COMMENTS - My bad….

 Besides neglecting blog updates, I’ve completely neglected the comments.    I’ve tried to go through and post the non-span  non-anything not related to trains and steel.  Sorry if I missed yours.  I do appreciate them.   There is too much spam for me not to moderate, and also the occasional political or other comment that has no place here.  

Also - please hang on if you are steel mill modeler.  I know most of the last several years has been O scale or book reviews, but steel mill modeling will be making a return soon.   The layout is done being used as a storage shelf and is up and running again, dusted, vacuumed, and ready for work to resume.   Specific long term projects, need to be finished, and there are a few new ones to be started.  

One other matter or light housekeeping - the blog was coming up as unsecured, which maybe kept some folks away.   I think I corrected this, but if you are having trouble getting on, or anything else, please let me know.

Jim

PROTO 48 LAYOUT #2 - THE SETTING

 I’ve explored a few different prototypes to model on this small layout, and eventually settled on a favorite environ of mine - the industrial conflagration of central New Jersey, along the Turnpike Corridor.  This is at it’s most intense roughly between Newark and Perth Amboy.  As a youngster, traveling between my home in the very bucolic Westchester County, NY and our beach home, in the equally bucolic Avalon, NJ, my favorite part of the four hour ride were the sights and smells along this portion of the New Jersey Turnpike. Activity was everywhere - planes, trains, automobiles, and ships.  Smoke and haze all over.  Refinery flare towers lighting up the night sky.  

The inspiration - the southern end of the CNJ Sound Shore branch in the mid 70s.  By the way, the plant in the foreground is a copper refinery/smelter and had an extensive 2’ narrow gauge plant railroad, with a dozen or so locomotives.  

At my O Scale club, I model the Penn Central, and initially my plan was to do the same at home, however, as I am now modeling in PROTO-48, and my home locomotives and rolling stock will not be useable on the club layout, I am no longer tethered to this specific railroad.   This frees me up to model a portion, of one of my favorite sections of rail - the Central Railroad of New Jersey’s, Sound Shore Branch.

The Sound Shore Branch, is a small, five mile long branch line that diverges from CNJs Chemical Coast Line at Bayway (Linden); and then runs roughly parallel to it, but along the edge of the Arthur Kill.  The Arthur Kill is a waterway between New Jersey and Staten Island, NY.  Besides being used to access the industries along both of its shores, the Arthur Kill is a secondary way for vessels and barges to enter the NY/NJ seaport, from Raritan Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean.   For the first half of the branch, while there were passenger stations and trains, literally, no one lives there.   The stations were for industrial complexes.  The branch crosses the Rahway River, a tributary of the Arthur Kill,  via a swing bridge, and enters the very industrial town of Carteret, NJ, it’s terminus.   There are perpendicular connecting branches back to the Chemical Coast Line at Carteret and Tremley Point.   Most of the land that the railroad traverses is tidal marsh.  Factories were built on dredge fill, and the tracks were barely above the water line, and in some cases, partially submerged under a mix of water from the Kill, and “other” liquids.  To give you some idea of the volume of traffic on this branch, in the early 1950s, this five miles of track had a half dozen or so daily passenger trains, and at least a dozen local freights.  The entire branch was operated under Rule 93 - yard rules, ie. The entire branch was considered a yard, so just look out for the other guy and work it out.    

An interesting feature of this branch is that the first industry at Bayway it served was a large Phelps Dodge electrolytic copper refinery, and the last industry in Carteret, was the even more massive, US Metals electrolytic copper refinery and smelter.  The US Metals Plant had the largest smokestack east of the Mississippi until it was razed in the 1990s.   New Jersey was the largest producer of refined (99.9% pure) copper for years, with four large plants within about a 10 mile line all on the Chemical Coast - the two I’ve mentioned on the CNJ Sound Shore Branch, and Anaconda in nearby Perth Amboy, and American Smelting and Refining in Woodbridge.  Besides copper there were at least three large oil refineries, and the Dutch Boy White Lead works.  Heavy heavy industry.   All of the copper refineries had very large in-house narrow gauge railroad systems.  

