What is on your workbench?

[Robert Stears]

P:48 Colorado Midland Pullman Palace stock car c.1900 to enhance my narrow gauge Leadville project.

Many railroads purchased Pullman Palace stock cars at the turn of the 20th century. The basic design was the same with variations in trucks, door design, and of course color and lettering. My goal with this project is to produce P:48 models of the Colorado Midland, C&S, D&RG and RGW versions; all of which would have been seen in Leadville c.1905. So far they are all static P:48 models but this will change.

Laser cut wood from my Corel Draw design. Side and end doors laser cut from Rowmark acrylic plastic from my design by York Model Making in York, UK.

Custom designed P:48 "Player" standard gauge trucks and bolsters cast in brass with Protocraft P:48 wheelsets.

Decals from my design have arrived from Rail Graphics. Almost ready for the paint shop.

[Jim Courtney]

Cool!

I didn't know Trout Creek offered the 26 foot Litchfield boxcars in HOn3.

These could be used as a basis for HOn3 outfit cars for later periods as well!

[Mike McKenzie]

Holy moly, I'm building a layout! Roughly 8.5 feet by 52", Sn3, better suited to Nn3, or perhaps a walk-in closet.

Making progress on bench work, 3/4" birch plywood frame with 1" pink foam. Will have a 1/2" pink foam sub-roadbed and a 1/4" homasote roadbed. Will hand lay the (visible) track, I figure there won't be that much and it's a worthwhile skill to develop. Not much to work with track plan wise (which is probably good), but starting to see the possibilities. Right side (as you walk in) is 17" wide, back wall is 23" deep. Will have a 9"- 11.25" shelf on the left side connected to the right side with a lift-out. There's a hole in the wall that will lead out to the garage and a staging yard.

No wiring, will use battery power. Will have to adapt to the small space to minimize cracking my head when I stand up from the workbench. Rail height will be almost 63", no grades.

Will be freelance influenced by D&RGW 3rd division and C&S, plan to build a slightly compressed Breckenridge/Dillon depot. Most buildings will have to be slightly compressed!



Lift-out spans the gap, fits nicely and no electrical connections.





Just trying to figure out some track plan options, nothing you see here is cast in stone. Have a number of operationally savvy friends to help with the design. Having a half loop from one side to the other would be too tight of a radius and waste real estate. The narrow left side will have a mine (or tipple at least) and represent a branch geographically separate from the other side, yet will share the turntable with a restriction - you can't use the table to get the engine from one side to the other, turns only. They're supposed to be in two separate places. Operations should keep me busy, but little room for a second operator unless the weather is nice and we can keep the door open.

I know it's not much, but it's all I got and it's all mine. Do a little but do it well. Will offer up some nice challenges and learning experiences, and the space restrictions will keep me in check.

Mike McKenzie
Frankfort IL

Nice door SP!

[Keith Hayes]

Golly gee howdy: I had no idea what I started, but am glad I asked. Nice to see everyone being so productive out there!

I think Mr. McKenzie should consider the Dillon interchange. I don't know why, but it seems like his budding layout would fit the vaulation map really nicely.

[skip]

Jim Courtney wrote

Beautiful locomotives, Skip!

Did you re-motor or otherwise upgrade the drives?

Thanks Jim. I really appreciate it.

The Westside 74 and 75 were one of the first HOn3 engines with a good micromotor. The Namiki 12x30mm in these is a very nice motor. Wayne of LocoDoc fame reports that some of the motors made with a waxy lube that solidifies with age. But all of my Namikis are running well. The gear train uses a brass worm rather than steel but it drives a nice nylon idler gear. If you do get a bad motor, he has the jigs to open the motor and clean it. But other than that I have found the Westside 74 and 75 to be some of the nicer running engines from that era. Top speed at 12 volts is in the 40-50 mph range which is a bit high, but the low speed and starting are both good. So I stayed with the original motor and gear train on these three.

Jim Courtney wrote

If ageing forces a move into small quarters, I've some HOn3 C&S stuff for emergency use, if there is no room for S scale stuff.

So I'd be interested in what you HOn3 folks are doing to improve performance of your locomotives. The poor running characteristics of HOn3 brass back in the 1970-80's is the main reason I up-scaled to Sn3.

For the older open-frame motors such as the Lambert B3C or the Westside C-16 and T-12, the LocoDoc re-motor kits are really great. Back in the 70s I did some remotoring with the then-new Sagami 5-pole can motors and they were a vast improvement for the time. Key seems to have jumped on that bandwagon because they used the Sagamis in most of their C&S imports. The LocoDoc remotor kits are again wonderful if one is made for your engine. The Sagamis  tend to cog on starting giving a bit of jump on starting and they have terrible 12-volt top speed. I clocked my Key C&S-22 at around 100 mph at 12 volts with its original Sagami. A Faulhaber 12x24 dropped it to about 40 mph.

Using something like the Soundtraxx DCC/Sound controller helps a lot as the electronics drive even the Sagami much better than pure 12-volts from a power pack. But in general, a good micromotor is needed. There are some good can motors such as the Mashima. The Precision B3Cs and the Overland 69 and 70 used Mashima motors and run very well. But for most of the others the Sagamis need to be replaced. LocoDoc and Faulhauber are your friends.

