Hybrid Module

This module started out as a half-depth, single-wide T-TRAK module. I'd seen here and there that people were successfully making T-TRAK modules from corrugated cardboard, and I decided to experiment with this. But after I started, I learned about Pocket Size Modules, and I realized that this standard, which involves single track, was probably a better choice. I trimmed down the base so that the deck is 25 mm (roughly 1") high, so it will link with Pocket Size or Micro Diorama N modules.

I generally followed current practice in building up the scenery with a lattice of corrugated cardboard strips. I used tunnel portals I had on hand, as well as a piece of Woodland Scenics Ready Rocks. Instead of plaster cloth, I used Woodland Scenics Shaper Sheet.

I added a preliminary layer of Sculptamold.

Then, inspired by videos of people building Micro Diorama Modules, I decided to use modeling clay to build up the final landforms. I used Crayola Model Magic, which is fairly inexpensive and available at Hobbyh Lobby or Michaels.

This cracked as it dried. I filled the cracks in with more modeling clay.

The ground cover is ordinary dirt held in place with Elmer's Glue and sprayed with water from a garden sprayer. I followed this up with Woodland Scenics Burnt Grass fine turf.

I still have to add trees and foliage.

The Pabco Water Tank

A little over a month ago, I posted on my renewewd project to model the Pabco Paper plant in Vernon, CA, this time as a series of pocket size modules (the Facebook group for this idea is here). The next step would be to build a module that incorporates the water tank:

I found a satellite view of the segment of the plant I'm modeling:

So this module will represent a raised concrete platform with the water tank off center. The photos show the rest of the platform is occupied by what look like electrical transformers. This is how it's come out so far:

Aftter looking at both the Walthers and Woodland Scenics N water tanks, I decided the Woodland Scenics was closest. I sprayed it with Tru Color Grime, which seems to be a close cousin of the old Floquil Grimy Black. I also found some 3D printed N scale transformers on eBay. I'm going to continue to add small details as I run across them. Below is how the assembled modules look now:

Back To My Inglenook Test Bed

It looks like I first documented an Inglenook style micro layout here back in March, 2021. This has been through many changes as I've continued to pursue an N sideline. About a year ago, I shimmed it up to match T-TRAK module height and installed a Kato Unijoiner interface to allow me to run equipment from T-TRAK coompatible modules onto it.

However, I never added much scenery; in this case, just a Custom Z scales printed card building kit.

Over the past week, after I discovered micro diorama modules, I lowered the shim so I could use it with these. The scenery on these intrigued me enough that I started to add scenery to one end of the Inglenook:

Although the scenery on the micro diorama modules was modeling clay, I used some leftover Sculptamold mixed with texture paint to build up a small hill. I had a box of Woodland Scenics Ready Rock Surface Rocks, and I used a good-size one to add some interest to the hill:

I covered the area of the hill that wasn't covered by the Ready Rock with Elmer's Glue. Then I sprinkled on some generic dirt I picked up on a railfan trip, followed by Woodland Scenics Burnt Grass extra fine turf, and then I used a garden sprayer to soak everything with water.

I still need to add trees and brush.

I posted briefly about this on the Micro Diorama Modules Facrbook group. Apparently the idea of connecting a micro diorama module to an Inglenook via a Unijoiner interface was something they couldn't handle -- they deleted the post and gave me a Facebook warning. I decided this was too close to a dysfunctional HOA and left the group -- I'm sure they were happy to see me go.

Programming An Atlas Gold N SP SD9E

Atlas has been re-releasing older N models with ESU LokSound 5 in its Gold series. ESU LokSound is a good product, but ESU's own documentation is hard to work with, while Atlas provides no documentation at all with this loco, ESU or otherwise. This is different from Walthers, which at least provides basic documentation for rhe ESU CVs in its Mainline and Proto sound equipped locos.

The detail on the Atlas body is generic. The model is well painted for the late SP gray and scarlet scheme, but the number, 4355, makes it an SD9E. These were rebuilt by SP beginning in the mid-1970s, with small details, including air filters, revised light packages, and a hump in the hood behind the cab, that varied depending on when the loco came out of the shop as well as later modifications. Because the Atlas model is older, "generic" tooling, it doesn't have any specific SD9E details other than the number and the assignment to Eugene stenciled on the cab.

This is acceptable given the model's price, which would be considerably higfher if, like Broadway Limited or Scale Trains, it had road-specific details. In this, it's comparable to the old HO Athearn bluebox SD9, which despite its wide hood continues to be an acceptable layout-quality model.

