HI All,i was wondering What others are using for signaling and block dection¿I just recently bought several Block Watchers from DCC Specialties to test out before i tied a lot of money up into something i didn't like.The block Watcher is great,at first i couldn't figure out how to use J4 on the output of the block Watcher.After a little searching and the advice from someone on the Digitrax Yahoo Group,i got them working.The greatest aspect of it is that you can set one of the CV's to time the seconds that the BW stays on after leaving the block.I'd like to find out what others are using. Harold

Hi All,

I found this information on the TCS site for a recall on the M SERIES decoders shipped in December of 2008

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Sorry to post in general, but I really need some input. Please see the last couple posts about the reverse loop here http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=352 on my layout. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

My son & I went to the model train show in Port Hope, Ont. today. This was a new show for us and it was very good -- a nice small town show. Not too large or busy but still lots to see. Depending on how you counted them, there were a good 10-12 layouts there. Just curious if anyone else from The Gauge went. It's also on tomorrow. It took us just over an hour to get there from east-end Toronto.

There was an even number of N and HO layouts there & one O gauge. About half were 1950s transition era and the other half modern image. I only wish more steam locos were running. There were quite a few venders as well.

Cheers, Rob

I have been doing some historical research on narrow gauge shortlines in the Black Hills of South Dakota. What follows is some information that I've compiled that I thought might be of interest to some. I have rarely seen layouts based on Black Hills prototypes, and am in the process of planning out an HOn30 modular layout based on the Galena mining district information included below. In subsequent posts, I'll include maps, links, and a bibliography.

NARROW GAUGE TO THE BLACK HILLS BOOM TOWNS

Between 1875-1877, white settlers began to pour into the Black Hills, spurred on by news of gold discoveries during George Armstrong Custer’s reconnaissance of the area in the summer of 1874. Although the Black Hills were sacred to the Lakota Sioux and closed to white settlement by the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, rumors from Custer’s expedition sparked a rush into the region. The administration of Ulysses S. Grant tacitly supported these incursions refusing to evict white miners and harrassing bands of Lakota and Cheyenne in 1875-6. The tensions created by white treaty-breakers led directly to the Great Sioux War (also known as the Black Hills War), most famous for the Battle of the Little Bighorn/Battle of Greasy Grass Creek in June 1876. Despite the Sioux victory at Greasy Grass Creek and continued resistance, US military pressure wore on Native American defenders of the Black Hills, culminating in the surrender of the Oglala Sioux leader Crazy Horse in May 1877. This effectively confirmed white miners' and settlers' claims from the previous several years.

Despite attacks by Native American defenders of the Black Hills, miners and treasure hunters flooded into the Black Hills during the Great South War. They first concentrated in the east-central hills, founding the modern towns of Custer, Hill City, Sheridan, and Rapid City in the winter of 1875-6. Settlement gradually spread northwards, with the first claims to mineral rights in Deadwood Gulch staked out in November 1875. News of extraordinarily rich panning opportunities in Deadwood and nearby Whitewood creeks led to a boom, and by March 1876, more than six hundred miners crowded into the narrow, steep valley. By the summer of 1876, the city of Deadwood was a thriving, if chaotic, boom town. Virtually overnight it had exploded into a roughneck tent city that more than 5,000 men now called home (Parker, 91-2).

The attraction of Deadwood Gulch lay in the relative easy of extracting gold. Virtually all of the early enterprises in the region were placer operations, with more organized claimants using sluice boxes to separate gold particles from the creekbed gravel. The real wealth of the Black Hills, however, lay in more expensive and labor intensive subsurface mining. Once gravel deposits in the region had been thoroughly mined, small scale miners gradually sold out to larger investors. The Homestake Mine in Lead, purchased by George Hearst (father of infamous newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst) in 1877, is the most famous example of this trend.

