Table of contents for February 2018 in Model Railroader

Link. Look. Learn more! When this month’s featured project layout concludes in print, the story continues on Model Railroader Video Plus! Visit MRVideoPlus.com to find more than 60 step-by-step videos covering all aspects of building and operating the Tar Branch. Not an MRVP subscriber yet? Watch the FREE VIDEO to see what you’ve been missing! THERE’S ALWAYS MORE ON MRVP! If a photo is worth 1,000 words, then the MRVP library, containing more than 1,000 videos, is nothing short of a treasure trove. With online access to such a wide array of content, you’ll have gamechanging techniques, cost-saving tips, and more at the ready, 24-7, from any Internet- enabled TV, computer, tablet, or smartphone. But even if you’re not quite ready to embrace all of the benefits an MRVP streaming…

The ultimate in dust (and fur) deterrence In the October (2017) issue, you asked how readers keep the dust off their layouts. Since we have cats in the house, I have to keep not only dust and cat hair off the layout, but also the critters themselves. So I completely enclosed the layout with sliding Plexiglas panels all around. Then I installed a vent fan with a HEPA filter in the top of the enclosure. I simply change the filter every 6 months or so, and in 25 years, I’ve never had to dust anything on the layout. – Thomas Kupferer, Naperville, Ill.…

A successful model railroad begins with a foundation of sturdy benchwork and smooth-running track. A compact layout like the 2'-9" x 8'-2" Winston Salem Southbound Tar Branch provides the perfect place for a model railroader to hone his or her benchwork-building and tracklaying skills. In this installment of the series, Model Railroader Video Plus producer David Popp demonstrates some of the techniques used on the HO scale project layout. The layout’s benchwork centers on classic L-girder construction. Basically a 1 x 2 attached to a 1 x 4, these engineered beams provide rock-steady support. The 1 x 2 flange also makes it easy to attach joists that support the layout’s 1 ⁄2" plywood subroadbed. The leg system is made of 2 x 2s with 1 x 3 and 1 x…

I knew when I first started building my railroad I was going to need a lot of trees. After all, I’m modeling the mountains of West Virginia. On my trips to Baltimore & Ohio country, I noticed how the trees on the hillsides varied in size, texture, and color. At the base of most trees there’s undergrowth. Often, you don’t see the tree trunk. I wanted to capture that look on my layout. Using black and green poly fiber, Woodland Scenics ground foam (light, medium, and dark green), toothpicks, and some unscented super hold hair spray, I was able to populate the hillsides quickly and realistically. Here’s how to do it. First, tear off small clumps of poly fiber. I prefer black, as it gives the trees more depth, but…

Reverse loops, turntables, and wyes have always presented model railroaders with the issue of how to maintain correct polarity when turning or reversing a locomotive or a whole train. Because of this long history, dozens of articles have appeared in hobby magazines and books detailing a myriad of inventive ways to deal with the potential short circuits created by these track orientations. The good news is that all of the methods for dealing with shorts in the directcurrent (DC) environment should work with Digital Command Control (DCC). However, in most cases there are easier ways to correct the problem on DCC-powered layouts than using DC-oriented methods. Let’s take a look at each potential problem, and at the ways to correct it on a DCCpowered layout. The simple reverse loop is…

ScaleTrains.com has added a pair of General American Airslide covered hoppers to its HO scale freight car line-up. The first is a 4,566-cubic-foot-capacity car, part of the company’s Rivet Counter line. The second is a 4,180-cubic-foot-capacity car, an Operator line model. Both cars have a one-piece injection-molded plastic body with a separately applied roof. A steel weight is secured to the inside of the body with two ringed-head screws. As the photo above shows, the level of detail differentiates the Rivet Counter (ADM Milling Co.) and Operator (Burlington Northern) lines. The ADM car has etched-metal running boards, wire grab irons, metal couplers, and Barber S-2 100-ton trucks with rotating bearing caps. The BN car has plastic running boards and couplers, holes for separately applied details, and trucks with non-rotating bearing…

