DCC Lighting For An Atlas Yellowbox C425

As time passes, Atlas/Kato Yellowbox HO locos are moving steadily into the "vintage" category, but prices for them are slowly climbing on eBay, to the point that there's less and less advantage to them as opposed to Bachmann or Roundhouse locos. For that matter, it might even be a better idea to get current top-of-the-line locos from Rapdio or ScaleTrains rather than load up a collection with "good enough" 40-year-old models.

Still, I found a Yellowbox C&NW C425 at a pretty good price on an eBay auction on which there were no other bidders, so I bit. I converted it to DCC with a Digitrax DH165A0 decoder. One issue with Yellowbox locos is they were equipped with a single incandescent bulb that fed two light bars going to front and rear headlights. In some cases, I've simply replaced the incandescent bulb with a single LED mounted in the same location, but the headlight brightness, never good with the incandescent bulb in the first place, isn't really satisfactory.

I decided to try a solution I found on the web, trimming about 3/8" from the rear of both light bars and milling a recess in the end with a Dremel into which I could CA an LED. This could allow a brighter headlight as well as directional headlight control. Here's the result:

The downside is that with the LEDs attached to the light bars, which are in turn attached to the body, the leads from the decoder to the LED need to be pretty long to allow assembly of the body to the chassis and subsequent removal for maintenance. This in turn makes it fussy to stuff the leads into the hood during assembly and keep them from, for instance, rubbing on the flywheels. It took me several tries to get this right.

In fact, while I don't believe the leads are interfering with the drive now, the loco, while it runs smoothly like an Atlas Yellowbox, has become a little noisier. The leads may now be transmitting sound frmo the motor/decoder to the hood, the acoustics may be otherwise affected, or the loco may just need lube -- it was in mint condition, but 35 years old. Anyhow, here is the result:

It's a lot of work for a loco that's now in the "vintage but good enough: category, so I'm not sure if I'll repeat this.

Kitbashing Background Flats And More Ghost Signs

I've noted here now and then that a good successor to the now-gone Kingmill line of background building flats is Angie's Trackside Flats. The principle is very similar, photo-realistic images of older brick buildings, many with very appealing details and ghost signs. I've also noticed that modelers, including George Sellios, have been very creative in kitbashing Kingmill flats, but so far, I haven't seen Anglie's Trackside Flats matched with Kingmill.

One of my favorite Anglie's buildings carries a ghost ad for Texas and Pacific "23 Hours to St Louis Free Reclining Chair Car". However, Angie, unlike Kingmill, puts its image directly onto a sheet of foamcore. I find that a paper sheet attached to foamcore is in fact likely to warp, so I like to build a more substantial backing for either Kingmill or Angie's.

Not only do top, side, and bottom pieces stiffen the front, but I put an intermediate horizontal piece inside, backed up by the rear wall, to stiffen the assembly further. So far, I haven't had warping problems with Kingmill buildings roughly this size if I build this type of backing. However, I wanted to add this Anglie's building to a larger Kingmill flat I did several years ago. I found the amount of stiffening I added to the larger Kingmill did lead to a certain amount of warping, but it's still acceptable for a background building. Here are the two assembled into one piece:

My experience with the slight warping on the building to the left led me to use the more substantial form of backing that I now use on the Angie's T&P building.

I've also found a supplier for ghost sign decals that will fit on DPM type buildings, T2 Decals. You can get them most cheaply on Amazon. I do find that they're quite hard to get off the backing, and in fact on the set I got, I had to soak them in water for about half an hour and then use an X-Acto blade to peel the decal away. But it finally came off. Here are two examples on model buildings:

Finally, Blair Line makes business sign sets for DPM type buildings. A couple of sets have lasted me many years. Here's a sign I just recently added to a 25-plus year old DPM building:

A New Subdivision For Bay City

As I was poring through my hundreds of Franklin & South Manchester photos that I've downloaded to my hard drive looking for inspiration, I suddenly remembered a piece of a former layout that I'd begun in the early 1980s that wound up on a closet shelf in the basement. When I pulled it out, I discovered that it had five mostly built structures with it. These were Design Preservation Models kits, and I think at the time I built them, the line was pretty new.

On several, I added dry transfer signs and wall ads from Vintage Reproductions, a company long out of business. Here are two:

I never added "glass" to the windows, so I'll need to do this, as well as add various details to the sides and roofs. I'll probably also add Woodland Scenics Light Diffusing Film and Just Plug LEDs to the interiors.