ESU and Atlas provide the loco with certain CVs preset that diverge from other manufacturers. In particular, the engine startup-shutdown is F8, unlike the F9 other manufacturers use. F9, on the other hand, is "drive hold", a feature unique to ESU. If you press F9 by mistake expecting to startup the sound, this can leave the loco stuck in not moving until you think to press F9 again, which is confusing.

ESU also sets default values to CV3 and CV4, acceleration and deceleration, unlike other suppliers. This can make MUing other manufacturers' locos difficult, and as a longtime DC user bvefore I went to DCC, I like the feel of immediate throttle response. I set CV3 and CV4 to 0.

ESU has another unique feature, prime mover delay, which delays acceleration while the diesel engine sound spools up. Again, this makes it difficult to MU an ESU equipped loco with one from other DCC suppliers, and I find the delay in throttle reponse annoying. To get rid of this, I set CV 124 to 16.

Finally, I tested the horn using F2. It is factory set for a single-tone blat. Atlas doesn't provide documentation for other options, but browsing the web, I found that if you e-mail support, they can send you a list of their CVs for the SD7/9 model. I did this and got a list within an hour or so. From their documentatoin:

CV163=0 Leslie A-125
CV163=1 Leslie A-200
CV163=2 Leslie S-2M
CV163=3 Leslie S-3K
CV163=4 Leslie S-3L
CV163=5 Leslie S-5T
CV163=6 Nathan M3RT1
CV163=7 Nathan M3H
CV163=8 Nathan M5
CV163=9 Nathan P5 (Old Cast)
CV163=10 Nathan P5R24
CV163=11 Nathan P3
CV163=12 Nathan P3-R4
CV163=13 Nathan P5A
CV163=14 Wabco E-2

SP used Nathan P3s, so I set CV163=11. This worked fine, and the P3 sound is great. Unfortunately, the "generic" horn detail on the body is maybe a Wabco E-2 "blat" horn. There used to be SP style aftermarket N details available, but I think they're much harder to find these days.

Back To My Low-Relief Pabco Paper Building

Back in 2021, I posted on my efforts to make something work with a low-relief, reduced scale, selectively-compressed representation of the enromous Pabco Paper facility in Vernon, CA:

The effort in that post was my second; I had originally intended it to go against a backdrop on my HO layout, but I wound up not liking it there. Then I tried it on an N scale switching layout, thinking its reduced scale made it closer to N anyhow, but I didan't like it there, either. Eventually I deconstructed it into separate buildings, still not sure of where to do with it, and I was close to throwing everything out.

Then a few weeks ago, I discovered Kato mini diorama modules and the related and compatible pocket size modules, and after a little cogitation, I decided to turn the deconsctructed buildings into individual double-width pocket size modules, which are compatible with Kato mini diorama modules.

What I like about this approach, in addition to the reduced size, which seems closer to N scale, is that the length of the scene is adjustable, and the whole layout configuration that it goes with is also completely adjustable. The single track on the modules can be either a main line or a siding.

Also, one issue on which I had been stumped was how to incorporate the water tower that's between the two buildings on the prototype:

I didn't think a water tower cut in half was going to work as a background flat. But now I realized that I can simply build a 4-7/8" wide pocket size module that's deeper than usual and then just mount the wster tower on it and hook it up between the other buildings or not as I please.

A Few Mini Diorama Modules

I've started building some mini diorama modules to see how the idea works out. The first thing I needed to do was figure out how to add a power feed, because I have several different controllers, both DC and DCC. Because the concept is based on Kato architecture, most people seem to use Kato track feeders connected to the Kato power pack with standard Kato plugs. However, I don't have a Kato power pack and prefer to use standard terminal barrier blocks with spade terminal connectors that can be used with any conroller.

Here is a Klawndyke strtaight module modified to incorporate a 2-position terminal block.

The straight module in the photos below is this terminal module with scenery added.

Below is a curved module with scenery to represent an oil field. It uses inexpensive 3D printed details from eBay.

A commenter to last week's post said that modules that have scenery but leave the module base visible create a distraction. I did these modules before that comment, and my view is that it's just easier to put the clay all the way down to the base. I sort of like the hidden base better.

N Scale Mini Diorama Modules

Over the past couple of weeks, I discovered a new type of N scale module. These were originated by Kato and marketed as school classroom projects, but their appeal has extended into the model rail hobby. Here's an example of a finished module by Australian modeler Maureen Kathage from a post on the Mini Diorama Model Railroading Facebook group (her photo).

Although they're quite a bit smaller than T-TRAK modules, they're very similar in principle, since they're meant to be set up on tables and are dimensioned to use Kato N Unitrack, with Kato Unijoiners forming both the mechanical and electrical connection between modules.

