Aaand It's Gone: Modern Layout Scrapped, Preparing for THE ONE

We barely knew thee.

The decision came swift and sudden. Once the modern layout was brought from the garage into the new basement, I realized it just wouldn't fit right and I'd be wasting time, effort, and resources trying to make it work. So we stripped it of trees and as much of the bushes I could scrape off, tore up the track, and now it's back in the garage awaiting final disassembly. I plan to salvage the wood. Probably a good 90 percent of the boards and plywood can be recut for the new benchwork.  

As a final farewell, here are a few photos of the layout as it stood just prior to early retirement. The only place I could set it up was on the basement countertop. But as you can see, the shape of the layout caused it to stick out awkwardly with the entire side of the hill exposed. I briefly considered trying to just store it or sell it. But both those options were bad and just me trying to avoid making the right decision. 

All that being said, now is the moment we've been waiting for since we started our model trains adventure almost five years ago. It's time to start planning the The Layout, our Civil War Era N Scale Train Layout. It's almost unreal to say that. I'm a little nervous because I don't want to make too many mistakes this time around.

All the modern equipment we've gathered over the last two years will be put to good use, however, in quick temporary layouts to have fun while we work. I also plan on using the modern era equipment to run a nice circle around next year's Christmas Tree. Building a platform for that should be fun. 

Outings and such 2022: Trip to Boston, Reenactment in Morristown

We went on two blog-related trips last year. The first was a two-night stay in Boston. We took the Acela, covered completely by our Amtrak points. The second was a quick trip to see a Civil War reenactment at Fosterfields in Morristown. A few pics from each. 

One of the first sights we visited was Boston Common 
and the Robert Gould Shaw & 54th Mass. monument.

Boston was in April, and much colder than we expected, especially downtown where the wind was funneled through the streets and on the open bay taking the ferry to see the Constitution. As much as we didn't get to see, we did pretty well considering. If I didn't already know I'm a Northeasterner through and through, going to Boston reminded me of that. I absolutely loved Boston and the ride through New England. The family really enjoyed the trip, too. 

The other trip was a short Saturday afternoon in June to Morristown for the Fosterfields Civil War reenactment. I had been keeping an eye on the reenactment schedules last year, and one of my old units--the 7th New Jersey--was hosting this event once again after a hiatus. I got to see some old faces and take in the smell of black powder smoke. I tell you, it did spark a little flame inside to maybe try reenacting again. The boys had a great time and I'm going to try to take them to at least two this year. And if things fall the right way, we may try suiting up before this time next year. 

Boston South Station.

Old Ironsides.

Charlestown Drydock.

Soldiers and Sailors Monument.

Newark Penn Station.

Bi-Level NJ Transit Cars.

Fosterfields Civil War reenactment dress parade.

Marching off the field of battle.

Modern NJ Layout: Roads, real roads

So much for the "next week" post. Buying a house has tied up nearly all my free time lately. And posting fell by the wayside. 

Since I'd never made real roads before on a layout, I wanted to start with a kit, even if it's a more expensive option. Woodland Scenics Smooth-It is very easy to use, especially once you practice a bit. For the next round of road construction, I plan to purchase all the separate supplies, like the road tape, plaster, etc. to save money. 

Before tackling the roads, I built up the terrain around the factory. This area will eventually have scenery added to make it look like the industrial sites in The Meadowlands. And before you ask why I have sharp rises in what should be a swamp, I can assure you there are large formations sticking up from all over The Meadowlands. The trick will be adding long enough grasses to mimic the tall reeds that give the marshes their signature look.

I don't have a whole lot of commentary to go with these photos, so just scroll through and you'll get the idea of how things went. Overall, really well. 

Modern NJ layout: Curves fixed, factory built

 Once I made the switch to a modern-era layout set in New Jersey, I ran into the problem of curves being too tight for longer passenger cars like the NJ Transit coaches. After some unexpected construction and a few purchases of wider radius curved track, the issue is resolved as best as I could hope for. The only other option was to tear up most of the foam and completely rework the frame. That wasn't going to happen. So here we are. 

The track realignment was really stressful, having to add extensions to the "east" end of the layout and fill in the angle inside the squares. You can see the old curve inside the new. It's not a small correction. 

Old curve with new curve on top.

Track ripped up. 

Adding the new expansions consisted of cutting new frame pieces and some new plywood that hugged the planned curve. Took about a day to complete, using leftover foam chunks on top. The other addition here was to go with a double track mainline. I figured since I had the space now, why not allow space for a full freight or passenger train to bypass the other. Ultimately, I'd like to add separate power to the inside line and allow for independent operations within that, including the industrial area. 

After adding the new expansions and the first plaster cloth application.

I spoiled the building reveal with that photo, but it's actually the only one I took of the new section before more was added to the scenery. The double main line will be very nice and give much more depth to the layout and operations. 