Smaller gulches throughout the northern Black Hills also generated successful placer mining operations. Bear Butte Gulch was one example. Bear Butte Creek began approximately 8 miles south of Deadwood, and meandered north and east out of the hills towards what is today Sturgis, SD. Bear Butte, after which the creek and gulch were named, is an impressive outcropping of igneous rock that rises dramatically from the grassy plains east pf Sturgis. It was and remains a sacred site to many Native Americans of the Great Plains. Gold was first taken from the Bear Butte Creek in 1876 and late the same year, settlers laid out the town of Galena. The town took its name from the silver-rich lead ores that could be found in the area. By the winter of 1876-7, approximately 400 men had moved into the area and worked placer claims (Parker, 193-4). The gulch and surrounding mining claims became known as the Galena mining district.

The history of the Galena mining district claims illustrates the economically-marginal nature of the hard-rock deposits in the area. Various investors attempted to exploit the silver and gold ores in the area, but the cost of extraction – requiring hard rock mining, ore crushing and processing, and smelting – always seems to have worked against sustained industry. As quickly as it had boomed, the Bear Butte Creek settlement collapsed, contracting to a mere 49 permanent residents according to the 1880 census (Parker, 201). In 1877, the first subsurface operations began at the Florence Mine, but in spite of the operators’ construction of expensive on site crushing and smelting facilities, ore still had to be shipped out narrow canyon trails to Lead or Pluma for final processing. Several other mining companies also attempted to situate smelting operations on site, but found little success. In 1881, for example, the founders of the Sitting Bull mine constructed a smelter that operated for less than a year.

The most sustained attempts at exploiting the Galena deposits occurred in 1883, when J.H. Davy bought out the Florence Mine and constructed yet another smelter on site. Davy’s efforts also collapsed, in part due to legal wrangling with other mine owners over access rights to the richest veins of ore (Parker, 194). In 1896, Davy sold out to the Union Hill Mining Company. Like the Florence Mine, the Union Hill operation relied on off site ore processing, shipping their crushed ore to Kansas City for final smelting (Clow, 96-7).

The town of Galena experienced a mini-revival in the first decade of the 20th century. This was in large measure due to the expansion of rail service in the region, increased investment by the Union Hill Mining Company, and the expansion of milling and smelting facilities in the towns of Lead and Pluma. The cost effectiveness associated with these infrastructure developments meant that extracting gold and silver from less profitable claims, like those in Bear Butte Creek gulch, became cheaper and more efficient.

Rail had first come to the northern Black Hills in the 1881, with the founding of the Black Hills and Fort Pierre Railroad. Initially planned as a rail service for the massive Homestake Mine in Lead, the BH&FP was by 1901 a reasonably successful short line narrow gauge. Running on 36” gauge track, the railroad boasted more than 40 miles of track, owned seven engines (three Porter 2-6-0s, three Baldwin 2-6-0s and one Baldwin 2-8-0; engine #1, a Porter, bore the name “George Hearst”), and more than 100 cars. Through an agreement with the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad, the BH&FP had connections to standard gauge lines through to Rapid City. Operations on the BH&FP included some passenger and mail service, but primarily focused on transporting ore to various milling and smelting operations and hauling timber into Lead for use in the massive underground mining operations at the Homestake Mine (Fielder, 38-9).

The BH&FP’s sister railroad was the Deadwood Central. Founded in 1888, the DC provided service to Deadwood, Pluma, Lead, and the Ruby Basin mines to the west of Lead. Both regional railroads soon merged with larger corporate concerns. In 1890, the DC merged operations with the Burlington and Missouri River division of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad; the BH&FP followed in 1901.

The acquisition of the BH&FP by CB&Q in 1901 centralized operations in the northeastern Black Hills. Sharing trackage and rolling stock, business on both lines boomed and allowed significant expansion. This included adding a third rail on the line from Deadwood to Englewood, allowing standard gauge equipment to run into the northern Black Hills mining region for the first time. In 1902, the Deadwood Central extended a seven mile spur from Galena Junction to the town of Galena. This was a 36” narrow gauge line and provided the first rail connection between the Galena mining district and the narrow gauge network centered on the major mining centers of Deadwood, Pluma and Lead (Fielder, 78). The Galena claims, many now held by the Union Hill Mining Company, experienced a boom that lasted for several years (Fielder, 81).

