Southern Pacific's Jefferson Branch

[ratled]

I leave for 5 minutes

and cars start showing up in the yard!   Sheesh the yard isn't in service yet ....AND there are even 2 McCloud River cars on the RIP already.  Some days it doesn't  pay to to be in the yard. What a way to run a railroad......




Actually I put the 0-5-0 to use to run a few cars through the various moves to check out the tunnel 5 extension before I start installing all the final pieces in permanently.

[ratled]

10 pounds of RR in a 5 pond sack?

I think it might have been the fumes when I was installing the new section for good..... I thought how cool would it be to make a video (with a little creative editing) showing an arriving train from the rest of the world onto AD-1 and pick up the out bound train on AD-2 to head back to the rest of the world to show the concept.
Then I thought I what if could actually do that before I install the track for good.  AND THEN I thought how good would it be to do that now and again for an extended operations like when there was a guest operator!  I walked away for a break but the thought never left me.

It's got me wondering "what if" I installed a turnout just before the tunnel that could be blocked off as a dead spur most of the time but for that occasional time could be placed into service temporarily now and again for real off line staging? 

Am I trying to put 10 pounds of RR into a 5 pound sack or really making the most of what I got?

[ratled]

Here is today's update.... it's a long one.   I should be current hopefully by the end of the weekend

Continuing progress
First off, I found a new to me picture of the Pres to logs building at PALCO. The poster stated they thought it was c. 1940 based on the vehicles in the photo.

I'm posting the link for anyone who might want to see it. Not much there but the photo I grabbed is HUGE which allows for some nice zoom.
PALCO c. 1940



I have been playing with various styles of the over sprung turnout throws to see what will work best. This is a WIP at best. I am using Atlas turnouts which aren't the easiest to setup for this. The issue is the distance between the throw bar and the first usable sleeper to hinge off of is a little long for my liking for a finished product. I have been successful but haven't perfected it yet. I'm trying to find some suitable brass tubing to try as the pivot point to see how that works.

I did cobble together a little roll out shelf for the Digitrax with a on/off power strip conveniently located. I also updated the system with a Digitrax LNWI Now I can use smart phones as throttles instead of having to buy more UT4 throttles. I have begun installing the DCC bus for the layout.  (Note as of this posting 12/17/202 I am NOT using the LNWI anymore)





In between I have been making a few wood ties to fill in the gaps between the flex track. I use to use the ME stained ties for this but they are no longer available. I looked at similar products but it's $15- $20 plus about $10 in shipping for only a 1,000! I wound up going the DIY route. Walmart sells stick matches for 97 cents for 250. A little TV time at The Chopper and I'm good to go. I used 2 squirts of cheap craft acrylic brown paint and a half a squirt of black in about 2 cups of IPA for the wash. I let it sit for about 2 days until a couple of the ties started to sink. I plan to use some for track clutter that would have been left track side and the rest for the gaps. When I hit the track with brown paint they will blend in nicely.





I was able to get the service yard installed and the caboose track in the far end of the Humboldt yard.



I mocked up the track for the Oro River scenic area which goes from the yard over to Jefferson. This area will have a CV 1902 truss bridge over the Oro river and will allow me to transition from the green/conifer area of the yard to the golden grass that will be in Jefferson. It's not quite like I wanted but given about the 12' of run and keeping the curves not too tight it is what it is.





I started to mock up Jefferson while I was at it. Vegely DeFind got stretched and added to. I'm liking the potential for several different spots for box cars and tanks for hoppers / tanks cars. I mocked up a little loading platform from a door shim and some scrap plywood which opens up all kinds of car potential...... Vegely DeFind, the ultimate team track! At about 4' (yet to be used T5 lights serves as the main building place holder) it should provide some good traffic.







I roughed out the Jefferson run around, the trackage for Bigfoot Salvage and Seiad Cement.