Tremely Point - DuPont in foreground, GAF behind.  If you look close you can see the volume of traffic, almost all tank cars, with some covered hoppers and boxcars.  The DuPont plant alone has around 40-50 cars spotted or waiting spotting.  

The section of the railroad known as Tremely Point, is going to be my specific local.  Tremley Point was the home of three large chemical plants, and several tank farms.   GAF (General Analine and Film),  DuPont, and American Cyanamid, all had large plants on Tremley Point.    I will either model the twilight of the CNJ in the mid 70s, or early Conrail in the late 70s.   

We are roughly over the GAF and DuPont plants looking south.  You can see the American Cyanamid Plant in the upper left corner.  The Arthur Kill is at upper left and the Rahway River is in the center top.  You can see the Sound Shore Branch Bridge crossing the Rahway River and entering Carteret.  By the time this photo was taken, the bridge wasn’t being used anymore, and the Carteret portion of the Sound Shore was accessed by the perpendicular connecting branch from the Chemical Coast Line in Carteret.  Also note the track curve of the Sound Shore and the partially submerged tracks.

Twenty feet in O scale, equals about 1000 feet in real life, so there is going to obviously be extensive selective compression, and partial modeling.   When I started steel mill modeling, I spent a lot of time researching and understanding how all the processes worked, what pipe carried what gas, etc.   While I’ve tried, the chemical industry, and it’s infinite number of processes and configurations, has me completely stumped, so I don’t plan on going neurotic and trying to model every pipe and pump and tank correctly. (So don’t call me out on this)   I am also not going to specifically model the GAF/DuPont/American Cyanamid plant structures exactly.    Photographs of this area are not plentiful.  

The Sound Shore Branch at upper left and the south end of the GAF plant.  The dyestuffs and other chemicals produced at this plant, generated millions of gallons of industrial waste.  Tremley Point was an ideal place for this, as no one lived there (the town of Tremley Point, where people do live is a mile or two away on the other side of the NJ Turnpike) , and you could just dig a ditch, like the milky grey one in the center of the photo and your problems would disappear in the tidal flow and eventually into the Atlantic Ocean.   While from our modern sensibilities this sounds, maybe horrible, it was quite common practice back then. Some of these plants had permits to haul acid waste out to sea in barges daily.  Believe it or not, the above is vastly preferable to what many of the inland New Jersey chemical plants did - fill up unlined lagoons and retention ponds, that leached into the groundwater and did cause harm to many.    There is some green, in this photo, but suffice to say I won’t be buying a whole lot of static grass.   I am excited about the modeling challenges with these murky, muddy, polluted ditches and creeks.

I’m going to stick with my hybrid freelance-prototype rule that I’ve used on my steel mill layout, to free myself up.   This rule is that I don’t need to stick with a specific prototype, but whatever I model, has to have a prototype - hopefully that isn’t confusing.  Basically it means I could build a model of a chemical plant using inspiration from many different prototypes, but that everything has to have existed.    I’ve found this will produce an accurate looking model, but without some of  the drudgery.  

