STEEL INDUSTRY, RAILROADS, AND MORE - MODEL AND REAL

REALITY TV

2012-03-12T18:43:00.003-07:00

Making a mess on TV

I've been working on multiple fronts lately, from scenery, to the Ensley mixer, to a paper Container Crane, and a dual glass factory build - more on the latter in the next post. And yes, I do find time to actually work for a living, which brings me to the title of this post. The company I work for has been collaborating with a New York production company that is filming a new reality TV series for the DIY Network called "I Hate My Contractor". The premise of the show is to highlight the story of a different homeowner each time that has been shafted by their contractor. Of course the horrible story has a happy ending when the host of the show comes in and makes things all better, and throws a new kitchen in just for fun. Now we aren't the scumbag contractor, we are the good guys that come in and make it all better.

The "Talent" and Host - John DeSilvia

ENSLEY MIXER - Part #12

2012-03-05T20:57:00.003-08:00

Only really a mini-update. Added some washers and "bolt" heads to the base plates using plastic punches and sliced hex-stock plastic. Primed supports and roller assemblies and began painting them grimy black.

Roller Assemblies and Support Frames ready for primer

Hot Iron

2012-03-04T23:56:00.000-08:00

I've been working on a lot of different projects at the same time. A quick experiment that I had been wondering about involved lighting hot iron loads. I've been producing resin slag car loads since last October on and off. There are two style - one is an operational load that can be quickly removed with a magnet. We tested these out in the fall on the Harsco layout and found they worked pretty well and the color looks good, but that once removed the car looses weight, making it a poor runner. I recently solved this issue with a two part casting and, along with the non-operational slag loads, I will be offering these commercially within the next few months, along with several other steel mill related castings. I also plan on producing some of these loads for ST&D ladle cars.

The colorant that I tint the resin with is phosphorescent so, while the loads look good as is, they look super realistic under a black light, or any UV light, including UV LEDs. I got a few of these and just playing around I poured some of the resin in one of the plastic ladles from Walthers Electric Furnace kit. I then drilled a hole in the bottom and insert a UV LED. This is the result.

Lights Off

Lights on

I-Car Build

2012-03-03T22:55:00.000-08:00

There has been a bit of buzz around lately over this model train car. It's a laser cut kit offered by Minuteman Scale Models and is designed to hold your iPhone or iTouch. The phone sits on its side at a slight angle and through the use of an adjustable mirror, the camera on the phone is able to shoot forward track level POV movies. I was skeptical of this car until I saw a movie posted by one of the modular railroaders of the last Capitol Free-mo setup.

The kit is reasonably priced at $29.95 and includes trucks and couplers. It was easy to build following the directions. You need to take some care getting the orientation of a few of the parts right, and you need to seal the wood parts prior to assembly to mitigate warping, but otherwise it's pretty fast and straightforward. Outside spraying the parts, the build took about an hour or so. I used plenty of small spring clamps to hold things together. After leaving overnight to dry I screwed in the couplers, trucks, and mirror assembly.

Spraying the Parts with a clear coat

A test run produced a nice movie, but I needed to clean the tracks a little better. I'll shoot some more tomorrow and if I have time I'll edit the movie and post on my Youtube page. One thing with editing - because you are shooting through a mirror you need to invert the image. I use a Mac and iMovie, which has an easy fix for this, but you probably would want to check your movie editor first to see if you can do this, or just put up with everything being backwards.

Finished Car

PHOTOS FOR THOUGHT

2012-02-27T19:38:00.000-08:00

Was looking through my photographs and came across a few from a road trip we took a few years ago, exploring the northern Jersey waterfront around the Newark/Elizabeth area. First, a shot of the old Singer Sewing Machine Plant in Elizabeth(port). Just behind this structure were the shops for the CNJ, but are long gone now.

How About this for a backdrop structure?

If you try to build this let me know as I will buy some stock in DPM first.

My port area remains unfinished, although the structures in it are getting close to finished. One problem I am wrestling with is that my bulkheads look too plain right now - just concrete. Another problem is that I can't figure out how to exactly render the water. I know how to make it, just the colors I'm finding hard to pinpoint. Here's a photo of the Elizabeth River - some food for thought.

Old bulkhead, Elizabeth River

Enough of the serious, now some funny, unless of course you are the owner of this excavator.

Avalon, NJ 2006 - Townsends Inlet

I think they found a sinkhole.

Lastly, the coolest toy ever made - Mighty Casey.

I wish I weighed 50lbs still - I'd be the one playing with it.

Mighty Casey was sold in the 1970's. It was a ride on electric train. There were a few different cars - a B&M Boxcar, a red gondola, a caboose, and yellow passenger cars. I had the basic set way back in my childhood and then my mom picked up some additional track sections at a church rummage sale. There were straight and curved tracks, and also a 90 degree crossover, but no turnouts that I can remember. We pulled it out in the 90s for my son to play with. The plastic track works well on hard surfaces or indoors on carpet, but not so great on grass. No problem, I quickly fabricated some track out of 1x2s with 1x4 ties, held together by drywall screws. The battery was dead but an old alarm battery worked fine, actually over powered the motor a bit. Tell me that doesn't look fun.

JUICIN THEM FROGGIES

2012-02-23T18:30:00.001-08:00

What's in the box?

A goodly portion of the turnouts on my layout will be thrown by Tortice switch machines - I'll use the contacts on these machines to power the frogs - but - what about all the hand-throws near the edges of the layout? I could use the Caboose ground throws with the built in contacts. I've installed these on our Free-mo modules and they mostly perform well, although they are a little fragile for my liking. This gets a bit complicated on the layout as the throws are all mounted on the fascia on blogs that would be difficult to drill out and run wires for the ground throw contacts.

The solution - Tam Valley's Hex Frog Juicer. This small circuit board works like a charm and is about as simple to hook up as it gets. The "Hex" means it's good for six frogs - you can also buy singles and doubles. There is no real cost savings in buying the Hex board over six singles, but there is less wiring. The Frog Juicer works sort of like an automatic reverser. It senses a change in the polarity when the locomotive wheel sets cross the frog and adjusts accordingly. It does this all faster than our DCC system can sense a short so there is no hesitation or cutting out at all.

Juicer #1 Installed

As to the wiring its a no brainer - there are two terminals for a feed from the DCC bus. It doesn't matter which lead you hook to which terminal - I used 20 gauge wire as feeds but the instructions say you can go as low as 22 gauge. The DCC terminal is the blue block on the bottom of the board. The other blue terminal block on the upper left of the board has six lugs - one for each frog. I used a Cat-5 cable to run a single wire to each frog. That's it. It took me less than two hours total, including drilling the holes, soldering the wires to the frogs, and making all the connections,...etc..

The LEDs on the board are indicators. The one near the DCC terminal indicates DCC power, the rest alternate from Green to Red when the frogs change polarity. There is also another LED in the center of the board that triggers when a frog has been "juiced". The LEDs make it easy to be sure the board is doing it's job without pulling out a multimeter.

Jimmy's two EMD Model 40's are now happy little critters.

FUN WITH PAPER - Part 2

2012-02-19T22:42:00.000-08:00

Paper Tanks - BTW, the backdrop color is a base coat and is going to be "hazed" over to dull the blue

Further experiments with paper..... Last time I showed you a free download paper model that I built. This time, it's one that I purchased from the same site, Scale Scenes. Purchasing these models is as simple as paying for them and then getting an email with the how-to on downloading your model. This "kit" was about 4 pounds, which worked out to be around $6 something in US dollars. Since you buy the PDF file the number of models you can build is unlimited and only will cost you ink and paper. This kit comes with all you need to make tanks in a black or a white color. You can also print the white tank image onto a colored paper, they recommend silver for additional variety. The kit also comes with concrete slabs, retaining walls, stairs, platforms, piping,...etc. (10 pages of stuff) I printed out the file. again at 87% reduction, onto a matt presentation paper. A printing professional at my Friday night operators group, Diamond Bill, recommended always using paper that is the same brand as the printer, at least for high-quality prints. The manufactures set their printers up using their paper so while other papers will work, the optimum quality will be with their paper. Following this advice I am getting excellent prints. When I adjust the paper options in the printer utility there is a check box for the exact paper that I'm using.

Using door jamb to draw a vertical line on a cylinder - don't use a good door for this as it leaves a little pencil residue.

The nice thing about this kit is that the paper tanks are designed to be applied to a cylinder. Any diameter up to maybe 5 or 6" can be used. For my core I used PVC pipes with an .060 styrene top. As I was building backdrop tanks I split the pipes. To do this I first draw a straight vertical line on one side of the PVC pipe. I use an old model rocket trick and set the pipe against a door jamb's stop molding. You then use a pencil to run a vertical line along the stop molding. To add the second line, 180 degrees from the first, I take a scrap of paper and wrap it from the first line, all around the tank, cutting it when it returns to the first line. I then fold the paper in half and re-tape it to the cylinder. The fold line should be exactly opposite the first line. To cut along the lines through the heavy, Schedule 40 PVC, I used a dovetail hand saw. After I glued on the half tops, I sprayed the tanks and paper wraps with an adhesive. First you wrap the sides of the tanks - cut to extend a little above the top of the cylinder. This overhang is cut with a razor every 1/4" or so and the cuts are folded down onto the top. Next the top piece is cut out from a larger circular print - center the tanks on it and trace and then cut - and then glued on. Results are good for back drop structures and will blend in even better with the addition of ladders, walkways, and piping.

Split pipes - 1.5" and 3" PVC schedule 40 pipe

RARE BIRD

2012-02-18T21:16:00.000-08:00

A Very Old and Very Rare Baldwin VO-660 - Still in Service

Went to check on my sailboat today - spending the winter in the water down on the Chesapeake Bay. It was nice to get away for the day, even with wires hanging off my chest connected to a heart monitor - only one more week of this. Stopped at Woodcraft in Delaware and bought a very expensive European circular saw that I'd wanted for some time and then a nice lunch at the Bohemia Cafe in Chesapeake City.

On the return trip I persuaded my wife to take me railfanning. I got this photo of a rare Baldwin VO-660 in the Pureland Industrial Park in South Jersey. It still carries the paint scheme of it's former owner, Standard Steel. Standard Steel is located in central PA and manufactures railroad wheels and axles - electric furnaces, forging, and machining operations. I had a tour of the place back in the 1990's that the Society for Industrial Archeology had arranged. Interesting operations in a mill that has been the site of continuous iron and steel making since the 1790's. Watching modern CNC milling machines and forges inside stone buildings that dated to the 1800's was a strange combination. SMS Rail Services acquired this locomotive around 2004-5 I believe. I think there are less than a half dozen examples of this model still in existence and three of them are owned by this shortline, along with many other Baldwins - VO1000's S-12s AS16s,.....etc. No doubt many of them originally used in steel mills. I've read that Baldwins and Fairbanks Morse locomotives were preferred over the lighter EMD units in mills as there were usually steep grades, like for instance in the approaches to open hearth plants, that these heavy units could handle better.

We also did a drive by of the refinery in Paulboro, hoping to catch another Baldwin switching tank cars, but it must have been deep in the plant. I'm fortunate to have a wife that besides putting up with all my bad habits for the past 24 years is always willing to take the wheel on a railfan trip. The trick was I think to wear her down early in our relationship......

1986 - Port Reading, NJ - Bet she was thinking then that this was just a phase I was going through that I would outgrow - WRONG

FUN WITH PAPER - Part 1

2012-02-16T19:52:00.000-08:00

100% Paper and cardstock

You may remember back a year or two ago I experimented a bit with paper, building an O-Scale barn using techniques I learned about in Troels Kirk's postings on the Railroad Line Forums. Essentially, this was a scratchbuilt structure and I used a heavy pastel paper for the clapboards and the roof shingles. I thought the results were excellent and it was a fun break for me. The same fellow also began using paper with architectural features, like bricks,...etc.. printed on them. I was more dubious of this technique as my nature tends toward realism and to me this was a scam, smoke and mirrors, that would be fairly obvious. The photos he posted, by the way, looked pretty good, but I still wasn't convinced - until - Rick Bickmore, Steel Mill Modeler extraordinaire, started messing, or "futzing about", as he puts it, with this medium. He has used these paper architectural prints in conjunction with traditional structure models in a very convincing way.

Smoke and Mirrors? (Put office wall on backwards)

Rick gave me a link to a free online site that will generate brick sheets for you in any scale - You enter the scale, and then pick the brick color, mortar color, and bond pattern- then click and out comes your custom brick sheet. This site is here. From that site I stumbled onto another paper modeling site - Scale Scenes. This is a UK site so some of the buildings have a European look to them, however, many would pass for American structures, and usually you have about 5-10 choices for what to use for your wall texture - a half dozen brick patterns plus stone and more, plus a choice of accessories, ie different doors, signs, ....etc. . The above structure is a free download on the Scale Scenes site - they have four freebees. I figured I would give it a try, other than printer ink and a few pieces of cardboard I wasn't heavily invested in this model.

All the parts - printed and some glued to different thicknesses of cardboard

Whether you pay for it or not, you basically just download the file, usually a zipped PDF. The Scale Scenes site also gives you detailed instructions along with your structure prints. The next step, of course, is to print out the file. Now if you are using the Scale Scenes prints you need to first adjust your print utility to print out the file at 87% . The structures are designed for OO scale (1:76) and also they are designed to fit on an A4 sheet of paper. Scaling the print down to 87% will give you the correct size for HO Scale, and also allow you to print on standard American Letter size paper. I didn't know much about OO scale and actually just assumed it was an European term for HO as it uses the same track. What a screwed up scale to model in, although it is very popular in England, at least. From what I could gather the scale was created as British Steam engines were much smaller than American types so it was harder to fit the motors and drives into these engines in HO scale - things were enlarged a little to OO scale to allow things to fit better, but HO track was still used. This scales out to 4'1" between rails, well off the prototype.

Make the effort to print out the files to the highest quality. Then spray the printed sheets with a matte varnish - a few coats - to protect the image during construction. There are notes on the sheets as to the desired thicknesses of each part. You will need to glue the parts to either light, medium, or heavy cardboard, but sometimes just the paper only. I used a spray adhesive for this. I sort of jumped a step and printed out the parts on a heavy presentation paper, hoping to skip a step. Ultimately I would have some difficulty making small folds crisply using this type of paper. Once I got the hang of things, the model was fun to build and took maybe four hours total. In part two I'll detail some of the construction pitfalls to avoid and tricks to use.

There is also an American company - Clever Models that make paper kits. They are all American versions and some look to be quite nice, but if I had to compare the two, I think I like the Scale Scenes better - They seem to have more layers to them, with varying thicknesses too. Their interiors are also excellent. Look at the interior of the massive train station model they sell and you'll see what I mean. The prices are a little cheaper than Clever but not by much for individual kits. I think the Clever kits don't give you a variety of surface textures to choose from. There were two things the Clever does that bothered me more than a little - first, on their Freebie page they ask for donations. What? So it's free, but we are going to guilt you into paying us for the model anyway. And secondly, they charge less for n-scale and more for o-scale versions - what's that about? Aren't we talking about a computer file? I assume they just draw this thing once and then adjust the scale, or rather the computer adjusts the scale, so why does it cost more? Don't get me wrong, I will likely try a few of the Clever kits eventually, but a little bit shady on a few counts.

I leave you with another project - My wife interrupted my modeling (and dared to enter the man cave) to have me dry brush her shoe. There was a very small scuff and I had to restore the leopard spots to their glory using some acrylic paints. I don't think I'll do a full blog on this one....

Interruptions

BY-PRODUCTS PLANT - Part 28

2012-02-13T21:42:00.000-08:00

Weathering of Towers Under Way

Quick update - Spent some time weathering the final coolers/benzol washers this weekend. Getting very close but not 100% where I want them to be. With a base coat of Floquil Grimy Black over gray automotive primer, I first applied multiple washes - black first and then some rust colors. I used gouache paints mixed with water, blending the colors from mostly black, white, and raw sienna. Gouache paints when thinned work well for building up subtle coloration. They work well on freight cars, however, on larger surfaces like the subject of this blog, it is harder to keep the washes consistent and uniform. To eliminate some of this variation I got out some weathering chalks and first, using black to mute the colors a bit, and then a variety of rust colors. These vessels would be hot and thus when wet, rust pretty quickly, especially in the lax maintenance environment of the Amboy Coke Plant. The lamp shades are a cream color and there is some silvery gun metal Vallejo paint on the valve handles,..etc. The base is a concrete color - I am trying out a new mix - Testors Model Master, White, Gull Gray, and Sand in even proportions.

Another View - You can see the scale of these things by comparing them to the Atlas Tower just behind them

COLORS

2012-02-12T17:02:00.000-08:00

This has been a subject that has come up a few times in the past month. I was born in the later 1960's, but I model the 1950's. My sense of color runs more toward the modern era and I find myself at a loss sometimes when I try to figure out appropriate colors for my model railroad structures. As most of the photography of that era is black and white, my impression is shades of gray. Even my earliest childhood recollections of the 60's and 70's I remember lots of blacks and muted colors. Trips down the NJ Turnpike to our shore house bring memories of lines of black tank cars and sooty refineries. The local New York Central infrastructure was all greys and blacks, with the occasional jade green boxcar making an appearance. As the years went on, the blue and yellow Penn Central brought the era of bright colors to the railroad in terms of locomotives and rolling stock. (Pump your breaks railfans - Penn Central locos were indeed black with a white logo, but in Westchester County New York on ex-NYC trackage they were indeed blue with yellow noses and a big yellow PC logo.) Industries also became "cleaner", and subsequently more colorful looking as the EPA began dropping the hammer on old practices. Obviously there were also improvements in coatings and pigments that enabled more of a color variety on an industrial scale.

Chicago Steel Mill in Color - early 1940s - fireboat in foreground

So what do I use for reference if most photos are black and white from that era? Indeed black and white was still the film of choice in the 40's and 50's, however, Kodachrome color transparency film was released in 1935 by Kodak and slowly found a following. These color photos can be found in the beautiful Morning Sun books released on almost a weekly basis it seems. If I was a hedge fund manager I'd probably buy every title released, but they are for now, an pricey item that I splurge on only for titles that are truly important to me - Steel Mill Railroads, Critters,...etc. For the budget minded there are a few online sources for color photos of this era. Truly the most outstanding photos in terms of resolution and composition are those on the National Archives site - I don't have the link but they are in the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information collection and date from 1935-1945. There are plenty of railroad and industrial shots, including a few dozen steel and coke photos, and browsing through the collection will give you a good feel for the colors of the time.

East Chicago, IN Steel Mill - Check out the B&O E Units

Another source came to me via todays New York Times. Charles W. Cushman, a traveling salesman, financial analyst, and most importantly, an amateur photographer, started taking photographs of virtually every subject conceivable in the 1930's using Kodachrome film. His travels took him throughout the United States and overseas. He donated 14,500 of his slides to his alma mater, Indiana University. They have digitized the collection and lower resolution images are available online . There are many industrial, marine, and railroad related photos in this collection, but sometimes just the mundane street shots are just as interesting in terms of colors of the 1950's. All the photos in this blog are from that collection.

1940's Johnstown, PA - Lots of black, grey, brick tone, and earth tones

And there was also some vivid colors,....

BY-PRODUCTS PLANT - Part 27

2012-02-08T19:14:00.000-08:00

I might be having a celebration soon - the final/benzol cooling towers are almost complete. I sprayed them with a primer and then a few coats of grimy black. I have to cut in the concrete color and then start weathering things. I'm pretty much sticking to grimy blacks in my mill. From what I can tell from older, abet black and white pictures, most of the tanks and vessels in the coke plant and the mill for that matter where blackish back in the early 50's. Interesting colors started appearing in the years that followed, but things looked pretty bland back then. Lots of soot over everything too as we are talking pre-EPA days. The prototype was a whitish-grey color I think, but I'm not sure that was the original color anyway, and besides, I'm not modeling Thomas Coke, just using the prototype as a basis for my models.

I pulled out the photo of the prototype that I was working from - I'll post here again, although I might have done so earlier in this string of posts. It was a mistake as my obsessiveness took over - the gate valve body castings I made are too large; I forgot some access hatches; I missed a small pipe that probably fed a sprayer in the outlet pipe of the final cooler (the one on the left), the top of the coolers was recessed more than I've done it; maybe the diameter of the towers is a little less than what I portrayed, ...etc. Uhg. My wife then pointed out that my model had a circular walkway on the left tower and I had to point out to her the supports in the photo, evident of a walkway once upon a time. As my daughter would say, "You need to get a life." All in all I guess I should be pretty happy with it as I didn't use any plans and just scaled everything from the photo.

