CW&E/K&LE Run-Through Agreement Announced

[ERIE, PA- CINCINNATI, OH- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE- August 29, 1976] The Chesapeake, Wheeling and Erie Railroad and the Kanawha and Lake Erie Railroad today announced the signing of a run-through agreement which will allow trains to move across both railroad systems in an expedited manner. Entire trains of various commodities will be forwarded from one railroad to the other with minimal delay. The map below shows the connection of the two railroads at Morgantown, WV and clearly shows the expanded geography served by the run-through agreement.

John Miller, President and CEO of the Kanawha and Lake Erie Railroad, stated "This agreement will allow the K&LE and the CW&E to remain competitive in this era of rail line consolidation. Additionally, we will be able to provide improved service to all of the customers served by both railroads." The agreement is expected to take effect immediately.

Rolling Stock Redo

After weathering the decks of several home road flat cars recently, something didn't look right. Here's a photo of the finished deck.

I'm trying to capture the washed out look of wood that's been exposed to the elements for a long period of time. I'm also trying to simulate the look of individual boards. Joe Atkinson and Rob Spangler captured this look very convincingly in flat car photos that they submitted to this post on the MRH forum: http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/14676?page=1. After looking at a number of photos, it became clear that this deck has too much grey in it and the grey is too dark. So I first dry-brushed Apple Barrel khaki colored craft acrylic paint on some of the boards that looked too dark. The addition of the khaki color was a definite improvement, but there was still something missing. Dry-brushing some FolkArt steel grey on some random boards finally got the deck close to the look I'm after. Here's a photo of the finished car.

Some additional colors and washes could be added to get it even closer to the wash-out look of weathered wood. But for now, this car is headed back into revenue service.

DEEX Gons

When Walthers introduced a Pullman Standard coal gondola in its Mainline series earlier this year, it seemed like the perfect candidate for unit train service on the CWE. A quick check with Stuart Thayer and Anthony Hardy showed that the paint scheme was accurate and that, indeed, these cars were produced in the mid-1970's. Stuart provided the photos of the cars below which show them in almost new condition.

That was all the confirmation I needed- I immediately ordered 18 of them. When they arrived, I was impressed with the detail and the quality of the paint job. The only thing missing was the ACI label, so I added them to all of the cars. Based upon the photos above, it was apparent that very little weathering would be needed to accurately depict these cars in service in the summer of 1976.

The first step was to mask the sides and paint the bottoms of the cars with Rust-Oleum camouflage, which is a dark, dirty brown colored paint that is plastic compatible and dries perfectly flat. I also sprayed the trucks and wheels with the same paint. Next, I applied Sophisticated Finishes iron paint to the interior of the car as can be seen in the photo below.

Once the iron paint had dried, I applied the rust solution to the interior of the car. I wanted just a hint of rust, as these cars were turned between the mines and the power plants fairly quickly and the interiors didn't have much of a chance to rust. The look I was trying to achieve can be seen in the photo of the interior of a CPOX hopper that Anthony sent me.

Unfortunately, the Sophisticated Finishes rust solution had added too much rust by the time the solution dried enough to spray it with Dullcote. However, this actually turned out OK as the subsequent weathering steps toned it down significantly. 

The next step was to make a wash of acrylic ivory black and Windex with a small amount of burnt umber. To this I added some MIG gun metal pigment in order to get the effect of the polished steel that is seen prior to the initial coat of rust forming on the sides and bottom after the load has been dumped. This solution was applied on the bottom of the gon, thinned a bit, and then applied to the sides. The last step was to use Anthony's trick of adding real coal to the bottom of the gon and dumping it out to either side. This leaves just enough coal dust on the sides and in the bottom to depict what is left from the last load. The photo below shows the final results.

Once the cars are placed in service, a little more coal will be added to the bottom of the car along the sides.

While the sides of the cars wouldn't have weathered much in the time frame of the layout, something was needed to tone down the black on the car sides. I added a few drops of Floquil reefer white to a paint cup full of thinned Dullcote and sprayed the sides and ends. The photo below shows the before and after shots,

The last step was to added a light coat of weathering powder to the truck sides frames and some washes of burnt umber and ivory black acrylics to the wheels. The photo below shows the car at this point.

All that remains is to add some very light dry-brushing weathering to the couplers and the car will be ready for service. At this point, all 18 cars are at the stage where the initial rust application has been made to the interiors. The goal is to have the train in service for the next op session in late August. Of course, in addition to finishing the gondolas, I also have to finish to SD40-2's that will be part of the power for the train. Given that August is just around the corner, it's a good thing the units are already in the paint shop awaiting decals...

And so it is finished

It took much longer than I anticipated, but the changes to the scenery around North Pierce are finally finished- at least for now. Here's a shot of the overall scene.

And here's a shot of how the area looked last December before the changes began.

The small stream is intended to look like what one might find in the woods in the middle of summer with very little flow.

in the photo below you can see how the stream curves around to the left behind the trees.

And finally, a couple of rail fan shots of the area.

The west end staging yard is now in service and 4 tracks are in place. During the last op session, 2 trains went west from Hollister Yard for the first time. Below are a couple of shots of the staging yard.

Eventually there will be 12 tracks in both the east and west staging yards. This will have a significant impact on operations on the layout, and I'm looking forward to adding equipment and revising the operating scheme as new staging tracks enter service. 

I'm reasonably pleased with the way the scenery turned out in this area. Additional small details will be added over time, but for now, the project is finished. The biggest improvement is the addition of the west end staging yard, and it's nice to finally have it in operation.