The arrival of rail in Galena sparked the interest of a local entrepreneur named Jim Hardin. Hardin was owner of several small mines in the area. In 1903 he began an ambitious project to maximize the value of these holdings. Hardin first opened the Branch Mint mill at the lower end of the town of Galena, and began construction of the Branch Mint Railroad, a 3 mile, 36” gauge line connecting to several small and remote mines to the east and west of town. He had a small 0-4-0 (named “Natalie”) brought in as the major piece of motive power. Until the abandonment of the Branch Mint Railroad in 1912, “Natalie” connected Hardin's Branch Mint mill to the Hoodoo, Union Hill and Gilt Edge (sometimes referred to as the Gilt Edge Maid) mines to the west, and the Branch Mint and Two Bit mines to the east. Ore crushed in the Branch Mint mill could be loaded onto CB&Q ore cars at Galena, and transported to Lead, Pluma, or Rapid City for further refining and smelting (Fielder, 76-7). In the same period, the Black Hills Smelting Works also went online in Galena, primarily focusing on recovering precious minerals from the tailings of the 1870s Florence and Sitting Bull mines (Clow, 111). A cyanide process mill, called the Golden Crest, also was in operation at this time(Clow, 125).

Not much is known about life in and around Galena at this time. A bird’s eye view photograph of Galena taken in 1890 shows a narrow road with rows of widely spaced buildings winding at least a mile up the northwest bank of Bear Butte Creek. The same photograph also suggests something of the ecological cost of mining operations at the time, depicting a thoroughly deforested landscape and several scars of surface mining operations (image here: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?pp...sc+02574)). The long, narrow town seems to have been divided into three general neighborhoods. At the head of the gulch came Galena proper, followed by Cariboo, and finally and the bottom of the gulch, Hardscrabble (Parker and Lambert, 99). Other photographs show the presence of structures typical of a mining town – rows of saloons (with picturesque names like The Irish World, The Mint, and The Sudden Death) (Pechan and Groethe, 101), boarding houses (Reuther’s boarding house was the home of “Emma” a lady of the evening who inspired the names of three separate mines in the area), a general store (called simply “The Corner”, log cabins, and a post office (Parker and Lambert, 98). The town also possessed a one-room schoolhouse, suggesting that a degree of stability also existed Parker and Lambert, 99).

The final decline of the Galena district into obscurity seems to have been a slow process, extending through the 1910s and 20s. In 1912, Jim Hardin’s Branch Mint Railroad folded in 1912. “Natalie” seems to have remained in the Black Hills, assisting in track reconstruction for the CB&Q, but was eventually sold off to a museum in Billings, Montana (Fielder, 76). Traffic on the CB&Q spur to Galena continued intermittently until 1921 and the Interstate Commerce Commission approved abandonment of the line in 1927. The tracks were demolished and the rail recycled shortly thereafter (Fielder, 85). The fallout from the great stock market crash of 1929 marked the death knell for the Black Hills narrow gauge in general. The Chicago, Quincy and Burlington received permission from the ICC to abandon all of their Black Hills narrow gauge lines – more than 60 total miles – in 1930. The company parceled out the motive power. Two original BH&FP engines (#6 and #7, both Baldwin 2-6-0) and one original DC engine (#6, a Baldwin 2-8-0) were sent to Illinois for salvage and scrap; DC #5 (another Balwin 2-8-0) served the Colorado and Southern Railroad for nine more years before meeting the salvager’s torch in 1939 (Fielder, 85).

References:
Richmond L. Clow, Chasing the Glitter: Black Hills Milling, 1874-1959 (Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Society, 2002)
Mildred Fielder, Railroads of the Black Hills (NY: Bonanza Books, 1964)
Watson Parker, Gold in the Black Hills (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966)
Bev Pechan and Bill Groethe, Images of America: Deadwood 1876-1976 (Charleston SC: Arcadia, 2005)
Watson Parker and Hugh K Lambert, Black Hills Ghost Towns (Chicago: Sage Books, 1974)

I have a 2 story building in my backyard, and climbing stairs is getting more difficult all the time. I have a 5'X20' layout upstairs, and before I completely tear it down I thought I would get a few pictures of some parts of it. With a little luck (healthwise) I hope to get started on benchwork within a couple weeks or so. Without further ado, here they are.

