Author Archive: Scott

Completed Scenery in Kenville

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2009-06-08-garage-1There is a need for many details, but the major scenery in Kenville is complete.  This is the first town on the Bayside and Tidewater that has no visible styrofoam insulation!  Yippee!

Aside from the structures you’ve seen in past posts, there are a few new additions.  The first is Ken’s Korner Auto Service.   Ken is outside working on a lady’s vehicle while she waits patiently.  One of the neighbourhood kids is keeping Ken busy with questions.  He just might  have a future employee there!  The house beside the garage is Ken’s.  He finds it very convenient to live so close to work.

2009-06-08-garage-2The old fire station is on the other side of Ken’s Korner.  It’s been abandoned for a few years since the town council partnered with a community to the south to provide regional fire services.  It was either buy a new truck and build a bigger fire station or save some 2009-06-08-firestation-1money and partner with the other town.  The deal made sense until the local coffee shop burned to the ground.  Since they can’t get a decent cup of coffee anymore the Kenville town council is reconsidering the decision.  (side note:  Ken is considering buying a coffee pot)

Details and scenery have been added around Jay Forest Products.  It’s finally looking like they do something there!  I’m 2009-06-08-jayforest-1not sure how since there appears to be a lack of sawmill equipment (anyone know where I can get HO scale edger, planer, and trimming gear?).  It’s just a big empty space at the moment.

2009-06-08-jayforest-2They must cut something judging from the pile of sawdust out back.  It’s a never-ending task to keep the pile low.   Local inventor Malcolm D. Faber is getting a truckload to take home for an experiment.  He thinks he can combine the sawdust with glue to create panels similar to plywood.  He figures they’ll be cheaper and than boards or plywood and may be very valuable when wood becomes scarce.  I think he’s dreaming pie in the sky.  We will never run short of lumber!  But if he wants to waste his time with wood waste, then let him go to it!  If it gets rid of some sawdust at Jay Forest Products we’re all for it!  There’s a reason we call him Crazy Malcolm!

Scott

BS&T’s version of “Mega Moves”

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I know I promised you something in a few days and it has been quite a few days, but better late than never.

Have you ever seen the show “Mega Moves” or “Monster Moves” where they move large structures, some huge structures too?  Well, we had our own version of the show on the Island recently.  We wanted to move a replica of the Kensington Train Station (ver. 1) from Canadisle rail to the Bayside and Tidewater.  The crew was very professional and had one of those computerized hydraulic jacking systems (well, a bunch of guys with car jacks and one guy with a bull horn yelling “pump”, or “STOP!”).  Surprisingly, they managed to lift the station from its foundation enough to install huge I-beams underneath (Are you kidding!  Huge I-beams are expensive!  They stole some wooden beams from an old barn down the road!) and attached hydraulically operated wheel systems (Yeah, right.  An old flatbed was more like it. You should have heard the creaking and groaning.  Oh wait, that was me as I walked around and watched.).  This thing was a self-propelled monster!  My GOD it was scary!

2009-06-08-station-1Anyway, the station made the trip to Derwin’s Drop without a hitch.  Well, there was one hitch.  The crew on this end wasn’t ready.  So the Station is just sitting on blocking waiting for a foundation.  Who knows when the crew will be back.  We paid them 50% on delivery and they’re probably still at the Kensington Club drinking it away!

The signs will get changed, eventually.

More on this as the situation develops.

Scott

Back from…

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… where ever I was.

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything on this site.  I hope to get back into regular posting again.  Perhaps not as frequently as I once did, but maybe once or twice a week.  It will be difficult over the summer with so many other things competing for time.  I’ll try.

Between my fledgling business and planning for the MFMR Annual Convention (read the wrap up post on Island Rails 2009) it’s been pretty busy around here.  With the Convention out of the way I hope things will return to some sort of normalcy.

Now for a quick catch-up on what has happened on the layout recently (photos will follow in subsequent posts).  I did not achieve my goal of having 90% of the basic scenery done before the convention.  I was working very well toward that goal and then I got a cold/flu that put me out for about a week.  I just couldn’t get the gumption back to work on the layout after that.  Then the Convention was looming closer and planning started taking more of my time.

I did manage to get Kenville finished, for the most part, as well as the stretch between Kenville and Chappellton.  I have a few more structures in Chappellton and have a good start on the train station and underground platforms there.  The new Rail-Tug is almost complete.

The other evening I installed a decoder in a Kato RS2 that I picked up at the Moncton show (could not resist!) and consisted it with the old one that’s been sitting in engine storage for a long time.  Even though my coal drags are small they require more than one loco to get them over “The Ridge”.  So these two units will be the new power for that train.

