would unroll about 2' of scene at a time and keep the rest rolled up. 

Install
The backdrop board is actually made up for 3 section of which the middle is removable to access my "East Staging" if necessary. In doing so I was able to install the first 8' of backdrop starting from the sugar beet plant working west at my workbench. Following the online video - align, peel the backing, and apply. I had to make a few slight adjustments but it applied really easy and as I worked right to left removed the air bubbles.... This is a great backdrop product!!  

Off-Layout Transition

From this photo you can see the backdrop is installed all the way past where the legs of the wye go "off-layout". Part of why I chose this backdrop was having the trees where the track left the scene. This allows me to use scenic trees and materials to help blend with a "tree canopy" type transition. 

Town Transition
Since I had leftover material I actually ended up removing some of the Sceniking crop scene I had to the right of the road and replaced with more of the field/tree backdrop from Backdrop Junction. Using Sceniking buildings I had cutout, foam board, and a foam hill I will have a nice blend from woods to the town of Upper Huron. 

The end product turned out great, I am looking forward to my next backdrop project which is a secret, but will no doubt help convey a better sense of location. Stay tuned to Fall posts to see whats in store. 
** Note the opinion of this product is my own as I purchased it and did not receive discount or compensation for this blog entry **

NEW MOTORS

Intermountain - GE ET44
While north of Denver for work I had a few extra hours, so working with my contacts facilitated a meet and greet at Intermountain Railway in Longmont, CO. Needless to say after meeting the great people there, seeing great work, and getting a tour I could not resist buying one of their new GE ET44s decorated for CN. What a great product, and it looks and runs great my Intermountain CN ES44. There are probably plenty of online reviews, but the detail is really well done on this motor along with the lighting. Currently it does not have sound but will be getting a 21 pin Tsunami2 later this fall. 

Folks as why not LokSound.... here is my response: with over 95% of my fleet Sountraxx equipped I am happy with their product offering. The product is plenty for me and I know the nuances of programming with JMRI to get the performance, reliability, sound, and consisting I expect. Competition creates innovation so I welcome and look forward to what Soundtraxx, ESU, and others continue to develop. 

Broadway Limited - DCC Trackmobile
For fathers days - the wife and kids picked me up a DCC equipped trackmobile by Broadway Limited. This is a cool little machine and as a friend of mine who has one noted "Folks either love it or hate it." Yep I concur with that statement. This unit has a home at Michigan Sugar's Upper Huron plant and will become more apart of operating sessions in the future. 

Great modern products offered in the marketplace that are superb. Well done to both manufacturers.

**Note opinion on Intermountain product during visit is my own. No compensation was provided for either product** 

JULY OPS SESSION

Wow I finally had my first ops session for 2018.... Only seven months in. None the less it was a great session with five operators and fourteen scheduled trains. This session was the first time folks got to see the work done on my Cass River and Upper Huron scenes. As a layout owner I enjoy having new things for my operators to experience so its not just the same ole M-BAPH train. One cool comfort item I added was the fold-down cup holders from Blue Point. Added five on the layout in key locations, and it was nice to see them used to make a session a little more relaxed. 

The whole crew - minus me troubleshooting a minor JMRI Ops issue.. Yes we had 6 guys in a room that is 13x12 essentially. 

Planning.... Planning.....BSing........

R-GEGL-21 switching up cars left by the M-BAPH-20 from day earlier. We didnt have a chance to run this one during the session, so I marked up and worked the customers at Grays Lake and Gerhard today. 

Michigan Sugar Plant at Upper Huron is now in full operation. Took me three years but finally got a good trackplan that gives the essence of big time operations in a selective space. Plant is serviced daily by L-BAUH out of Bay Yard which then spots / pulls in the storage yard. Trackmobile then switches cars into their respective locations for molasses loading, sugar loading, pellet loading, coke unload. We will look at this facility in more depth on another post, but due to space requirements sugar beet loads just stay on the storage track and are unloaded "off-layout" between sessions. 

Needing a refresh - updated my consist cards after seeing different folks and their formats. Consists are divided by YARD, LOCAL, or ROAD power pools. Single motors use full four digit address while two or more use a two digit advanced consist.