When I pulled the layout piece out of the closet, I saw that I'd added lighting components of the old incandescent flashlight bulb variety with the intent of lighting all these buildings. I pulled these off, since I'll now be using Just Plug components. Here is the base with the lighting elements removed:

Apparently I found a wood laser cut city sidewalk somewhere, and I used a European cardstock cobblestone street for the road surface. You can see that I also built the street with a slight incline. The photo below shows where I added interior locating strips for the buildings made from used fireplace matches and drilled holes big enough to pass Just Plug lighting plugs through:

I found a spot behind Bay City on my layout where I could just fit this base. I have it shimmed more or less level. I may or may not need to do some more work to steady it and level it up. Here's a shot with two more of the buildings from the closet mounted on it in place:

So now I'll have quite a bit to keep me busy finishing the scene.

Layout Maintenance And Upgrades For DCC Operation

The oldest part of this layout is 30 years old, and in its current location, it's 25. Inevitably solder joints come loose, screws loosen, wood warps, paint fades, and so forth. The upside is that once I began converting to DCC, many necessary renewal projects can come with DCC conversion benefits. Most recently, I had a switch machine power connection come unsoldered, but decided that rather than just repair the old connection, I would simply replace it with DCC control of the switch via a stationary decoder, in this case a Dgitrax DS52.

As it happens, I had a panel that had previously mounted an Atlas Selector with a gang of Atlas Controllers for analog DC operation of staging tracks. I uninstalled these as part of the journey to DCC and have largely dispersed the Atlas components to friends still on analog, But then it occurred to me that the old panel could now be used to mount DS52s for this part of the layout. Here's the result:

You can see the NCE handheld radio controller on the right, with the switch address on it. This makes switching much, much easier, since the local panel shown below is about eight feet away, and I would have to keep walking back and forth from the local panel to the train to throw switches. Now I just throw them from the handheld.

There's room for another trwo DS52s, which will control another four switches on this part of the layout. The whole thing is visible and accessible without climbing under the layout. Below is the former local panel that controlled these switches and the analog DC blocks:

Right now, the panel is just hanging by one screw, since replacement of the switch and block toggles is under way. Unfortunately, the switch toggles on the upper routes are going to have to stay, as they control European style switch machines for the European prototype on that part of the layout. I used those because there wasn't enough clearance below those tracks to install Tortoises, and the European switch machines don't work with typical DCC stationary decoders, since they are screw control.

If I were redoing that part of the layout, I'd either use the new Walthers switch machines, which can be mounted sideways, or Kato Unitrack. Probably Unitrack on balance. But I probably won't have to consider redoing things there, at least I hope not.

I'll leave all the local panels in place, covering the old holes for the switch toggles with paper labels giving the new decoder addresses for the switches as shown.

More Work With Foamcore Buildings

I've been playing around some more with the possibilities of finding building images on the web that can be downloaded, sized to model railroad scales, and glued to foamcore building shapes.

One of the big obstacles to doing this is the effect of perspective and lens distortion on the images. Unless the subjects are very small or very distant, the images won't be the rectangles or right angles we expect to see on a model. There are ways around this, which include selecting smaller parts of the image, finding images that have had the distortion minimized, or using software to correct the image. In my experiments, I've found two productive directions. One is to find sites that specialize in ghost signs. The photographers often take care to record the signs head-on as much as possible, and the photos often include other parts of the building, like windows and doors. Here are some examples:

One of the best sites is drkenjones.com. This photographer takes great care to square up his images, I believe by taking multiple photos of small areas on each building and then stitching them together. As a result, he sometimes creates whole walls, like in the examples here:

I was able to download the Roberts Hardware immediately above, print it out, measure the height distance on the image between the windowsills on two floors, and determine how much to reduce the image to N scale, assuming the height between floors is 12 feet. Then I built a form to those dimensions, measuring from the image, from foamcore to attach the image to.

This gets me to a front wall. But finding and downloading other ghost sign images on the web, I can easily find and resize images that can be used for side walls. I did this with an N scale Joe's Pizza building that I did using a front wall image I found on Facebook. I was able to add to the effect by using ghost sign images that I resized to fit the area I needed:

The roof can be detailed using more conventional model railroad roof techniques.

This technique isn't perfect. One difficulty I've found is that using spray adhesive, you have to set the image in place perfectly the first time, there's no leeway to adjust it. As a result, I've tried various techniques with diluted white glue to attach it to the foamcore with a little time to adjust the position. The best way I've found so far is to use Elmer's School Glue to tack the image in place at two corners and make sure it fits properly. Then I use two other dabs of Elmer's School Glue to tack the other two corners down. Then I use a cotton swab with diluted Elmer's regular white glue to soak the paper. As it dries, this will shrink the image into palace flat onto the foamcore.