PROTO 48 LAYOUT #1 - So long Leroy Jenkins…

So begins my newest diversion into the world of Proto 48. For those unfamilar, Proto 48 is a modeling subset, of the already small O Scale 2 rail modeling population. Eons ago, when people began modeling in O Scale 2 rail, manufacturers decided it would be simpler to just make O scale mechanisms, and rail, an easy to remember 1 1/4". In 1/48th scale, this of course, is 5', not the prototypical 4' 8 1/2". So you wonder, what does this 3 1/2" difference look like in O-1/48th Scale - 0.073 inches. Not a whole lot visually, but honestly, regular O Scale 2 rail track does look a little wide, if you have been looking at railroad track for years, like me. Besides correcting this rail spacing issue, Proto 48 also addresses flange and wheel profiles, and other prototype fidelity issues, but maybe more on that in future posts. You have to be a bit of a masocist to delve into Proto 48. There is little out there in way of commercial products, and 99.9% of the O Scale locomotives produced, didn't offer a Proto 48 option. So, just to get some motive power, you are looking at reworking the wheelsets, axles, electrical pickups,...etc. And then you will have to adjust the truck sideframes. Freight and passenger trucks also will need to be reworked with new wheelsets and bolsters to readjust the sideframe spacing. In the truck department, there are commericially available Proto 48 versions of most of the popular designs. They are nicely detailed and made, but also cost in the $50-65 range for a pair. Again, there will be more on the motive power and truck rebuilding in future posts. If I was building a basement sized layout, there is no way I would go Proto 48 - I don't have enough years left, or money to do so. But, since my layout will be a simple 18"x20' shelf, with a minimal number of turnouts, and only large enough to hold a single locomotive and maybe a half dozen-dozen cars, I'm giving it a shot. The layout, though operational, will be built as more of a diorama. I intend the trackwork to be as detailed as the freight cars and factories.

It starts with a bad sketch and lots of erasing

Who is this Leroy Jenkins fellow? If you are asking that, odds are, you are older than 35. Leroy Jenkins was an online gamer that gained popularity maybe 15 years or so ago. Leroy was part of a team playing the World of Warcraft online. They had stopped their characters at a door to a game environment that was particularly difficult, and that had defeated them before. They spent a good five to ten minutes formulating a complex strategy to prevail, whenwhile, and unknown to the team, Leroy had went to his kitchen to make chicken fingers, and when he sat back down at his computer, he screamed his name, and just ran through the door. What follows is a comedic nerd meltdown by his unprepared teammates, and fairly quick deaths of most of the team. You can probably find the original video on Youtube. My layout design process from my teens, upto my present age of 55, has been "Leroy Jenkins" - just go in guns blazing and figure it out later. This of course, has let to many renovations and reworks of my HO layout, although overall, it isn't a totally bad thing, since I've been modeling a 1950s integrated steel mill with roots pre-1900. These mills, like Bethlehem home plant, or Johnstown, had tight footprints, and upgrades to the mill would be typically complex and a bit disorganized. This time, I wanted to actually refine a plan, before I started laying track.

 

TREMLEY POINT LAYOUT - Initial CAD plan

I started with a sketch - pencil on paper.  I’m not that creative, and have appropriated sections of the former Glover Road HO layout, featured in the Boomer Dioramas YouTube channel; and the O Scale Cleveland Flats shelf layout.    After the sketch was tweaked a few times, and I was in the ballpark, I moved to CAD on the computer.  This is a bit complicated, and not something that readers will be able to access readily.   The initial drawing was done on a program called V-Carve Pro, by VETRIC.   It’s a CAD/CAM program, primarily used by people working with CNC machines or Laser Cutters.  After getting all the basic lines in V-Carve, I export the drawing as a 2d vector file and then import it into Corel Draw.  It would be easier to just do it all in Corel, but the bottom line is I’m just not proficient enough with it, compared to V-Carve.  I also find V-Carve to be more of a linear, geometric, mechanical drawing type arrangement, where as Corel is more about creating art.  Corel is useful for this process in adding scenery and structures to the plan, and also, for printing.  (I am unable to print well out of V Carve) 

The full sized layout printout

Speaking of printing -   The layout is drawn in full scale, ie.  1” on the drawing is 1” on the layout.   So this drawing is 18” wide by 248” long.  Fortunately I have an ink jet printer that takes 24” wide rolls of paper, and I was able to print the entire layout out on one sheet of paper.   The layout benchwork perimeter was cut out by scissors and I was able to place the entire plan on the benchwork.  This allows me to see how it looks; check clearances; identify problems; whatever.  I will use this CAD drawing for cutting the bench top, foam, and road bed.   If you are scratchbuilding cars, or structures, or whole layouts in O Scale, or HO for that matter, having one of these printers is helpful.  They are cheaper than you are probably thinking - mine was around $600, and the paper is cheap, and ink jet cartridges are reasonable.   Yes, it has a built in cutter that trims the sheet.   It cuts wherever the printing ends, so in a way, conserves paper.

