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Ready for Hartford.

Temporary Freight House and Float Bridge added

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Its ready to go.

I managed to get a mock up model of the round freight house built. What a monument to geometric lunacy that thing is. It took a day to design, and a day to build. There is no detail on it at all, no doors or windows, just the basic shape of the building to fill in the empty space. The cars just clear the walls, just like the original. Its pretty cool to watch.

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It was well worth the effort to build it, what a difference it makes on the layout even though it has no detail on it.

Its a 30 sided oval with two ends of 14 sides each and two straight sections in the middle, plus the cut out to gain entrance into the centre. To make it more fun, the roof tapers into the centre. I had the luxury of a CAD system to help with the design, how they did this originally is a testament to the designers!

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On the weekend I built a temporary model of the float bridge. Again, this is a stripped down version of what will eventually be there. The proportions are correct, it is built to scale, but all the detail is missing. I wanted to be able to connect the carfloat to the terminal as unloading it creates a lot of visual interest.

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A shot of the model and the original. The prototype photo on the bottom is a bit distorted, it is stretched out a bit making the freight house look shorter than it actually was. The model I built was measured from the original builders drawings and I believe it to be accurate.

Well, that’s enough fun for one month. Now, I just have to cram it all into the van and drive it 500 miles east.

I will try to get some video of it running posted before I take it apart.

Really this time….

-T.

On to Next Section…

About the Author:

I'm your host, Tim Warris, a product developer in Port Dover, Ontario. Since March of 2007 I have been documenting the construction of the former CNJ Bronx Terminal in HO scale. For my day job, I design track building tools for Fast Tracks, a small company I own and operate. Fast Tracks makes it fast and easy to hand lay your own trackwork. Stop by our website to learn more!

Posted by: Tim | 07-02-2009 | 10:07 PM
Posted in: Benchwork Construction | Latest Posts | Track Construction | wiring | Comments (7)

Most Current Image

I hope it survives the trip.

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This is the current state of the layout.

All the wiring is 100% complete. I have put the wire cutters away, there is nothing left to do. It was operational 2 weeks ago, but still needed a lot of little tweaks, the last of which I finished today.

It runs far better than I had expected. The locomotive performs great! I will post more about that after the train show.

Next, I need to make a temporary connection between the layout and the carfloat so I can operate that, I have a precarious connection there now. I would also like to make a mock up of the freight house, will see if I have time for that or not.

But at least it is working, and for the most part ready for the show.

geez, look at the time….

-T.

About the Author:

I'm your host, Tim Warris, a product developer in Port Dover, Ontario. Since March of 2007 I have been documenting the construction of the former CNJ Bronx Terminal in HO scale. For my day job, I design track building tools for Fast Tracks, a small company I own and operate. Fast Tracks makes it fast and easy to hand lay your own trackwork. Stop by our website to learn more!

Posted by: Tim | 06-27-2009 | 10:06 PM
Posted in: CNJ 1000 Boxcab | Track Construction | wiring | Comments (1)

Painting Track

No more PC board ties…

Yesterday I painted all the trackwork on the layout. Well, almost all of it, I decided to leave one three way turnout and a length of track unpainted until after the train show so people can see the construction technique.

If you smelled Floquil paint in the air yesterday, it was from me, sorry about that….

It almost didn’t get done. I started early on it, hoping to finish the painting before noon. I noticed my airbrush needed cleaning, so I took it apart and soaked all the parts in lacquer thinner, which dissolves all the hardened paint deposits. When I reassembled it I had no air. A few minutes playing with it and I realized I should not have soaked the air valve in lacquer thinner as there is an O ring in it that swelled up to twice the size and cut off the air. I hunted up the part number on Badgers site (I have a 155 airbrush) and started phoning around for one. I managed to finally locate on in Dundas, about 35 minutes from here. So I made a trip out to get it, which killed 2 hours.

With that fixed up I started painting, as shown in the video. 2 hours into the job and we had a nasty thunderstorm that knocked out the power for 2 hours. I managed to finish up the painting at 10 pm.

Its all done now, and looks much better. It is only a base coat, I will be doing more to it later prior to ballasting, but for now it is an improvement over the bare copper ties, although that did create a neat effect…

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All the track is painted with Floquil’s Railroad Tie Brown, unthinned, straight from the bottle. I used 3 jars for the job. Unfortunately two of the three were from a bad batch and the colour didn’t match the first one very well. It really won’t matter though.

After I paint a section of track, I immediately clean the the paint from the rails using small squares of wood. This makes quick work of cleaning up the rail, and also keeps me from accidentally disturbing the paint on the PC board ties. A few passes is all it takes to get 99% of the paint off the rails. If the paint dries a bit I simply dip the wood block into some lacquer thinner and give it a rub followed with a pass from a dry piece of wood. I cut up a bag of a few hundred of these blocks ahead of time so I have plenty on hand when painting. Once dry, I give everything a cleaning with a bright boy.

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This week I also finished off my brass model of CNJ 1000, which there are some shots of in the video.

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Getting closer…..

-T.

On to Next Section…

About the Author:

I'm your host, Tim Warris, a product developer in Port Dover, Ontario. Since March of 2007 I have been documenting the construction of the former CNJ Bronx Terminal in HO scale. For my day job, I design track building tools for Fast Tracks, a small company I own and operate. Fast Tracks makes it fast and easy to hand lay your own trackwork. Stop by our website to learn more!

Posted by: Tim | 06-26-2009 | 10:06 AM
Posted in: CNJ 1000 Boxcab | Latest Posts | Track Construction | Video | Weathering | Comments (8)

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