Hints & Tips No.791


Yard Design Commandments Pt 10a


From Craig Bisgeier


Thou Shalt Make It Easy To Run Pt 1

Let us say you have followed all the commandments and designed yourself a great yard. You owe it to yourself and others who will operate the yard to give some thought to making the model-human interface simple and easy to run. After all, the best yard in the world will not get used if no one can figure out how to make it work. Here are some things you can do that will really help operability:


1. Provide a large, easy to read schematic control panel with color-coded track lines to differentiate what each track is. For instance, make the body tracks white, the yard lead red, the A/D tracks green, etc.. Label anything that might be unclear or vague. Physically separate adjacent tracks with different purposes to emphasize their difference.


2 Keep the mechanical complexity down. Wherever you have a crossover where two turnouts always operate together, control them with one toggle switch. Use a diode-matrix panel or similar control structure to automatically throw turnouts in a yard ladder for a particular arrangement. "But isn't that complex?" you ask? Yes, but it makes a stressful job easier at ShowTime, so it counts as a simplicity plus.

1. If the panel    continues to be complicated despite your best efforts, think about    breaking it up into two or more sub-panels, especially if there are    distinct groups of turnouts more than 2-3 steps apart. For instance,    I recently operated on a layout where the entrance to the yard, an    area with about 7-8 switches, was controlled by a separate panel    from the yards' throat and ladder tracks. It helped keep the    complexity on the main panel down, a welcome break
2. Be very careful    with your trackwork. Good trackwork makes running a yard fun and    challenging, but bad trackwork can take a good design and render it    useless. If cars keep derailing every time they are pushed over a    bad turnout, or over a spot that's out of gauge, neither you or    anyone else will want to work in your yard. As long as you're making    an effort to design a good yard, put some effort into building it    well too.
3. If the panel    continues to be complicated despite your best efforts, think about    breaking it up into two or more sub-panels, especially if there are    distinct groups of turnouts more than 2-3 steps apart. For instance,    I recently operated on a layout where the entrance to the yard, an    area with about 7-8 switches, was controlled by a separate panel    from the yards' throat and ladder tracks. It helped keep the    complexity on the main panel down, a welcome break
4. Be very careful    with your trackwork. Good trackwork makes running a yard fun and    challenging, but bad trackwork can take a good design and render it    useless. If cars keep derailing every time they are pushed over a    bad turnout, or over a spot that's out of gauge, neither you or    anyone else will want to work in your yard. As long as you're making    an effort to design a good yard, put some effort into building it    well too.

Hints & Tips No.792
  Yard Design Commandments Pt 10b
  From Craig Bisgeier
 

  Thou Shalt Make It Easy To Run Pt 2   5. Provide a handout with a schematic diagram of the yard and a line or two describing the different functions of each track to new operators. It will help them get familiar with the routine and up and running in less time than if they had to puzzle it out for themselves. You can also distribute this handout to visitors, allowing them to gain an insight into how the operation really works.
   6. Design to be able to reach everything easily, either from the front of the layout or from an operators aisle behind. Derailing a few wagons in a spot you can only get to with a long stick is sure to ruin your night, and maybe other people's too. If you have to stand on your tippy-toes to reach and can only nudge it with your fingertip, it's too far away.
   7. Before operating sessions, try to provide a schedule to the yard crew describing the types of trains arriving and departing during the session, approximately the time they come and go, and what type of goods or passenger equipment they drop off or pick up. This will help the yard crew organize their work, and be able to properly block the wagons in most trains. A properly blocked train is easier for the crew to run, and gets its work done faster.
   I realize that it takes a pretty fair-sized yard to fully implement many of these concepts. The modeler with a smaller space, however, still has much to gain by using these criteria to help design the small yard. Perhaps there is not room for a full length brake van track. The inclusion of a short run-around, possibly also used for a nearby industrial switching area, lets you do quite a lot of operating within a little space. You don't need 2 or 3 A/D tracks, having one that also functions as a siding off the main line will work, even if it's not ideal. But no matter the size, you always need to have a lead as long as your longest body track. The trick is to be creative in how you design, and do the most with the space you have.