Test fitting on benchwork - adding a printout of a #6 turnout

Next post - the prototype environment I’m modeling

  

I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S BEEN ANOTHER YEAR…..

 

The three cars in the foreground are all O Scale scratchbuilding projects .  Erie DUNMORE caboose, Penn Central G-38 ore jennie, followed by a G-39.   The cars are constructed of a mix of acrylic, styrene, brass, Polybacker, and 3d resin printed brake gear.  

I’d like to say “time flies when you are having fun”, but the “fun” has been mixed with a difficult year since my last post, incredibly slightly over one year ago.  Despite plenty of available work, navigating a business in the world of Covid, ever increasing commodity prices, and a politically divisive environment has been challenging.   With the vaccination available, the election over, and the weather starting to warm, it seemed like the worst was over, and then we had the resurgence thanks to the Delta variant, and since June, I’ve been having fun with multiple kidney stones.   While not a life-threatening condition, these bastards are painful as heck, and make it impossible to do virtually anything, when they are at their worst.  

At the O-Scale Club, we are under the rules and regulations of our landlord, the Grace Episcopal Church, but have been thankfully allowed to meet again for the past few months.   We had our first open house, since January of 2020, two weekends ago, with two more to come in December, and four in January.  Everyone over 2 years old, regardless of vaccination status, has to be masked in the building. The church received thousands of masks from either the state or US government,  which we are able to make available to the sizable percentage of folks that show up without them, despite our flyers and everywhere else clearly indicating the church’s policy.   So far no morons making a ruckus about this minor inconvenience.  We are also hosting the local NMRA Division meet in January.   We had almost 300 visitors at our first open house - in four hours.    We also just received a donation of a large railroad book collection that we will have out for sale beginning with our December open houses.   It’s a nice collection and includes the complete, six volume Central Vermont history.  If anyone is looking for that rare set, please let me know - we would probably accept a very favorable offer.

My O-Scale freight car scratchbuilding spree continues.  I have over thirty of the PRR/PC/CR  G38/39/39a  ore jennies under various stages of construction, with the ultimate goal of around 50.   Additionally, I am on my third Erie DUNMORE Caboose; mostly have completed six Georgia Pacific 60’ Thrall Pulpwood Racks; tank construction of four Seaboard whale belly Pneumatic Covered Hopper (they were technically tank cars); four liquid phosphate tank cars, per recent RMC plans; and a half dozen various tank cars, including a six axle Monsanto elemental phosphorous whale belly tank.   I will try to update with in-progress posts of these projects more often.   As many of these are being scratchbuilt using digital fabrication, I plan to make some or all available for purchase, as “parts kits”.  I don’t want to get into fancy packaging, or spending many hours writing, editing, and illustrating instructions, but do plan on posting YouTube videos of the construction process of each.  

I am also scratchbuilding an O-Scale ALCO C415 locomotive.  I’ll have more on this too, but suffice to say, the short hood, cab, frame, and power trucks are all complete.  Left are long hood, which is mostly designed in Fusion 360, and then all the railings, fuel tanks, and other details.  The railings are proving to be one of the harder items to work out.  

What about the HO Steel Mill Layout?  Well good new there, especially since this was originally a steel mill modeling blog.  The layout is cleared off of O Scale detritus, and I’ve been running trains on there for the past month, after around four years of dormancy.   I intend to get back working on the structures and layout soon.  Since this was last worked on, my improved digital fabrication equipment, should speed up the process.  The hardest thing for me right now, is what to start on.  

The reason the layout is no longer an O Scale storage shelf,  is the almost completion of my new 20’x8’ model shop - complete enough that I moved in to it.   This shop holds my primary workstation - a 20’x2’ workbench,  a new spray booth, my 3d printers, my laser cutter, my model and real railroad books, magazines, and other research files, some of my collection of railroad and other crap, and eventually, an O Scale, Proto 48 shelf layout.  

The digital fabrication corner - laser cutter, 3d resin and filament printers.  

The already messy new workbench.