The problem with this approach is that it will cause the ink to run slightly and also fade the image slightly. So far, I can accept this, since these will be temporary and/or background buildings. The upside is that even factoring in the cost of foamcore, glue, paper, and ink, each building costs well under a dollar.

Manhattan Transfer Updates

Over the years, I've collected and saved hundreds of photos of George Sellios's Franklin & South Manchester layout on the web. His models are always an inspiration, but one thing I've found in reviewing all the photos I've found is that he takes interesting shortcuts that I've been applying to my own building models. One is that many of his buildings are three-sided or sometimes just flats. Another is that he moves them around. In addition, his techniques have changed over the years.

I think I discovered King Mill building flats a little before he did, but a lot of his more recent work uses them. His own ideas are inspiring the ongoing work on my Manhattan Transfer terminal headhouse:

In the photo above, I found a faded Coca-Cola ghost sign, resized it to fit the precise measurement on the building side, and glued it to the basic King Mill building. This is pure Sellios. Another thing he does is use small castings to give texture to building flats. I've added air conditioners, vents, stacks, and fans here, and I'll keep doing it as ideas come to me.

Another thing Sellios does is make concrete foundations and retaining walls. Below I've added a foundation to the bottom of the headhouse building:

You can also see behind the Penn Central geep that I added a lighted news stand.

One thing I notice about Sellios's work is that he'll take interesting signs and construct a building around them, often a three-sided one or a flat. On this site I've found copes of a number of signs that he's used for buildings on his layout. I made a two-sided building corner using some of those signs to fill an empty spot in the Manhattan Transfer yard:

This was a test using foamcore for the basic shape, and I think it turned out very well. The clapboards are part of the sign image, simply printed onto ordinary copy paper and glued to the foamcore. At any distance, it looks like clapboard siding. The faded image is also just part of the print. It took me a couple of hours to do the whole project. I'll add more vent and stack castings to this as time goes on and also blend it into the scene a little more with vegetation.

Finally, a Just Plug LED installed in a Fos building flat:

Progress With NCE Illuminators

Well, after several weeks of struggle with NCE, I'm making progress. I got four Illuminators back from support, though I was still puzzled that only one port, the one defined in the documentation as the W/G port, would light. The others were "off". Now, the NCE Illuminstor is generally thought to be an equivalent to the Woodland Scenics Light Hub that I talked about here, except that it runs off the DCC bus and can be controlled from the DCC command station or cab.

What gets me is that NCE has a real winner of a product in the Illuminator. The Woodland Scenics Light Hub requires a separate AC/DC circuit or even a wall wart. Then it needs special accessories to gang light hubs, control extra functions, turn things on and off, and so forth. These cost money and take space. The illuminator will do the extra functions via DCC commands without extra cost, takes less space, and is still otherwise fully Just Plug compatible. But NCE doesn’t even market it as a Just Plug product, and now I find that you have to reprogram it to make it work with Just Plug. But what other use can the product have?

So I finally heard from higher-ups at NCE, who at least explained what the actual defaults are in an Illuminator and how to turn the other two ports on, which are off by default. Except that fewer than half the Illuminators I bought were shipped with those defaults, which of course was part of the confusion. But at least I now know how to make a product intended to act like a Woodland Scenics Light Hub actually work like one. Here is my Illuminator installation reinstalled. These nine ports control about a 24-inch segment of 14th Street in Bay City.

It simply would not be possible to mount equivalent Just Plug Light Hubs in the same space. The nine ports control nine different lighting features, six buildings, two street lights, and an East Coast Circuits lighted River Point Station mantainer's truck. I tried out two Walthers Cornerstone street lights, which I spliced into the Just Plug-compatible plug pigtails that come with an Illuminator:

These are the concrete column lights, which look a lot like the ones near where we live. These Walthers lights need one Illuminator port per light.

Here are the structure lights. These are done with Just Plug stick-on warm white LEDS, with the plugs fed into Illuminator ports.

And here is the River Point Station maintainer's truck in its final position on the layout. This has the lead wires spliced into the Just Plug-compatible plug and pigtail provided with the Illuminator. These have come in very handy for my lighting projects.

Clearly the Blue Bird Cafe is also due for lights. Once I got the Illuminators figured out, I'm seeing that lighting projects are fairly simple and fairly inexpensive, but they add an enormous amount to a layout. And since I'm pretty much full-up with rolling stock for the rest of a lifetime, lighting is a good way to put effort into a layout that doesn't challenge existing space constraints, since it mostly involves buildings and scenery that are already in place.