The Prototype - Thomas Coke

Almost Completed Model

Another View

One new find - In steel mill modelers circles there is always a lot of talk of the USS tome, The Making, Shaping, and Treatment of Steel. To be sure, this is an excellent book and for me, the reason I got interested in steel mills in the first place. Hours perusing the multiple editions on the reference shelf at Rutgers Library of Science and Medicine back in the 80's hooked my interest. (This wasn't technically a distraction as I majored in the History of Technology) I have a copy now, I forget which edition, but it dates from the early 50's, my modeling era. This wasn't the only book USS Steel published. I don't know how many titles are out there, but one, the USS Methods Engineering Manual , 1951, I recently stumbled upon in my filing cabinet. It took me a second or two to remember that I had picked this up off the floor of the abandoned power house at the Universal Atlas Cement Plant in Hudson, NY. (Universal Atlas was owned by USS) I was there as a Professional Historian/Archeologist back in the earlier 90's. The plant was slated for demolition to make room for a new cement plant, that ultimately was never built. I was documenting the structures.

It was a heady time for me as I was handed the key to the plant, which was actually three industrial complexes - A ship loading facility and former production facility on the Hudson River (between the New York Central Mainline and the River), the main plant about two miles up the valley from the river, and the quarry, another mile inland from the main plant. The first two were connected by a 2 mile long company owned railroad with very steep grades, the later two by a long conveyor belt. Tales of my time exploring this plant, and getting paid for it too, will be told in a later blog - back to this book.

At the time I had leafed through it and the lack of drawings or photos probably caused me to file it away, but the neat thing about it, after actually reading the thing now, is the detailed information about specific steel mill operations. Essentially the book is a how to book on improving the efficiency of plant operations, but in doing so they use specific steel making processes as examples. These process all take place in the fictional ABC Steel Company, but a good historian of USS plants should be able to pick out the real locations. The information is very detailed and includes a significant amount of railroad operations info. Enough to be helpful in planing operations for our equally fictional Raritan Steel.

HQ Part - 4

2012-02-05T22:04:00.000-08:00

I've sort of stalled building the concrete walls that create the elevated area that the headquarters building of Raritan Steel sits on, but I suddenly got an urge today to build the elevated walkway that will conceal where the double track main ducks into the backdrop. It was hard enough creating the justification for the one tunnel that I do have as my mill and railroad is set in the coastal New Jersey city of Perth Amboy. (The justification for the tunnel between Arthur Kill Yard/State Street Pier and the remainder of the layout is that the railroad had to run under the built up city center.) Using an elevated walkway, hides the transition to concealed trackwork in a reasonable manner, while at the same time it conveys a connection between the HQ building and the steel making part of the mill. It also will add some additional detail to the main building. Essentially the walkway connects to a small three story brick building made using DPM modular pieces.

0.060 styrene core

I started with an 0.060 styrene core and cut out two window openings. The arched part at the bottom will represent an arched steel beam supporting the enclosed walkway. I didn't have any masonry windows this size so I am just flipping and reversing two wood framed Tichy windows.

Fabricating the arched beam

I made the beam using .030x.080 strip glued to the face of the sheet styrene core and then added .010x.080 strips, flat, with rivets embossed in them. The bottom flange is a .030 x .156 strip. I also added some doubled verticals at both ends.

Semi-Finished

Finally I added some Plastruct brick sheet, some .010x.060 headers and sills, and a simulated standing seam roof of .030 sheet and .030 square strips.

ORE DUMPER - Part 1

2012-02-05T00:33:00.000-08:00

If you remember from back in the fall or summer, I reworked a portion of the lower works trackwork. One of the additions to this branch was spur that led to the highline, the iron foundry, and a hole in the benchwork for a future ore dumper. I plan to make this fully operational, maybe, and a big maybe, even make it fully automated using an NCE Mini-panel, or maybe an Arduino micro controller. For now, I'm just in the planing phase, but will probably start glueing things together tomorrow.

I've done plenty of research into these machines and gone back and forth as to what type of design to use as the basis for this model. I like the older style machines where the whole cylindrical section actually rolls, as opposed to rotates. While this would look cool, there is too much chance for error while operating. The more modern rotary dumpers would be easier to engineer, but the operation of the machine would still be dependent on the proper meshing of the large ring gear. While leafing through that latest Bethlehem Steel book I came across a few dumpers, one of them, for coal, struck me as a good prototype to model, abet, for ore not coal. This dumper, pictured below, has a car cradle that pivots on fixed trunnions and would certainly be more likely to not malfunction.

Machine at Bethlehem Steel

Sketching it out - working out the geometry

BY-PRODUCTS PLANT - Part 26

2012-02-03T22:10:00.000-08:00

Shortly after my last post, the winters blues I was talking about got a bit worse. An old heart rhythm problem that I thought was in my past, came back, and I ended up spending a few days in the hospital. I took this photo of my monitor in the ER

Houston We Have A Problem

That is not how your EKG should look, and it shouldn't have a little red label next to it saying ATRIAL FIB. The rate of 114 bpm was a low number, which is the only reason I was steady enough to take the photo - it was averaging in the 140s and going as high as 170. Besides the speed, the real problem is the irregular rhythm. The skillful application of some high-voltage, or maybe high amperage - not sure, restored things to order. No, I wasn't awake for it - they slip you a mickey first (the Doctor said it was the same stuff Michael Jackson shot up every night - I didn't really know how to take that statement). But, after a short stay in the hospital I'm back home and doing fine physically. The episode was a wake-up call to make a lot of changes in my life. Most importantly I need to reduce the amount of stress in my life as the best I can figure this was the cause of this malady for sure in the past and lately I had been feeling similar levels of stress. For me, nothing better for easing stress than working on trains, unless of course you are trying to mount a Tortice switch machine from under the layout - trying to get the actuator wire through that little hole in the switch throw.

Doctor's orders to take at easy until monday are blowing our weekend plans with the Capitol Free-mo group at Timonium, MD. Jimmy is especially disappointed, but understands. On the up side we will still spend the time model railroading, just working on our layout.

I decided to install non-operational lights on the benzol washers. To make these I started with some 0.019 brass wire, Grandt Line lamp shades, and a special pair of pliers that will bend the loop needed for the light post.

Grandt Line Lamp Reflectors

I bent the wire and attached the Lamp Reflectors with CA glue. After drying I cut the stems of the lamps so they were 9' tall overall. I then glued the lamps to the washer complex. In the end I added about 20 lamps to the structure.

Lamps Ready to go

Lamps added to stairs and tower tops

BY PRODUCTS PLANT - Part 25

2012-01-31T18:15:00.000-08:00

I've been pretty lame in posting anything this past month. Sort of a blah month with lots going on, but not fun stuff. Lately I've been feeling that I have reached a crossroads professionally. It's been almost five years as a "manager" and my craftsman roots seem more distant than ever. I miss standing in a pile of wood chips all day, with only my own precision to worry about. All this has led to a lack of motivation in regards to building anything on the model railroad. I did try to attack the final few items on the Benzol Coolers. I added the last few sheaves to the gate valves and then focused on the tops of the towers. The prototype has extremely complicated manifolds that I couldn't possibly hope to replicate. I did my best at a representative assembly but I'm not thrilled with the results. I also added small cranes on top of two of the towers. I will add ropes after painting. Basically the only thing that remains before painting is to add light posts throughout the structure. I had planned on making these functional, however, after thinking about the cost and complexity of working with very very tiny LEDs and magnet wire I am just going to add static versions.

Benzol Coolers Top

Crane Detail

We did make our annual father and son trip to the Battle of the Bulge at Ft. Indiantown Gap, PA this past weekend. It was, as usual, an enjoyable trip, although the public battle wasn't as elaborate as in the past and the barrack tours weren't happening either. On the way back we stopped at the Cabellas Super Store in Hamburg, PA. If the economy is slow you wouldn't know it there. Besides twenty high capacity tactical magazines for my AR-15 that are illegal in New Jersey, I picked up a 25 lb bag of bird shot. (That first part was obviously a joke) I've been looking around South Jersey for this for the past year and no one sells it anymore. These little lead balls make cheap weights for rolling stock and are easy to conceal. We also needed them to start manufacturing version two of our resin slag car loads. After testing the originals on Rick Bickmore's Harrisburg Terminal Railroad the reviews were positive as to the appearance and ease of removal during operations, however, once removed, the cars were too light and became more prone to derailments. Version two will be a two part casting - the first will be cast in dark grey with lead shot infused in the resin and will reside in the bottom of the slag pot. The second casting, in the orange color will sit on top and contain a steel insert for removal with a magnet.

Enough Weight for 150-200 cars

Perfect Road Rage Vehicle

FRIDAY NIGHT OPS

2012-01-21T22:22:00.000-08:00

As I think I have mentioned in this blog before, we (Jimmy and me) are part of a Friday night operating group, called the South Jersey Operators. I'm not sure if there is any official status to the group. Most members seem to be active in the local NMRA Division and some in local clubs. We stumble upon the group after being invited to the annual cookout that the group has every August. Basically the members get together every Friday night to run trains. The host layouts alternate by week, with the same four layouts cycling through, with the occasional substitute layouts added on months with five fridays. Operations usually last from 7pm until midnight. We used to make almost every friday night for awhile, however, lately, our attendance has been spotty with work, family, school, boy scouts,...etc... coinciding. We were fortunate to be able to get away this past friday night for the first time in awhile and had the pleasure of operating on PJ Mattson's Raccoon Valley RR. PJ's large layout is alway fun to operate on. With the cold weather and snow predicted there was a light turnout with only 12 of us running trains. Jimmy ran the switcher in the railroads main yard, while I was assigned to the steel mill. PJ has a portion of his layout dedicated to a steel mill. As of late he has added a coke works on a new branch that adds some interest to operations you have to enter and cross the main to get to the branch from the steel mill. By the time I returned with loaded coke cars to the mill, a local had arrived and was tying up the main waiting for cars from the mill, about half of I had yet to spot. I quickly picked up the cars he needed and exchanged them for the drop-offs. I had just enough time to spot the new cars and pull the empty ore jennies before the ore train arrived with ore for the mill.

Switching out Slag Pots at the Blast Furnace

For those of you coming to the 2012 Steel Mill Modelers Meet, hopefully PJ's layout will be one of those on the tour.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2012-01-15T00:55:00.000-08:00

A happy belated New Year to all.

It's been a bit since the last post of any substantive modeling. The holidays, work, a family illness,....etc. all put most of my modeling on hold. Also, the train time I did have I devoted to making the basement semi-presentable as I had agreed to host a layout tour for the local NMRA Division. Most of the work for this involved finishing soffits, finally removing the little historic wiring I had left in my house from the basement ceiling and organizing my piles so people could walk down there. Necessary work, but not probably interesting to you blog readers.

NMRA Division Meet - Layout Tour - Saturday January 7, 2012 -

As I think I had noted a few months ago, I am now a card carrying NMRA member for the first time in my life, despite being a model railroader for most of that said life. I also made a point to join the local division as many of the model railroaders from our friday night operations group are members. In joining the local group I checked the box that I would be willing to open my layout for tours, without realizing I'd get an email within a month asking to do that very thing. I pleaded my case that I didn't think people would find it worthwhile visiting as the layout is very under construction, but the response was that some find that aspect interesting. So I agreed figuring not many would show up but at the least it would put some pressure on me to finish some of the uninteresting things and also serve as a dress rehearsal of sorts for when we open up in September for the 2012 Steel Mill Modelers Meet.

Looking along the Lower Works Branch - Bessemer Site in Foreground, Raritan Steel HQ just behind that and then Blast Furnaces and Pig Casters in background

Of course the list of to-do items only was about a quarter done heading into last weekend. We worked through the morning of the event right up to the 1pm opening time. I put out the signs and just a few minutes past 1pm our first visitors arrived and from that point on we had a continuous stream of people in the basement right up until closing at 5pm, and even then, while I was taking down the signs at 5:15 a last carload of model railroaders pulled up, so we fired things back up. I hadn't expected much but honestly I had a very enjoyable afternoon. Jimmy managed running the trains and I did the narrative. We usually had at least two mainline trains running the loop and Jimmy was variably running different locals and switchers. We were using a combination of NCE throttles, on-screen JMRI Throttles, and also WiThrottle on our IPhones. Apparently at the actual meet earlier that day there had been a presentation on JMRI so a lot of the visitors were real interested in seeing it up and actually running a model railroad.

State Street Pier

Some things that I learned and to do for the next tour -

Better outside signage - For next tour I plan on building a semi-scale crossing buck with lights and all - probably will just mount along my fence permanently but I'll turn the lights on for a tour.
Put the handouts down in the basement and not upstairs as I think many of the visitors didn't realize it was put out for them
Railings on the basement steps - Need to put some up. A few folks had a tough time on the stairs and I felt bad as I had this on my list but never got to it.
Holy Cow - We can fit 10 people in my basement. As I need 8 to operate and 2 of these are back in the pit, 6 should be able to function reasonably well, although the crew lounge will have to be upstairs
Model Railroaders are really nice friendly people

I've started working on the precipitator complex and B-Furnace so I'll have some posts on these soon.

Arthur Kill Yard Under construction - 6 of 8 tracks in place

MERRY CHRISTMAS

2011-12-24T23:07:00.001-08:00

HQ - Part 3

2011-12-24T00:17:00.000-08:00

I thought I had picked up enough plastic to finish the bridge, but alas, I still need some Plastruct railings. But you get the general idea.

The roadway is styrene and the sidewalks some extra walkway material.

I am also trying to finish my two bessemer converters. Before painting I wanted to add a little grit to the surface of these machines as in most of the photos I have seen, they are pretty grimy. I used a product from Vallejo - Sandy Paste to add some roughness to the smooth surfaces. We will see how it turns out after paint.

HQ - Part 2

2011-12-18T22:49:00.000-08:00

As part of the Raritan Steel HQ building I need to build a small road bridge connecting the office parking lot to the rest of the world (actually the edge of the layout) . I took two cheap Atlas Thru Truss bridges and combined and modified them to carry a roadway. Mostly done, except I need to buy some plastic to build two walkways on either side of the bridge.

Adding a section to make a longer bridge and reinforcing with strip styrene

Semi-Finished structure sans roadway and sidewalk outriggers.

CONTROL PANELS - Part 3

2011-12-18T22:39:00.000-08:00

Having run all the wiring for the Lower Works East Panel I managed to hook up the two electrically controlled Tortice switch machines on the wye and all the associated switches and LEDs worked great - the route is denoted by the green LEDs on the panel. The next step was firing up the primary mill staging yard. This five track hidden staging yard has four turnouts with your basic Atlas electric throws. I wanted to be able to press a single button on the panel, and all the turnouts align themselves to that track - sounds simple but is actually fairly complicated. It is doable by a using a diode matrix, but I chose a different route and as I mentioned in an earlier post, I am using a NCE Mini Panel to accomplish the same task. The wiring was simple in that I used five momentary single pole push buttons - attached a common ground to one lug on all of them and connected this to the ground bus on my main wiring board. Then I ran a single wire from each of the remaining lugs back to the Mini Panel and attached to terminals 1 thru 5. Basically, whenever a button is pushed it triggers the micro controller on the Mini Panel to execute whatever commands have been programed for that specific input. The inputs are programed by plugging in a throttle directly to jack on the Mini-Panel for that purpose - you just follow the prompts and can program up to four lines of commands for each input. For a five track staging yard, the maximum number of commands needed would be four anyway - one command for each of the four switch machines. For a larger staging yard I can still use the Mini-Panel, but I'll just have to link to a second input once I get past track five - this will give me four more command lines but at the cost of two inputs (the Mini-Panel has 30 and there is no limit to the number of Mini-Panels you can use)

Programming the Mini-Panel

I do need to stop for a second and explain how the turnouts receive the commands - the switch machines are connected to a Digitraxx DS-64. This is a stationary decoder with four locations. So the switch machines in this yard are designated DCC Accessories 1-4 . So when it comes to programming the Mini-Panel say for Track 4 of the yard - this would be Input #4. The first command line would throw Accessory #1 Reverse, Line 2 - ACC #2 Normal, Line 3 - ACC #3 Normal, and Line 4 ACC #4 Reverse. So now when I press the button for Track 4, all those switch machines are thrown to the correct alignment designated by the program. There is a time delay between throwing each machine in the sequence so the process can take a few seconds. The last thing I have to do for this panel is connect the indicator LEDs for the Yard - again not as simple as it looks. I need to cascade a set of alternate contacts for the switch machines - I will have to use Atlas Snap Relays wired in parallel off the DS-64 and connect their contacts in a way that will only power one LED . If I had used Tortice Machines I would have had their set of contacts built in and not have had to buy Snap Relays.

Mini-Panel top Left, DS-64 just under. Only the beginning of much more wiring.

CONTROL PANELS - Part 2

2011-12-11T00:44:00.001-08:00

After drawing the control panel faces and printing them out, my wife was kind enough to laminate the printed drawing for me. As a backer I used 1/8" plywood and with spray adhesive glued on the laminated panel drawing. This will then be drilled for electronics and mounted to the control panel cases with screws.

Laminated print out and 1/8" plywood backer

Speaking of controls, we managed to get WiThrottle up and running so now anyone can use their I-Phone, touch, or pad to operate trains on our layout. With throttles running $100 or so we are counting on WiThrottle to augment our deficiency in the throttle department. I guess some of you are asking, what is WiThrottle? WiThrottle is an app for an IPhone, IPad, or ITouch, that you can purchase from the Apple. It was actually developed by Brett, a member of our Friday night operating group. How does it work? The WiThrottle app used a local wireless network to connect with the computer running JMRI, which in turn, is connected to the DCC system you are using. The advantage of WiThrottle is that since it interfaces with JMRI it is an universal throttle that will work with Digitrax as easy as NCE, of course so long as your DCC system is connected with a computer. Because you are using a wifi network, the signal is much stronger than what your typical DCC wireless system is capable of so you don't have to worry about loss of signal,...etc.. What's the downside? The only real issue becomes if your wireless network has security, you will need to give out your password to WiThrottle users, or, do what we did and create a separate network for your model railroad.

An ITouch with the WiThrottle App, controlling to locomotive in the background.

HOW? I'll detail exactly how we set all this up - it should be fairly universal although there might be some difference with how your specific DCC interfaces with JMRI. In our case we pulled an old Dell desktop computer out of storage. It runs on Windows XP and was a pretty basic model when bought. It lacks a wireless card so all network connections must be over wires. We modified our benchwork to fit the bulky old monitor and computer into the edge of our layout. It is located about 6 feet or so from the NCE control box and they connect using a serial cable. These are hard to find, and expensive from radio shack, however, you can find them very cheap at All Electronics online. I had to buy two to connect together and to reach the computer without stretching. Back to the computer - I dumped the hard drive as they were totally virused up and just loaded the basics that I would need. Then I downloaded the latest version of JMRI. This is a free download. Since there was no wireless card in the computer I just stretched a 50' cat5 cable from the computer, upstairs to my router and plugged it in - only to download JMRI. You then follow the prompts to set up JMRI for your specific arrangement. From then on when you load JMRI it should recognize your DCC system, NCE in our case and say so on the title screen.

The JMRI Screen showing one WiThrottle in use.

In our case we wanted to have a separate wireless network for only the model railroad that we could leave unprotected so it would be easy for guests to access. This was as simple as purchasing a cheap older model wireless router - most routers are now N type, but I used an older G type as many of the N type needed a newer version of windows to set up. I just plugged the router in and ran a Cat 5 line from the computer to one of the hardline ports on the back of the router. So when someone turns on WiThrottle on their device, the network will come up as available. There is a window you open in JMRI to turn on WiThrottle and it will list all the devices being used. Fear not, if you have an Android phone there is an app available for your phone also.

CONTROL PANELS - Part 1

2011-12-07T22:17:00.001-08:00

As part of my continuing wiring program I'm installing control panels throughout the layout. I had built the boxes for a few panels and even partially finished the front of one when I change my mind about the size of the panels. Originally they were roughly 11x17, with the main panel being even larger. After seeing much smaller local control panels on Rick Bickmore's fine layout I realized that I could do things much smaller and seeing how I have limited space anyway, smaller would be better. Not wanting to waste my existing panel work I actually threw the old panel boxes on the miter saw and chopped them up into two small pieces, only having to add on new side. The resulting panels are roughly 7x10 inches. For the faces I have been drawing the panel layout using a bare-bones Apple paint/draw utility program and then printing it out onto photo paper. I then laminate the photo paper and then glue the laminated drawing to my backer panel - 1/8" masonite or plastic and then just drill the holes for LEDs and switches on the drill press and assemble. The main panel will still be large and I am going to probably use a steel plate for the backer so the dispatcher can use magnets to represent trains. The main panel will control all turnouts on the main, while the local panels will control any local switches using electric machines as well as provide local operators with a track schematic. Some locals and or the main panel will have overlap with dual controls for some turnouts - more on that wiring later. For now - a copy of the Lower Works Branch - West panel.