Anderson Door & Window just didn't seem to fit the theme of the layout so I am looking for a change. It needs to be something with a little more rail traffic and fit the space available. I was thinking of doing a plywood mill and would like to see if any were served by the NWP in the northern area to play off of. I'm thinking of something like the backside of Murphy Plywood in Rouge River OR (off I-5) if anyone knows of that. I also need to look into what would be appropriate car loads in/out would be other than plywood out.

[ratled]

Arcatia Plywood.

I found a nice picture of the Arcata Mill that really could fit the bill to model my version off of.  The link stated there were two mills in the 60's.  I'm thinking they opened a 3rd in Jefferson
Arcatia Plywood mill referance




I went ahead and mocked up Jefferson as I was having troubles walking it through how it would flow. The issue stems from when I changed from A W&D to Arcata Plywood off a switch back from Vegely DeFind. It wasn't bad when it was a single track, 2 car industry but now it's a 2 track industry that may handle as many as 5-7 cars on the same switch back.

I'm not a big fan of switch backs but I wound up down that path anyway. I want to be sure not to foul Vegely DeFind when working Arcata Plywood. Although there is a run around in Jefferson it doesn't allow for an easy set up to be able to push cars into Arcata Plywood. I spent the day roughing out different scenarios trying to eliminate the use of the switch back, maybe using a crossing tracks etc. The solution I'm leaning towards is to be sure the there is enough track to use next to Vegely DeFind and adding the Jefferson team track.

The new team track is on the far side of the main from the run around. The bonus going this route is it makes great place to set out the off spots.







I gave it a second look at it again and took pictures this time.  I also marked out how it was in case I wanted to go back.



The two issues for me were that the train would have to blocked properly before leaving the yard or the road crew would be in trouble.  With the 3 facing points and one trailing point you have to have Arcata Plywood in the back and use the caboose has a handle to switch.  Then anything for Seiad Cement in the far back corner and it goes on from there as there is no way to run around if you clear the main as you pull into town and still be able to break the train into manageable industry bites.  .  The other is more me but you have to back too close back to the yard.







I did leave it as is with the 19' crossing in place for now and will give it several more looks over the next 24 hours.  I always like using 2" foam as a base to be able to do things like this with just a few pieces of track and some push pins

[ratled]

Jefferson track is in!

In addition to having to figure out a little more of the particulars of how each of the final scenes will be, the whole family has (had) a nasty sinus infection and we all are on our second and third round of antibiotics! To top that off, when I went to install the track, the very first piece of track I went to cut broke the jaws on rail nippers. The only place in over 100 miles that would even carry them was out and didn't know when they would be back in stock. I had to order a set and wait for them to get here.

I did bump Vegely DeFind out 2” and the main set of building/s along the backdrop will end up being about 5' in length. The building/s will have about 3” of relief but will vary for different parts of it as the portotype bakery in LA that inspired Reinhard and his original build of Mutual Grain Service.



I bumped out Seiad Cement a little but not as much with cross over to the area taking up some of the real estate there. I shortened the track to the final length. I also worked out the rail ops plan for it where it will have 4 cars at any time will only rotate 2 cars every other time Vegely DeFind is serviced.



I bumped out Arcata Plywood 1.5”. The length of the main building will allow for 4 cars and 2 wood chip cars on the other track.





All of the feeder wires are in and just need to be tied into the bus. Once I get the over springs in on all of the turnouts I will be able to run trains from Humboldt through Jefferson which is better than 2/3rds of the layout. I did put in a temporary track along what will be the Placer Creek scenic area so I can use that as a drill track for switching Jefferson.

That still leaves the valance, backdrop and the track for Siskiyou Lumber before it is “complete”. After that it will be the car forwarding system, the inventory of the rolling stock & getting those up to standards, motive power rounded out, the backdrop and .....................

On other thing I am thinking about is filling in the corner as you first come into Jefferson. Since it is in the corner the aisle width extra deep. Even with the mock up addition the width is 41”.





That's it for now.  I wound up getting a few  E &C SP wood chip cars that will be distracting me in the mean time

[Tyson Rayles]

That's a massive project you have going there! Wish I had that much space and glad I don't at the same time!