Lynn    

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had a little stop in Easton today ,took some pictures of the former LV bridge(no longer in use) in the foreground and the former CNJ bridge (I think it's now NS) in the background,And also a bird that wanted to eat my camera. Sorry no trains today.    

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...on grabirons.
I'm in the process of re-equipping my railroad with rolling stock suited to a late-'30s time frame, so the '50s stuff is being sold-off or repainted in earlier paint schemes. To replace the cars sold, I'm buying new kits of cars appropriate to the era, and even some (gasp!) ready-to-run. Of course, it's not really "ready-to-run". In addition to changing car numbers, and adding weathering, I like to add a few details, such as free-standing metal grabirons, sill steps, and basic brake rigging. Well, I don't really like doing it, at least for so many cars, but it needs to be done.
There are commercially available grabs and sill steps offered, and I generally use them. Occasionally, though, grabirons of a non-standard size are required, or I run out of the ones I need and can't be bothered going to the hobby shop. With some suitably-sized wire and some basic modelling tools, you can make your own. I also made a couple of very simple jigs that can save time and aid in keeping these details uniform.
For HO scale grabirons, I use .012" brass wire, from Detail Associates, and, occasionally, .012" stainless steel wire, also from D.A. or music wire. The brass is easiest to work with, especially if using the simple jigs shown.
To make a grabiron, bend a 90 degree angle near the end of the piece of wire - this short length will be one of the "legs" which will mount in holes drilled into the carbody. Make this a suitable length for the thickness of the carside, (I bend mine over on the inside of the car, then secure them with ca) and make these "legs" even longer if you're going to be
creating drop-style grabs.

   

In addition to the long wire with the bent end, you can see the simple styrene bending jig (with the numbers 18", 24", and 30" written on it) that I use to maintain accurate lengths. It's basically a tapered piece of .060" sheet styrene, with "stops" (the bits with the numbers written on) cemented at the appropriate points. On the far side of the jig are slots which accept the short bent leg of the wire, then the wire is butted against the side of the stop (indicated by the arrows) and grasped with pliers, holding the short leg in its slot and the main wire against the "stop", as shown below. The free end of the wire is bent down, using the fingers, along the edge of the jig.

   

The formed grab, attached to the wire, is placed on a sheet of glass (my usual work surface), and cut free with a knife.

   

I use an old blade (I always seem to have way more old ones than new ones) which gives a much cleaner cut than do side-cutters. The stainless steel wire, at least in small diameters, can also be cut this way, but in all cases, secure the grabiron with your finger before "snicking" it free, as they do take-off.
(You can also cut larger diameter soft brass wire with a knife - working on a hard surface, simply place the blade at the appropriate spot, and while applying downward pressure, roll the wire back and forth with the blade.)

Another useful jig is one for bending drop-style grabirons. Because the jig is made from styrene, grabs made from brass wire are best suited for making into drop grabs - stainless and music wire are too hard to bend easily, and will quickly ruin the jig. A more substantial jig could be made of brass or aluminum if you prefer the harder wire.

   

The jig consists of a sheet of .060" styrene, to which have been cemented pieces of .020" and .030" sheet (giving a total thickness of .050"). The .050" material was placed using short lengths of .012" wire as spacers, creating a slot between the sheets .012" wide x .050" deep. I also used .010" sheet styrene to make "hold-downs" for the grabs, one each for 18", 24", and 30" sizes. These are kept with the main jig, as shown.

With the straight grabiron inserted into the slot, with the "legs" sticking up, the "hold-down" is pressed into place, as shown below, then a small screwdriver or knife blade (the blade in the picture should have the back (non-sharp) edge of the blade against the wire) is used to bend the legs down flat. In the jig below, from left to right, is a bent grab, one being bent, and a straight one.

   

Here are the drop-style grabs, on the left, with some straight ones to the right:

   

And here they are installed on an Accurail gondola. The ones on the ladder stile, to the left, are narrower than 18", and were bent to fit (not using the jig), while the single grab at right and the drop grabs on the end sill were made on the jigs. All of the grabirons on the side of the car, and those for a few other gondolas, too, are 18" ones made with the jigs.