Rolling Stock Additions- Part 2

Now that the west end staging yard is operational, it's clear that I'm going to need a lot more freight cars to expand operations. I established a roster of home road and foreign road cars in terms of types and numbers many years ago, and I've been following that loosely in terms of what cars to add to the layout. One of the most glaring omissions has been flat cars. So I recently set out to fix that by building a few home road cars and weathering a few foreign road cars.

First up are the two home road flat cars. These are Proto 2000 kits that I picked up at a local show last Fall. I added uncoupling levers and distressed the deck using an Xacto saw blade. I also distressed the ends of the boards on the deck using an Xacto knife. The cars were weathered using artist's acrylics thinned with Windex. 

Next up is a Tangent Scale Models 50' GSC flat car decorated for the Pennsylvania Railroad. This is an absolutely beautiful model but it is a little fragile. I removed the deck pieces and weathered them separately using water soluble oil paints. I started by sanding the deck with an emory board in the same direction of the boards. At first it didn't appear to make much difference, but I believe some of the grain that appears in the final photos is a result of this process. This was my first foray into water soluble oils and I wasn't pleased with the end result. It looked too dark and more rust-like than I wanted, so I went back over the deck with tan acrylic craft paint. This got the base color closer to the washed out wood color I was trying to achieve. I then went back over the deck with a thin wash of artist's acrylic ivory black and Windex to highlight the gaps between the boards and to add a little more texture. The rest of the car was weathered with artist's acrylics.

The last car is an old MDC kit that I bought back in the late 1980's. I removed the cast on grab irons and plastic stirrup steps and replaced them with ones formed from wire. The deck was originally painted yellow and I had lightly weathered it. As this car was relatively new in my era, the deck wouldn't have been subjected to years of abuse out in the elements. The deck never really looked right to me, so I checked a number of sources of online photos and found several from which to work. After painting the deck with Floquil Primer, I came back and weathered it using artist's acrylics.

In the paint shop right now are some covered hoppers that have a special story associated with them- stay tuned.

The JR Standard

Years ago a member of the Rensselaer Model Railroad Society wrote an article about the "Green Dot Standard" that they had established for their freight car fleet. The goal was to have every car on the layout meet the "standard" which included metal wheels, Kadee couplers, cut levers, and other details that I've long forgotten. This concept came to mind as I was re-working some older freight cars recently. Now that the layout is being operated on a regular basis, having reliable equipment is imperative. And as I add new equipment or refurbish older cars, they must all meet the "JR Standard."

The JR Standard is named after Jim Rollwage, whose beautiful Denver Pacific line of the Union Pacific can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMUCKyocX-4. Jim was one of the first people to introduce me to operations, and I was amazed at how well his railroad ran. Everything runs smoothly, nothing derails (without operator help), the cars take little to no effort to couple together- in short, everything works just the way it is supposed to work. Operating on his layout is a joy- and it clearly showed me that one could have a layout that operates like this with a little work. Jim's secret is to repair anything that is wrong as soon as it turns up. If a coupler is a little low, the car comes off the layout and gets fixed. If there's a slight kink in the track, the tools come out and it gets repaired as soon as it's found. Over time, with this kind of effort, all of the problems get corrected and the layout begins to operate like it should.

Most of my freight car fleet was constructed with an eye toward detail versus operational performance. As a result, many cars had low couplers, wheels that wouldn't roll freely and other assorted maladies. Over the past year, every car has been pulled and put through the shop in order to make it sure it meets the JR Standard. Here's what is necessary to meet the standard:
1) Every coupler must be at the correct height and must operate freely.
2) Couplers must be lubricated with graphite.
3) All cars must have metal wheel sets.
4) All wheels must spin extremely freely in truck journals.
5) All wheels must be in gauge.
6) One truck on each car has little to no side to side play while the other has some more play in it.
7) Any car that is too light to track correctly gets more weight.
8) The treads on all wheels must be clean.

I've  settled on Kadee wheel sets and #5 and #58 couplers for every car. I've heard enough about problems with mixing different coupler types and manufacturers to realize that I don't want to go down that path. Fortunately, I've been installing Kadee wheel sets and #5's from the start, so I didn't have to go back and retrofit these items. The primary issues have been coupler height and/or operation and truck bearings. A little spin with a truck tuner fixes the truck bearing issues, and coupler shims and/or washers on the bolsters have fixed all of the coupler height issues.

There's nothing more fun than running a long train across the entire railroad and having everything work exactly as it should. Switching is also a blast, and just about anything that has to do with operating the layout is a joy. For the first time since I got into this hobby over 30 years ago, actually running the trains is as much fun as building them!

Thanks, Jim. 

Progress Update #3

The control panel for the west end staging yard is now finished as you can see in the photo below.

In the past, I have used Letraset dry transfer lettering and Chartpak tape for my panels. Once the lettering and track diagrams are in place, I spray the panel with a clear flat finish to protect everything. However, for this panel I wanted a different solution. Dry transfer lettering is getting hard to find and isn't easy to apply. 

The first place I went to look for alternatives was the Model Railroad Hobbyist forum. I quickly found a solution in a post by George Booth. You can read the post here: http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/7237. I printed the labels in Word and took them to Staples for lamination. I then cut them out and glued them to the panel. What a great idea- thanks to George for posting this idea on the MRH forum.

Speaking of lamination, I noticed that the train cards on the layout were beginning to show signs of wear after a number of operating sessions. In order to protect the cards, I bought some plastic sleeves to hold them. Unfortunately, they wouldn't fit in the bill boxes on the fascia. I mentioned this to Jim Rollwage, one of the regular operators, and he suggested I get the train cards laminated. Another great idea! All of the train cards were updated and printed on card stock. I then took them to Staples to get laminated. As you can see below, the lamination looks great and will protect the cards for a long time to come.

I'll bet there's something else around here that I could laminate...