Typical Panel

BY PRODUCTS PLANT Part 24

2011-12-04T21:57:00.001-08:00

Had a semi-productive weekend. The newly extended Lower Works Branch was finally linked back to the main with the help of Jimmy installing flex track is a very tight area. I also took the time to lay all the spurs to the forge shop, the heat treatment shop, the lower foundry track, and Machine Shop #2. Jimmy also climbed up on the platform to lay cork on the branch line up to the coal dock. This branch is another example of my poor layout planing skills as the middle 8' of it are virtually unreachable from the aisle and I still need to add track, landforms, scenery, backdrop painting,...etc.. Wiring work continues - I put back the circuit breaker board and track feeds into the Coke Works Branch control panel. I also wiring in a few BD-40 occupancy detectors. The wiring ahead seems endless, so much for DCC simplifying things.

I added some additional piping to the gas bleeder stack, essentially finishing this structure. I'll give it the once over with some files and sandpaper and then prime and paint it.

Bleeder in roughly the position it will permanently occupy.

We managed to fit in a quick road trip this weekend, visiting a bunch of railroad, model railroad, and non-railroad sites in South Jersey. One stop, the Patcong Valley Model Railroad Club featured some very fine modeling and my wife enjoyed looking for the hidden aliens scattered throughout the layout. Just adjacent to this club, the real Cape May Seashore Lines Railroad was running their Santa Clause specials. Odd looking train with three or four Budd RDC between Pennsy and CNJ first generation Geeps.

CNJ GP-7 in Richland, NJ (On former PRSL Trackage)

Some additional South Jersey rural railroading in Woodstown, NJ

Very Lightly Traveled Branch to Salem, NJ - Track is in horrible condition and Speed limit is 5mph.

SW something at Woodstown, NJ

BY-PRODUCTS PLANT - Part 23

2011-12-02T23:20:00.001-08:00

More or less a finished product,... Still going to add some sort of electrical conduit and a junction box or two along side the caged ladder. Switched up this time and used the Tichy caged ladder over the Plastruct. I'm not sure why I shied away from these before but they look much better than the heavy Plastruct models, abet a little harder to build. Using the Tichy also allowed me to angle the bottom 20' of the ladder in a seamless fashion like the prototype, with I think very good results. The Tichy is also cheaper, plus you get railings, stairs, and other parts on the same sprue. The usual round platform work ensued, along with some rod materials at the top of the structure and boxy equipment boxes just under the top platform, serviceable from the lower platform. I also added a second pipe to the base with a lid and hex rod slices as bolts - this would be used as some sort of service door.

Bleeder Tower

We were working outside this past weekend and in the process of moving things around and came across a portion of my old brick collection. My kids were amazed that I used to collect bricks back during my college years and I think in their eyes my dorkiness level was raised to all time high. Some relation to the steel industry as many of the bricks are fire bricks collected in the Perth Amboy, NJ area. Steel mills were a prime market for these clay industries.

Part of my brick collection

I also received an early Christmas present in the form of some beautiful ladle castings from Brandon Wehe. These are truly fine castings and are no comparison to my nascent attempts at producing commercial resin castings. These ladles will find good use in my open hearth.

Ladle Castings by Brandon Wehe

BY-PRODUCTS PLANT Part - 22

2011-11-29T22:28:00.001-08:00

There are only a few elements of the By-Products plant that I haven't built yet, the Bleeder Stack being one. This is your basic waste gas burner or bleeder, common in steel mills and oil refineries. Once again I am basing my model on the Thomas Coke prototype.

I started with a simple base structure I turned on the lathe out of some scrap wood. I turned the horizontal rings of the base in place and also drilled a small hole for the stack. I added some styrene strip to the base structure and fabricated hold down bolts and their cast fittings using strip, tube, and hex strip. Still plenty of work to be done on the stack.

Bleeder Stack Base

Full Structure - Stack needs work

WEEKEND UPDATE

2011-11-20T21:42:00.001-08:00

Work continues on the ship and other structures but I've also been redoing much of the wiring on the layout. It's one of those things where I didn't really have a plan so just started shoving stuff everywhere, eventually to the point of having a big mess that I couldn't even figure out what wire went where, and also, not having room for signal circuit boards and stationary decoders,...etc. And to help things out and order from All Electronics and Yankee Dabbler (DCC components) arrived last week. Two real cool items in these packages - besides wire, switches,...etc.. I ordered some ultra-violet LEDs - I am going to mount these in the ceilings of several of my structures that handle hot iron or steel - specifically to set off my new resin slag, iron and steel loads. I've been casting these in a fluorescent yellow-orange, and they look good as is, but under black light they look even better. NOTE - These will be commercially available soon.

Ultra-violet LED and "hot" steel load

Another arrival was a NCE "Mini-Panel". This nifty piece of engineering is a circuit board that has the potential for many many different applications. Simply, it has 15 pairs of inputs, to which you can connect switches (electrical), detectors, ,...etc anything that would close the circuit. In response the chip on the circuit board is programed to execute up to four DCC commands for each input pair. Essentially it allows you to access DCC features from a traditional control panel. The possibilities are endless as you can access engine, turnout, signal, macros,....etc.. . There is a video on You Tube in which a model railroader used the Mini Panel to automate a locomotive switching a small array of turnouts and track, including, speed changes, horn and bell sounds,....etc. Despite only having four command lines you can use a "link" feature to extend your program, although, you loose another input pair for every four command lines. The first use of this device for me will be for automatic route control for my hidden primary mill staging.

NCE Mini Panel

In addition to model railroading we hit the trail this weekend for a quick backpacking trip up in New York. Not Boy Scouts, just my son and a few friends of mine from work. Same area of New York that we did last April. Take New Jersey Transit Train into New York City - hike from Penn Station to Grand Central - Metro North Hudson Line (ex NYC mainline) to Garrison, NY. Trail starts at station - hike a variety of trails in the Castle Rock Unique area and the Osborne Preserve and eventually link up to the Appalachian Trail. Take the trail to the monastery on top of the mountain and spend the night there - reverse trip on sunday. Some photos -

Camping on the Monastery Ball Field

Backpacking

Metro-North Locomotive - Runs on Diesel or Third Rail (south of Croton-Harmon)

West Point

S.S. VALHALLA - Part 5

2011-11-13T21:15:00.001-08:00

An old Mainline Modeler magazine I bought at TImonium got me thinking about the Valhalla again, specifically some of the deck arrangements,...etc. First however, I had to take care of some basics - first the anchor chain holes had to be drilled, along with holes for the various crane posts.

You can see anchor and anchor chain holes at very front of vessel. Other, larger holes , are for the crane poles.

You will also notice that I have finished all the angled supports between the deck and the hull sides. Then I turned my attention to the hull sides - adding the rivet bands that will give the ship the affect of a riveted hull.

Banding on sides is .020x.188 styrene strip with rivets embossed

Finally, I started installing some of the crane posts.

Posts are 5/16" tubing

ENSLEY MIXER - Part 11

2011-11-11T21:32:00.001-08:00

Finally I was able to get back to some modeling this past week. The Ensley Mixer project had been at a standstill for awhile - My original roller assembly was solid modeling, just not to scale - the rollers turned out to be too large. Disgusted with wasting the time I set this aside, but with construction on the Bessemer Plant underway, the mixer will soon be needed. So, I built the cast supports for the mixer using a variety of solid plastic and plastic strips. The webbing was punched out and holes filed to size. Roller assemblies were constructed of 1/4" tubing and solid styrene. Also, an elevated concrete foundation was built and the four access hatches were molded in resin.

Assembly photos to follow, but first a new product alert - Central Valley has come out with another type of girder assembly. As you have seen over the years, I love these products and this is just one more type to add to my structures.

New Central Valley Girders

Assembling Cast Bases for Mixer

Foundation and finished supports

Building rollers

Finished Roller Assmebly

Free-mo ing at Timonium

2011-10-31T19:15:00.000-07:00

We were back in Timonium this weekend with the Capitol Area Free-mo group. The set-up this time included about 7 or 8 modules. Most were in the semi-finished or finished state so overall I would say the overall layout looked the best it has ever, and a far improvement from last October. The electronics are improving and we are able to break the whole thing down fast - less than a half an hour. With the snow on Saturday and the MER convention going on it appeared to me that the show had light attendance. Also, along the lines of better organization, we had a run chief that arranged the modules and also set-up our first organized operating session.

Some photos from the weekend:

Mostly a straight line setup with a few minor turns.
Pipe Foundry Module in center, blast furnace off to right.

Moving a cut of bottle cars from the blast furnace to the BOF

Slag cars need to be moved to dump

Bottle cars holding next to large bag house (unfinished) on Pipe Foundry module

Some More Bethlehem for Now

2011-10-23T22:57:00.000-07:00

The trip was a nice break but right back into the work grinder. So for now, just a quick post and a few more Bethlehem photos.

Machine Shop #2

A few corrections to my last post -

*The purple furnaces were for the cure cancer month
*The terrain around the Lehigh Gap I talked about it being more rocky and barren - thanks to years of emissions from the NJ Zinc company in Palmerton. (Note- they make this stuff in PA far from NJ, but my home state still gets blamed anyway)
*No "jackhole artist" was responsible for the Chinese Character on the building but rather it was "Jackhole Hollywood" people when they were filming the transformers there.

Cranes near Steel Stacks Entrance

Notable this month -

Randy Costanza's Coke Works was featured in the recent Great Model Railroads . Congratulations Randy.

Also, both the November issue of Model Railroader and the November issue of Railroad Model Craftsman both had good waterfront railroading articles. And the RMC had a good article on modeling Susquehanna RS-1's.

Blowing Engines from outdoor deck at Steel Stacks

Work continues on the railroad - wiring and scenery mostly, although getting back to a few steel things.

Holy Powerlines Batman!

Lehigh Heavy Forge

A Little Breather

2011-10-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

Usually my wife and me take an early fall extended weekend trip (Pittsburgh last year) but this year that looked like a no-go due to work - until - a hole opened up in my schedule that would leave me free this past weekend. Since it was only to be a two night, two day deal we couldn't go too far. Luckily, living in New Jersey, there are a lot of options close by. New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore/DC are all within an short drive, as are the Pocono Mountains, the Jersey Shore, and the Eastern Shore of MD/DE. We ended up picking the mountains - the fall colors would be out earlier, my wife wanted to go to the Jim Thorpe fall festival, and I of course, would find the usual steel, railroad, and hobby store sites along the way. A recent post on the Yahoo Steel Group had me thinking about Bethlehem and seeing how the Sands Casino on the former steel mill site had just opened up a hotel, we could use that as our base of operations.

We left Friday night and after a short hour plus ride to Bethlehem we arrived at Bethlehem just at dusk. It looked like some stores were still open so we did a little shopping, trying to beat the 7pm closing times of most of the shops. The Moravian Book Store has a nice Bethlehem Steel Section and also a neat local history section. The ghost tours were just starting up and with the shops closing, we headed to the casino.

Hotel is to far left, followed by casino and taller parking garage

We had been to the Casino, well the Casino parking garage to take some photos a year or so ago, so it was no problem finding. The casino is basically built in the former ore yard of the plant and the hotel, while connected to the casino is on the other side of the Minsi Trails Bridge, approximately on the former site of the dual gauge yard and engine facility. The driveway and lobby are just across from the eastern end of Machine shop #2, which is still standing. The hotel parking lot is the former site of the forging plant and later Weldment. The only thing that remains of the forging operation is Heat Treatment #3, the first high house heat treatment facility at the plant. A larger more modern one also remains as part of Lehigh Heavy Forge - just to the east of the casino.

View from our room on the sixth floor. High House and Minsi Trails Bridge

We checked in and brought our bags to the room. I'd requested a river view. Our room was on the sixth floor with an excellent view of the #3 High House and of the former Lehigh Valley mainline. This section of track is very busy - lots of mainline train movements east and west, and the small, but very long, yard along the edge of the parking lot is used by the Philadelphia, Bethlehem & New England to interchange traffic. The PB&NE's SWs were busy with a lot of intermodal traffic from a facility elsewhere in the former steel plant. I spent a decent amount of time just sitting by the window watching trains. If you go, request the sixth floor or higher - probably the higher the better - hotel is I think 15 floors. By the way, the hotel is clean and has modern stylish decor. The rooms are large and set up for all your modern electronics. The hallways of the hotel have numerous photos of Bethlehem Steel - only complaint is that it is slightly pricey for what you get and where - Bethlehem, PA.

It was late and we were hungry so we decided to check out the Casino. We don't really gamble, a fact I proved by loosing $20 to slot machines in about 5 minutes and not even really understanding what I was doing in the mean time. We watched a craps table and tried to figure out what was going on and couldn't so just never bothered the rest of the time we were there. For those of you that do gamble however, the place was large and to me seemed cleaner than most Atlantic City casinos I've been in. It was crowded all weekend (except for 7am this morning) but there still looked to be room to play if you wanted. We figured the restaurants would be pricey but didn't feel like going back out so we settled on "Burgers and More" one of three of Emeril Lagasse's places in this casino. I'm a bit of a food snob so I didn't have high expectations for this joint - just looking for a quick burger, however - BAMM. I don't know how this guy makes a hamburger , cole slaw, chili, and cheese sticks taste so good, but he did. Probably the best hamburger I have ever had. The key seems to be all the sauces that go on everything and they were perfect.

Now the casino is connected to the hotel by a long walkway - on one side I guess is meeting rooms and on the other is a shopping mall under construction. The cool thing about this long hallway, besides the exercise is that every 20 feet there is a framed Bethlehem Steel Shop Drawing. I spent more time in this hallway than in the casino. My favorite was a plan of the Bethlehem Steel Sintering Plant - I photographed this drawing and have already printed it out for modeling purposes.

Breakfast with my lovely wife - note high line just over her head and blast furnace row

We got some deserts in the casino and brought them back to our room and called it a night. We got up early saturday and had breakfast in the Foundry Room at the hotel (free continental breakfast) The view is was pretty sweet from our table - looking straight down the former High Line with Machine Shop #2 on the left and the end of E-Furnace on the right.

After breakfast I left on foot from the hotel with plans to meet my wife in the parking lot on the side of A-Furnace. You can wall all the way from the hotel, along the High Line, crossing under it, and then between the end of Machine Shop #2 and the Blowing Engine House, emerging in front of blast furnace row. All this on a public sidewalk. While all the structures are fenced in, you are literally only feet from them. While I was out that early there were at least another half dozen photographers taking photos - probably not steel geeks, but more arty type photos. The new arts center there, Steel Stacks, has used two older craneways to sort of form a portal. My only objection to anything here was some jack hole "artist" painting some large Chinese characters on the exterior of one of the old buildings - like pissing on someones grave.

A, B, and C Furnaces - You can get as close as the Highline

By the time I got to the car I was totally photographed out and we headed north to Jim Thorpe. I always like this drive, heading through cement country up into Anthracite Coal Country. Passing the lonely bridge abutments of the former Lehigh and New England RR's bridge across the Lehigh always moves me for some reason. The terrain seems different here, with more exposed rock than elsewhere.

Jim Thorpe was pretty crowded by the time we arrived. The "fall festival" proved a bit of a sham with only a dozen or so vendors and half that many food people. Still my wife managed to find trinkets here and there throughout the various shops in town.

Shopping on the streets of Jim Thorpe

We left Jim Thorpe and headed east toward the Delaware, spending much of the remaining afternoon on back roads working our way down through the country back toward Bethlehem. Just outside town I stopped at a decent hobby shop I had been at once before, just off Rt 33? north of Easton. Mixed hobbies but lots of trains, in all scales. I picked up a few Walther's Modular building panels and also some NCE Block Detectors for an upcoming signaling project. From there I stopped at a weapons store in Easton, PA called SARCO - I needed a new flash suppressor for my AR-15 - just kidding, but they do sell parts for pretty much every machine gun ever made. I wanted to look at the large collection of military collectable they have. Quite a few very interesting things, but too pricey for me. Arriving back in Bethlehem we stopped back at Steel Stacks to check out the interior now that it was open. There is a nice gift store there that I bought a Bethlehem Steel Shirt and a book called "30 years under the beam." The fourth floor open deck as nice views of the blast furnaces and you can see down into the open end of the blowing engine house. We had mostly skipped lunch and were craving some more of those Emeril burgers so we headed back to the casino for dinner.

Purple Blast Furnaces for Halloween I Guess

Following dinner we drove back over to Bethlehem (the part on the north side of the river) for more shopping. I found a figurine from one of my favorite childhood movies, Jason and the Argonauts. There was some sort of fashion event going on so the streets were filled with well dressed models - I had to really concentrate on where I turned my head in order to avoid a slap to the back of my head. We got some ice cream and called it a night.

We slept in a bit on sunday, although, I made an early morning foray through the casino and then to the upper levels of the casino parking garage for some nice shots of Lehigh Heavy Forge. Breakfast looking at the Highline, and then we checked out. We drove past the furnaces one last time and headed south, taking back roads and hitting some prime shopping areas through northern Bucks County, PA. In all, a very pleasant weekend. I know there has been a lot on the internet unfavorable as to what is going on in Bethlehem, but I must say I was pleasantly surprised. When I was 18 I took my life in my hands walking across a frozen canal just to get a photo of the Bethlehem Steel blast furnaces from across the river - and then a few years later going on a tour of the plant, but not being able to take any photos - this is for sure much more fun, just walking right up to them.

Lehigh Heavy Forge from Casino Parking Garage

BESSEMER PLANT - Part 7

2011-10-03T22:09:00.000-07:00

I've had a spot designated for the Bessemer Plant for some time, although, I never really had worked on developing a plan for the actual physical layout of the facility. I've gone back and forth a few times, and up until just recently was thinking of doing an outdoor type plant like Lorrain. Space as always is an issue, but by scaling down a bit and loosing one track I can fit a smaller version of Mike Rabbitt's Bessemer Plant in my space. I've always liked Mike's plant, and at the same time having his plan set eliminates having to generate my own working drawings to use for the build.

A vertical 2x6 helping to support my ancient 1st floor framing is right in the middle of the Bessemer plant and will ruin some of the sight lines and photo angles, even after concealing it in corrugated material and painting it black. The plans call for five tracks within the Bessemer building, but I have reduced it to four and that will be tricky using store bought turnouts and track. I have Track 1 in and hopefully by later this week will have 2-4 installed too.

The building supports are spread out along mostly 24' intervals with 40' at the individual converters. The plans appear to call for a combination of a 1/4" H-Column with an older lattice type box girder supporting the crane rail beam. I'm not sure if they would have mixed styles like that, however, it works for modeling as I need to build the box girder sections from Central Valley kits- these are a bit delicate when adding a few lengths together, so the uniform Plastruct 1/4" H-column adds some rigidity to the structure. For these longer vertical posts I always try to use Plastruct as the similar Evergreen profile is much finer and therefore a bit weaker. Extending the Central Valley box girders is simple but will take some time. I try to alternate the joints to make things a bit stronger. You also have to take the time to cut back the ends to get the lattice to line up - some filing is usually needed to get this just right.

Box girder section, extended and 1/4" H-Column cut and ready to assemble

Once I had both vertical posts cut to length, I added some 1/4" I-beam pieces, cut to about 3/8" long as spacers between the two columns. I blocked in the bottom and top of the lattice work with 1/4"x.030 styrene.

Assembled Posts, one down 17 more to go.

STILL IN BUSINESS

2011-10-02T11:44:00.000-07:00

Well, you probably have noticed that I've gone quite a while without a post. I am usually able to squeeze a quick update in, but the past month has been extremely busy. Thanks for the concerned emails, but everything is ok and I have actually done some model railroading, however, I have been working quite a bit lately and haven't had the energy left for my typical late-night blogging. Things will probably continue to be busy for me until December, but I will try to do a little better.

Usually after a Steel Mill Modeler's Meet I hit the scratchbuilding hard. This year is a little different as I left the meet inspired as always, but also with a sense of urgency in regards to the actual physical plant of my railroad. Next years meet will be held here in South Jersey and I am involved in a lot of the planning. I also expect my layout to be on the tour list so, for the past month, and for the immediate future, the focus is on getting my bench work, soffit and fascias finished, track laid, and wiring semi-completed. I would say the final trackwork plan is about 95% complete, at least in my mind, with only a few areas left with some thinking involved. That being said, I need to get the track down, wired, and switch machines up - a big task. Not to mention so basic scenery and maybe finish a structure or two by next September. So as you will see from the photos, the work of late, involves these sort of tasks.