Those of you who are not only modelers but railfans will probably be familiar with the time-honored tradition of the photo line. The idea is that everyone lines up abreast so that no one is in anyone else’s photograph. The photo at right illustrates the concept. It also suggests some interesting scenic and operational possibilities for our model railroads. A photo line could be the premise for what we commonly call a mini-scene. The reason for the gathering of railfan photographers could be a special run such as a fan trip, a circus train, or the last (or even first) run of a train or type of locomotive. The occasion need not mark something exceptional; new motive power or one of the last hood units painted in the classic Santa…

Mountains and coal on the B&O John Listermann’s HO scale model railroad is inspired by the Baltimore & Ohio through West Virginia in the early 1950s. Subscribers can admire some of the Appalachian coal country scenes and big locomotives in this exclusive online video at www.ModelRailroader.com. Free trackside photo download The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe El Capitan rounds a curve at Cajon Pass on Dave Bigge’s HO scale layout. Dave’s trackside photo, featured on page 78, is this month’s computer desktop wallpaper. Click on the link under Online Extras on the MR home page to download the image. ONLINE EXTRAS Red barn demo We review Bowser Trains HO scale SD40-2F “red barn” diesel on page 68. This new locomotive features an ESU LokSound decoder. Subscribers can see and hear the…

MY HO SCALE Union Pacific Daneburg Subdivision has just two railserved industries, one of which is the Safety-Kleen oil-recycling business I wrote about in the January 2018 Model Railroader. Since the prototype business in Grand Island, Neb., is served by both trains and trucks, its rail siding is embedded in a concrete lot. Only the styrene foundations for the structures were done at the time when I made the scenery on the Safety-Kleen section of the layout, including paving the lot with its embedded rails. As I had on the roads on my layout, I used Woodland Scenics Smooth-It for the Safety-Kleen lot. This is a lightweight plaster that’s easy to work with and easy to sand, too. Plaster has a realistic feel that’s hard to obtain with styrene sheets.…

The sprawling Sacoma Terminal fills an approximately 20-footlong peninsula at the entry of Steve Mahan’s HO scale Pacific Coast Lines layout. That’s fitting because, as Steve says, he’s partial to passenger trains. “We have a yard that not only includes a passenger yard, but also a head-end facility for the express cars, a postal annex, and a Railway Express Agency (REA),” says Steve. His crew can do everything needed from servicing a train at the terminal to assembling a new train from the coaches, sleepers, lounges, and diners, plus the head-end cars, in the coach yard and postal annex. But the layout, which fills two rooms in an L shape that measures 42 x 57 feet overall, focuses on more than strictly passenger operations. Plenty of freight trains run, too.…

For the first time in plastic, a cowlbody SD40-2F rolls along HO scale rails thanks to Bowser Trains. Dubbed “Red Barn” by railfans, the cowl body locomotive is a perfect follow-up to Bowser’s General Motors Diesel Division SD40-2 released last year. (See my review in the July 2016 Model Railroader.) Our review sample came factory-equipped with an ESU LokSound decoder that adds realistic sound to this detailed model on both Digital Command Control (DCC) and direct-current (DC) layouts. The prototype. In 1988 and 1989 General Motors Diesel Division produced 25 SD40-2F diesel-electric locomotives for CP Rail. Built two years after the last SD40-2s rolled out of Electro- Motive Division’s La Grange, Ill., plant, the Canadian-built SD40-2Fs featured a wide-nose safety cab and a cowl body. These custom-built locomotives marked the…

Last June, I explained how train signals, such as classification lights or flags, help railroaders identify opposing trains. White flags and white lights indicate that trains are extras, not regular trains. Another type of train signal applies to the movement of sections, which can add an interesting element to an operating session. Consider a surge in traffic that produces more tonnage than normal, such as a grain rush or holiday passenger travel. With additional cars to move, more trains are needed. An operating officer or a dispatcher has the ability to run two trains on the same schedule to accommodate the additional movements. Run two trains on the same schedule, you say? That’s preposterous! Not at all. Rule 85 explicitly allows two or more trains to run on the same…

I found myself needing a decent-sized flat space to work on a modeling project not too long ago. Most people would say, “Hmmm, if I throw a few things away I could open up the needed space on my workbench.” Not me. I considered just building a new workbench. Everyone should have two or three, I think. But common sense eventually won the day and I decided that, yes, what I really needed was less stuff in the basement. I decided I was going to be ruthless in tossing items. In my head, I could hear the voice of one of those way-too-loud TV commercials: “Crazy days! Everything must go! We’re clearing out everything to the bare walls!” The purge was on. I attacked the clutter on my existing workbenches.…