I picked up (won actually) a Proto 2000 SW9/1200 switcher in CP PacMan scheme that I tried installing an MRC EMD sound decoder into.  Darn speaker just will not fit!  So I guess it will get the TCS decoder that I have on hand.  I’m not sure where this loco will do its thing.  I would like to add a milk train to the operations and it could power that.  Until then it’ll likely just sit in storage for a while.

Anyway, I hope I’ll have some pictures to post in a few days.

Until next time!

Scott

Next Build

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I’ve always envied modelers that have an endless supply of kits and supplies.  They always have something to work on.  Unfortunately some of them are just collectors of kits and never build anything.  Still, I’m in awe when I see stacks of unbuilt kits and drawers full of detail bits in someone’s work area.

I haven’t gotten to that point yet, but I do have a drawer or two in an old dresser that have several unbuilt items.   I’ve been looking through those drawers quite often lately in my exercise to have the layout “done” for the MFMR Convention in May.  I need structures! Chappellton hardly looks like a town and it’s supposed to be a city.  I need buildings – short and tall, fat and wide.  Brown buildings, red buildings, purple buildings – I don’t care!

Oh, and I need trees too.  Lots and lots of trees.  I doubt if I’ll get time to make any before Convention so I’ll have to make do.

post1So, what’s my next build?  Why, a tug boat of course!

I heard a while ago that Frenchman River Model Works had released a 92′ Railway Tug.  When I was asked to review it for Scratchbuilder’s Guild I nearly flipped.  The little 45′ Tug I reviewed for them last year just wasn’t cutting it in Chappellton.  The poor little thing was severely overworked!  So I jumped at the chance to build the “big brother”.

It arrived today and I hope to get started this evening.  I’ll make a post here when the review is complete and available at Scratchbuilder’s Guild.  After taking this photo I realize I have some barge building to do as well.

I haven’t opened the box yet.  I’ll leave that for this evening.

Scott

The Mine

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2009-04-02-mine-2I have been finding some time to work on the layout the past few weeks.  The time to get it ready for the open house during Convention is fast approaching and I’m not sure if I’ll reach my goal of complete basic scenery before then or not.  I’m going to try.

Here’s a photo of the coal mine that I’ve pretty much got done.  There are a few details that could be added, but perhaps not before the Convention.

There should be something hanging from the I-beam being hoisted to the main door of the building on the right and some more vehicles parked around the scene.  Some more hustle and bustle would bring it alive, I’m sure.

2009-04-02-mine-1The photo at the right is a closer view of the scene.  There is coal in the conveyer and the boys have to keep an eye on things to make sure the line doesn’t get plugged up.

Later!

Scott

Weekend Activities

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We had a great weekend running trains and chatting with folks at the County Fair Mall here in Summerside.  As far as I know it was the first time that anything like this has ever been done here.  We certainly increased awareness of the hobby and even dug a few more model railroaders out of the woodwork.  Hopefully a few will join our operating group.

I posted a more detailed report on the Island Rails web site.  Click here to read about it.

Scott

Operating in Saint John – 2009

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A week ago we had our 3rd annual operating day in Saint John.  Not wanting a repeat of the last few late starts I created a healthy competition to make sure the guys were on time.  Brian and Derwin were actually early!   We were on the road pretty much on time!

We stopped at the local Tim’s/Esso to fuel up.  I did the gas pumping duties while Brian and Derwin went inside.  I got my coffe and we were on our way. We had one stop in Moncton to pick up Jean and Ryan.

The conversation in the car was pretty normal until I mentioned something about Brian paying for the gas (we were using his car).  He said he thought I was paying for the gas (from our group travel fund).  Nope, I didn’t pay for the gas.  It was the first time I ever did a “gas and dash”.  If I had known we were doing it I wouldn’t have been able to.  We had all kinds of thought of “APB’s” and roadblocks set up looking for us.  It didn’t happen and we did settle the bill after we got back.

Anyway, we picked up Jean and Ryan and made it to Doug’s place by 10:30.  Besides Doug we were joined by a couple of N-scalers that wanted to play trains with the big boys – Lawrence and Mark performed duties that required knowledge of the layout, like dispatching and yard work.  It was Jean’s first time there so he was happy to partner with me for the first couple of jobs.  We drew the daily container train from Dever Road Yard to McAdam for our first train.  It was a great way to see the whole layout at a leisurely pace.  Although, Doug did come around shortly after we left Dever Road and made an off-hand comment referring to our lack of speed and the profitability of the railroad – so we moved a little faster after that.

Our second train was a wayfreight so we had a little more work to do than with our first one.  There was something to do at just about every stop.

Derwin got lucky and drew a track maintenance job – just a loco and a rail cleaning car.  He didn’t get to do a lot of switching, but he did watch a lot of trains go by while he was thawing out frozen point rails and cleaning flanges.