Inside of partially finished control panel for "PORT". A DCC Specialities PSX circuit breaker board and track feeder terminal strips.

These control panels were originally much larger, however, operating with smaller panels elsewhere I realized that I could fit what I needed in a smaller package, leaving additional space on the fascia for card-card holders,...etc. Fortunately I was able to throw the old panels on the chop saw and turn one into two by some creative cutting and the addition of a single new side. The cuts also created a opening in the back for wires to be routed through.

Black Fascia in "PORT" area - note control panel on far left, followed by card card holder, DCC jack, and DCC controller and holder. A New York Central FM unit sits on the paved commodities pier.

I'm also trying to start adding some landforms as I'm sick of looking at plywood. I don't use any one method, but rather a mix dependent on what appears to be the easiest . You can see in the next photo a mix of foam, and plaster. The "plaster" is actually Structolite, a plaster basecoat that works well for landforms - it has perlite mixed in that makes it light but also harder than straight plaster or hydrocal. It is very cheap, available in 50 or 60lb bags from masonry suppliers. I use hot-glued cardboard strips and plaster cloth for the base and then trowel on structolite on top.

Structolite over plaster cloth and cardboard strips

If you just looked at the above photo you will notice three turnouts. All three are controlled by Caboose ground throws. My original plan was to use Tortice machines for everything, but the cost for that would just get out of control. However, I also realized that for most of my layout there will be a lot of overhead piping and other fragile structures that would get in the way of an operator reaching for a ground throw. Therefore, all turnouts need to be controlled from the fascia, either by ground throw or control panel switch. For the ground throws I mount a small block of wood on the fascia and build a linkage from piano wire and a 3/32 plastic tube, connecting the turnout to the throw, mounted on the block. These tubes get buried either by hardshell scenery as above or by notching the tube into the homesote or foam. As I mount the throws perpendicular to the turnouts, sometimes the tubes will even cross each other - the the throw for the right turnout above is actually to the left of the throw for the center turnout.

Even getting this work done, I still occasionally get the itch for building - I threw together a classic Atlas Signal Tower kit and added some lighting to it too. This tower will control the wye area in the Lower Works, undoubtedly the busiest section of trackwork on the layout.

LW TOWER, maybe

Finally - RIP Griffen Pipe Foundry, Florence, NJ - only the cupolas remain, but not for too much longer.

GRIFFEN PIPE - RIP

Steel Mill Modelers Meet 2011 - Day 1

2011-09-11T21:21:00.000-07:00

It was a very busy week and I'm just getting around to posting my account of the 2011 Steel Mill Modelers Meet over this past Labor Day Weekend. As usual, we had a fun four days at this event - we always do. I think it is a combination of four days away from work, a relaxing atmosphere, a topic that we both enjoy hearing about, great group of people,....etc. We attend a half dozen or so model railroad related events over the year but this one is by far our favorite. This is part of the reason that I volunteered to help out to keep this event going in the future.

We are close enough that we don't need to rush on Thursday morning. Because of the three modules and the associated models and cars that go on these modules we use a full size work van to haul everything. The van was emptied out of tools and equipment on Wednesday night and the modules were loaded. We loaded the remainder of our models and luggage in the morning and waited until just after rush hour to depart. The ride only takes about two hours or so and we arrived in the vicinity of the meet by 11pm. Usually two early to check in or set up, we had an early lunch and made it to the hotel just after noon. As we were in charge of the Display Room this year we didn't need to wait around to set up and were able to begin moving in the module components. This year we had a second room across the hall from the Display Room to set up the modules and hold the Saturday workshops.

Turf Valley Resort

Despite our early arrival, we were not the first there - we soon bumped into Leon Dorak and Glenn Sonnier. Leon brought in his excellent N-scale BOF to display and Glenn carefully unloaded and set up his two HO Scale Blast Furnaces. The larger of the two won the Dean Freytag Award a few years ago and his second is well under construction.

Leon Dorak's N-Scale BOF

Glenn Sonnier's Blast Furnace - Glenn (seated left) is talking Blast Furnaces with Eric Craig (seated Right)

Others started arriving in rapid succession and the display room started to fill up with models along with a few tables for vendors. It took us about two hours or so to set up the modules and get them running. Significant damage had occurred during transport to much of the ballast and ground cover during transport - nothing that can't be fixed, just disappointing, but we had rushed with this so the glue wasn't 100% dry yet. The module/workshop room was full of tables - we put away about half of them to make way for the modules. In addition to our three modules we had two Free-mo modules in the construction phase that hopefully might be completed by next year. We also shared the module room with Dave Alley's S-Scale Steel Mill Modules. Dave is a character to put it mildly, but then again I think he is the only S-Scaler I know so perhaps they all are.

Dave Alley's Steel Mill modules

Once things were in hand with the display room and our modules set up, we took a break to finally check in to our room. When we registered for this event, the hotel had said they were out of the $89 rooms set aside for our group and all they had available were suites. We took a suite for $119, which in the scheme of things is pretty cheap, however, overall I think the "out of rooms thing" was a real petty scummy trick on the part of Turf Valley. A few people complained and John Glaab quickly rectified things and suddenly rooms were again available at the $89 price, but we just kept ours as is figuring the extra room for the two of us wouldn't be a bad thing since we were staying three nights. The suite was very nice - lots of room, corner suite on the top floor with windows on two sides with great views, little kitchenette, and two TVs - especially important with a teenager that watches Comedy Central into the early morning hours. I think there must have only been one, maybe two other guest on our whole floor on thursday night, so much for the out of rooms thing. We brought some subs back to our room for dinner - note to self, in Maryland buy crabcakes not subs.

We arrived at the seminar room just in time for John Glaab's welcome, followed by an excellent primer on steel mill modeling. John's seminar was followed by Dick Buchan's talk on building steel mills on modules - things to consider and a proposal for new or different standards for building modules with large industries. After this we spent an hour or so in the display room looking and shopping, before calling it a night.

NOTE - This will be a continuing series as time allows.

NOTE - Something has changed with the blogspot page template I use that allows me to post the pictures in a better manner and caption them too. Hopefully this will make my blog more readable.

STEEL MILL MODELERS MEET - 2011 Part 1

2011-09-05T21:28:00.000-07:00

We have just returned from the 2011 Steel Mill Modelers Meet, after a short detour on the way home to Cape May to help my brother move. It's late and we've just unloaded our luggage, purchases, models, and modules so the text will be brief for now, but followed during the next few days with additional posts describing the entire event.

For now, photos of my son Jimmy's two Steel Mill Free-mo modules - (he is standing in front of my US Pipe module - his blast furnace is located off to the right) He is pushing a string of slag cars upgrade to the slag dump.

Jimmy's Walther's Steel Mill. He purchased this model three weeks ago - built and painted it in time for the show. Because of it's arrangement on his module, he was unable to use the kit's skip hoist and instead opted for a modern conveyor fed furnace. The conveyor is left over from this modules previous incantation - the cement plant.

Plenty of other fine modeling there - Mike Rabbit won the Dean Freytag Award for his superb Sinter Plant Model

And Eric Craig's working skip hoist on his under construction steam era blast furnace

Plenty of more fine modeling to report on - stay tuned.....

Scratchbuilding Craziness and more

2011-08-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

Well there is less than two weeks until the Steel Mill Modelers Meet in Maryland and as usual I'm way behind getting anything completed for the event. Even though there is some time left, between work and other obligations I won't end up being able to do much more than get my Foundry presentation ready and maybe a few odds and ends. My son has been doing a bit better with his blast furnace model. He recently purchased the Walthers Blast Furnace kit with the intention of building it as the centerpiece of the Free-mo module. Not being able to really transport at once any more modules than we already have, I gave him the two cement plant modules to use for his steel mill. As much as I wanted to model it, the cement plant was turning into a distraction and he will do much better with the module I would think. The configuration of the two has turned out to beideal for positioning the blast furnace, with some additional track work to the one module. He is also considering putting a BOF on the extra module real estate.

A few neat products to talk about -

Now I've been accused of obsessing about detail too much at times, but how about this - HO scale individual bricks. I mean, if I want to model the #2 Machine Shop at Bethlehem exactly, why not start at the ground and work up one brick at a time?No, not that crazy, but the bricks will make some nice detailing throughout my mill. They are made by a German company named Juwella and are actually real ceramic.

Another product from overseas - Vallejo paints. I've talked about these before - probably the best model paints I have ever used andthey are relatively cheap - $3 a tube and the bottles are squeeze tubes so you only put out as many drops as you need. Well they now have a line called model Air that are just for airbrush painting - you can just dispense a few drops right into the cup of your air brush and go to town. They dry almost immediately and spray well. It's amazing how fast you can change up colors not having to worry about thinning things.

Also from this manufacturer, a Grey Pumice putty type material. It is some sort of acrylic resin with grit infused in it. Jimmy was trying the traditional ballast method to add some skull to bottle cars when I remembered buying this product to try just that some time ago. It works like a charm and the skull looks great.

Death to Moby Dick!

2011-08-14T21:36:00.000-07:00

I'm finally getting around to dealing with my white whale - the US Pipe Cupola Baghouse. I started building this monster bag house two years ago, as part of our US Pipe Free-mo module. As some of you may remember, the module and the mostly scratchbuilt structures on it were a one month rush job. At the time of first display, many of the structures were unfinished or had basic paintjobs. The worst was the baghouse, which remained a basic styrene framework and structure. It was displayed as a work in progress with the intention of a more complete structure by the next time the module was displayed. Now two years later and five displays or so later things remain the same.

So this weekend I pulled out the elements of the pipe foundry and am determined to improve on some and finish others in time for the Steel Mill Modelers Meet in three weeks. On the baghouse - which is technically 27 individual baghouses, I've added the remained of the diagonal bracing on the under side of the platform and am now adding the input plenums for each baghouse . The modeling ahead isn't hard, just repetitive. I've also included a photo of a mini table saw I picked up for $40 at Harbor Freight. I'm not thrilled with the teeth on the blade so I'm looking for an improved blade, but otherwise the tool is relatively sturdy

IRON FOUNDRY - Part 4

2011-08-07T21:10:00.000-07:00

Originally I was going to build the windboxes for the the cupola furnaces from wood on the lathe and drill press, but instead I opted to use styrene to build one and then make castings. In using styrene the shape you end up with is slightly irregular with some minor oil canning and other imperfections, just like the real thing. I also built a tuyere for later casting - ultimately I need about 8 for each .

TRANSFER CABOOSE - Part 1

2011-08-06T23:45:00.000-07:00

Still taking a step back from the mixer debacle, I've been working on my iron foundry a bit as well as a few other projects. Sometimes these projects take a life of their own very quickly - for example - I spent a few hours this afternoon watching a movie and looking through the Morning Sun Steel Mill Railroads book - Volume 1. There are two photos in that book of a unique transfer caboose used by the MonCon Railroad during hot metal moves at the J&L Plant in Pittsburgh. I've thought of building it a few times for the same use in my mill, but for whatever reason, I went to the workbench and found a junker caboose that I could use the steps and underframe, abet shortened, as the basis for a copy of the MonCon car. I did my best to scale everything from the one close up photo in the book, but it doesn't matter a whole lot since the original car was basically scratchbuilt too. A few hours and pieces of scrap styrene later I have the semblance of a caboose, with more work to go.

ENSLEY MIXER - Part 10

2011-08-03T19:00:00.000-07:00

Failure - Hours of modeling down the drain. There were two types of roller supports for the Ensley type mixer - the ones drawn in the plans that I am using - multiple fixed rollers attached to a cast support - and then the type you see in the photos of the actual Ensley mixer - four sets of double rollers mounted on pivoting cast frames. For whatever reason I thought the later looked more interesting so I attempted to scale them from the photos but only after actually building two sets and most of the other two did I realize that they are too big. Mind you they work, but it's one of those things that would just bother me every time I'd look at the mixer. So, back to the drawing board. I'm not sure at this point whether I'm going to stick with the same type of roller or go with the other type that I have plans for. I will probably walk away from things for a few days and think it over. I did build a master for one of the four access doors on the sides of the mixer. I'll cast the other three.

FIELD TRIP - Griffin Pipe/Roebling Steel/Pemberton Railroad Station

2011-07-24T20:32:00.001-07:00

After dinner out this past friday night, we took the long way home, driving down along the Delaware River from Roebling to Burlington, NJ. On the way I noticed that, unfortunately, the Griffin Pipe Foundry is being demolished - only a year or so after the hot side of the US Pipe Foundry in Burlington met a similar fate. (more on this later) Despite my sadness at the demolition of Griffin, the process does present some opportunities. As the building come down, frequently their interesting contents become exposed. It's a tricky business catching things in a partial state of dismantling and I will probably have to be vigilant in visiting the site for the next month or so. With horrible heat on Saturday I waited until this morning when things cooled down slightly, and also my son and partner on steel outings had returned from Boy Scout camp.

We started out in Burlington, although I have many photos of the US Pipe facility, it never hurts to have a few more. I was especially interested in photographing some of the original McNeal Pipe Foundry stone buildings to the south of the US Pipe Facility. McNeal became part of US Pipe, although, interestingly, when US Pipe started to manufacture pipe using centrifugal casting they essentially abandoned the older stone buildings and built new structures just to the north. I assume some of these stone buildings took on other functions, but even to this day it is very clear where the old plant ended and new began. I shot a few photographs of the original McNeal cupola building for my talk I am giving at the upcoming Steel Mill Modelers Meet. As stated before, the hot end of the US Pipe Plant was shut down maybe four or five years ago and demolished last year. All pipe is now made in their Alabama facility, although, this site still serves as a distribution and storage center. I did take a long distance shot of their GE-45 tonner - a photo I took of this loco in 1988 was published in Railpace.

Just north of US Pipe, following along the banks of the Delaware there is a large Sheetrock factory still in operation, receiving raw gypsum from ship. I had never photographed this plant before, but with the rate things are disappearing around here I took the time. Just a bit further north and we hit Griffin Pipe. Took some nice photos here - will have to stop back every few days. From Griffin we drove through Florence and then into Roebling.

The town of Roebling was built by the John A. Roebling's Sons Company and is probably the best preserved company town left in America. The Roebling's bridge building and wire rope business had been based out of their large plant in Trenton, NJ, however, they lacked the ability to manufacture their own steel at that location and after US Steel and Bethlehem increasingly shafting them on steel costs they purchased land on the Delaware River about 10 miles south of their Trenton Plant with the intention of building an Open Hearth Steel Mill and additional wire mills.

As there was no nearby town or city, the Roeblings built the entire town to house workers for their mill. The entire town was built of brick and included stores, a hotel, boarding houses, a school, a theater, parks, community gardens,...etc... Workers lived in neighborhoods based on their ethnic backgrounds, with their associated churches and social clubs. The worker with families were offered brick row houses (each with a fruit tree in the rear yard), supervisors and foremen, duplexes, and managers, large single family homes. Rents were affordable and all exterior and interior maintenance was included. The streets, lawns, and parks were kept immaculate. As opposed to some of the predatory practices of coal mining companies, there was no company script - all transactions were in cash and the company store, restaurants, theaters,...etc. all had pricing in line or less than elsewhere. When the Roeblings sold the mill to Colorado Fuel and Iron in the 1950's, everyone had an opportunity to buy their houses at very reasonable rates - I think the row homes sold for $500.

The mill was closed in the early 1970s and stood empty for years - first awaiting a buyer and then as a superfund site. In the past ten years the entire mill has been demolished, with the only structure remaining, the gatehouse for the plant, recently turned into a museum. The museum is fairly small and the focus is primarily on the bridge building aspects of the Roebling Company and not much for us steel mill folks, except for the exterior exhibits in the "mill yard" - actually an old crane way, one of many. They have outside - A Brownhoist rail crane, a GE-45 ton critter, ingot cars or maybe for scrap trays, a mill flat car, a Kress-carrier type machine, a slag pot, a teaming ladle, a scrap bucket, and a huge, 124 ton 28' diameter flywheel from a 5000hp Corlless engine that drove the blooming mill. Except for climbing into the locomotive, crane, or Kress Carrier, you can pretty much get up close and personal to any of these artifacts - photograph them, measure them, hug them, whatever.

From Roebling we took back country roads over to the Pemberton Railroad Museum. Two additional engines from the Roebling plant are located here - a GE 100 tonner and another 45 tonner. This museum is located in the old train station along the abandoned right of way that ran from Camden, through Mt Holly, and on to the shore. The line still sees heavy use from Mt Holly to Camden but the rails and ties have been long removed beyond that. The folks at this museum set up some nice displays inside and managed over the past ten or fifteen years to acquire the two previously mentioned locomotives and a half dozen or more pieces of rolling stock. They put down a few hundred feet of rail to store this equipment and ultimately wanted to lay a few miles of track westward and run excursions. Unfortunately, they didn't actually own the property or station - the town did. After a recent change in local politics, the new administration viewed the museum as a "junk yard" according to the new mayor and started to try to evict them. To compound things, the town recently transferred title of the property to the county who are equally as unenthusiastic about the museum. The museum wasn't open, although some folks were moving displays out of the station while we were there - I didn't have the heart to ask them if they were pulling out, or what will be the fate of the rolling stock.

IRON FOUNDRY - Part 3

2011-07-24T20:26:00.000-07:00

Just a short blog on the iron foundry progress. I cast a few of the ladles and associated pieces and put together two of them, one in a pouring position, the other in a moving position. Just primed for now, awaiting paint.

ENSLEY MIXER - Part 9

2011-07-23T23:08:00.000-07:00

I was sitting at my bench looking at a photo of the real Ensley mixer, trying to figure out the roller mechanisms as they are different than what is in the plan drawing that I have, when I realized that I had built the bearing rings wrong. I hadn't added width to the rings for their lower 75% and the webbing was angled the wrong way. I was pretty disappointed in missing this detail and briefly considered leaving things as they were, but, it needed to be fixed in order for the roller mechanisms to look right in comparison. So I spent most of the duration of the George Clooney movie, The American, adding onto the rings and the webbing. The webbing was especially difficult as I needed to insert non-right angle triangles on each piece - each triangle slightly different in size too. The result is acceptable and once cleaned up should look fine. I started cutting pieces for the roller assemblies from 1/2" tubing. I also took some time to begin building up the insides of the pouring and filling spouts with body filler. I couldn't really devise a way to add thickness to these assemblies and in the end, several applications of filler and sanding will hopefully work.

I am also adding a photo of something I picked up on Friday. Sort of baseball cards for railroad buffs. From Japan, these boxes contain random scenery bases with locomotives and, don't forget, a bag of gum. I ended up with a roundhouse and two locomotives, Japanese prototypes of course.

IRON FOUNDRY - Part 2

2011-07-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

My original plan was to scratchbuild a stone type structure for the iron foundry, however, realizing I'm already scratchbuilding more than I can handle right now I started thinking kitbash. I looked at a few European kits but they didn't have the look I wanted. The Walthers discontinued Vulcan kit would have worked but it has smallish windows and a two level appearance. I ended up settling on the Dayton Machine kit by Walthers. This is one of their "Built Up" kits, with a $50 price tag to reflect that, although you do get two interior lights. The structure is assembled, presumably in China, however, the base is screwed on and easily separates. As I intend to model some of the interior, this was important. To make this kit work I needed to add a little height to it as there would need to be room for clearance for a crane. I added a 7/16 inch extension to the foundation. I also cut out a large portion of the base and used .125 sheet styrene to form a pouring "pit"

ENSLEY MIXER - Part 8

2011-07-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

Very brief update with some not so great photos - sorry. Worked a bit on the pouring spout of the mixer. Used a mix of 030 and 020 styrene scraps and some scrap tubing to build up a spout that replicated what I've seen in photos.

ENSLEY MIXER - Part 7

2011-07-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

Added the h-columns to the sides of the mixer. These beams don't appear on the early photos of this type of mixer, but, most show them in more recent photos. Perhaps there was a strength issue with the mixer sides. The beam was .100 H-Column with spacer strips glued on to pack up the sides between the rivet bands. I also added webbing to the column cross pieces at the top of the mixer. And, finally, I added the top strip reinforcement in both directions, using brass and styrene scrap .

IRON FOUNDRY - Part 1

2011-07-13T22:18:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the recent rearranging of real estate within the lower mill, I now have a building site for the "iron foundry". Not that I need to go off on still another new scratchbuild with everything else going on, but with the 2011 Steel Mill Modelers Meet fast approaching and my presentation on modeling foundries I figured the more foundry modeling I can include the better.