At this point, these are sold as kits for straight or curved modules. The straights are meant for Kato 20-020 4-7/8" straight sections, while the curves are meant for Kato 20-172 7" curve sections. These are sharp -- the equivalent of less than 15" in HO -- but N scale GP style locos and 50-foot boxcars will run on them.

Module kits are available on eBay from US and Japan sources, as well as from Amazon, and apparently from a Kato US web site. However, they can be pretty expensive from some sources. The least expensive are US-made clones from Klawndyke's. I've found that these are robust, high-quality products, and he fills orders promptly.

Kato USA has a video on assembling their module kit:

And another one on adding scenery to a completed module kit:

There are other videos like this one that show how to use relatively inexpensive scenery materials from Michaels or Hobby Lobby to finish a basic module kit.

The use of materials like modeling clay makes these modules a somewhat "arty" project. Another is the shape of the modules, which encourages the artistic quality of asymmetry.

There's also the similarity of the N scale mini diorama modules to the bonsai hobby, in which a plant is kept in a dwarf form and pruned into an artistic shape. In modules as small as these, there's a need to evoke the sense of something larger with artistic techniques.

This strrikes me as a fascinating recent development in the hobby, which I want to follow up.

Another Ertl Gondola

N&W 17249 is another Ertl Collectibles gon. I really like the paint on these cars. I did the usual of replacing the plastic knuckle couplers with Kadee 148s and the plastic wheels with Kadee 33 inch flat back wheels.

I decided to put a Rusty Rails gondola junk load in this one. These are resin castings that come unpainted. I'm still working on this one. I sprayed it with a can of Tru Color Flat Aged Rust and then went over it with Tamiya Brown Panel Liner. I will then touch up separate details with a brush.

eally like the sharp, opaque lettering on the Ertl cars.

Working Through My Erie Lackawanna Backlog

In recent months I've been working my way through a backlog of Erie Lackawanna locomotives that I got in the 1990s that still need DCC. A number are Stewart/Kato locos. These were among the first HO F unit models that moved beyond the standard set by the Athearn/Globe tooling of the early 1950s, with a more accurate nose and roof curve, finer overall detail, and wider variations in headlight and roof options. They still neederd a lot of work, especilly handrails and grab irons, and the coupler mounts didn't really allow for prototypical spacing between units.

I spent some formative years in Chatham, NJ, on the Lackawanna's Morris & Essex Division. My family moved to the Washington, DC area in 1963, not long after the EL merger, and I was homesick for New Jersey for a long time afterward, thus I have a lot of EL models.

EL 7062 is an F3B, former Erie 706B. On the EL, these originally worked in sets of both ex-Erie and ex-Lackawanna EMD F units and ex-Erie Alco FAs coupled together; in later years, they could be found scattered more widely in consists. In my catch-up process, this one is low hanging fruit, since in my layout's original home, I had already converted it with the Kadee 450 set for Kato/Stewart diesels. Thus all it will need is a Digitrax DH165K0 decoder with no need for LEDs, since it's a B unit.

I have a couple other Stewart/Kato EL and DL&W units that will need more work. Although in the past, I upgraded a number of the Stewart bodies with Detail Associates detail sets for handrails and lift rings, these are no longer available, and I really don't want to do all that work any longer anyhow.

Updated Ulrich GS Gondola

Ulrich HO kits were high-end models in the 1950s, expensive, hard to find, and in comparison to Athearn, hard to build. They were out of my league at the time. Since then, I've run across a few at swap meets. This Utah Coal Route car was one of several I picked up at a meet and have been converting to contemporary operating standards.

This is how it looked when I brought it home from the swap. The pieces were all there, but:

One coupler was completely missing, and nothing was holding the other in place.

I tossed the one old coupler.

I decided to mill out the ends of the underframes of all three GS gons that I found using the cutting disk in my Dremel to let me install Kadee 148s:

Then I installed the Kadee 148 boxes with CA. When this dried, I used the mounting holes in the boxes as guides to drill #50 and tap 2-56 for mounting screws. Below is the finished car with paint touched up. I used plastic trucks from the junk box with Kadee 33 inch wheels. A 70-year-old model, it can now run with DCC and sound equipped locos and good-quality made-in-China freight cars.

According to Don Strack's Utah Rails site, the Utah Coal Route had 2,000 cars of a somewhat different design from the Ulrich model. "The Utah Coal Route name was in reality used only on these 2,000 cars and was a marketing scheme for coal mined in Utah and shipped to destinations on the Union Pacific."