Since implementing JMRI Ops earlier this year, this was the first live session where it was used for train movement and switching. I had to say we were about 80% accurate on moves, reporting, and losing cars. Based on folks who use it, they told me - print out the entire online guide, read it once, read it again, and then read it a third time. No doubt complex, but achievable and customizable for your operation no matter how big or small. Between now and my next session will be making tweaks, but I wanted to show some of the paperwork involved.

Yard inventory - I printed this after the session was over and all trains terminated to reconcile cars. As you can see there were a few messed up or missing. 

Linehaul Train Manifest - an example of how I print my linehaul train manifests. Still some customizing and verbiage to change, but it gets the job done on a live paper manifest. 

Local Train Manifest - not wanting to deviate on the formating based on others best practices I have seen, the manifest notes what work is to be done for the R-GEGL.

So busy month, hope you enjoyed the update. Alot of great stuff in the works and will continue to share monthly on the happenings around the MCIS St. Clair Sub. Thanks to my operators and friends in other geographic locations who continually help make my model railroading experience one worth sharing with you. 

Stay cool - its 100+ here in Texas 

GM 

March Update

Well I cant say this for alot of other places in the country, but here in Texas spring is in full bloom. Alot of folks just wrapped up spring break vacation or will taking it here the next few weeks leading into Easter so lets take a look at happenings around the "Clair". 

M-BACN-12 rolling through East Wye Switch Upper Huron (EWS UPPE)

CASS RIVER SCENE
My February post touched on the ground work that was going into creating the Cass River scene on my upper level. Over the past few week I have been making terrific progress with not only scenery but the actual through truss bridge that spans the river. Lets look closer at the work completed and whats up next to finish the scene. 

- Dirt
The previous post showed the contour work and base layer of latex paint to kill the blue / pink foam tone. Next comes a layer of true Michigan dirt that I bake and sift to get the right consistency. Having family in Michigan the odd request comes around once a year.... "Yea so can you send me a box of dirt".... They always deliver. I first put down full strength white glue with a paint brush and then using a spoon add the dirt. Giving it 10 to 15 minutes I then come back with a vacuum to remove the excess leaving a nice dirt layer. 

 Getting ready to bake the dirt in a aluminum pan - 350 degrees for 30 minutes

Dirt layer in place, needing to come back with the vacuum

- Greenage
After adding the dirt comes a mixture of foams, flocks, and rocks to give the area life. I use some photo for reference but remembering things in nature, just attempt to go with what looks right. Following the tried and true method, wet with isopropyl alcohol and then soak in scenic cement. I have tried a homemade blend of cement, I love Woodland Scenics preblended stuff the best. Can get it a Hobby Lobby with a 40% coupon for around $6. 

On the river and banks will be a sand mixture mixed with small river rock to blend in.  

Layering the scenery really does bring this area to life

- Next Steps

With primary scenery in place and secured I will now be completing the riverbed scene with rocks and sand. Once dry and cured the process to pour Magic Water will take place and finish getting the river complete. I expect to do this at the end of March, so I will be sure to show step by step how that process works and the great results it produces. Prior to pouring the water, the bridge and ballast work will be completed. Wrapping up this area will be alot of Scenic Express Super Trees.... alot..... 


UPPER HURON SCENE
Since I have all of the materials out it only makes sense to keep with the momentum and scenic another adjacent scene to the Cass River which is the Upper Huron scene. 

About the scene: Upper Huron is not a fictional tower on the railroad but also a neat operation element as well. Upper Huron or UH as its know is the location of a operation wye that allows trains to traverse from either direction on the St. Clair Sub onto the Port Belle Sub. The Port Belle Sub is represented by staging however this line hosts the switch to enter the Michigan Sugar plant and sees a daily local turn during the session and occasionally a unit rock train from a quarry. The actual scene depicted hosts a grade crossing leading into town modeled by a Sceniking backdrop, the sugar beet plant, and a modern water tower in the middle of the wye. Anyone familiar with Michigan knows about all of the unique water towers, UH will be no different. 

 Out of flat blue foam, comes terrain shape via pink foam and sculptamold

 View east looking at the sugar beet plant, and east wye switch. You can see where the scenery currently stops. 

Water tower right in the middle of the wye will have character of its own. AEI reader site as well in Upper Huron. 