My foundry is not a stand alone business but rather part of the overall operations of Raritan Steel. It is based on the Bethlehem Steel prototype, which was a busier place within the mill than you would think. At Beth Steel (Bethlehem Plant) the iron foundry was located in the original stone rolling mill/bessemer building. It was quite large and had the capacity of some really big castings. I'm not 100% certain but I do not believe it had it's own cupola furnaces, but rather, relied entirely on hot iron delivered directly from the blast furnace in subs. The products ranged from small iron castings for use within the mill to extremely large ingot molds to tunnel ring sections for example for outside customers. Many of the castings required secondary finishing in on of the several large machine shops at Bethlehem (interplant move). Most of the regular ingot molds used in the plant were made at the separate Ingot Mold facility, but larger molds were made in the iron foundry, primarily for use in the Steel Foundry (another foundry within the mill) to cast the large steel ingots for use in the forge.

Although the Bethlehem facility lacked cupolas I intend to include two, clearly added to the original structure at a later date and used when the blast furnaces at Raritan are unable to meet the demand for iron - something that will happen when B-Furnace periodically switches over to producing ferromanganese. Plus it obviously gives me an excuse to model two cupolas and a small scrap/raw materials yard.

I started off small with this facility, choosing to model the foundry ladles first. These ladles are slightly different than their larger cousins used elsewhere in the mill. For one, the pouring function of the ladle is controlled by an operator turning a wheel on the side of the ladle and not by the crane. I scaled the foundry ladle from prototype photos and I think I am pretty close to the proportions, at most, slightly on the large side. As I will need many of these within the foundry and littering the grounds around it, I am building it with the intention of casting multiples. From the photo you can see the ladle, built from a variety of scrap styrene, and then on the second photo, the various parts need to complete the ladle handle and pour control.

Machine Shop #2 - Part 1

2011-07-04T20:35:00.000-07:00

With the ongoing home remodeling projects I've been piggybacking some work on the layout. Two reasons for this - first, I've set up the saws, saw horses, dragged out all the tools,...etc., so it is easy to just take a brake from the upstairs work and add some bench work downstairs. The second reason is that most of my layout has been built with cutoffs and scraps from remodeling projects - so, while the scraps are just sitting there it's easy to use them up and not worry about storing them as I really don't have anywhere to do so. This work, once complete, should be the last modifications I make to my original layout and once the additional work on the fascia's, soffits, lighting, and control boxes is done, I can focus solely on building structures and scenery.

I spent a little time this holiday weekend making these modifications. Benchwork and roadbed was installed, along with a little trackwork. More importantly, with the track, the footprints of the future structures can be laid out. I'm about 85% done with this process, the only area not really worked out is in one corner, where I will have room for most likely a rolling mill of some sorts. Just need to work out the type of mill and finalize the design of that structure. One big change is that I have relocated the electric melt shop from it's site in the Lower Works behind the blast furnace to a new location on the coke works branch, adjacent to the rolling mill. The melt shop will be expanded to include a second electric arc furnace, and the "Steel Foundry". It will be served by a new spur off the Coke Works Branch. This branch is mostly Code 70 Shinohara track, and the spur will likely use the same with the hope that this track will perform adequately during operations.

Another new section that I am really excited about is just in front of and slightly lower in elevation from the new melt shop location. This section is basically a sub-branch of the Lower Works Branch, that I will be calling the "Minerals Branch". This branch includes the approach to the highline for coke and some ore/limestone delivery, and also the car dumper, where the majority of the ore and limestone cars will end up. The "Iron Foundry" is also located at the end of this branch. This foundry will receive hot metal cars on occasion, and also, scrap, pig iron, and sand.

Finally, in the previous location of the electric melt shop, much of the track has been reworked allowing for a cluster of buildings whose purposes are intertwined - Machine Shop #2, The Heavy Forge Shop, and Heat Treatment Buildings #2 and #3. Products will move back and forth between these buildings as they are finished.

Tonight I started to mess around with Machine Shop #2. This building is a homage to the real Machine Shop #2 at Bethlehem Steel. The actual shop is an incredibly massive building, six stories high and probably at least a thousand feet long. For the sake of compression, I am building my shop, four stories high. The basis for this structure is the Walther's discontinued Car Shop kit. It has the large industrial windows that I was looking for and the saw tooth roof windows too. As the structure will basically be a flat, with just enough depth for a rail spur, two of these kits is enough to build something that will look massive enough. The kits are designed to be joined together lengthwise, however, stacking the wall sections involves some kitbashing. I counted the brick courses between the upper windows and modified both wall sections so that when joined, the upper stories will look identical. Once cut, I glued the top and bottom sections together and reinforced the joint with 1/4 inch square styrene strips.

STINK BOAT MOB AND MORE

2011-06-26T21:10:00.000-07:00

Located on our way to our sailboat, Chesapeake City, MD is a favorite stop for both my wife and me. She likes the unique stores and I like the architecture and layout of the town, as well as a very excellent cafe, The Bohemia Cafe. Every year this canal town, has their "Canal Day" celebration. Besides the crafts, food, and music, this event has been co-opted by Stink Boaters (motor boaters, as opposed to us Blow Boaters) who have turned the event into their version of an Eastern Shore Mardi Gras, replete with the public inebriation and nudity. Fortunately, we when early and missed most of the worst behavior, although folks were already hitting the sauce at 9:30am so things didn't bode well for later. If you are wondering, we arrived by car and not by boat. The anchorage basin fills up almost to the point you could walk across it on boats. I counted 3 sailboats out of hundreds of stink boats.

My wife enjoyed the crafters and ended the day with several shopping bags full. The crab cakes being sold by the Grace AME Church were beyond outstanding - about two inches thick with almost no filler, lots of big chunks of crab. Normally we would have headed to our boat but we had a BBQ to attend at home Saturday. I shot a photo of a neat water tower in North Chesapeake City - the vessel is a sphere as opposed to the usual cylinder with elliptical ends. We stopped in Wilmington, DE on the way back home at a train store on Rt 202. I forget the exact name of this store but basically it was opened by some of the folks that used to work in the train department at the famed Mitchells. Most of the remains of Mitchell's inventory ended up here and they have continued in the tradition of stocking some unique European model train items in addition to your normal American lines. I purchased two back issues of "Narrow Gauge & Industrial Railway Modelling Review" and two BEMO HOe cars. BEMO is a German company and most of their products are HOm or HOe. HOm is meter gauge so it would be close to HOn3 but not interchangeable. HOe is basically HOn30. I bought a gondola that should work well on the steel mill narrow gauge system and also some kind of cement car I think - I need to research this one a bit more as it might be too modern, but I thought it looked neat anyway. I shot a photo of these two cars sitting in the future ingot stripper yard.

As far as modeling, just a bit of work on the large crane for the A-furnace topworks.

A-FURNACE PART 36

2011-06-19T21:54:00.000-07:00

Besides the ongoing remodeling projects I took some Father's Day liberty and worked a bit on the trains. Don't get me wrong, I still ended up sanding sheetrock and priming the bathroom walls, but luckily we ran out of primer. One of the chores that I did get to was installing 1/4" plywood on the ceiling over the blast furnace section of the layout. This is an ongoing project and I have about half the layout covered with these ceilings. In an ideal world I would have installed a drop ceiling throughout the basement, but, living in an old house I have low ceilings in the basement and need to actually stand between the floor joists so as not to be bent over - I think the bottom of the joists are about 6' 1" from the floor. At the same time, the old tongue and groove flooring about allows way to much dirt and dust to fall on the layout so I am using the 1/4" plywood in the non-aisle areas.

The plywood on the ceiling gets painted flat black and has a valence around the perimeter. Just behind the valence I will eventually install lighting for the layout. I've seen a lot of different approaches to layout lighting and have tried a few, but in the end, in my opinion, the best system is Kichler under cabinet lighting, or the similar Seagull system. I've posted a photo of this system in use in my kitchen. It consists of a 12 gauge low voltage wire set in a plastic track. The individual 10watt lights are clipped on to the track where needed. The lights put out a good amount of light and have reflectors and replaceable bulbs. I have a 500 watt transformer that should power the entire layout. The drawback to this system is the cost - probably around $500 by the time I'm done, maybe more.

Another quick project was a storage rack for my styrene strips. I'm a pretty skilled woodworker and could have spent a few hours building a nice, neat looking rack, but something like this is pure utility and life is too short to waste on something like this, so I built the quick and dirty version. It took a little less than a half an hour to cut a bunch of 1/2" plywood shelves and wood dividers, and then to just glue it all together by eye and put a full bucket of joint compound on top as a weight while the glue dried.

Finally, I did manage some work on A-Furnace. I added this structural end cap on the large craneway. Photos show the four sheaves I modeled but don't really indicate what they were for. On the other side of the upper works I built the second piece of external support framework.

A-FURNACE PART 35

2011-06-15T19:51:00.000-07:00

I always seem to be running out of .060 angle. I quick stop this evening at AAA Hobbies in Magnolia, NJ and my supply is temporarily replaced. I need to order materials such as this in bulk and plan ahead. I think I've mentioned before how much I hate having to patronize this hobby store - there is the issue of them being part of and attached to Stevens International, a hobby distributor, and competing locally on the retail level with their smaller hobby store customers. Although I guess Bethlehem Steel did the same thing with their construction division. But the real issue I have with this store is the way they follow you around the store like you are a thief. I've been going to this store since the late 80s and this behavior hasn't really changed, even despite the fact they see me in there every week or so and I probably spend at least a $1000 a year there or more. They treat my son even worse - I guess they just assume that since he is 17 he is there to steal. I hate people like this. If they are so worried about theft they should just install a bunch of cameras and be at least discrete about it, or better yet change around the design of the store so they can monitor things better from the central counter. I've just had enough with them shadowing me around. So I am going to resolve to avoid these scum at all costs from now on - plan ahead better, order online,...etc., and don't enrich people that treat you like dirt.

The top works of A-Furnace consists of several platforms and two crane ways for servicing the bells and the bell arms. All this is part of a rectangular steel framework within the uptakes. This basic framework is strengthened on three sides by a variety of truss work. (The forth side is the skip hoist) I began by working on the side that faces the stoves. Here the truss is within the two uptakes and was built using .100 angle, some .020 plates, and .060 angle cross members. I also continued working on the railings as I proceed.

A-FURNACE PART 34

2011-06-13T19:21:00.000-07:00

Continue to work on top works of A-Furnace. Adding platforms and railings per photos and Mike Rabbit's plans. Also fabricated large and small bell arms and linkage using some scrap plastic and brass. I think I will keep plugging away at this for now, try to work my way top-down on A-furnace. I'm also reworking the non-blast furnace portion of the "Lower Mill". Currently the only major structure in this area was the electric melt shop. This facility will be slightly expanded, but I also will be adding the following - sinter plant, machine shop #2, a forge, a heat treatment facility, a foundry, and machine shop #6. Much of these structures will be based on Bethlehem practices that were detailed in that latest Canal Museum publication. This portion of the lower mill will add quite a bit of operational variety to the overall mill.

To review some preliminary process flows in my mill as modeled

Coke - Small coke works plus off-line coke received

Limestone - Brought in from off-line, except for open hearth plant - small dolomite processing facility connected to quarry by partially modeled aerial tram. Dolomite processing building connected to open hearth via narrow gauge

Ore - Some off-line but most brought in on ships transferred to captive ore jennies or hoppers at port and moved to mill. Possibility that a car dumper will be modeled if there is room.

Iron - Blast Furnaces A and B iron to open hearth, bessemer plant, pig caster, or foundry

Steel - Bessemer two furnace unit primarily to supply pipe mill with ingots

Open Hearth - 12 large furnaces

Electric Melt Shop - speciality steel for stainless mill, and forge

Primary Mill - Stripper, Soaking Pits and Blooming mill (partially modeled) mostly steel from open hearth

Secondary Mill - Pipe Mill, Stainless rolling mill right now, need to find room for structural or strip mill too.

A-FURNACE PART 33

2011-06-05T21:06:00.000-07:00

With most of the major disruptive remodeling work finished, I've started to think about trains a little in the past week. Don't get me wrong, I still have a long way to go with the home remodeling, but I will be able to start devoting more time to the layout and steel mill projects. Standing in the basement surveying the layout, the predominant colors and either wood, from structures or mostly the benchwork, and the white styrene of all the semi-build structures. Taking inventory, the port and the coke works are the closest sections of the layout to some sort of finished state, but even there, both still need plenty of work. A and B furnace are both partially built and only about 25% of the highline is built. Given that these two structures are the most dramatic overall I am going to try to devote a bit more time to them. The last time that I worked on A-Furnace was July of 2010.

There are a number of walkways, platforms, and stairs to build on the blast furnace upper works. I am starting at the top and working down with the stairs and platforms. I've also finished the last section of downcomer and have attached this section to the upper works so I could work with it on the bench. You can see the initial work on the railings and platforms and stairs in the photo.

UPDATE - Still Here

2011-05-14T16:54:00.000-07:00

I've taken a brief hiatus from model railroading since my return from the Hudson Valley backpacking trip. After 20 years of doing very little remodeling on my own house, but thousands of projects for others, I've finally been guilted into beautifying the structure over my layout. Never one to do things in moderation, my list of projects is daunting - new kitchen, new bathroom, new HVAC system, new windows, skylight, new plumbing throughout, converting my living room into a library (got that idea from John Glaab), new hardwood floors, painting almost entire interior, and tons of exterior projects and landscaping. This work did force me to take up the overgrown outdoor G-scale layout to make room for and AC unit. Eventually, this G-scale outdoor layout will be rebuilt, including relocating the pond, on hopefully a much grander scale.

Despite the non-railroad nature of this work, there is a benefit - by cleaning up all the mechanical systems in my house, most of which run through the basement, it will allow me to complete portions of the layout that I haven't really done much work on in fear of needing access to something. So far some of the exterior work is done, a few windows are replaced, the kitchen cabinets are in awaiting their granite tops, much of the plumbing work is finished, and the HVAC system is done. Given that the later item was encased in a model railroad, it is fortunate that on my day job I have a good relationship with one of our HVAC sub contractors. He was a good sport in regards to working in tight quarters and took care of my layout in the process. Hopefully, with a better interior climate control system I will have fewer issues with track expansion and contraction, not that it is a serious problem, just an occasional one.

I had most of my workbench covered but as of today I can pull that off and start getting back to work on a very limited basis, if I have energy left. I was able to get my model railroading fix last night thanks to the friday night operators group. As it was the second friday, the host was Dave Skinner and his exceptional Kade Lines. (see my links for his webpage) It's always a pleasure to operate at Dave's super detailed layout. Half the fun is that I almost always notice something that I hadn't in the past. It's one of those layouts that throws you into sensory overload the first time you visit. I usually end up running a local freight, a passenger train, and a coal drag - just always seems to work out that way. This time I ended up on a portion of the railroad I had never worked on - the Colfax Branch - a light logging branch. It made for some very tricky switching - besides switching the cars I had brought there from Parkersburg and making up the cars for the return trip, you make what seems like a zillion local moves between the various components within the lumber mill and associated yard and engine facilities. I realized about half way into switching the mill that I should have hopped out of the road steamer and into the little mill switcher to make the moves on this tight trackwork. The realization came after there wasn't enough room on a switchback for the locomotive and one car. In the end I think I managed to set the mill right and made my way back over the main to Parkersburg with a gon and three full wood chip cars. (I've posted some poor photos taken with my phone of the section of the layout I was operating.

BACKPACKING IN THE HUDSON RIVER VALLEY - Part 3

2011-05-01T19:24:00.000-07:00

Shortly after turning in for the evening at Monastery it started to rain - drizzles at first, but then developing into a heavy rain. My usual bullet proof Sierra Designs backpacking tent was letting a drop here and there - not a lot, but just enough to be annoying with a drop hitting the inner mesh tent, running down the mesh and dripping off right onto me. I think it was probably caused by the unusual way I had staked down the fly due to the very heavy winds that night and also possibly a need to re-seal the seams on the fly. Either way I threw my poncho over my sleeping bag and drip or not I was way too exhausted not to quickly fall asleep.

I'm not sure when the rain stopped, but I awoke to a beautiful, slightly chilly, morning, well- rested. The first thing I noticed looking out of the tent - the Scouts "Supertent" was gone. Now there was no way they woke before 6am, pitched their tents and were ready to hit the trail. I soon discovered the Scouts, some asleep on picnic tables under the pavilion and the rest in the remains of "Supertent" dismantled, also under the pavilion. Guess they weren't as good tent designers as they thought.

With everyone still asleep and no rush to get anyone up as we only had to cover about 4-5 miles that day, I got dressed and sat at a picnic table over by the edge of the woods, taking in the beautiful morning and reading. Despite their added weight, I will usually bring one or two books along backpacking - not reading for a few days just isn't something I can do - it's bad enough not having my morning New York Times for three days, although, I guess I could have picked up a copy at the convenience store later. I was reading a book my brother gave me a few years ago about the classified Special Operations Vietnam War Studies and Observations Groups - small recon teams that operated in mostly Laos and Cambodia - most of the time with no identification, sans American uniforms and using non-American weapons. The author, John Plaster, was a member of these teams, serving three years in Vietnam. His group - a small undermanned company called CCC (Command Control Center) - there was a north and south too) was the most highly decorated unit in the Vietnam War, with five Congressional Medal of Honor (for five separate actions). One of their team members, Bob Howard, had more decorations than any American soldier - ever - in any war. He had an amazing 8 Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star, Distinguished Service Cross, and the Medal of Honor. Interestingly, the recent video game mega-hit, Call of Duty, Black Ops, has many mission based on the feats of these MACV-SOG groups and in-fact, the author of this book was a consultant for the game.

I had about an hour of peaceful reading before the troops began to stir. In addition to our unit, a lone AT backpacker had joined us for the night. He was a young charter school teacher from Philadelphia. He spends his vacations hiking portions of the AT and has completed most of the southern part of the trail and is now working on NY and Connecticut. We had an interesting chat about the trail and the state of schools in Philadelphia as the scouts pitched their tents and had breakfast.

The first portion of the hike was to basically backtrack on the AT, back down hill to Appalachian Mart and then back into the woods, headed west, or south on the AT. We let the Scouts leave as soon as they were ready, with instructions to wait for us at the convenience store. We left shortly after - its a mostly downhill hike to the store, but the first quarter mile was a extreme uphill climb out of the monastery. We really felt this first incline. We caught up to the Scouts at the Mart, already, consuming their fill of Mountain Dews and Monster energy drinks, plus plenty of other junk. The more sugar the better as after a half of a mile into the woods the trail would take an extreme change in elevation - about 500 feet over a half mile or so.

Heading west, once we passed the yellow connector trail from the day before we were on new turf. The AT headed up, almost straight up it felt like. We spent the next hour or so huffing and puffing our way uphill to get back on top of that ridge line that we had seen the day before from Sugarloaf. We would essentially follow this ridge all day with some up and down diversions, heading toward it's end at Anthony's Nose, overlooking the Bear Mountain Bridge. Running this ridge we could occasionally catch a great view of the Hudson River Valley through the trees. Eventually, about 4 miles into the days hike we started a very steep decent for about a half of a mile, down to South Mountain Pass Road. We continued down the road for a few hundred yards and the AT branched off to the left, following an old carriage road uphill for about a quarter of a mile. It was a nice flat gravel road, but the steady grade was one last kick in the butt before reaching our campsite for the night - the Hemlock Springs Campsite. This site is actually located a few hundred feet off the trail, however, there was a clearing almost directly on the trail that offered slightly better ground for camping.

We had arrived about 1pm and after setting up our tents we all had lunch. After lunch the scouts headed out into the woods - a

first trying to play baseball on the side of a steep hill, but eventually just building some forts and ending up throwing rocks and sticks at each other - again, not much has changed since I was a scout. Us adults settled in, building a nice little fire and some taking naps, reading, talking,....generally relaxing. The site has no facilities although water was plentiful via a nearby stream and our water purifying pumps. If you are traveling here in the summer months I might be a little worried about water, although there might just be enough in one of the few stream

Occasionally it looked like it might rain, but except for a few drops here and there we had nice weather and it wasn't too cold. Dinner and then some more time enjoying the fire, I turned in later than the night before, even reading a bit before going to sleep. I slept well, except for pitching my tent on a bit too much of a grade - my new North Face sleeping bag was pretty slippery and I occasionally had to reposition myself back uphill.