[ratled]

Thanks Mike! I actually wanted more but the higher powers knew better and set me up with what I needed.... and they were right.      

Its alive ! The Jefferson branch lives (locos are lit).



The bus is in, all of the feeders are in and providing good power throughout from the yard to the far side of Jefferson.



I ran this little Atlas silver series MP15DC through every bit of track without issues and all TOs worked flawlessly. That little MP15 is great runner and performed like a champ after almost 10 years in a box and no work to it. It will get repainted at some point to SP 2695 to be the yard switcher.



This is the first time I have ran a train with a phone as a the throttle. I have to say the Digitrax LNWI WAS a great thing. Easy to install and simple to run. For less than a cost of another throttle all phones can now be throttles.  NOTE:  As of this posting on 12/20/20 I have replaced with something else as it started to fail after only a few months

Most of the TOs have over spring control (yellow pins) but I have been having some issues bending them up. My dexterity issues came into play and I wasn't expecting that. Kind of set me back for a while. I did have 2 packs of the Caboose ground throws (green pins) in the mean time to get things back on course. There are a couple of TOs that were just pinned in place for now as their operation isn't critical (blue pins).



I added a new Walther's Proto SD9E to the fleet. A nice looking model but the included ESU decoder leaves me wanting. It's twitchy and makes strange sounds when F8 is used. When I change the address to the 2 digit loco number it actually gets worse for some reason. I'll have to get into it when I get decoder Pro up and running to see what is all in there. I had high hopes for the engine.... it has been sold off!

I put an Atlas silver GP40 in service as well (next to the SD9). It needs a little love and a good PM but not bad for also being in the box for 10 years. Hopefully I can find it's mate in the consist and get the pair running for regular service on the Siskiyou turn.



Currently I'm going through several boxes of rolling stock to populate the layout. Just looking for appropriate cars to get things going for now and will worry about standards down the road as long as they are road worthy. Everything else is going into a For Sale box to hit E Bay soon.

Lastly little test video
A while back I saw a post about using a GoPro to shoot video.  I thought I would give it a try.  I also remember some years ago Lance M. flipped his camera upside down to get the lens closest to the "ground".  

I found my pair of Atlas Silver series GP40-2s (c. 2009) that are paired as my  consist so I used them   These have been sitting in the box for the last 10 years and worked very well on non cleaned track.  I got these when the production run was winding down and vendors were offering deep discounts on roads that weren't selling.  At the same time Atlas was offering complete shells of different roads and the SSWs were on sale.  I bought several of each to get a nice fleet.

[ratled]

Extra 7277
While I sort of have been running trains back and forth since everything has been in I thought it was time to run a proper train all the way through. I haven't even started putting the car forwarding system in place yet so I ran with just a good ol switch list. One of the things I wanted to find out from this is the real time run time this sample train would take.

For the test train Extra 7277 got the call, a double headed set of GP40-2s served as the power. The run had 4 set outs, 5 pick ups and relocate 2 over flow cars for 2 of the 4 industries in Jefferson .  It worked out that from the time the yard switcher tacked on  the caboose for this run until it put the caboose back on the caboose track it took 50 real time minutes. I was very pleased on how it all performed and the track plan flowed. It thoroughly met the building objective of switching challenges without a Time Saver feel.

Yard switcher 5031 (eventually to be SP 2695) tacking on the caboose as Extra 7277 heads out onto the main



Taking the siding as Extra 7277 pulls into Jefferson



After working Arcata Plywood, and the 2 over flow cars for it, 7277 is seen working Vegley DeFind.



With the work complete in Jefferson and the train built 7277 pulls onto the main for the trip home



7277 pulls into the yard and onto AD-2 upon returning to the Humboldt yard



5031 quickly jumps onto breaking down the new arrival



Just a note - all of the TOs now have over sprung turnout control. Work will start next on the box kite frame that will be the upper valance over Siskiyou. Initially this was not to be a storage area but I think I will use it to store the empty rolling stock boxes. They should be light enough for there and will free up a bunch of space under the layout for other storage.