These cars lasted to about 1960 and were replaced by hoppers lettered for the Utah Railway.

Tam Valley Booster And Circuit Breaker

Now and then on Facebook I see a post from someone on DCC who manages to run a loco into a live-frog turnout that's been set against the loco's direction of travel. Most of the time, this will cause a short that will trigger the booster's or the command station's circuit breaker -- but not always. If the circuit breaker doesn't trip, this will heat up the loco's wheels very quickly, and something will melt within seconds. It's happened to me several times, and as I've posted here, I've had to send to Walthers to get replacement trucks for the affected locos.

This, by the way, is te sort of thing that the extravagantly priced model railroad magazines don't cover. I gave my hobby budget a real boost when I droppped my subscriptions. You get Facebook with your internet connection, and I think it's a good deal.

Recently I saw a comment replying to one of those Facebook posts, saying that the best solution to the problem of DCC booster circuit breakers not tripping is to put a Tam Valley DAB002 booster between the DCC booster or command station and the layout. I've already been using Tam Valley Frog Juicers, which operate by having a circuit breaker that trips faster than a regular DCC circuit breaker, and when it detects a short at the frog, it quickly shifts the polarity before the DCC circuit breaker can trip.

The Tam Valley DAB002 is priced reasonably enough -- certainly lower than an NCE SB5 -- so I decided to give it a try. The Tam Valley documentation is sketchy, divided between a leaflet with the product and an entry on their website. It took me a certain amount of trial and error to get it correctly installed. Below is a photo of it on my HO layout:

The DAB002 is the green PC board mounted on the L girder on the upper right. It is meant to sit between the outrput of the NCE SB5 at lower left and the layout's DCC bus. There are 3 main ports, all on the right side of the board. The top port is the DCC OUT port on the right side of the DAB002. This takes the DCC output from the SB5 booster to the layout DCC bus. Unfortunately, it has two screw terminals similar to the ones on the SB5, when best practice for a DCC bus is 16 AWG wire, so you need to splice in short pieces of 22 AWG (yellow in the photo) to connect the 16 AWG DCC bus to the screw terminals on the DAB002.

The second port from the top is DCC IN. It takes the DCC input from the TRACK output of the SB5 via the blue and white wires in the photo coming from the TRACK output on the SB5.

The third port from the top is Power Input. This must come from a common 5 AMP AC-DC adapter that puts out 12-16 volts DC via a coaxial plug, typical of DCC power supplies. This isn't supplied with the booster. Tam Valley sells them, but you can find them more cheaply on eBay in the $8-10 range. The documentation doesm't make it clear that you need this for the unit to work.

When everything has been installed correctly, there are three red LEDs, one under each port, that should light up as shown in the photo. If the circuit breaker trips, the LED under the top, DCC OUT, port will dim to about hslf brightness. This is the only short-circuit indication you will get, and it will trip before the DCC booster or command station breaker trips. This means you won't get any flash or beep from the booster or command station for a short, as they won't know anything is wromg, since the Tam Valley breaker will have beaten them to it.

The documentation doesn't make it clear that the board with the LEDs must be visible during layout operation so you can tell if there's a short been detected.

I'm hoping that the DAB002 prevents any further melted gears on my locos. It has already tripped for one short before the SB5 breaker could trip.

Kato Mytram Classic European Trams

I ordered a set of the newish Kato Mytram Classic N scale European-style tram cars, which consists of a powered car and a trailer as used on the prototypes. These were a style used in many places, especially in the German-speaking countries, from the 1930s to the 1950s. The set I ordered was red and white, which is the color of Vienna trams. I rode these many years ago as a traveling student.

These can be found on eBay in the $50-$60 range. I ordered mine from Japan with free shipping, and it arrived in less than a week. It has the same mechanism as the Kato steeplecab I posted about here a couople of months ago. It runs smoothly and reliably, and it could be converted to DCC the same way as the steeplecab.

Here are some photos operating on the N scale trolley-style layout I'm building on a pair of double-wide T-TRAK modules.

Another Load For The Ertl Collectibles Flat Car

I've been browsing both the web store of Earnesttrains.com and his eBay store, bajadezert. He has quite a good variety of unique and well-executed items at a range of prices, all of which seem reasonable. Among other things, he has a 3D printed kit for one of the Ford GE switchers that eventually went to the Wellsville, Addison, and Galeton.

For some reason, there are items at the eBay store that aren't listed on his website. One of these is a steam locomotive boiler. This is the sort of detail that can be loaded on a flat car, either during the steam era or a contemporary one being shipped to a museum operation. I ordered one and painted it with a spray can of TruColor Matte Aged Rust, with some Floquil Graphite brushed onto the smokebox and Tamiya Brown Panel Liner added to enhance the rustiness.