   

And for any sharp-witted viewers, I am aware that the Accurail car is of a 1941 prototype. With a little re-lettering and some weathering, its generic style is "close enough" for me

For most car kits which come with free-standing plastic grabirons to be added by the modeller, I throw them directly into the garbage. However, if you wish to use them instead of wire ones, use a suitably-sized drill bit, in a pin vise, to ream-out the moulded-in holes - usually, the car has been painted by the manufacturer, and the accumulated paint makes the opening too tight to accept the plastic grabiron. My other suggestion is to not use tweezers to handle the grabirons - all too often, it's simply a method of launching them to a place where you'll only find them when you step on them, if you find them at all. The small, smooth-jawed pliers, shown in the second photo, were only a buck-or-so, and are much superior to tweezers in this type of operation.

Wayne  

Sequoia Scale Models HO scale cattle guards---keep them little plastic beasties off the high iron.

$3 s/h, PayPal preferred but not necessary, first one in wins, Good luck.

...or, how to make moulds, and cast your own weights.

It’s easy to make simple moulds for casting your own weights to bring too-light rolling stock up to NMRA specs, or to add weight to a loco, to increase its pulling power.

While there’s been a lot of alarmist talk about the dangers of lead, proper handling will allow you to take advantage of some of the useful properties of this material without jeopardising your health.
One of the useful properties of lead is its low melting point.   
In discussions with workers at a factory producing lead castings, it was noted that the Ontario Ministry of Labour does not require the use of breathing apparatus for those engaged in such work.
At higher temperatures, though, lead can vapourise - the steel plant where I worked occasionally rolled a grade of steel  with a high lead content, and employees were advised to wear two-stage respirators during this operation, as inhalation of the vapours can be harmful.  The melting point of lead is only 621.5ºF., while the rolling temperature for steel is in the range of 2300-2350ºF. 
 
The other main source of lead poisoning is through ingestion.  When working with lead, do not eat, drink, smoke, pick your nose or engage in any activity which will result in lead entering your body.  After handling lead, thoroughly wash your hands before engaging in any of these activities.  Don’t leave lead, including scraps, filings, or trimmings laying around anywhere that a child or pet can gain access to them - it takes a lot less lead to poison a child, and they’re much more apt to place things, including lead-contaminated hands, into their mouth.

To cast your own lead weights, you’ll need only a few simple tools, including:

- hand-held propane torch, as used by plumbers
- pencil
- straightedge
- utility knife
- tin snips
- pliers
- channel-locks ( required only if you’re pouring into tall moulds, which might otherwise tip)
- a metal container, preferably with a non-metal handle, and a pouring spout
- flat blade screwdriver (doesn’t have to be in good condition - used to lift impurities out of the molten lead)
- a bench vise is handy for sitting the container upon during the melting operation - open the jaws so that the container is supported only slightly by the vise, allowing little heat loss through the vise.
- a non-flammable surface on which to fill your moulds - I use a sheet of steel atop my workbench
- a two-stage respirator (same type cartridges as used for airbrushing - this item is actually optional, as lead at or even somewhat above its melting point is not a breathing hazard.)  

For materials:

- lead - I use old wheel balancing weights, usually available free from any tire shop or garage
- sheet aluminum for moulds - .015”-.030” thickness works well (scraps from aluminum siding work well, too (the painted side should go on the outside when bending the mould)
- soft iron or copper wire, if you’re making cylindrical moulds

Decide on the size and shape of the weight required, then use your pencil and straightedge to lay out the pattern on the aluminum.  If you require one side of the weight to be flat, and don’t want to have to do any filing, plan your mould so that this side will be on the bottom of the mould.  When the mould is filled, the molten lead forms a meniscus similar to that of mercury, with the centre higher than the edges.  
In the photo below, I’m making a number of similar moulds, which will extend, end-to-end, along the edge of the sheet.  After all pencil lines are completed, use your utility knife to score all lines where a bend will be made - one or two light-to-medium passes with the knife will be sufficient.  

   

Next, use the knife to make two or three heavy passes along all lines where the moulds will be separated from one another, as shown below, then flex the sheets back and forth a couple of times along the score lines, separating the pieces.

