Start Of Scenery On Module 15

A little over a mopnth ago, I posted on a new half-depth, single-wide T-TRAK module that would mainly feature contemporary-era low relief photo backdrop buildings. I didn't have anything quite finished for that post, but in January, I posted on one experiment. I finally got the first experimental building mated with another that would fill out the width of the module and got them squared up and attached to the base.

As I described in the January post, the building on the right is from a screen shot off a YouTube video showing the Morrow Hotal just north of Union Station in Washington, DC. The building on the left is a texture I found on the web representing a multilevel parking garage. Both turned out to be close enough to N scale off my printer without the need for any other tweaking.

I follow George Sellios's work on the Franklin & South Manchester Facebook group, and I've been surprised at how often he includes printed buildings and components, some probably off his computer and others commercial products, on his layout. For instance, I think most of the buildings except the water tank in this photo are printed out and braced on cardboard or foamcore, with just a few of his characteristic details added:

The cost of my buildings was negligible, the backing was made from cereal box cardboard stiffened with used fireplace matches, plus the cost of a couple sheets of printer paper and ink.

I'll add ballast and other trackside details to the baseboard.

Surfliner Variations And California-Style Scenery

The Kato Surfliner sets provide only a couple of variations on Surfliner trains. Among other things, there's currently at least one Capitol-San Joaquin Califormia car running in consists down south in the northern California paint. I hope Kato makes this -- or in fact, other cars in that scheme -- available. Also, while Kato provides both a Superliner coach in Amtrak Phase Vi paint and one in Surfliner paint in its complete 8-item set, which are both prototypical, in recent years there have also been two Superliner Sightseer Lounges in Phase VI paint running as substitute cafe cars in Surfliner consists. Generally, the prototype Surfliner sets do not have both a Phase VI Superliner coach and a Superliner coach in Surfliner paint in the same set.

So far, I have just the Kato 4-item set, and while I've installed corridor lights in the SC-44, I have yet to install the 11-211 lighting kits in the coach, cab car, and business class car in that set. However, I have put together a Surfliner consist with both a Superliner Sightseer Lounge and Superliner coach in Phase VI. This gives 5 cars total, which is just 1 car short of the 6-car consist that sometimes runs on the prototype. This is probably perfectly adequate for a small layout like mine.

The Surfliner SC-44s that replaced the F59PHIs that went to Chicago Metra have been less than reliable, and Amtrak P42s and 8-32BWHs often substitute, sometimes with a loco on each end to replace the cab car.

You can also see that I'm starting to play around with more California style scenery on the inside corner Module 10. The new ground cover so far is JTT 0595603 Golden Grassland sheets, which I find at least acceptable for semi-arid California areas. I'm also starting to play around with some oil field details. I got these as 3D prints from eBay, but I also have an N Walthers pumpjack. Here is an example of California oil field scenery:

Installing The Corridor Light In A Kato SC-44

One real deficiency in N scale is how-to documentation for important add-ons. An example is how to add the side corridor lights in the Kato Siemens SC-44s and ALC-44s. As I understand this, these lights, which are visible in the radiator vent cutouts on the sides, are always lit on the prototype, with very few exceptions, whether these locos are pulling or pushing, day or night, trailing in consist or leading. One question I have is if Kato provides factory-installed headlights in all its units, why should it be necessary for the user to install theae separately at all?

This video from Kato USA gives basic info on removing the shell and the basic innards of both the ALC-42 and SC-44:

However, it leaves out specific info on how to install the corridor lights. It specifies that yoiu use the 11-211 lighting kit that's meant mainly for passenger cars. It implies that you leave off the long light bar for use in passenger cars, but it doesn't make plain that you also have to remove the piece of white plastic that surrounds the PC board and the two contact wires that extend below the board.

You can see the basic PC board from the 11-211 inserted into the chassis at left in the photo above. If you remove the white plastic piece that surrounds it in the 11-211, it will go in easily and work fine.

The installed corridor light with the body reattached is above.

Back To Richmond Main Street

I last posted on my project to build some sort of representwtion of the Main Street Station in Richmond, VA on a double-wide, lowered-deck T-TRAK module a little over three years ago. Looking at the dates on my photos, I began the project in 2019, three years before that. The idea has been to build a basic shape of the station from foamcore in N scale -- it's possible to find various dimensioned drawings on the web -- and gradually to add a "skin" of photos printed off the web reduced to N scale. Here is how it started:

It appears that not long after my last post in 2022, I burned out and set the project aside. Here, by the way, is a recent overall photo of the prototype

The station originally served the Chesapeake & Ohio and Seaboard Air Line, buit it sat vacant after Amtrak in 1971. In the 1990s, the city restored it as a wedding and event venue, and it eventually resumed use as an Amtrak station on the line to Newport News, VA. The train shed is now used as a convention hall.

I posted last week that I'm feeling encouraged by recent T-TRAK projects, and I decided to return to the Richmond Main Street module. It turns out that I never laid permanent track on it, so I added permanent double-track Unitrack and wired it to a terminal strip under the deck. The prototype is now single track, but the C&O side was double track in earlier years. Here's the current status with track laid and power hooked up:

The next stage will be to finish the large dormers and chimney, which for now are just cardboard facades. They will need backup pieces and roofs to bulk them up and straighten them out. I'm also scaling and printing more "skin" to add around the side and rear, and I need to add the roof between the headhouse and the train shed.

Some time ago, I heard from a guy who was thinking about doing this in 3D print, but I never heard more. I think doing this in any sort of detailed depth would be close to a lifetime project, and you'd either need to locate the original architectural drawings, digitize them, and translate them to Sketchup, or do some sort of mega scan of the actual building.

What I'm doing is purely to satisfy myself, and it probably won't impress too many other folks, but it will at least turn out to be doable.

Module 10

I number my T-TRAK modules, because it makes it easy for me to assign DCC addresses to switch decoders and NCE Illuminators installed in them. Module 10 is an inside corner module intended to fit inside an L-shaped configuration or an L-shaped around-the-wall arrangement. I took this photo in 2022 not long after I assembled it, without much scenery.

In fact, I wavered over what kind of scenery to give it. Finally I started to add a California-style palm grove using cheapo plastic Chinese palms from eBay, but then I set it aside. Here's the prototype I followed:

When I got a Kato Surfliner set this past weeK, I pulled the module out of storage and hooked it up again:

I decided to try using the palms as a backdrop for closaeup shots testing the Kato Surfliner lighting features:

I'm pretty happy with how these turned out with just the suggestion of scenery. It sort of encourages me in the general approach I've been developing toward T-TRAK.