I found a few photos of prototype boiler loads online for inspiration:

These are smaller prototypes than the model load, which might be for a large 2-8-0 or small 2-8-2, but they give an idea for the color.

Loads For The Ertl Gondolas

Coming back to the Ertl Collectible cars, Ertl offered loads for all of them. They were mounted on floors that could be substituted for the bare floors in the cars, but actually, none of those loads looks right to my eyes.

So I went looking for other choices. The Ertl Lehigh Valley gon is in a number series that I believe is actually company service, so I went looking for a load that might be believable inthat context. I'd had a Chooch cas resin load for an EMD 567 prime mover covered with a tarp that looked like a logical choice, so I put it in. I haven't been able to find anyh current listing for this product on the web, so I assume it's out of production, and I can't find a SKU for it.

The model below is from a new supplier who sells on eBay as well as a web site, Earnesttrains.com. This is an HO 30 ft heat exchanger. It's a simple 3D printed kit that comes unpainted. I painted it with a spray can of Tamiya Aircraft Gray, as I did a search on the web and found that heat exchangers are typically painted silver or light gray.

Earnesttrains has a lot of similar loads, including Alco, EMD, and Baldwin prime movers.

Below is a Chooch 7286 Barium Oxide Bin load. I had a hard time finding anything about barium oxide on the web, but apparently it is, or was, used to make cathode ray tubes. I cut off one pair of bins to get the load to fit the Ertl gon. The bins seem generic enough to fit a range of possible service.

The Ambroid Western Union Material Car

I've been fascinated by the Ambroid 1 in 5000 line of wood craftsman kits since they first came out in the 1950s, and ovwr the years, I've built a number of them. One of the most interesting is the Western Union Material Car, which according to a web link was reviewed in Model Railroader in 1959. I found one maybe 25 years ago partly finished at a swap meet, and I finished it and brought it up to operability with added weight, decent trucks, Kadees, and so forth.

Here is a shot of the prototype 7559 by Christopher Palmieri. My understanding is that this particular car was set out for many years at the Boston and Maine yard in East Deerfield, MA.

Here are several other prototype photos:

It looks like no two of these were exactly alike, differing in window placement, truck style, etc.

From browsing the web, I ran across an article by W E Crippen in the Western Union Technical Review for October, 1961, "The End of an Era":

Prior to 1914, "line gangs," as they were called, were housed either in hotels or in railroad owned boxcar outfits that were equipped with such bare necessities as double-deck bunks, pot-bellied stoves, wash bowls, oil lamps, and other appointments in keeping with the time.

By 1914, many of the original pole lines were in need of repair because of deterioration or because the ever increasing wire load had become too great for the old pole lines to carry. Thus was undertaken the beginning of a heavy reconstruction program that was to last until the latter part of the 1920's and the start of the depression. The program reached its peak between 1925 and 1930.

At the start of this program, The Western Union Telegraph Company foresaw the benefits that could be derived from having the line gangs housed in outfits that could be set out at any location at any time or that could be moved to emergency areas quickly, at a much lower cost than if they were housed in hotels, some of which might be long distances from the jobsites.

. . . a camp car shop was established at Chattanooga, Tennessee as a headquarters for all outfit remodeling, maintenance, and supplies. This shop flourished and was busy continually until about 1930, when it entered upon a decline in activity that continued until a few years ago when the servicing of outfits was no longer required. (The camp car shop was then converted into a shop for manufacturing and assembling equipment to meet other and present day requirements.)

At the peak of the heavy reconstruction period, between 1925 and 1930, there were about 120 of these outfits scattered throughout the United States. By that time, the type of railroad cars used and the arrangement of the associated equipment had been fairly well standardized. These later models consisted of two Pullman cars about seventy feet in length (one sleeping car and one dining car), two boxcars (one tool car and one material car), and a steel tank car (water car). In fact, No. 10 recently sold at Portland consisted of two Pullman coaches, two boxcars, one tank car, and associated equipment.

The outfits were gradually sold off between the 1940s and about 1960, with the material cars staying on for some additional years. I'm not sure exactly what service the material cars were in in the years after the outfits were sold. At least one of the material cars was sold to the Soo Line:

Notice that this Soo Line car has a fishbelly center sill like the Ambroid car and the prototype 7559, but the other WUTX prototypes have straight center sills. After I found the Ambroid car at the top of this post, I found and restored a second car, which I now intend to repaint boxcar red and letter for the Soo Line car in these photos.