We hit the trail early the next day, our last. We had about five miles or so of hiking and wanted to try to get into and through New York City before rush-hour. We began once again climbing some steep terrain. The AT climbs up toward Anthony's Nose but cuts off west and goes downhill to cross the Hudson at the Bear Mountain Bridge. Before the trail started downhill, we broke off onto the "Camp Smith Trail". Camp Smith is a NY State National Guard Base and this trail skirts the edge of it's property. The trail is in fact part of the base and is used by soldiers for training exercises. It is a roughly four mile trail that would take us up to Anthony's Nose, and then downhill toward Peekskill, where we would catch a train. Unlike the AT, for which I had an excellent guide book and maps, I only had a small basic map of the Camp Smith Trail that I printed off the internet - this would prove tough to estimate distances and terrain on - something that would earn me the ire of the rest of the group before the day was out.

From the AT it was roughly about three quarters of a mile uphill to the "nose". Anthony's Nose offered probably the best vistas of the Hudson River Valley of the whole trip. Looking almost directly down on the Bear Mountain Bridge we sat and rested and enjoyed the view for fifteen minutes or so. While there I saw three separate freight trains working their way north up the West Shore Line . I also heard the passenger trains on the Hudson Division, although they were running through a small tunnel below the bridge. The remainder of the hike l

ooked, on paper at least, like a mostly downhill hike, roughly paralleling the river and the Bear Mountain Parkway toward Peekskill. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case - what it turned out to be was about four miles of grueling up and down trails, with some extremely vertical accents and descents. It also had started to rain lightly, making the rock faces slippery. Because of the vertical changes it was hard for me to estimate the ground covered on the basic map and I frequently overestimated our progress. By the fifth time I had said "just one more hill" I was getting some pretty evil looks. Eventually we made it down, although there was just "one more hill" before the end of the trail at the "Toll House". The toll house was a former toll booth from way back when the Bear Mountain Bridge and Parkway were built in the 1920's. We

were still about a mile and a half from the train station in Peekskill. There is no trail for this final bit and the hike is mostly on high-speed roads with little or no shoulders. Given the condition of the group, including myself, the rainy weather, and the concern about safely hiking on the road, we opted for taxis.

A quick scan on the scoutmaster's Iphone brought up the number of a Peekskill cab company. It was a bit hard to get them to understand where we were - when you say toll house they think the other end of the Bear Mountain Bridge, which is a toll bridge. Eventually they understood and quickly despatched two cabs - small SUV's. Our short ride to the station confirmed that we probably had made the right choice as the road was pretty hairy in some points. We had about a fif

teen minute wait and then we loaded onto a New York City bound train. Despite the great views, I slept most of the way in. Upon arriving at Grand Central, we realized that we had about 25 minutes to get to Penn Station to get the next train back to Hamilton, NJ. This is iffy with subways, even more so with having to get fares for everyone, but on the streets, doable if we hustled.

I've always been good at moving fast through NY City streets, but with the rain and everyone carrying umbrellas and a big pack on my already big frame made it a bit interesting and I bumped into more than a few people. But blazing a trail through the crowds we made it to the station. I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast and not being able to stop and buy a street pretzel or hot dog was really killing me, but we made the train. Two hours later we were home.

BACKPACKING IN THE HUDSON RIVER VALLEY - Part 2

2011-04-22T17:59:00.000-07:00

The accent up Castle Rock started with a gradual climb over a broad meadow, still saturated from the previous night's deluge. By the top of the meadow I was starting remember the difference between backpacking and day hiking. The 70 pounds or so on my back added that much resistance to every step, not that I am exactly in peak shape either. We had walked about a mile or so of level ground mostly prior to the meadow - this would end up being the last we ever saw on the trip. The Hudson Highlands aren't the Rocky Mountains, but we would see plenty of rapid elevation changes throughout and also plenty of rock. As we reached the tree line the trail turned southward, away from the castle and toward Sugarloaf Hill.

Sugarloaf Hill appears to be an almost pyramidal mountain, or hill - felt like a small mountain, but is actually more of a continuous ridge. From the entrance to the Castle Rock Unique Area, Wing and Wing Road, we had been hiking on the red trail. When we reached an intersection with the blue trail (The Osborne Loop), the red trail (Carriage Trail and Sugar Loaf Trail) turned west, directly up to the summit of Sugarloaf. This trail stub ended, and also rose almost 300 feet in elevation over less than a half of a mile - we had already at this point climbed to about 500 feet above are starting point at the river. I offered to drop our packs for this hike, but everyone was still pretty fresh so the consensus was to go on.

The climb proved to be as steep as expected and after a rapid climb for the first 1/4 mile we walked the ridge another 1/4 mile to a rock outcropping - we stopped for a rest and for lunch. When we arrived a group of four hikers we just leaving. This group of young folks was up from the city for a day hike - they were "training" for Machu Picchu in Peru. Very friendly and I kept my thoughts to myself - they should have brought full backpacks if they were serious, and even then, there is no way at 780 feet to simulate the high altitude problems they will face. Best of luck to them anyhow. I settled in behind a rock for lunch as the wind was gusting pretty fierce all day and into the night. Great views of the Hudson River Valley here - from West Point down to the Bear Mountain Bridge. The Bear Mountain Bridge looked pretty far away from this perspective and being that in two days time we were supposed to be overlooking that bridge, it looked even further - a lot of highlands between us and there.

The Hudson River Valley is surely unique in some aspects of it's beauty. One can only imagine Henry Hudson sailing up it for the first time with the soaring hills on both sides dropping to banks of the river. Even the names of the peaks and valleys are mystical - Sugarloaf, Storm King, Breakneck Ridge, Dunderburg, Manitou, and - Glenclyffe, Graymoor, Canopus, Iona Island, Sunk Mines,....etc. The real history is equally as rich - Bear Mountain bridge was the location of the first great Hudson Chain and the two forts that protected it's anchors on each bank, and the second chain was strung between Garrison and West Point. The first chain was cut after both forts fell to overwhelming British forces. Nearby Hessian Lake supposedly got it's name from the massacre of American Continental Prisoners. These German mercenaries left an ind

elible mark on the region that echos in folklore to this day. Don't forget, just a few miles south at Sleep Hollow, the antagonist of the Washington Irving story was the ghost of a beheaded Hessian horseman. The trail we took from the river was the "escape route" of the penultimate American traitor, Benedict Arnold - the path he took after he realized his attempt to hand over West Point to the British had been discovered.

Speaking of the trail, we negotiated our way back down Sugarloaf and then started climbing the Osborne Loop Trail (blue trail). On this trail we ran into a very nice couple and their two chocolate lab dogs. We talked for a bit and mentioned that we were thinking of possibly checking out a small lake to the north, near the castle, as a possible campsite for the night. They said we could probably find a place there, but would probably get a visit from the castle caretaker "Chip" . They knew Chip apparently and just told us to mention their name and it would be fine. Legally, it wouldn't matter as we would have been in the Osborne Unique Area which is managed by the New York Department of Environmental Resources. They permit primitive camping in groups of 10 or less without any permit or fee - but the gesture was nice and as Scouts we would want to be a courteous as possible. The Hudson Highlands Park is run by the state Park Service and does not allow camping - the exception being for backpackers on the AT. Ultimately we elected to press on to the AT and not stay at the lake. In hindsight, staying at the lake would have kept us high on the general north south ridge line we were following, instead of dropping down behind it only to retrace our steps the next day.

At the old carriage road to the lake we left the Osborne Loop Trail for the Connector Trail (yellow) which would take us a mile or so, mostly downward, to the AT. On this trail we passed a group of elderly hikers on the accent - hope I am as spry as some of them when I'm their age. Connecting with the AT (Appalachian Trail - White Blazes) we continued on until we came to a swamp, which we crossed using a planked walkway. At this point the trail arrived at what was probably the highlight of the trip for the scouts, the Appalachian Mart. A convenience store at the intersection of two busy roads. Crossing the road the Mart had a small picnic area that we dropped our packs and rested while the Scouts loaded up on candy, soda, and energy drinks. We had only been in the woods since about 10am but you'd think they'd just reached the New World after three months at sea.

Our destination for the night was just across the street, sort of. On Bing Maps it looked like a short 1/2 mile walk to a campsite on the baseball field of the Mount of Atonement Monastery. I didn't notice much elevation, but the "Mount of Atonement" thing should have clued me in. With the Scouts sugared up and blazing ahead, we climbed this Mount and did our own Atonement of sorts I guess. It was another grueling climb and we were about spent. Finally emerging from the woods onto a grassy strip and road, we ran into a group of resting Baptists. Sort of ironic running into a crowd of Baptists at a Monastery - these folks were a church youth group from Maine - they had come down for the week and already in one day covered a lot of ground - we were just about to settle down for the evening and they still were intending on reaching almost the Bear Mountain Bridge - our destination the next night. (It will take us four hours the next day to cover this ground so they must have been pretty tired by the time they reached camp)

At this point, the Friars have marked a trail with blue blazes through the Monastery grounds to a baseball field with a small covered pavilion. There was water available here but not privy (I believe they set Porta-Pots for the warmer months) There was also a cold shower but it was locked for the winter I guess. We pitched our tents in the field and made supper. After dinner the Scouts found an old ratty softball in the woods and made a bat out of a stick and proceeded to play baseball the rest of the night - with the exception of an hour break or so to hike back down to the convenience store for soda and candy. I can't get my kid to take out the trash, but he will hike a mile round trip, up and down a mountain, for a bottle of Mountain Dew and stick of gum. On returning they played baseball until the cover and binding completely fell off the ball. This is something that is unique to the Boy Scout Organization - where else would you see a group of boys playing baseball with a ratty softball, a stick for a bat, and on a muddy field for three hours? Contrary to popular belief, boys can occupy themselves away from X-Box and scheduled sports and activities. This "free time" is during which most of my fondest memories in the Boy Scouts happened - five hour long games of steal the flag, building forts in the woods, damming streams and then letting loose the water, building rafts, frog parachuting, red eff races,...etc. It's nice to see a tradition continue.

Fatigue soon caught up with us non sugar enriched older folks so we headed off to our tents just as rain drops started to fall. The Scouts, still wired had connected their two tents with duct tape to create "Supertent". While it might have looked good from their perspective, the Scouts would soon learn there is a reason people get paid to design tents. To be continued

BACKPACKING IN THE HUDSON RIVER VALLEY - Part 1

2011-04-20T19:30:00.000-07:00

For the past two years I've posted pictures of Jimmy's April Boy Scout backpacking trip to the Adirondacks. This year, the usual four day trip, scheduled for this past Saturday through Tuesday was cancelled due to expected bad weather, including possibly snow. Being an Eagle Scout, my initial reaction wasn't positive, however, sitting inside on Saturday night listening to the torrential downpour and then thinking about how much colder it would have been up north sitting in a tent, I'm glad smarter heads prevailed. There was talk substituting the backpacking for a canoe trip, however, the consensus was to press on with the backpacking, abet one day shorter, and a bit closer, and hence warmer. I suggested hiking part of the Appalachian Trail (AT) through New York State, east of the Hudson River - my old Boy Scout Stomping Grounds. I also suggested mostly eliminating driving and instead taking trains to the trail head and trains back home. Surprisingly there was interest in this. In addition to giving the drivers a needed rest before and after the serious hiking, it also gave the Scouts a chance to experience rail travel - for at least one it was his first train ride.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority, which operates Metro North Railroad is surprisingly backpacker friendly. On their Harlem Line they have a separate station at the point where the AT crosses the tracks just for disembarking hikers. This is close to the Connecticut border, while some 45 miles down the trail at the Hudson River, there is a short walk from the trail to the Hudson Line train station at Manitou. While convenient, both these stations are weekend only stops, however, there are still stations within range of the trail at both ends on weekdays too (more on this later) With only a three day trip, the AT between these stations was not doable by anyone other than some very experienced, very hardcore backpackers, so I came up with a plan to stay near the Hudson. We would travel to Garrison, NY on the Hudson Line, backpack on a series of trails within the Castle Rock Unique Area, and the Hudson Highlands State Park, connect with the AT and take it North (actually traveling east but on the AT you either say North - Maine, or South - Georgia), then double back for a mile or so and take the AT South to the Camp Smith Trail and that trail to the Toll House on the Bear Mountain Parkway - from there we would make our way to the Peekskill Train Station, also on the Hudson Line.

So, with the one day delay, we gathered at the New Jersey Transit Hamilton Station at 6am Sunday morning for the trip into New York's Penn Station. Arriving in New York City the hike started - we could have taken two subways but it was more interesting walking the mostly deserted (relatively speaking of course) fifteen or so blocks between Penn Station and Grand Central Terminal. We arrived with some time to spare so the Scouts were able to take in some of the grandeur of my favorite railroad station.

We took the Hudson Line train out of the city. Going both ways most of our group was either sleeping, talking, or had windows blocked by our backpacks - so we were unable to take in the some of the beautiful views from this train. Running on what was the original New York Central mainline, the "Waterlevel Route", it feels like the train is literally running on the river - even more so on Sunday as the previous evening's storm had left the river high - several waterfront parks were mostly submerged and I saw at least one yacht club's members scrambling to recover boats, docks, and gear, now adrift. The train was an express so we by-passed all the stations until Croton-Harmon, the home of Metro North's Shops and the former end of the electric zone - locomotives were formerly changed here from electric to steam, and later diesel for the continued ride northward. Today, the electric zone extends to Poughkeepsie so it was only a station stop.

At Garrison we disembarked and readied ourselves for the hike ahead. We were able to pick up the Arden Point Trail at the south end of the station parking lot. From the start the trails proved to be as flooded as the river banks were. For most of the day we would literally be hiking up streams as when it rains like it had the night before, the trails become catch basins and gutters to drain the highlands. The initial hike was pleasant enough despite the water and generally paralleled the river and the railroad for about a half of a mile south, passing a few ruins that looked to be some sort of small factory. The trail split and we took a short spur to reach a restored pavilion with a wonderful view of the West Point Military Academy. We took a short rest and a few photos.

Departing from the narrative a little - the former New York Central West Shore Railroad, now CSX runs along the bottom of the cliff that West Point sits on. Virtually against the cliff the railroad built a bridge. I'd never seen this bridge before but it sure looks like a Double Intersecting Whipple Through Truss, of which I thought the only extant example of one in New York was L-158 in Goldens Bridge on New York Central's Mahopac Branch. I've walked on and photographed L-158, and from across the river the West Point bridge sure looks like the same bridge, right

down to the same number of verticals. I also know that L-158 was originally on the West Shore Railroad in Kingston, built there in the 1880s by the Phoenix Bridge Company, and then taken down in 1904 and rebuilt at Goldens Bridge, but reduced from a double track to a single track bridge. What am I missing? It was impossible to tell if the West Point Bridge had the Phoenix Columns like L-158 from across the river. I'm not wrong about the Whipple Truss, but was it rebuilt so is no longer historic? Bridge people - help me out - send email.

Back on the trail, we left the pavilion and got on a trail called Marcia's Mile. The trail was a little difficult to follow and skirted the property of the Monastery of Mary Immaculate, but private property warning signs usually turned us around and kept us on track. The trail ended at Route 9D. A very short hike along 9D brought us to Wing and Wing Road and the gates of Castle Rock. Castle Rock is the estate of William H. Osborn, the former president of the Illinois Central Railroad. It's prominent feature is the castle Osborn built as a home on a large rock about 620 feet above the river. Most

of the "castle grounds" have been donated to the state of New York and make up the Castle Rock Unique Area, whatever that means. Now this castle is truly pretty creepy looking, right out of a horror movie like Dracula's castle, or maybe even the Rocky Horror Picture Show (don't forget to throw coffee grounds) . Either way these movies have taught you to stay away from the castle on the hill - end up with your blood drained, or raped by a transvestite, take your pick. So what do we do- walk up the hill.

Hiking up Castle Rock was the start of many grueling accents in the days to come, and they didn't get any easier. Made me think of the Navy Seal slogan - "The only easy day was yesterday" . To be continued soon.

FREE-MO WEEKEND REDUX Part 2

2011-04-11T20:17:00.000-07:00

I'll start off the photos with one of Dave D. of the Capitol Area Free-mo group. Dave is running his train (the Union Pacific lead loco) past Randy Constanza's 3'x24' coke works. At this point Dave is about 300 feet or so from our Free-mo modules, completely at the other end of this massive modular layout. We had a lot of visitors that had a hard time believing we could run trains all the way to the other end - proof positive. The only real problem that we had was that the Digitrax equipment had apparently reached it's limit and wasn't able to add the Free-mo Digitrax system to the rest - so - we had to manually lift our locomotives over the "frontier" between systems. This could be resolved with four rail gaps and a DPDT switch in the future. All I have to say about this is one thing, NCE.

The next two photos relate to module transport. With four m

odules and structures we are maxed out with a E-250 cargo van. Even

with the van, the transport of the modules takes it's toll on the modules and precludes us leaving any structures permanently attached. Additionally, we lack proper storage space at home and have to store the modules in an outdoor shed. The only real solution that presents itself to this problem is to get a 6x12 trailer to store and transport the modules. While this should work fine, it presents some other issues, namely cost. With about $2000 for a trailer and then at least another $1000 in costs to fit it out for transporting the modules and for actually finishing the modules we now have built, we have to ask ourselves do we take this leap or do we just maybe scale back and focus solely on the pipe foundry module - spending the $3000 or so on the steel mill layout in our basement. The pipe foundry module was originally built as two four foot sections - we could transport in the back of a Saturn Vue. With rising fuel costs I can't even imagine the cost of dragging a trailer to Timonium - in fact this trip we spent more on fuel and tolls than our motel Saturday night. We also need to get our electrical systems up to snuff and are looking at having to buy 8 of the Digitrax plates at $15 or so a pop, plus all the cables,..etc. Another 8 plates in my basement would make that system complete. Well, something t

o ponder over the spring and summer - a lot will have to do with how the economy goes and how it affects my income. One model railroader from the North C

arolina Slipping and Switching Society solved his storage and transport issues by buying an old school bus and tearing out the seats - see photo.

One thing I always get out of any model railroader gathering is information - I try to ask a lot of questions to learn how other people do things. The more information you gather the better - and then take all this, compare it to how you were doing something or thinking of doing something and then adjust accordingly. Slowly you will find your techniques improving with every model you build. This past weekend, I spent a good hour or so talking with Jim Harr of Stella Scale Models - he gave me tons of new ideas for stepping up my resin casting game a notch or two. Talking with the previous mentioned Randy Constanza about his first-rate steel mill I picked up at least a half dozen or more ideas I want to try at home and probably will pick up a dozen more after I look through the photos I took of his mill. I also came across a module with I think it was a group called the Four County or Four something modular group, whose builder had some serious skill modeli

ng in three dimensions - something I'm trying real hard to develop as a skill myself. Developing a good track plan and a realistic structure layout is one thing, but then to take that and expand it vertically to different levels is another. I can handle the different levels, and in fact, my steel mill is on three distinct levels, but the real skill comes in tying these levels together with scenery and lots of retaining walls, in a way that looks realistic and convincing and eliminates the tiered look. Well I took a lot of photos and notes on this module and I thank the unknown builder for displaying it.

Finally, as has become a tradition - our purchases -

First Jimmy - A Bachmann CSX GP38-2, DCC on board - $40

also a Spectrum Conrail SD45, DCC on board $49

Me - (omitting prices incase wife reads)

Tichy Water Tower

Tichy Oil Tank

Peco HOn30 flex track and a right hand switch

Some magazines

A 34' hopper

A tractor and trailer for module

An front end loader for module

Digitrax UT-4 Throttle, so we can stop borrowing one all the time

A Kibri warehouse building kit

A bunch of the Walthers conveyor kits

and probably some other things Im forgetting about right now.

FREE-MO WEEKEND REDUX

2011-04-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

Returned this evening from another Free-mo/Timonium trip. Hopefully I'll keep it short and post a part 2 tomorrow as I am tired and a bit cranky - the worst part of the trip is of course taking everything down, getting it into our van, sitting in the sunday traffic jam on I-95 thanks to the retards in Delaware that first need to clip me a few bucks for driving through their whole dozen miles of highway and additionally have managed to have a tollbooth under construction for two years with no high-speed Easy Pass yet - I mean didn't they build ships in a day or two during WWII, what's so hard about a toll-booth. It's probably the six time I've sat in the same traffic jam. Then I get home and have to put everything away and then reload my work truck with equipment - I'm beat.