Factory

Back in November, we picked up a Walthers George Roberts Printing Co. building set at the Edison train show. This spring I finally got started on it. It was surprisingly simple to construct and took about three days from start to finish. And that was only because I had to wait overnight for some of the big glue phases to dry before moving onto the next. 

Sprayed white, with dry-brushing brick. 

Since I wanted the brick to have the older look, I sprayed the base white as the mortar before using a dry-brush technique for the brick color on top. I had to be much heavier with the brick color than I thought. The concrete sections used a dark gray color. I debated whether to use a more tan/beige color, but the gray worked out just fine. I thought the red fire exit doors came out pretty cool in contrast to the rest of the building. 

Finished factory. 

Those trailers are about 40 years old, and too short compared to
modern 53-foot trailers. But they look cool. 

I've got a backlog of updates to post. Just have to write them out and get photos together. Expect another post next week that includes adding real roads and more scenery to the central and eastern portions of the layout. 

Crap! Crap! Crap! The Turns are Too Tight

There comes a time in every project when you realize something is wrong. This time, it's really wrong. Catastrophically wrong, one might say. The turn radius on the layout are too tight for the modern passenger coaches. The Amtrak coaches made it through fairly well, but the new NJ Transit double-deckers simply cannot make the turns. This has forced a major shift in the track plan, which I'll explain below. 

As for the title of this post, yes, it should be sung to the tune of "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!"

The Eastern Curve that's too tight. The NJ Transit
coaches derailed constantly.

These curved track sections are the tightest radius Kato offers that are meant for standard trains. The problem seems to have been that I originally built this benchwork thinking the biggest rail cars would be the 47-foot Civil War era coaches. Then once I switched to a modern era layout, I forgot the turn radius would be too tight for the much longer modern coaches. 

The Eastern Curve at the necessary radius, much
larger than the current benchwork.

You can see how much wider the curve radius will have to be to comfortably accomodate the modern era coaches. There's not much choice here but to add on "wings" of some kind to widen the surface area on which to build this new track plan. I'll also have to purchase additional track, as I only have the wider turns from the original M2 Kato set, which we want to save separately. 

The Middle Inside Curve, also too tight for the NJ Transit coaches.
I'll have to rip up much of this.

The middle inside curve area just down the line from the trailer yard was also too tight for the modern coaches. This will have to be ripped up and realigned with a wider radius curve. I'm really upset about this part, due to all the ballast I set down for the yard area. That's going to be a real pain to remove. My estimate is that the new track will have to shift right down the middle of these two current tracks. But I'm not sure yet. 

Somehow, the outside/farside curve is not having any derailment issues with the new coaches, despite being the same radius. My conclusion with all this is that the turn radius would have been tolerable is laid down exactly perfect, but they must have been just a degree or two too tight. The tunnel is a similar situation, where I could "untighten" the curve inside the tunnel and the coaches seem to do alright. 

This is so frustrating. But as I've said continuously through this process, I'm learning so many hard lessons that I really don't want to have to learn during the Civil War era layout down the road. That layout will have to be near perfect and I can't afford any screw ups like this. 

Photo Time

I do work on some small side projects from time to time. This one is a new wood load for the DC Atlas 4-4-0's. It looks much cleaner than the previous wood load, and hides the tungsten putty very well. 

New tungsten-weighted wood load on the Scout.

New NJ Transit multilevel coaches

 For my son's birthday, he wanted NJ Transit coaches. Specifically, "double-deckers" like the ones we see so often around here. Naturally, I've been eyeing this up for a while, too, and managed to get a fantastic deal on them from the Garden State's own Yankee Dabbler down in South Jersey. Always a good feeling to buy from a local shop directly, especially one in New Jersey. 

Video: Susquehanna 4004 at Passaic Junction in 1998

We were looking through Susquehanna railroad videos on YouTube and what popped up? A home video someone shot of a Morristown & Erie engine pushing what looks like an excursion train at Passaic Junction in 1998. But the second engine is the Susquehanna 4004! There are plenty of photos online of this engine, but this is the first time I've seen a video. 

It looks like the train is crossing over Midland Ave. and into the Passaic Junction yard. 

Zouaves! Collis's, to be specific...

While work on the modern era layout continues, so does work on the Civil War layout, even if that work doesn't involve having an actual layout to work on. I've thrown myself back into painting figures. There were about 15 U.S. infantry that were 90 percent completed, but I had just stopped. So I finished those and started a new batch of privates. Never enough privates. But... in my last GHQ order I had gotten a pack of Zouaves that closely resembled the uniforms of the 114th Pennsylvania, "Collis's Zouaves." Four of them made it into this round. 