Hints & Tips No.793
  Running Wires down a Light Pole alternative
   From Jack Hanks
   Instead of running wires down a light pole which would be used to power street lights etc, it is sometimes easier to drape them down and into a nearby structure. You can use brass tube for the light pole as your return, the structure hides the wires and the connection looks authentic.

Hints & Tips No.794
    River Bank Rocks

From Ed Mason
   I have a raw edge of ceiling tile used as a base for my saw mill area that runs up to a river. In an attempt to make the edge look as natural as I could without tapering it down to water level I first coated it with white glue and then piled up ground corn cobs against it. Once the glue was dry I brushed away the loose corn cob and had a really neat looking rock river bank.

Hints & Tips No.795
 Another source of Coal Loads
   From George Poole
   For coal, I use blasting sand. Go to a sand blasting company and ask them for black blasting sand, it looks just like coal and you can fill your cars up. 
(A Note from Trevor - you could also use card inserts in your vehicles and just use the sand to cover the top and simulate a full load. However with 4 wheelers and the weight issues that sometimes occur, blasting sand may actually help you achieve a weight increase and provide you with a load at the same time.)

Hints & Tips No.796
  Creating Mini Scenes on your Layout
   From Dana Gill
   To create a few miniscenes on your layout and add a little visual interest…
   1. Have a victory parade for the home Team including a supporter with no gas in his or Her car( Depending on the era's modeled) with some one pushing the car.
 2. Drive your Safety inspectors crazy with accidents about to happen( some one about to fall in the manhole or fall out the window.)
 3. Have some one about to get into trouble ( rail fan + scrapyard + junk yard dog)
 4. Show someone sweeping the station , fixing the leaky water tower, or doing some repairs at the station)
 5. Have a loose tiger or any other wild animal in your town ( think of all the possibilities you could create in that scene .
 6. Have some hijinks in your town or country side and a few old timer's sitting by saying that they never did that.

Hints & Tips No.797
  Stapling Foliage
   From Alston Pyke
   Staple any bushes you have made of lichen etc to your layout. The bushes will naturally conceal your staples and they will be better held to the layout.

Hints & Tips No.798

An alternative way to Mask paint

From Lester Larew

When you need to paint two colors on the same model, first paint the 1st color, wait to dry at least 24 hours, then use any masking tape to make your line. Now, spray the area that is to be painted the new color AT THE EDGE OF THE TAPE with dullcoat, sealing the tape. let dry for 30 min. or so and then paint the second color. What a great paint line this leaves. No bleeding, just a great line

Hints & Tips No.799
    Rust

From Brett Duffek
   Making wheel faces and structures look like they have "real" flaking rust areas: I gather the type of rust that is more on the orangy side (i.e. newly forming) by sanding it off of various surfaces with fine sand paper of about 120 grit. Then I "reduce" this with finer-grit sandpaper, 400-500 grit will do, by placing a small amount in a folded piece and rubbing the sandwiched rust into a very, almost scale-like dust.
   I use a drinking straw cut to about 2" in length to dust things with the super-fine real rust powder after first painting with roof brown water based paint. Shake off any loose rust immediately. The result is a 3-D type effect on wheel faces, metal roofs, or any other object that could or would be seen close up by operators or visitors.

Hints & Tips No.800
   Foam base board idea

From Nick Sherwin
   As I wrote this I had just met a man at a model rail show. He had a beautiful layout made entirely out of white foam, built up in layers to form a hill. The foam was painted out of a mix of water, white glue and dirt he had brushed up (scraped on a hard surface with a brush is a better description) from dry clay under his house.
  

  The next bit was a thin layer of old carpet felt underlay, with some large trees and an array of small trees/shrubs. It looked really effective and occurred to me that an effective layout base could be made from recycled materials.