But, despite all this, the trip, as usual, is more than worth it. I don't actually end up running a lot of trains, but I do a lot of shopping and a lot of talking. Some highlights of this trip included: hooking our Free-mo stuff up to the Slipping and Switching Societies of North Carolina and Ohio's massive modular layout. There was something like 12 scale miles of mainline available to run on (One of the photos show a side view - basically our Free-mo stuff is on the far right, followed by the NC groups "branch line modules", then the Ohio Group, and then the NC main modular setup); finally meeting, and seeing, Steel Mill Modeler Extraordinaire, Randy Constanza's 3'x40' steel mill, and 3'x24' coke works (see photos); plus bumping into a bunch of other steel mill modelers throughout the show; hanging out with the Free-mo and S&SS folks; and finally, some of the great modeling throughout the displays - the final photo for tonight is an example of some of this modeling, a module built by I think Joe B. of the North Carolina group (correct me if I'm wrong) - besides the fine structure modeling, check out the Code 70 hand laid trackwork - count them, 13 DIAMONDS and 6 TURNOUTS!! additionally, 4 of the diamonds are dual gauge and if you look real careful there is a diamond over a diamond (three tracks crossing a one spot - one of those dual gauge to boot)

ENSLEY MIXER - Part 6

2011-04-03T21:54:00.000-07:00

With the basic spout shape vac-formed twice using .060 plastic, I started first with the pouring spout. This spout sticks out further then the filling spout and comes to a sharper point. I used the drawing to estimate where to trim the plastic back to fit and used a junk piece of Rix tank shell to sketch the curvature on the side of the piece. I then cut along this line and sanded the edge for a tight and square fit. Once I was satisfied with the fit I took a piece of .015 sheet plastic and held it against the mixer body and glued the spout to that. (don't glue to actual mixer, just use as a backer for procedure). Once dry, draw a line about 1/8" from the spout on the sheet plastic and trim and sand so the sheet creates a flange on the spout. Trim the inside of the sheet similarly, maybe a bit more as the inside of both spouts will have a lining like the prototype. Hold the spout assembly to the mixer and before permanently attaching, use a Dremel to cut out the mixer where the spouts will attach. Install the spout. The fill spout is similar, but needs to be cut different as it doesn't project as much, is closed, and is much wider than the pouring. After glueing on the spouts I began using .015 strip to create all the rivet strips,..etc.. Lots more to do.

ENSLEY MIXER - Part 5

2011-04-03T21:43:00.001-07:00

I will need to do two posts tonight on this subject. With everything else pretty much either underway or work out in my mind, I figured I'd better not put off building the pouring and receiving spouts of this mixer anymore. I'd been thinking about how to build these things - they aren't identical, which is one problem, but the bigger issue is their shape - something like half an almond shell and then attached to a cylindrical body. Since the shape isn't exactly conical there really isn't any simple way to build these spouts other than to just carve them. I wanted to try to end up with something styrene as I would need to attach rivet strips and other things that would be easier with plastic on plastic. So, I carved a master out of a block of basswood and then vac-formed two plastic pieces from that master. The result had the right shape but still needed a lot of work. Continued in Part 6

ENSLEY MIXER - Part 4

2011-04-02T21:53:00.000-07:00

I continued working on the support rails. First I created some rigidity by adding 5/32 channels to the ends of the upper rail web. I then added some 3/16 channel cross pieces between the webs to later receive the bolt ends for the top tie-downs. Finally, I applied .40x.188 flange to the outer edge of the support rail - once dry I trimmed all the web supports to match the angle between the inner and outer flanges of the support rail. I also started to add some of the rivet strap details - the long curved strips are a challenge as you must first cut the radii in .015 styrene sheet, emboss the rivets by hand, and then cut and glue on.

FUTURE PROJECTS

2011-04-02T17:17:00.000-07:00

I love scratchbuilding structures for a number of reasons. One reason would be the research element - when you build something you need to find photos, drawings, sketches,,...etc.., but also you need to learn the basic hows and whys of the structure - processes, procedures,....etc. This to me is a lot of fun and at times like a treasure hunt. Another reason - no limitations - once you master the basic techniques and tools there is nothing that is beyond reach - of course money and time can be a limiter and a drawback too.

As I travel I frequently see buildings or factories and think - that would be a neat structure to scratchbuild. So I end up building this never ending list of future projects. If I have time I shoot some pictures when I see these buildings, but most of the time I just drive by with the intention of going back sometime to photo document the structure - something that is virtually costless thanks to the digital image age. As I continue with my slide scanning project I have begun to realize that factories that I photographed in the 1980s are mostly gone now and many of the pre-1950s industries that have survived are in jeopardy of being demolished in the near future. I would venture to guess that by the end of this decade, only 10% of the industrial structures that pre-date 1950 will still be standing and the majority built in the 60's will probably be gone too. So now, I am more fearful of missing a chance to photograph a building.

One of these future to do projects is a small Municipal power plant in Vineland, NJ - I noticed that in the past few years they have switched from coal to oil - while not so worried about the plant itself, I was worried that the coal handling equipment would soon be demoed so - ROAD TRIP. Typical of the day trips that I have began to enjoy since our daughter went off to college and my son is close to finishing high school (think empty nesters - fly children and be free - maybe?) we try to mix things up a bit some industrial archeology, maybe some trains, some shopping, some visiting,,..etc. Well we did plenty of all of these today and managed to take some photos of the Vineland Power Plant. This nifty little power plant is perfect for a future project - it sits within a city block so it is small compared to most NJ power plants - you can photograph it from all sides thanks to sidewalks right alongside the plant - and it has a cool retro-neon sign to boot. Enjoy the photos.

ENSLEY MIXER - Part 3

2011-03-28T21:09:00.000-07:00

Still pondering how I am going to form the pouring and charging spouts on this thing. After glueing on the top of the mixer I let things sit overnight with the tape on just to be sure. And, before I forget, the mixer is two Rix water tank segments wide - but the biggest segments in the 60' tank kit. I am using plans found in the Duplexing article from the Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers. These are specifically for a 400ton version of this type of mixer. I've seen variations of this type from 250 tons to 1500 tons, and of the cylindrical type - 200 to 2000 tons. In both types it appears that mostly the width changes with the capacity, although there is also a small increase in the diameter too as these things get larger.

Once I peeled off the tape, I trimmed the overhanging edges of the top of the mixer and lightly filed them flush. Next I added a 3/8" x .040 strip around the outer perimeter of the cylindrical parts of the mixer body. This is the first piece of many to create the reinforcing and running rails of the mixer. The second piece is a bit more difficult as it isn't a constant radius - the inner and outer radii are different and have off set centers to create rails that are thicker near the base than at the upper sides. I made these pieces by using the circle cutter to cut the inner diameter, and then moved the center one scale foot away and increased the over all diameter 18 scale inches. I trimmed the tops of these rail sections for the later addition of channel cross pieces. I finished the evening by starting to install .040x.188 strips to form the future webbing for the rail.

ENSLEY MIXER - Part 2

2011-03-27T22:28:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I was working on this project. Funny thing happened - I vac-formed the two sides and then tried cutting the arc shape on the top of the mixer - the final product was off and when compared to the drawings and photos was off, so I tried again and got it right on the second side. I put the whole mess aside as I had to vac-form another side blank to cut the second side correctly (you can see what the vac-formed side looks like before cutting). When I went back to this project, the wood master for the side was MIA, and remained so until only recently. So back at work on this, which is good in a way since I've collected more research information since I started and I think I have a better handle on how this complicated vessel is constructed. Don't get me wrong, the hardest lies ahead when I try to make the two spouts. So - with another side properly cut I put the mess together, added some bracing and installed the top using .020 sheet.

A note on the title of this post - I know that the proper name for this mixer isn't "Ensley" - I just call it that as there is I guess maybe the only remaining example of this type of mixer still standing at Ensley. I think they were made by PECOR. The other type of mixer would be the cylindrical type - far easier to build.

In my never ending LED quest I found a pretty good three or four led cluster/circuit to simulate the inside of a furnace. Its a LED tiki torch sold by Home Depot. At $15 its a little pricey for a few LEDs but you can use the three piece pole for smokestacks - 7/8"OD thin wall plastic.

Real Steel

2011-03-25T21:26:00.000-07:00

About ten fifteen years ago there was a surge in interest in the use of steel for building homes. A number of builders began to test the waters and things looked promising, however, for a variety of reasons it never caught on. It's a shame as in many ways it's a superior product when compared to wood.

Some of the minor reasons why it didn't catch on had to do with price fluctuation and uncertainty, availability, and inconsistencies in the way building inspectors handled this product. The major reason steel never panned out for residential construction were the carpenters - the guys that had to actually build these structures. Carpenters, and although my job title says project manager I still consider myself a carpenter, are very slow to accept new products and techniques. We've seen thousands of products that were promoted as the next best thing, only to turn out to be garbage, or worse, dangerous. Carpenters also tend to think in terms of what they know and what they can feel, and not in abstract engineering or scientific principles. Steel, and by this I mean the lightweight steel framing that were being used in homebuilding, feels flimsy and weak to a carpenter used to solid blocks of wood. The knowledge that once all the steel is fastened and sheathed, the overall construction will gain strength is not something obvious, despite the fact that lightweight steel has been in use in the commercial construction industry for years.

Not is all lost, however, we still use lightweight steel almost exclusively for finishing basements - steel won't rot or become home to wood eating insects. It's dead straight compared to wood, which 9 times out of 10 isn't. And it doesn't burn. You need some special tools to work with it, but once you master a few easy techniques, it becomes amazingly simple and forgiving to work with. We also make use frequently of heavy rolled steel flanged beams. Laminated wood beams have replaced steel in many instances, however, many times steel is the best choice for a structural beam. At work I deal with steel pretty often, surprisingly often for a residential remodeling company. Steel beams are much smaller than wood beams of the equivalent strength, and steel beams can be supported by steel posts that will fit inside a standard 2x4 wall.

I have included a photo of a small addition my company is building currently. We are opening up 23' of the existing back wall of the house and to support this opening we are using a W10x65 beam. This beam weighs 65 pounds a foot or about 1500lbs. The beam was delivered to the job and placed on the driveway. Two of us moved the beam around to the back of the house and then into the addition and then into place, using only mechanical advantages, 4" PVC pipes, and small hydraulic jacks. You will see me jacking the beam the last few inches.

OPEN HEARTH PLANT Part 5

2011-03-21T21:23:00.000-07:00

When I started to build the actual open hearths I thought, this should be pretty easy - some flat styrene, some channels,...etc. The reality is there are a lot of parts to each oven, some pretty small. I'm still on the first oven but you can see some of what is involved. Since the last installment I've added some of the brickwork where visible. Also, I made doors for the hearth using I think .125 styrene. The prototype doors looked to be pretty heavy - steel with some sort of refractory on the back. I've seen two types of systems to open the doors - a hydraulic cylinder mounted on the steel framework directly about the door and a pulley and counterweight system, like I am modeling. To build this I'm using A-Line chain - originally I used some Details Associates lifting eyebolts on top of the doors but attaching the chain was a hassle so I just drilled big enough holes in the top edge of the door and ACC d in a piece of chain. I then used super thin wire to attach a length of chain to the door chain. The counterweights appeared to have been under the floor - I guess so not to catch on anything so I just cut the chain flush with the floor. The pulley are made from styrene disks punched with a leather punch - the outer disks are the biggest punch and made in 020 styrene, while the core is 030 plastic and the smallest punch.

The other photo is of the open hearth building. In getting it ready for cladding and interiors, I painted the interior flat black as I am only modeling half. It looked too black for the inside of a mill so I dusted the wall with some flat gull grey - giving the interior effect of a smoky interior. I ran pieces of 18 gauge solid copper along the roof and soldered 14v bulbs every six inches or so to represent ceiling lights.

Days of yore,

2011-03-20T23:50:00.000-07:00

Besides all the other too many things I have going on, I recently started to scan my huge slide collection. It's a slow process, not because of the scanning, but more so the editing. Remember the days where you shot a roll of film, had to wait a few days for it to be processed and then the excitement of opening that envelope while walking out of the store - and then realizing that you shot three rolls of film and you had the camera speed set wrong, or the f-stop or something else. The cool thing about scanning the slides is that with a basic editing program, shots that were crap thirty years ago, now can be made to look pretty decent. As I work my way through the pile I'll occasionally throw some shots up from my collection. This post is a fallen flags special. From the upper peninsula of Michigan to the Lehigh Valley to the woods of main. Those big ass Alco C628s are probably one of my all time favorite locos.

Modern Railroad Operations

2011-03-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

Was working some more on the open hearth today, but I'll post something more on that tomorrow night. For now a quick observation on modern railroad operations. I live a few blocks from the former Pennsylvania Railroad secondary line from Camden, NJ to Pemberton, (and thence to other branches to Ft Dix and the shore). Today it ends just a mile or so north of my house in Mt Holly and is probably called something like the Conrail Joint Assets Mt Holly Industrial Secondary (I don't really know, just speaking in modern railroadeese) Today, this branch is pretty busy and is served by a train everyday. The team track in Mt Holly, the northern end of the line is still used by Diamond M Lumber occasionally. In my town, Hainesport, there is a creosoting plant that receives raw phone poles for treatment on bulkhead flats and in the Hainesport Industrial Park, Gallo Wine receives a half dozen boxcars of wine from California a week and there is a large trash to rail operation that ships out up to a half dozen cars a day of either containerized trash or trash in huge high side gons (I think these might have been wood chip cars a one time, or maybe specially made for trash). Occasionally there is a business in the industrial park that receives coiled steel in coil cars and also lumber and rebar are brought in by another enterprise and transferred to trucks. Just a mile or less south, in Mt Laurel there is a large paper company that can get anywhere from two or three to fifteen cars of recycled paper rolls in boxcars. South of this business there are no more rail shippers all the way into Camden.

A decade or so ago, this line was proposed for light-rail service. I was extremely exited as I expected there would be a station within walking distance and I would be connected by rail to Camden and then from there to pretty much anywhere on the east coast. Unfortunately, a few ignorant nouveau riche residents of Moorestown, NJ, just south of us and their state politician Haines, put the kibosh on this deal and the light rail was built elsewhere. Their brilliant reasoning was that criminals would take the train to their beautiful town and rape and pillage it - guess they forgot about the busses. Don't get me wrong, their town is beautiful, Money magazine even said so - they designated it the best place to live in the United States a few years ago - and just incase you didn't read Money Magazine some guy put up a billboard in front of his McMansion congratulating, I guess himself, for living in such a swell place. The old-money WASPs were probably fit to be tied. The reason I started ranting about this, besides, the fact that I have to ride a filthy bus if I want to use public transportation, is that I grew up in Westchester County, NY, a stones throw from Greenwich, Connecticut and surrounded by equally filthy rich zip codes that would make the Moorestown folks look like a bunch of paupers, and they all had commuter railroads and they would have probably been screaming to their politicians if they tried to take them away. They were clean, efficient, and better than driving a car into New York City. The real estate in towns with stations was certainly more expensive then those without. Originally there were three New York Central Railroad Divisions through Westchester, one, the Putnam Division was abandoned in the early 50's and to illustrate, the towns on that line, while generally affluent suburbs, they never became as desirable or wealthy as their railroad station possessing neighbors. Greenwich, New Canaan, Bedford, Chappaqua, Scarsdale, Pound Ridge,....etc. these places all have railroad stations. Maybe the idea will come up again in the future and maybe by that time fuel will be $6 a gallon and even some of those wacky Escalade driving folks might start to see the value of a railroad.

Ironically, and I probably shouldn't even mention this, one of the few murders that did occur in my childhood town, the killer took the train up from the Bronx. He wasn't exactly a trained ninja - he agreed to kill a guys wife for I think it was around $1000 and make it look like a robbery. He took the train to Valhalla Station, walked to the house, killed the wife and punched the husband in the face to make it look good, and then walked back to the station. While waiting for the return train he realized he was drenched in blood so he walked across the street and knocked on the door of the fire house and asked if he could use their washroom. (station had no bathrooms) The same firehouse that had just got the 911 call about the murder. Like I said, no ninja, but he at least quickly fessed up and implicated the husband.

Wow, really getting off topic, but I want a train I can walk to. I almost have forgotten my original reason for writing - modern railroad operations on the line by my house, and elsewhere. In the past year or so I have noticed something different - locomotives at the head and tail end of these local freights. It makes sense - anyone that has operated real or like most of us, model railroads know that 50% of the time the locomotive is on the wrong end of the train to switch a siding and you need to have a convenient passing track to run around the train. Running with a locomotive at each end eliminates all these passing track moves. Besides on the train down the street from my house I have noticed it recently on another train near a job site in Mt.Ephram, NJ. That is what the photo is of, although you will see both locos on the same end of the train. When the same train had passed earlier, one engine was on each end, and most other days I have seen it, they remain that way for the return trip. They are also high-nose GP38-2s which is pretty neat to see around these parts. They remind you of the old GP-7s and 9's.

Now this brings up an interesting problem for model railroad operations. With DCC it is no problem to run two separate locos on the same train independently, but, I assume on the real railroad, the tail engine is just set to free-roll like a car. This can't really be done on a model - you could use a dummy engine for appearance but not for actual realistic operations, and even if you synced the engines, if the lead engines hits a dead spot on the rail, the cars would probably derail with the tail engine still pushing. Maybe in the future, if this becomes common prototype practice, some modeler or manufacture will come up with a DCC function to disengage the transmission of a locomotive. Interesting problem for some of you DCC electronic geeks to get working on.

The Case for 30" Gauge

2011-03-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

In the early 1980's/late 70's there was a surge of interest in HOn30 thanks primarily to the work of Hayden and Frary and their use of this gauge to render the two foot gauge railroads of Maine in HO scale. These backwoods railroads were ideal for perfecting rural scenery techniques, quaint New England waterfront scenes, and more. The roads seemed a pleasant break from the busy and bustling mainline railroads of America, despite the fact that these miniature roads were almost never successful business enterprises. To be sure, brass HO and O scale equipment could be had in brass if you had the funds and were willing to hand lay the trackwork, however, the use of N-scale mechanisms and track made things a little simpler and the 6" difference from the prototype wasn't a worry for most. Around this time folks looking for a little larger format reasoned what could be done in HO could be done in O scale, and started modeling in On30 scale. I remember being a member of a On30 group back in the late 80s and early 90s and still have some of their newsletters around. On30 eventually took off with a much broader audience after Bachmann began releasing fine looking and running, but inexpensive, equipment in this scale.

Given all this interest it seems someone is always apologizing that things are slightly off - not so. Yes, the three foot gauge and two foot to a lesser extent, predominate where narrow gauge railroads operated with the semblance of a common carrier, but, the vast majority of narrow gauge equipment was used in industrial applications, intra plant railroads, or in mine to mill type situations. Given that, the gauges within the industrial narrow gauge umbrella varied greatly - from 42" to 18". Three foot gauge even in the industrial setting still was a stand out, BUT, 30" gauge was used and was by no means rare. US Steel used 30" throughout their Homestead Plant to move ingots,..etc. In New Jersey, the United States Metals facility in Carteret had about 20 miles of 30" track within their gates, moving copper ingots and plates. (For perspective, the other two copper plants, American Smelting and Refining, and Anaconda, in Woodbridge, and Perth Amboy respectively, both had equally large 3' gauge intra plant railroads. ) I've posted some photos with this blog of the USS 30" gauge locomotive and ingot cars, and photos of the dock of the US Metals plant - one taken in 1991 by me and the other, from many years ago when the plant was in operation.

OPEN HEARTH PLANT #4

2011-03-07T21:40:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I finally got around to getting the second main track up and running. While testing things out I found out that there was a problem on one of the older curves that only really affected my Atlas RS5. Specifically it was a sloppy transition from Code 100 to 83 on a curve - what a stupid place to begin with. In years past I wouldn't bother going through the trouble to fix it and would just not run six axle locos on that track, but, now, with our eyes toward future operations, the trackwork needs to be bullet proof. I replaced the offending portion of track, but as you know, one thing leads to another. Just past the curve is the hidden junction for the Coke Works Branch - it's never given me problems but it wouldn't hurt to upgrade to a more gentle #6 switch. While doing this I began to give serious thought to the area beyond the ore yard in the lower works. The bascule bridge, which never really fit in right has been removed and is in use on one of our Free-mo modules. The track that it carried is to be relocated back further and partially hidden . We also intend to push back some of the back drops. The upside to this work is that this area in the Lower Works will have room for three steelmaking elements, in addition to the electric melt shop. I plan using this space for a Heavy Forge Shop, a large Machine Shop, and a Pipe Mill. The pipe mill was actually being built on the Coke Works Branch, however, this structure will now be finished as a Stainless Steel Rolling Mill. Steel from the Electric Melt Shop will feed the Forge Shop and the Stainless Plant, while the Pipe Mill will receive ingots from the Bessemer Plant. The Open Hearth Plant will supply the Primary Blooming Mill. I will also be able to squeeze in the hint of a sinter plant against the back drop and adjacent to A-Furnace and the High Line.