[ratled]

Vista view is gone!

I'm glad the upper valance is in but the vista view started to grow on me a little. Here is the last look of the vista view right before the hard board went in.



The frame was built outside the layout room and moved to the peninsula. Some 2x2 upright braces were used to keep it centered and it was lifted in place using cribbing and door shims until it was bolted into place.





I used cardboard for the decking on the valance to keep the weight down, and since my neighbor got a 65” TV, it was free to boot.  Being such large pieces of cardboard I was able to keep the seams to a minimum .



I used four more of the T5 LED lights for the area. In all, I have 15 of these daisy chained to light the whole layout. I am still enjoying these as much as the day I started to put these in.



Here is the whole Siskiyou Lumber section. I just have to figure out how the final track arrangement will be.



This is the view as you first walk into the layout room. I used 1/8” masonite for backdrop. Since it is so flimsy I used some 1x3s to give it some rigidity. The actual back drop will be the backside of some vinyl flooring but for now I can start laying the scene out. I was trying to decide if I was going to paint the other side black or use white to break up all the black but I'm really starting to like the natural brown of the masonite with the black furring. For now it will stay as is but I may remove the pencil lines.



Still have to clean things up a little but it’s a good start.

[Rscott417]

Am I trying to put 10 pounds of RR into a 5 pound sack or really making the most of what I got?

I find myself in the same predicament all the time

[Tyson Rayles]

It's always good when the power comes on and the trains start to move!

[ratled]

Thanks Guys!   Always nice when they don't smoke either!

The next progress update

I had cobbled together a shelf to hold some miscellaneous stuff as I was working through the boxes. I turned it into a temporary work area. It's nice to have a proper area to work area again. It will have to be relocated when the Oro River goes in but I think the shelf will get used again for this purpose and get a little TLC when that happens.



I have been mocking up the track for Siskiyou. This is the current arrangement.





Here is the thought process:
1-Log car set out
2- Wood Chips
3- Misc mill blog
4- Iconic mill bldg
5- Pres-to-logs
6- Set out track



I also found this new to me picture from 1961 I thought was nice to add to the collection but I'm not sure of the source to credit



And lastly I found this video on some more current PALCO operations

[ratled]

Merry Christmas everyone!!!!!!!!

Its golden spike time!
The Siskiyou track work is complete. It's the last section of the layout. It took me a while to work out the final track arrangement so that I am happy with it, its functionally practical, and meets the objectives I set out back on page 1 of this thread. I also ordered some of the wrong parts which didn't help any. All the feeders are in and the TO's are temporally in operation with Caboose Ind ground throws until I can fabricate up the over sprung throws.



Even scaled down the Siskiyou Mill can produce more traffic than the RR can handle – which is true of any mill that is rail served. I ran a test train through the area and I can say it is a challenge to switch! I could easily run a 20 car train to service this area but only have enough space for about 10 cars at a time. Here are few pictures of the area and the test train:










I ran a couple of cement cars as stand ins for the log cars to test that area.



Although PALCO, the mill I am loosely modeling after, used flat cars for logs instead of spline cars, I like the feel better of the spline cars. As stated earlier “feels like” trumps “is like”. I am currently mocking up a spline style log car with parts on hand (except for the bunks). I think the mock up is coming along good enough to go ahead and order the proper supplies but I want work on it a little more.

Whats next? I need to shake down the area throughly. I'm in desperate need of acceptable cars, especially box cars and flat cars. I also need to bring what I have up to minimum standards which includes Kadee #148s w/ no trip pins, metal wheels and up to weight standards. The motive power is so in need a good PM.

[ratled]

The great escape

How do you fit what should have been 20' of RR in a 12' space? With selective compression of the selective compression. One of things that was always planned for this area was the use of a fold down section of track at the end of the turnout coming out of the siding for the locos to escape so they can run around to the back of the train. This small section of track, coupled with the crossover in the middle of the siding, is what allows the Siskiyou area to be effectively switched.