It's intimidating to start these. I've done something like 100 or more standard U.S. soldiers, but nothing as specific as these Zouaves. The only sacrifice at this size is some of the piping in the jackets. But I was able to get the tombeaux portrayed on the breast. Tough to see, but you'd notice if it weren't there. 

The 114th Pennsylvania was raised as a company, "Zouaves d' Afrique" by Charles H. T. Collis in 1861 and served attached to other regiments until late 1862, when nine more companies were raised to complete a full regiment. That regiment spent most of the war in the Third Corps, but often companies were detached to serve at headquarters. 

I'm not exactly sure how I'll use them on the layout. All the Zouave figures sold by GHQ are in the "advancing" pose like the ones above, not at right-shoulder shift. So whatever they end up doing will have to be a little more active than just standing outside headquarters at shoulder arms or marching to another duty. 

After another round of figures painted, I think I'll do a morning roll call and set them all up to see everyone at once. 

Don't forget you can follow me on Reddit. 

Modern-Era shelf layout: Big scenery update, trailer storage yard, ballast

 I'll have to finally come up with a better name than "tunnel hill" now that it's pretty much finished. Can't be confusing people since this is a blog titled Civil War Trains in N Scale. But it's done, with the interior of the tunnel painted and closed up from behind, and ballast along the track into the tunnel a bit. I realized after the fact that I should have added walls into the tunnel for at least the first few inches to simulate a tube. I can live with this. And again, this is all a learning experience for me. Small mistakes are fine. 

The open flat area below the tunnel will be residential lots. I'll need to build that later as I don't have enough or accurate houses right now. 

Tractor-trailer storage yard

The biggest addition this round is the landscaping and terrain, and the tractor-trailer storage yard. You can see a bunch of photos below. The first is the Susquehanna "SU-100" coming into the yard area from the "west," through the cut that separates the hill section from this new section. 

The "eastern" half of the new section features two rises in elevation to help add another break in the scenery before the approach to the downtown area and commuter station that'll come in the next few months. Here there are three tracks. The mainline to the station is in the middle. The passing/freight siding is on the bottom. And the reverse mainline is on the top and ducks behind the hill. 

Here's a look at the whole trailer yard. Once I get some actual trailers, it'll look good. There was an issue on my first attempt, however, as I used Woodland Scenics gravel for the lot surface. Those rocks were far too large. You can see some of them popping up from underneath the current surface. For this I used the WS fine ballast. It look almost perfect as a gravel lot surface. I plan to hit it with a little light paint to  give the effect of the truck paths. The chain-link fence adds to the little details that make a huge difference. 

I'll need to find houses that look better than the 40-year old Plasticville stuff. But you get the idea. 

A top-down look at the railroad cut on the western approach to the yard section. At first I wasn't sure how good this looked, but now I'm starting to come around. I really need to pain the wall blue or something. 

The next post will swing back to the original mission of this blog: The American Civil War. See you then. 

Modern-Era shelf layout: Tunnel hill construction near complete

This is the biggest scenery build I've ever done. It's not very impressive to serious model railroaders, but for us it's a big step in learning. The foam was relatively easy to work with, and reduces the weight by a significant margin compared to the old layout that used much more plaster and heavier wood. 

Tunnel hill skeleton prepared for plaster cloth.

Two things I forgot to do: paint the foam before the plaster cloth and add more than one layer of the plaster cloth. This would have reduced the need for more paint and ground foam later. But the section came out really well. It still needs some detailing, like inside the tunnel and additional coverage touch-ups. The tunnel portals look good, though I should have raised the ground level around the tracks before installing them. Trains clear just fine, but for realism purposes, it would've looked a little better. 

Tunnel hill 95% complete.

Those are real New Jersey rocks above and around the tunnel portals, along with some real dirt along the track bed. I still need to ballast the track, which will help a ton visually. 

Edison, NJ train show, Nov. 2021

Took the boys to their first train show, the Greenberg Train Show on Nov. 28 in Edison, NJ. I hadn't been to one in many years, decades in fact. It was a real treat and we had a great time. The Edison expo center was huge, with an entire wing dedicated to the big layouts that you can see in the photos below. The Jersey Central N-Trak club was there with an "M" shaped modular layout. It also included a module of the USS New Jersey (BB-62), which was very cool and the 10-year-old in particular loved.

The main area of the show was full of stuff to buy, which was one of the main reasons I wanted to go, to pick up some "show priced" pieces.  As you might guess, a good 60% was O scale/Lionel, but about 10% was N scale, which was still a ton of inventory to look through. We came away with several modern era freight cars, a building that could pass for Civil War era, tunnel portals, and a modern era factory/industrial building. 

The trip was a success in all ways.

The huge N scale staging yard.

USS New Jersey (BB-62).

The boys admiring the N scale layout.

This was just one part of the layout area.