   

   

Use your tin snips, as shown below, to cut the edges to create tabs, which will help hold the mould together during the pouring operation

   

I’ve found it best to pick any one side on which to make the first two cuts, then to make the other two on the side opposite the first.

   

Next, using pliers, or your fingers, or even a solid, straight corner surface, bend the non-tabbed sides of the mould along the scored lines.  It doesn’t seem to make much difference if the score lines end up on the inside or outside of the mould.

   

Now bend the tabbed ends into position.

   

Because of the thickness of the already-bent sides, the score lines for bending the tabs around the sides will be in not quite the proper place - use the pliers to fold the tabs around the outside of the sides, as required.

   

Here are some examples of simple moulds made in this manner.

   

I made my melting pot from the steel cap of a large spray paint can, using pliers to crimp the edge to create a pouring spout.  The handle is a short length of broomstick, secured with a couple of screws and a bit of spare aluminum.
To melt the lead, place some used wheel balancing weights in your melting pot, then place it on the vise, as shown below, and apply heat with your propane torch.  The hottest part of the flame is the tip of the visible flame.

   

...and the torch:

   

I sometimes use pliers to grasp the steel clip used to attach the weight to the wheel rim, then heat the lead directly while holding it over the pot - the lead will partially melt, dropping into the pot, and the clip can be discarded.  Either way, continue heating the bottom of the pot until all of the lead has liquefied.  Dirt and impurities (and the steel clips, if they weren’t removed earlier) will float to the top of the molten lead.  Use the tip of the screwdriver to lift these out - the clips separately, while the impurities will clump together and can be scooped out with the screwdriver blade.  Continue heating while you do this - all of the lead, including that immediately atop the vise jaws, should be in a liquid state.

With your moulds sitting atop the metal sheet, simply tilt the pot and pour molten lead into each mould.  Fill or over-fill the moulds, and don’t worry if some slops over the top.  If you’re making a large weight, try to ensure that you have enough lead to cast it as a single pour, to avoid a fault line between separate pours.  If you must make a second pour, first note the top level of the first pour, then, when the second pour has been made (and before it has solidified), heat the outside of the mould with the torch flame, concentrating on the area where the two pours meet.  This will eliminate the fault line.

The molten lead is very shiny, but dulls quickly as it cools - the centre of the cast weight solidifies last, so avoid jarring it until all material has solidified.

For those moulds where you’ve got excess lead dripped down the outside of the mould, or heaped too high above the mould sides, simply play the flame of the torch over these areas - as the lead heats up, it will become shiny again, then drop away, forming into beads as it hits the metal pouring surface..  If you’ve under-filled a mould, use pliers to place some of these suitably-sized beads atop the lead in the mould, then re-heat the whole works - the partial weight will melt, with the melted beads blending into it.  Any excess beads and spillage, along with filings and pieces trimmed from weights can go back into the melting pot for the next batch.

After the weights have cooled (the bigger they are, the longer the cooling process) they can be removed from the moulds.  Some will simply drop out when the mould is inverted, while others may require one side of the mould to be opened slightly.  A knife blade, inserted between the mould wall and the weight works well for this.  Most moulds can be used several times before the aluminum fatigues sufficiently for a flexed side to break off.
Pictured below are a couple of “stock” weights and their moulds.

   

I use my scale ruler when doing the layout work for these moulds, and have found that a weight from a  mould measuring (in HO scale) 3’x8’x2’high weighs about one ounce - the centre of the weight is higher than 2’ because of the meniscus, and this height will vary depending on how much you fill (or overfill) the mould.

You can also cast cylindrical weights by forming the aluminum into a tube, then wrapping soft wire around the tube, as shown below.  I generally don’t bother to put a bottom on the tube, as the molten lead solidifies when it hits the metal work-surface.  I do use a pair of channel-locks to stabilise the tube during the pouring operation, though.  

   

Lead is also available in sheets of various thicknesses - check roofing or plumbing supply stores.  This type of lead is useful in situations where you need weights thinner than would be practical to cast.  You can cut it with a utility knife or tin snips.

I hope that you'll find this simple casting procedure useful.

Wayne