At some point Derwin must have got tired of every one else doning something profitable and he finished up his maintenance job.  He and Ryan then took a train out of McAdam bound for Saint John.

I’m sure Brian ran something there, but I’ll be darned if I can remember now.

About 1:00 we decided it was time for lunch and a stop at the train store before heading to Steve’s.  We found the train store easy enough and spent only a little bit of money.  I picked up a CP 1/2 ton truck,  some Woodland Scenics people, and a couple other odds and ends that you’ll see photos of over time.

Then we unleashed ourselves on Steve’s “Carleton Railway”.  He had no idea what kind of havoc we would bring.  Jean and I ran the local switchjob in South Newbridge.  The task was to pull cars from the local indistries, sort them onto the departure tracks, put the on the approriate train through town.  It seemed easy enough so we got down to business.

Brian was running the first train into town.  Since he was heading west we gave him all the west bound cars in South Newbridge and gave him a push up the hill.  We thought it was really cool to have long main line runs to make long trains look good!  Next train through was Ryan heading east so we did the same with our waiting east bound cars.  We were done, except for a few cars to put away.

Eventually Steve figured out why we were done so quick and why Ryan’s and Brian’s trains were so long.  We weren’t supposed to give them everything we had – only certain cars (empties I think).  The other cars were supposed to go on trains that would come through town later.  I guess we should have read the instructions so conveniently posted on the fascia.  Oops!  It really was Derwin’s fault, but I haven’t figured out a good way to explain it yet.

We had supper at Steve’s and after supper we finished up the rest of the work and left for home about 7:00.

We always have a lot of fun when we visit Doug and Steve.  We really appreciate their hospitality and calmness when we screw up!  HA!

Thanks guys!

Scott

New Server – New Look

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I’ve taken the plunge and moved this Blog from WordPress to my own server (well, not really my own, but one that I pay rent to use).  It was an experiment to see what was involved in moving a website from one location to another.  There were a few glitches, but it finally works.  The advantage is that I can customize to my hearts content.  There’s a lot of “stuff” available to WordPress Blogs that are not hosted at WordPress.com!

Anyway, please bear with me as I get a few of the bugs worked out.  The header is still not quite right and there are some other tweaks I’d like to make to the design.  Please let me know if you encounter any problems with things.

Later!

Scott

Note:  I think I have the design ok now.  At least the header looks better!

[email_link]

Golden Spike Bar & Grill

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signs-1-bigAfter a long break this project is back off the shelf.  I spent some time the other evening putting some signs on the sides of the building.  Visit Scratchbuilder’s Guild to see the process I used to make and apply the signs.

The next step will be to install the “glass” and figure out some way to make a decent looking interior without actually modeling an interior.  I think that computer graphics software will play a key role once again.

This building will be a nice addition to the city scene I imagine being in Chappellton.  Only about 2-1/2 months before it has to be ready for the MFMR Convention open house I’m hosting.  There’s a lot of work to do!

Must get back to work…

Scott

MRC 1663 Decoder For Atlas S2/4’s

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Ok, so we’ve had some problems with our sound decoders since we installed them a few weeks ago.  If you missed that post – here it is.

Anyway, Derwin’s loco lost all engine noise, but other sounds like horn and bell worked.  Both of mine were fine until Derwin ran one of them during an operating session.  The result was no engine noise, but bell and horn would work.  The commone denominator – Derwin – as usual!   HA!

I reprogrammed my loco (thank God for DecoderPro) and it worked fine.  The same fix didn’t work for Derwin unfortunately.  Then I got an email from Daniel Watkins thanking me for my post on installing these decoders.  After an exchange of a few emails we discovered his loco had a very similar problem.

So, the power of the public press came to the rescue.  I sent an email to MRC on Saturday.  I did not expect a reply until Monday or Tuesday.  However, when I turned on my computer Monday morning there was an email from Frank waiting for me.  Wow – I was impressed.  Here is Frank’s response…

Scott,
if you have horn and bell sounds but nothing else it is possible you inadvertently shut off the prime mover sounds
did you try double clicking the headlight button, [F0] as we use this as a mute, and also F12 is the sound on/off mute or try playing with CV # 49 to see if you can get the sounds back onif all eles fails send me the decoder, [no money] and i’ll check it out for you.
Frank

I asked Frank what value to set for CV49.  His next email suggested setting it to “1”.
Since I had Derwin’s loco here I tried Franks suggestions and a double-click of F0 did trick. Daniel had a similar response on one of the groups and it solved his problem.  Unfortunately there is no mention of this F0 feature in the documentation that comes with the decoder and no mention of what CV49 does.
This problem is resolved, I think.  I’m still not completely happy with the decoder – the lowest volume level is still too loud and the speed adjustment is coarse,  but I don’t think you can beat its price when you get it on sale.
Scott