One of the chances you take when modeling a small railroad is finding locomotives in the paint scheme you need. There have been an abundance of Electro- Motive Division GP9s produced in HO scale over the years, but never one painted for the Winston-Salem Southbound (WSS). Though we could easily populate our small switching layout with ready-to-run freight cars, we were on our own when it came to a GP9 lettered for the WSS. I started searching for a GP9 that was reasonably close to the WSS prototype. The local hobby shop was out of undecorated models, but it did have an Athearn Genesis GP9 lettered for Burlington Northern. I reasoned that with a bit of work, I could make this model match the WSS prototype. Purchasing the locomotive solved…

I grew up two blocks from the Baltimore & Ohio tracks on the former Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton line. The Procter & Gamble yards were less than a mile from my house in the Cincinnati suburb of Winton Place. As the trains left the yard, they would sound their whistles and their wheels would slip on the steel rails as the locomotives tried to pull their heavy load through the Estes Avenue crossing. This told me I had just enough time to run down Mitchell Avenue to the crossing to watch those huge locomotives belch smoke into the sky. Like many model railroaders, I started out with Lionel. Perhaps I should say “we,” as I shared the trains with my older brother. Sometime, I don’t remember just when, the trains…

There are many techniques for modeling rolling hills on model railroads. Popular methods include a cardboard web covered with plaster-impregnated gauze strips, layered and shaped pieces of extrudedfoam insulation board, and packing peanuts covered with masking tape and plaster gauze, among others. These methods have served the hobby well over the years. I’ve used some of these approaches in the past. But when it came time to build hills on my HO scale model railroad, I asked myself if there was a better way. Then an idea popped into my head: Cover an extruded-foam insulation board frame with weed-blocking fabric. To see if the idea would work, I made a trip to my local home improvement center to get the supplies. The key ingredients are a 4 x 8-foot sheet…

Chicago’s rail transit authority, Metra, has been giving children with serious health problems a bit of winter cheer since 2011 in cooperation with Operation North Pole (operationnorthpole.org), a nonprofit organization that treats these kids to a day with Santa at the North Pole (actually, the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, Ill.). Since 2012, Metra has wrapped a train in special vinyl decals for the event. Kato USA has a new N scale Operation North Pole set, consisting of an Electro- Motive Division F40PH and three Gallery Bi-Level cars, depicting the 2016 decoration of the train. A two-car add-on set is also available. The prototype. The Electro-Motive Division F40PH has been a commuter locomotive stalwart since its introduction in 1976. Initially designed for Amtrak, commuter…

Price: $69.99 Manufacturer Menards 5106 Menard Dr. Eau Claire, WI 54703 www.menards.com/trains Era: 1960s to present Comments: Fans of the 1970s-era TV show “Emergency!”, still seen in syndication on some cable channels, will recognize the architectural style of the latest HO scale factory-assembled structure from Menards. Fire Station no. 12, like the company’s previous HO and O scale offerings, is sturdily constructed of acrylic and tempered hardboard, illuminated with more than a dozen light-emitting diodes, and detailed with trees, bushes, static grass, rocks, a flagpole, and seven figures, including the omnipresent Jack the German Shepherd. The structure resembles the modern minimalist-style fire stations I remember from my childhood in Long Beach, Calif., in the early 1970s, and from my favorite TV series at the time. It’s not designed to be…

The company photographer got up early on this sunny morning in 1956 to photograph the new all-stainless-steel Budd consist on the El Capitan. Dave Bigge of Thayne, Wyo., staged and photographed the scene on his HO scale Cajon Pass layout. A Burlington Northern SD40-2 leads a similar unit leased from the Iowa, Chicago & Eastern across the cornfields of Iowa, as an ominous sky looms. Paul Brennecke of Golden, Colo., shot the photo on Patrick Lana’s N scale Cedar River & Iowa Central Ry. (CRANDIC) layout, which was featured in Great Model Railroads 2013. The locomotives are InterMountain models. A Galloping Goose takes a spin on the turntable at the small mining town of Pine Mountain on the narrow gauge Sockeye, Pine Mountain & Chumstick RR. Stephen Sulkin of Bellingham,…