A bigger problem is that many of the gear trains use a brass worm turning a brass idler sometimes on a brass shaft. This is noisy and wears out very quickly. Many of these engines have replacement Delrin idler gears available from NWSL. I would recommend checking the LocoDoc web page first as some of NWSL's gears were first cut to Wayne's specs and he provides some good documentation and things like shim washers and new steel screw/axles where needed as well as just the gears. If I had a choice of brass gears with a Faulhaber or a good delrin idler with a steel worm and the Sagami I would take the gears. Fortunately, you can easily do both.

Finally, pickup from the tender trucks is often a problem. Lots of different fixes are out there such as Kadee MK5 springs turned into tiny pickup wipers. But I have found that keeping the tender truck cross beam and its matching bolster and mounting screw clean and smooth does most of what's needed for good pickup. With DCC, Keepalive units are also nice if one can fit in the tender.

Jim Courtney wrote

BTW, Keith, this thread was a great idea!

Boy! I second that. Thanks Keith. It is wonderful seeing all the neat stuff folks are doing!

Skip Egdorf

[Ken Martin]

Sadly no C&S, it is covered with parts from a friends estate (he modeled C&O, N&W and Southern).
I am working on the Sacramento club narrow gauge layout to get it ready for open house next month.

Ken Martin

[Mike McKenzie]

I like the idea of Dillon, at least as a reference, enjoyed the Dillon freight traffic threads from a little while back and really like the depot. Neat part of the system that I knew very little about. Will also be looking at places like Monero, Cimmaron, Ouray for ideas, simple with lots of possibilities.

Mike

[Keith Hayes]

And we can work on mine prop loads!

[GilpinTram]

Mike,

I think that is a great layout space you have there.  I see a lot of potential and I would be ecstatic to have that size.

I think you have a lot of possibilities.  What I like most about this size of room is it lends itself to The Narrow Gauge Layout Design Concept (NgLDE's).  I made half of that up.  I break it down into three NgLDE's:
1. Staging
2. Dramatic narrow gauge scenery
3. End of track town

Examples:
1. Cimarron - Staging, Black Canyon, Cimarron
2. Silverton - Staging, 50 miles of Canyon possibilities, Silverton
3. Breckenridge - Staging, Boreas Pass, Breckenridge
4. Leadville - Staging, Fremont Pass, Leadville
5. St. Elmo - Staging, Chalk Creek, St. Elmo

You get the idea.  There are a lot of possibilities to consider and I feel like with a dramatic scene and an end of track town you really capture everything we love about the narrow gauge railroads!

Jason

[Mike Trent]

Two pics, one for Skip, it's excellent that we will have complete sets of "them Boulder Engines" in three scales within this group.

Skip, if I can help answer any questions you might have on these engines, fire away. Each is similar and different from and to the others.
For instance, that rounded steam dome cover on #75 appeared after the 1935 Como roundhouse fire, the new sand dome was a replacement for the original after 1922. My #75 still has it's original Brooks cover as it is "pre-fire".



The second is actually the only thing out on what passes for "my workbench", a gift from Keith's Dad, in transition to a flatbed '34 BB-157 Ford truck. Haven't really done much of anything since I got home from the Convention. Thanks Keith and your Dad!



I agree, this thread should be repeated periodically.

[ComoDepot]

Not so much workbench, more Bar.

Trying to recreate the current view from the Depot looking south. On the right you can see the Gondola set out on the main, on the left Klondike Kate on the turntable with the Roundhouse to the right.

Very much work in progress.

[Bill Uffelman]

Couple more drinks and it will come into sharper focus!🤣

Bill Uffelman 

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On Wed, Oct 4, 2017 at 2:08 PM, ComoDepot [via C&Sng Discussion Forum]

<[hidden email]> wrote:

Not so much workbench, more Bar.

Trying to recreate the current view from the Depot looking south. On the right you can see the Gondola set out on the main, on the left Klondike Kate on the turntable with the Roundhouse to the right.

Very much work in progress.

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[ComoDepot]

Hope to pick up a keg tomorrow.

[Bill Uffelman]

CONX 5 ought to hold a glass full.

Bill Uffelman 

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On Wed, Oct 4, 2017 at 2:14 PM, ComoDepot [via C&Sng Discussion Forum]

<[hidden email]> wrote:

Hope to pick up a keg tomorrow.

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[Konrad Schreier]

Jim:  Terrific lookin models, l like the Rhode Island consolidation best of all.

Bob:  The palace stock cars look fantastic - your laser cut bodies are amazingly detailed.

Konrad

[ComoDepot]

Fortunately most of my involvement is 1:1.

[Chris Walker]

Add Idaho into that list, the best shelf layout prototype yet. Or Blackhawk or Central even.

[Doug Tagsold]

"I have the Georgetown Loop on my workbench".

Well, maybe "over" my workbench is more accurate.
You can see in the photo that my workbench is cluttered with way too much stuff, leaving only a square foot of clear
workspace near the center.  The nice thing about this workbench is that it is stored somewhat out of sight underneath the layout benchwork.  It is built on casters, so I simply roll it out into the room a few feet when I want to work at it.  Under cabinet lights mounted on the bottom of the layout benchwork keeps the work area well lit.

Doug Tagsold

[Charles McMillan]

I think I need a bigger workbench ! My collection starting from 1968.
Front left to right . 4,5,6,7,8,9,10,21,22, Bogies Denver, Breckenridge, and #42
Rear left to right 58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,and 537
Rear # 13, 70 and 71 coaches. Various cabeeses.

[John McCutcheon]

Mike

For limited layout space look at modeling Lake City as this location was a loop and would fit perfect in your space.

John McCutcheon