The fascia for this area had to go in first. It's 9” tall, as it will be throughout. I duct taped a couple of angle brackets to it when installing it so it would be flush with the surface of the foam base.



The folding shelf is 3/4” plywood and a pair of brackets from Amazon. These are very stable and have a positive lock. The handles make it easy to stow back.  In the off chance anyone needs a set, here are the ones I used......   Amzon Brackets HERE





For track alignment I soldered on a pair of track joiners to the layout side. I nipped the inside wall on the receiving side of the joiners and opened that up flat to make an L on each side. I installed the escape track with the shelf in the up position and let the glue dry over night. The connection is tight enough to provide current to the track just from the rail joiners but it will get a dedicated power lead. I glued a couple of dowels along the tracks to protect the rail when in it's normal position. Once the area has been given a through shake down and determined to be bomb proof it will get painted black. For now I don't want to hide any issues under paint.







Trains get run almost every day but Jefferson hasn't been run in while with Siskiyou up and running. I tweak things on track and trains as I go and still need to convert the Siskiyou area TOs from the ground throws to over spring. I also cobbled a switch list template together so I can at least I have some kind of paperwork.

[ratled]

Some visual progress

Trains run frequently as the track work gets vetted. It is remarkably solid except for one Atlas #4 TO and that hasn't made me mad enough to replace it....... yet. Almost all of my running issues have been the rolling stock related. It's either been couplers and trip pins, wheels or car weight (really lack of weight) . I have been correcting those as the crop up by replacing the couplers with Kadee #148 couplers and removing the all trip pins or replacing the wheels with Walthers 33” metal wheels and running a truck tuner through them as I go. The weight adjustments are coming soon. I'm developing a nice little operating scheme too.

While mostly just running trains there was a short whirlwind of activity. First off, the workbench was relocated to it's permanent location. It has been working so well, and I was really settling into it, that  I didn't want to make too many additions to it only to have to move it when the Oro River eventually goes in. You can see it in the upcoming pictures.

I put in the backdrop behind Siskiyou. It has been bare 1/8” hardboard that connects to the upper soffits and peninsula so it's really not too structural.



Home Depot had some vinyl flooring for 49 cents a foot. I was able to get a 2' x12' section. It was glued in with Liquid Nails for projects. I hit it with a sealer of Killz and gave it a single coat of my sky color. I finished the area behind Placer Creek and the extension past Humboldt yard at the other of the RR with the blue paint while I was at it. Now the whole layout has a basic backdrop with the sky color.



All of the fascia is in! It's 1/8” hardboard and 9” tall.  The hardest parts was this section.  I used wet hot towels to soften the masonite.  After about 10 minutes of soaking it was good to go.  I clamped in place and left it to dry.  Once dry I ensured I liked the fit and installed it.



I gave it a quick coat of Kilz Wildwood RL#250 in Walmart's cheapest satin finish. It is the final color but not the final coat. It does give it some color for now. It's a funny color too, sometimes it is Sage Green or OD green, sometimes it a gray/green and sometimes it is slate or gun metal gray. The pictures don't show it too well but I really like it and its a departure from my normal thought process.



I finished up the upper soffits with skirting. I also installed all of the lower fascia skirting as well. Here are some of pictures as the layout all dressed up. You can see the workbench it's new location……





Here is the drawer slide for the DCC and the fascia.





I found about a dozen of my old unbranded wood loads for the bulkhead flats and put them into service as place holders until I can make some real lumber loads It's nice not having to always haul empties. I liked it so much I'm going to make place holders for the woodchip cars and the gons at Bigfoot Salvage.



I have been playing with ballast samples and dirt for the yard. I saw BArailsystem had in interesting ballast tool from Proses (Bachman) in this Dec 19 update. Mine came today and am looking forward to checking it out.



Here is a link to that video and the ballast tool starts at the 8:28 mark (but his layout is worth watching the whole video).




Other things that have been going on is getting my paint booth up and working on some backdrop colors for the distant mountains. It's nice to see it come together and no longer a vision in my head.......