Still alot of work to do in this area but wow just getting some terrain shape, paint, and dirt down really helps make the area more appealing. 

RAILCAR FLEET ADDITION - GUNDERSON 5188

Earlier this month Michigan Interstate received the first of a larger covered hopper being added to the agriculture fleet. The 5188 cubic hopper is slightly larger than our most modern being the Trinity 5161 cubic and the two will be mixed in together to provide our customers newer high capacity cars to get their grains to market. In preparation for this add the fleet did cascade seeing the venerable ACF 4600 cubic cars retire and find new life on the Delmarva Central out east. 

Fleet Plan (Effective March 2018)

4600 cubic - retired from fleet

4650 cubic - owned by Mich. Ag. Commodities for single or quad-block  

4700 cubic - sugar beet pulp, sugar beet pellet, agricultural single

4750 cubic - agricultural single, agricultural quad-block

5161 cubic - agricultural single, quad-block, and unit

5188 cubic - agricultural unit 

A quad block on their way to their first loading at M.A.C.

Of course in the process of purchasing the cars, MCIS decided to go with the Scaletrains Operator version since lets be honest the details are good enough and I am rough on the equipment. In short order I had the variety pack of FRA 224 reflectors from Smoke Box Graphics and our mechanical forces proceeded to get them compliant.... Not sure how they got from Sahagun, Mexico to Michigan without reflectors.... 

Great job by Scaletrains and Smokebox Graphics for great new innovative products, they hit these right on the mark! 

Looking pretty sharp - MCIS 5827

CASS RIVER BRIDGE 

Following Tom Patterson's step by step from MRH I used gouache paints to weather my through truss bridge. I dont want to take anything away from the article so recommend if you are interested in doing this, take a look at the November 2011 issue and go from there. All of the paints can be purchased at a craft store and one thing I did discuss with Tom is using distilled water over Microsol is just as good and even better. I ended up doing the first overall wash with Microsol, but the random sponge work was done using water. Enjoy the photos.

Base wash of burnt umber-onyx black gouache paint applied

After a few days - proceeded with the random burnt umber and burnt sienna wash

Bridge complete and dry - wow the washes really made it pop

Closeup of the girder and rivet plates - Michigan elements have taken its toll

Simple technique - amazing results.

OREGON JOINT LINE - MARCH DOUBLEHEADER

Wrapping up this post, we are going to have to get slightly smaller... like n scale small and head on over to Dean Ferris' Oregon Joint Line. Recently I had the opportunity to participate in a double header operations session. For the morning session I was the dispatcher and had a good time pushing around fifteen trains across the railroad in preparation for the afternoon shift. Following a lunch break by the pool I crossed over and went into management as the Assistant Superintendent. This role is to help the layout owner (Superintendent) with getting operators orientated and running. Lets be honest from the management side the railroads operating on the OJL are not making any money with idle trains. If you can tell there was some management adversity built into this session all to have a little fun. Right off the bat I was handed a wire describing the need to run a rotary plow extra account snowfall at Snowline! 

I blew up the photo real big so you can see, there is definitely some friction between the unions and management. Believe the operator may have added more letters to my last name then I thought were there. None the less the railroad cannot operate effectively if the summit grade of the line at Snowline is blocked. Myself and engineer M. Thidemann didn't know what we would find until we got up on the summit and "Oh $#!% thats alot of quicker picker upper snow". After a few runs at it we cleared the siding and ran down to Kinzua to turn the extra on the wye and go back at it from the other direction. Upon returning to the summit at Snowline we found the mainline now blocked due to shifted drifts and snow with almost a paper like consistency.

 Making a run at the drift in the siding at Snowline.. Took us three runs to clear

In the end it was about keeping them moving like we see here with a meet at Fossil. 

Having a morning and afternoon session where everyone from both sessions could get together and have lunch was a great idea. So many times having a session limits you to a certain amount of folks not allowing any networking outside of the session, but in this case folks were able to talk shop, eat, and either wrap up or start their operating day on the OJL. Great job to Dean for planning this and having me help with both sessions. 

That in a nutshell is my March update, still have another two weeks left of the month and plan to keep making good progress on the Cass River and Upper Huron scenes so stayed tuned and safe travels to all out on spring break. 

GM