Hints & Tips No.801
   Illuminating Model Cars

From Stephen Watson
   One place that many people tend not to put lights is model cars. It can be done! I drilled out the headlights on a plastic Hot Wheels car, and put one Minitronics bulb in each hole. Now the car has working headlights. Also, I lit up a double deck London bus, for a nice effect at night. Red bulbs make nice tail-lights, especially in a heavily trafficked area. Alternatively you can put in an LED and some fibre optic line drilled into the area of the headlights.

Hints & Tips No.802
  Using Wood sticks while modelling
   From Matthew Ross and Martin Smith
   I have had wonderful success with cutting down "Popsicle Sticks" to what size needed and glue the various grits of sandpaper or wet and dry onto that piece. Glue both sides of stick. It is easy to remove and replace the sandpaper with excellent control of the sanding process.
   Tongue depressers and Ice cream sticks or broken sanding sticks etc make great HO scale picket fences. All you have to do is scribe the pickets, cut them to length, paint them and glue in place.

Hints & Tips No.803
  Kadee Grease'm Substitute
   From Several Modelers
   The question was asked “When putting together micro-trains couplers (say "Underslung Body Mount Short Shank Coupler Conversion Kit" five times fast ), the instructions call for Greas-um. I assume any powered graphite will work …” and the replies were…
   Oil or grease is not a substitute for dry graphite in this case. The graphite can be burnished into the surface creating a very slippery/dry lubed working of the parts. This won't attract dirt and has minimal resistance to the moving parts. Just don't apply too much graphite, you do not want it tracking around the rails. A tube of Kadee greas-um will last many years. I even use in on some sticky locksets and cylinders. (Ron Perkins, Massachussetts)
   I use a product called "neolube". It is a slurry of graphite and teflon in alcohol. Just apply a small drop and when the alcohol evaporates, the parts are coated with a light film of dry lubricant. It is not nearly as messy as powdered graphite and stays where you put it. (Charlie Schildt - Illinois)
   You can just use a tube of dry graphite from the hardware store. Don't use oil or grease for couplers.
You do not need a whole lot of graphite either. (Tom Statton - Tennessee)

Hints & Tips No.804
 

 Failed Water Effect Experiment  
 

  From Ken Cleghorn (New Zealand)
  

  I spotted a resin product in a local hardware store and thought it would make great water effects on my layout, so I brought it and set up an experiment to see how it looked. I glued some extruded foam to a scrap piece MDF, painted the "river" area a dark green, glued some pebbles in place, then poured in the resin mix. The moment I opened the can I was concerned, it looked too runny and fluid for what I want to use it for. But this was a test so I went ahead and made a "mix" to which I added some dark green paint.

It was a nice day so I had set every thing up outside because I knew it would stink the whole house out otherwise.
  It took an age for the resin to set. I may have miss-judged the amount of hardener to add. Then I noticed little holes on the top of the foam where the resin mix had dripped, oh oh? Later most of the resin escaped through the hole in the foam. The resin was definitely reactive with the foam.

Conclusion: It pays to set up small experiments with products you are unfamilar with, To have this happen on the layout would have been a total disaster. This product would work well for still water but not for flowing water effects. This particular product was not a good product to use indoors as the fumes are very strong. It is reactive with extruded foam but not with styrene or other plastics, like the bowl I mixed it in. Other experiments will follow with other products till I find one that I can use to model a fast flowing river with rapids.

Happy modelling.