On to the Open Hearth - As a refresher I have taken a new photo of the overall area I am working with. You can see the Open Hearth against the back drop with the oven face that I am working on in position. You can also see the approximate stack locations and just to the left of them will be the gas producers. The first HO track is for coal for the gas producers and the one on the left, for scrap. You can also see a spur in the distance for the Dolomite Prep Plant. In the open hearth there will be narrow gauge trackage - some of it you can see disappearing down a ramp to a staging yard under the furnaces. There will also be a narrow gauge line directly over the gas producers coal spur where the scrap buggies will be loaded. I am experimenting with the backdrop colors and building positions so things could change a little. Also in the photos I started working on a transfer ladle for charging the open hearths.

OPEN HEARTH PLANT #3

2011-03-03T20:42:00.000-08:00

I told you I would eventually get back to steel mill modeling. I spent a few nights applying the kit siding panels from a Walther's Electric Furnace to my mixer building. As the core of the mixer building is 1/2" MDF I used Goo and spray adhesives to mount the panels. I ran short a few roof panels so I guess I need another Electric Furnace Kit. Laziness took over a bit while doing this work and instead of cutting the siding to match my original building roof angles, I just left the kit angles, figuring I could use the kit roof monitor. While this would look good stand alone, I realized too late that, next to the Open Hearth Building it doesn't look right. Despite being perpendicular to each other, the roof angles should be similar as the buildings would have likely been built at the same time. The basis for the mixer building was the same structure at Republic Steel, Cleveland.

Since it's been a little while, my open hearth plant is technically has 12 units - I'm modeling only half that and using a mirror to make the building look longer - and of the half, I'm only modeling the charging side of the open hearths - so a half of a half. Despite only actually modeling 25% I've compressed the dimensions very little so hopefully the overall effect is of a larger structure. Of the six hearths modeled, only three will have visible interiors. I would have modeled all, but the narrow gauge staging tracks are hidden in half the structure. I basically need to model just the face of the open hearth furnaces as the backdrop is just beyond the doors. I cut out three profiles of the actual masonry part of the open hearths from heavy styrene - don't forget this is only the part visible from the charging level, the actual furnace is much larger. To this profile I added 3/16 channel and some .030x .188 strip. You can begin to see the openings for the six furnace doors. I haven't cut out for the furnaces yet as I am unsure as to how I will model this - probably some sort of LED thing.

FREE-MO PART 4

2011-02-21T20:05:00.000-08:00

Continuing our Free-Mo saga, I'm posting a movie from our set up earlier this month with the Capitol Area Free-Mo Group in Timonium, MD. I shot four short clips from a very old and cheap digital camera and then for the first time ever, played around with my IMovie program on my Mac to make this. I think I compressed it too much, but I'll get it better next time. You can see that my Walthers Bascule Bridge does indeed function. The locomotive is Jimmy's CSX SD40-2. A Bachmann standard, DCC On-Board purchased at a very reasonable price from Peach Creek Shops. Not as smooth at the lower speeds as an Atlas or Proto, but he ran it for two days at the show, mostly switching, without any trouble at all.

I have been down in the basement a bit - the Tichy crane is assembled and painted - just thinking of how to letter it before weathering the whole thing. Overall came out good but not too thrilled with the thread-cables - it allows you to position the boom but at the expense of looks. Might trash this nonsense later on and substitute with fine brass wire. Been also laying some track - installed the Walther's Turntable that has been sitting in a box since Christmas 2009 and tested it. Finished mainline track two and now working on the yard and the engine area. As I lay more track, my standards get higher and higher and I am looking at some of the older work on the layout and realizing that it works, but it isn't bullet-proof. For operations I will need bullet-proof so I am going to go back and revisit a hidden portion of the main that occasionally causes trouble - about 10 feet or so of double track . I plan to pull up the code 100 previously laid there years ago and put down code 83 and replace a #4 switch for the Coke Works Branch with a #6 or even #8. I also intend to make this track visible and move the backdrop back behind it.

MAUCH CHUNK

2011-02-19T21:19:00.000-08:00

Another Saturday roadtrip - destination - Jim Thorpe, PA, formerly known as Mauch Chunk. This nifty little town is nestled in the Lehigh River Gorge only a few hours from home. The town has a rich industrial and railroad history, making it an appealing destination for me, and for my better half, lots of unique little shops. We left a bit early as we thought there might be some crowds as it was their Winter Festival weekend - for naught - as the town was mostly empty on a very blustery and cold February day. Arriving early we first cased the joint, with my Weapon of Mass Consumption choosing her targets, and then sat down for a coffee and muffin waiting for the stores to open at 10am. The plan was to separate - me visiting the Mauch Chunk Museum, and her, hitting the shops. The extent of my historical knowledge of the town was: I knew that it was an important anthracite coal center; Asa Packer, the founder of the Lehigh Valley Railroad lived there; the Lehigh Valley ran along the east bank of the Lehigh River, and the Central of New Jersey along the west bank; and the whole history of the name change and continuing controversy over that. Some interesting other things I learned at the museum -

The town was the original transshipment point for anthracite coal in the region
The coal was transported to the Lehigh River via a gravity railroad, one of the first railroads in America
Originally the coal was transported to Philadelphia in ark like boats - using a crude system of locks - the canal was a one way deal so the boats were dismantled in Philadelphia and the wood sold and the hardware brought back to Mauch Chunk for new boats - Much of historic Philadelphia is supposed to be built with this lumber.
Eventually a two way canal system was built
Once the Lehigh Valley and CNJ and others reached the mines directly, the Gravity Railroad was turned into a tourist attraction.
A variety of hotels and the Gravity Railroad and the reputation of the town as the Switzerland of America made it into the second most visited tourist attraction in America, behind Niagra Falls
Some of the Molly McQuires were tried in the court house (see pictured) and sentenced to death.

With the loss of the Anthracite coal industry and then the railroads, the town fell on hard times, however, in the past 20 years or so it has been reinvented as an outdoor activity center and has been ranked as one of the top 10 "coolest small towns" by at least one magazine. In addition to the shopping, food, and rich history, in the warmer months you can ride a tourist steam railroad, raft down the Lehigh River, or bike the old CNJ mainline. We had a nice day there - my wife left with a half dozen bags or so under her arm, and I learned a few things, took some photos of the buildings, and bought a few railroad trinkets.

We took back roads on our return trip, following the Lehigh River for a bit, and then through cement country and eventually to Easton, PA. We saw the remains of the former Lehigh and New England bridge at the Lehigh Gap - only some of the piers remain, but visually you can see it was a stunning setting for a railroad bridge. We stopped in Easton - on our way back I realized that I had not yet purchased the new Bethlehem Steel Book - Bethlehem Steel in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, a photographic history, by Ann Bartholomew. Put out by the Canal History and Technology Press, we made a quick stop at the Canal Museum store in Easton to pick up a copy. I had some misgivings over buying this book as I feel, maybe wrongly, that not much effort has or is being made to make the Canal Museums massive steel related collections easily available to the public, ie digital images on the net. I am glad I purchased the book as it is pretty darn good - maybe even better in a way than Steel Giants, although I have a bias toward Bethlehem Steel. For you steel mill modelers et al, don't hesitate, pick it up or order it - well worth the $35 price tag.

WORK TRAIN - Part 2

2011-02-13T21:31:00.000-08:00

All the major sub assemblies of the Tichy Crane are complete. Next step is painting and then final assembly and rigging the crane.

WORK TRAIN - Part 1

2011-02-09T21:21:00.000-08:00

At Timonium this past weekend I bought the Tichy Steam Crane kit, along with the boom car. Eventually I'd like to assemble some sort of work train. This crane kit is well made but has a lot of parts - for example, each truck had 13 individual parts. The first photo show the kit box and the bags of parts. The second is the result of about 3hrs of work.

FREE-MO WEEKEND

2011-02-06T20:44:00.000-08:00

We've just returned from a fun weekend spent at the Great Scale Train Show in Timonium, MD with the Capitol Area Free-Mo group. Now you probably remember a month or so my talk of showing up with our Pipe Foundry Module and three new modules, of course with complete trackwork, structures, scenery, and electronics - NOT! We did manage to show up with the three new modules, sans scenery, some electronics and even a few feet of track - oh - and missing and unfinished buildings. But we still had a great time - I usually set unrealistic goals as you've probably gathered from this blog, and I was managing to get my self a little stressed last week trying to get things done for the show. When we finally got down there after leaving at 4:30am on saturday morning, and the modules were set up, and Jimmy was busy running trains, I realized all that fuss was just a waste. I had a great weekend with a great bunch of guys. The train show is a great place to participate in a Free-mo set up. Besides working on the modules, running trains, answering questions, and spreading the word on Free-mo, I usually run into model railroad friends from back in NJ, Steel Mill Modeling friends, and new friends that have previously just been an email address. Also, there are the hundreds of vendors to tempt me with their wares. I'll get into the new purchases in a future blog as it's late and unfortunately I still have to do a bunch of work emailing before I can rest. For now some photos from the weekend -

IT'S A GIRL / FIND - Or Not? / FREE-MO

2011-02-01T18:09:00.000-08:00

Busy day - a lot to report.

First off - the newest addition to the Musser family, Chloe Casmira Musser was born this morning in Cape May Court House, NJ. She is my brother's second child and second daughter. She is shown with her older sister, Ella.

Second - As I think I've talked about before, I'm on an eternal search for a new source of corrugated siding material in styrene or other plastic. I primarily use Evergreen, which is .040 thick with .040 spacing and costs about $6 a piece. Needless to say large steel mill buildings eat up a lot of this material. Plastruct makes a thinner corrugated material that comes two to a pack for about $10 or so. That makes it just slightly cheaper, but it can only be used as a laminate and not by itself like the Evergreen. So, finally, at Sattlers Train shop in Westmont, NJ I think my prayers have been answered. The proprietor, Bruce, just brought in a new line of plastic pattern sheets by JTT Architectural Model Parts. The corrugated material, listed as HO Scale 1:100, comes in slightly larger sheets, two to a package, at the most excellent price of $5.50. Finally I can clad the power plant and open hearth at a reasonable cost. I picked up the one package that he had, along with another pack of concrete block pattern, and a curb and sidewalk package. Slight disappointment set in when I got home and compared this new material to both Evergreen and Plastruct - the spacing of the corrugations is much bigger. It works out to almost two corrugations per scale foot - by that an outie, and innie, and outie, and part of an innie. Roughly six scale inches between the high part of the corrugations. I think it is usable, but I'm going to post my dilemma on the Steel Board and see what others think.

Third - Free-mo progress. Well as usual I'm not where I wanted to be in terms of the modules, but that's the way it usually works. We should have the mains up and running at least for Timonium this weekend and probably will be working on them at the show. I've posted a photo of the as-yet unnamed module. With the cold weather we fortunately had a room on the first floor that is being remodeled , so it is serving as our warm module construction area. This module is has a diverging branch line and has three end plates. We are planing to use it to take the Pipe Foundry module off the main line as it is a little unrealistic having the main go through a building. (Free-mo rules can be a pain in the ass at times for modeling large industrial structures. They work best for rural main lines.) However, this module could also be used to split the module set up into two streams. And you might recognize the Walthers lift-bridge - yes it does operate.

BATTLE OF THE BULGE - Redux

2011-01-30T22:44:00.000-08:00

No work to report on the steel mill or layout - concentrating my efforts on our three new and one existing Free-Mo modules for next weekends set-up at Timonium, MD. Of course we are behind, but hopefully we have a good week - pressure always helps. The modules are built but track needs to be laid and scenery, well, that just might not happen. The priority is to get the mains up and running so we can move trains on them this coming weekend. We will probably have a few structures finished. We might actually work on some of the buildings and scenery at Timonium, but most things will be a work in progress. The good news is that this is the extent of the modules that I plan on building for a long while at least, so from now on any modular work will focus on finishing structures and scenery and detailing,...etc. I have finished a few additional structures for the Pipe Foundry module that Jimmy will be painting and weathering this week. If you are at the show please stop by and say hello. We will be there both days, all day. If you don't see either of us, we are probably walking around shopping but will be back soon. Look for an blog update on the show after next weekend, followed by new blogs that will contain steel mill modeling subject matter - I will be getting back on both blast furnaces after the show.

Yesterday we took our annual father-son trip to Fort Indiantown Gap, PA for a reenactment of the Battle of the Bulge. The bulk of this large WWII reenactment is not open to the public, with the exception of a few hours on Saturday. They have a small well done battle (much larger ones take place over the four days they are there). There is also a large flea market with every sort of militaria, uniforms, models, books, movies, ....etc. The individual units are given old army barracks and in most cases are set up the interiors to look like you are in the 1940's - German music, food, magazines,....etc. In addition to the German and American troops there are British units, Partisans, civilian women in period dress, and even Soviet troops??? Oh, and I forgot - a solitary Japanese soldier. A few years ago I was standing next to a Soviet "Admiral" at the battle. Most of the folks there are very friendly and very interested in showing off their equipment, uniforms, and weapons. The battle this year featured a German anti-tank position with a 37mm and 38mm anti-tank guns supported by two machine guns and troops. We we stood, a Waffen SS security detachment was guarding the right flank of the overall German position. The German position was assaulted by elements of the US 82nd Airborne Division using period fire and movement tactics. The Americans were, of course, successful. It is quite interesting too see and all the weapons are real and fire blanks (except for the artillery, mortars, and rocket launchers, which use a modified black powder charge for effect). This years there was a foot of snow on the ground and it was snowing during the event, so the conditions were spot-on historically accurate.

VIRTUAL RAILFANNING

2011-01-19T20:43:00.000-08:00

It's been a bit light on the steel mill modeling of late, unless you count the crane. Not that I've lost interest, I've just been distracted by benchwork, trackwork, and wiring on the layout - and also - a last minute push to get two, maybe three, more Free-Mo modules together for Timonium in two weeks. I did finish the house project mostly - surprising how long it took to build actually. I need to pick up two more Tichy windows for the third floor this weekend and once I cut them in I'll start painting the thing.

The cement plant Free-Mo project I'm working on features a free-lanced portland cement plant - By that I mean I am sticking to my Steel Mill Rules - while the overall layout and proportions are up to me, the individual elements within the plant all are based on an actual prototype. I have a ton of primary research material as I used to be a professional historian and one of my jobs was documenting the former Universal Atlas Cement Plant in Hudson, NY. And for a steel mill tie-in, Universal Atlas was owned by US Steel, and also, the plant, as did most cement plants, received slag for use as a raw material. I don't think slag was ever used solely, however, it was mixed with the materials from the quarry. (think operations - carloads of slag outbound) The Universal Atlas Plant in Hudson was the only portland cement plant in the United States east of the Hudson River (east by a mile or so) In addition there are a few books on the cement plants and railroad operations in the Lehigh Valley - one, the recent very excellent, Morning Sun publication on this topic. Additionally I used, the title of this blog, virtual railfanning for prototype information.

Virtual Railfanning? Well not railfaning per se but rather virtual research using Bing Maps. I sometimes literally spend hours on this site. Specifically I use the Birds-Eye map feature to zoom in on a particular industry or area. Birds-Eye differs significantly from an standard aerial photo - you are looking at the ground from an angle, like being in a helicopter flying over a site. The angle stays generally the same but you can rotate 360 degrees around a feature, looking at it from all sides. With standard aerial you are just looking straight down, like a map - you will see roofs, but no walls. I used this heavily when modeling the US Pipe foundry and for this cement plant I am primarily using Birds-Eye views of three compact cement plants located south of Catskill, NY. For fun, I will sometimes use Bing Maps to follow a specific rail line - from the Birds-Eye view you can see all the sidings and industries and also old sidings and tracks can be discerned at times too. For example, earlier tonight I followed the old PRSL (Pennsylvania Reading Seashore Lines) track from Woodbury, NJ to Millville - there were a number of industries hidden away I had never seen before, plus some I have, but never from the air. One of my all time favorite virtual railfan "trips" was a year or so ago I spent a few hours following the US Navy Earle Weapons Station Railroad - This railroad, mostly hidden on secure bases, behind trees, on elevated structures,...etc., is pretty incredible. The railroad moves ammunition - bombs, cruise missiles, and formerly nukes, to one of the worlds largest finger piers in Raritan Bay from bunkers on the base at the pier or to bunkers at the inland base. The two bases are connected by a two track railroad about 20 miles long with a military road running along side the tracks. There are a few places where the tracks cross public roads, but probably not a good place to be railfanning in person as train movements usually also consist of nervous heavily armed soldiers on board the trains and in Humvees with mounted weapons. The Birds-Eye views are amazing - hundreds of spurs disappearing into underground bunkers - loop tracks - yards. Again, something that would be impossible to take in from public property.

There are two downsides to the Bing Birds-Eye feature - one it is not available everywhere - I couldn't get coverage of plants in Ohio and West Virginia - just your standard aerials. (Also it is sometimes blocked out - like over Groom Lake AFB,...etc., surprisingly Earle isn't blocked, except for the very end of the ammunition loading pier (where the ships are actually loaded) The second problem is that you can't print the birds-eye views. I'm sure there is a way that some geek probably knows how to, but all the print-screen type ways I know, the images never come through or are substituted with a regular aerial shot. The only low-tech way I've come up with is to just take a digital photo of my actual screen and use that - Ill post a picture. Anyway, when you have some time try Birds-Eye view out - it can be addicting.

TICHY TICHY

2011-01-11T20:25:00.000-08:00

What would have been a great snowbound weekend for modeling turned into a bust thanks to a sore throat and fever. I did get some reading done between naps and bowls of soup. This months Model Railroader was so-so. A few of the articles were good but others blah - I'm sorry to single out the one guy, although I think he was a staff writer or something, but that is the lamest scrap yard that I have ever seen and I've seen a lot of prototype ones. First problem - the gondola was bigger than all the scrap in the yard, which I guess they only took grey iron as there was only one pile. Second problem - maybe it's just NJ and PA scrapyards, but I've never seen an electromagnet rig on an $200k excavator with a brand new paint job. They use claws and front end loaders and whatever other junk that they can keep running. Then, the only real creative type construction he does - the fence - he uses Cambell siding, which I think has been discontinued - so that is probably bumming out a lot of new model railroaders that were going to try. I don't mean to sound snobbish, and I really try hard not to be critical of any modeling, but - (1) I had my hopes up about "Modeling a Scrapyard" in the coming attractions and (2) - the article just seemed almost put together as filler. Maybe MR can't afford to pay for articles anymore? Someone, I think maybe Brandon Wehe or John Gallagher, and correct me if I am wrong, has an outstanding scrap yard Free-mo module that was on display at the 2008 Steel Mill Modelers Meet.

Before my weekend resting, I did manage to hit the LHS to replenish some of my Tichy parts. I can't say enough good things about this company or these parts. Grandt Line has also produced nice stuff and a good variety over the years, but their supply and even catalog has been difficult to come by and not always something that could be counted on. Tichy hands out their complete catalog at shows - which I keep next to my workbench for reference - and their supply seems to be excellent and consistent. My LHS is also a distributor so I usually just go in with a list of part numbers and quantities and they go into the warehouse and pull them - I have yet to see them come back without something on my list. One item I seem to buy a lot of is the coal chute pack - it is $3 and has some misc parts for two different coal chutes. I've used some of the parts elsewhere on occasion, but primarily buy these packs for the two sheaves in it - they are smaller than any of Grandt Line sheaves but work perfect for the sheaves on large gate valves. This time I'm using them on my port crane for the boom lifting cables. I also grabbed some windows - these were pre-mulled together double hung windows that I am mulling into additional groups of three for the celestory windows on the R&H Chemical Works. They are easy to join with just a little light sanding to remove half the trim. Finally, I needed some windows for a styrene house I am building. Most of the layout is a steel mill, but I have a few spots for residential housing in the hills overlooking the new yard. This house will actually be a scale replica of my house.

PORT CRANE - Part 6

2011-01-03T20:46:00.000-08:00

Not much to show for the time I spent modeling tonight. It took me the entire duration of the PBS American Experience R.E. Lee biography to build the two supports for the outer boom. The supports were built using .060x.080 strip as the basis with various scrap strip making up the fittings. I had to fabricate an intermediate coupling so the two pieces of each support bar could pivot, as well as the coupling connecting the support to the boom. I used brass wire to pin most of the parts so that the outer boom would actually move. You can see the pillow block supports on the top of the tower for the to be installed sheaves that will carry the cables to raise and lower the boom. I probably shouldn't have bothered making the boom operational as the cables will have to either be permanently glued to the sheaves or else I'll have to reset them every time it was raised.