Hints & Tips No.805

Getting wider track centres on curves

From Several modeller's

Because of the overhang particularly of longer goods and passenger stock, track centres need to be wider unless you have the very broadest of curves. The smaller the radius you have the wider the track centre needed. I    have 2 inch track centres for my straight sections. Two methods l    use:

1. a.    Use    a longer straight section leading into the curve where the outer    track uses an    slightly longer straight section before curving to change track    centre spacing to 2 in.    
   b.    Use a longer and gentler easement into the outer curve using flex    track. (Greg Allen)
2. If    you "spike" your straight and curved rail (or hold it in    some way), the easement will come automatically. (Wolfgang Dudler)

1. What    I do is offset my straight track from the curve (this is good    practice regardless), and the easement curve also works as your    transition from close track spacing to standard. Say my curve would    wind up 3” (75mm) from the edge of my baseboard were it a set    track 90 degrees, I would actually lay the straight track about 2.75    inches and ease the curve to join the straight. Works well for me    (Bob Hewett)

 Hints & Tips No.806

Using Rerailers

From Several Modellers

Rerailing tracks that come with many mainly outline sets are regarded as non scale items but here are a few suggestions to help you make up your own mind

a. I use one as INSURANCE for difficult areas to reach - such as inside tunnels. (Don Gibson)
b. I use rerailers on hidden trackage, in tunnels and staging yards. i also use a “Rix rerailer” in my staging yard. There once was a time when a rerailer saved a 40 year old ambroid combine from taking the one way trip down long fall gulch (to the unforgiving concrete floor). I doubt I could reassemble the car given my current lack of visial acuity. (old age) (Fred Hemmings)
c. There are NO rerailers of any kind on my home layout nor are there any on clubs layout. With weight, wheel set and coupler standards along with excellent trackwork there is no need for rerailers. (Anon)
d. I use Kadee magnets for rerailing cars when replacing them on the layout. This also puts the cars in the yard for a train later. (Joe Barker)
e.Having rerailers in hidden areas and staging tracks does make sense, as cars tend to be handled on staging tracks with 0-5-0 shunters - greatly increasing the chance of wheels off the track. (Jim Skewes)
f. I have some rerailers in the leads to the staging tracks - just 'extra' insurance. We also have rerailers at the club on each end of each staging track and at the entrance to the staging tracks(helps with 'operator error'). (Jim Bernier)
g. While they are not realistic, they can be disguised as crossings (Graham Ross)

 Hints & Tips No.807
Soldering at Close Quarters


From Allan Wedding (Lincs)

One way I protect a piece whilst soldering another fitting close by, is to press wet toilet tissue (bathroom tissue?) onto it as a heat sink.

 Hints & Tips No.808
Simulating Granite

From Gary Chester (Adelaide)

You can simulate chunks of granite by breaking white foam BY HAND into chunks and painting the faces rough and smooth with an acrylic granite colour. Have a few of the faces of your granite covered by your ground cover and shell type “ground level” material and you can simulate those granite tors which are common to many countrysides.

Hints & Tips No.809
  One Accident – Two tips
   From Bob Montgomery (USA)
   The other day, I was working under the layout and saw that my Xacto knife was rolling off the edge and instinctively I went to catch it. I did manage to catch it , blade first in the palm of my hand.
  The wound did not seem too bad until I noticed the tip of the blade was missing. It was left behind. Fortunatly my Mother In Law was visiting and she is a Registered Nurse. She started sterilizing the tweezers, while I amd thinking “no way”, but we had to get the piece of blade out. So I thought I have some very powerful rare earth magnets, got one of them and sure thing it yanked the broken tip right out of my hand. A little disinfection a band aid and all is well.
  

  The good side is that what was left of the blade in the knife handle is the perfect shape for cleaning the inside of the rails after ballasting. So keep a small rare earth magnet around and don't throw those dull blades out.

Hints & Tips No.810
  Smoother Riding Rolling Stock  
   From John Waitkus
   When assembling carriage or goods wagon kits with bogies, adjust the screws that retain the bogies (assuming that is how the bogies are attached - most better cars have this feature) so that the bogie on one end of the car is fairly snug, but can easily swivel (but no rocking). On the other end of the car, adjust the bogie so that it will rock just slightly. This will give your car a three-point stance, allowing it to travel smoothly over uneven trackwork, yet keeping it from unnecessarily rocking.