Author: Jeff Moorman

By Jeff Moorman

At our last meeting we discussed several options for our June meeting. However, it turns out we’ll do something that wasn’t discussed. This is an opportunity that just presented itself, so we thought we’d take advantage and try something we haven’t done before.

What:    Prototype Activity

When:   June 5, 2014 – leave from the church parking lot at 10:00AM; should return around 3:00PM.

That’s right, 10 in the morning on a weekday! I told you it was different.

The number of participants is very limited. To claim a place, check on availability, or ask questions [but exactly what we’ll be doing is a surprise] contact Roger Ferris via railfun@centurylink.net or 206-362-3371.

Please do not show up without Roger first acknowledging you have a spot. And bring a lunch if you want to eat before returning.

We meet at the Ronald United Methodist Church, 17839 Aurora Avenue North, Shoreline, WA. That is on the west side of Aurora (State Route 99) between 175^th and 185^th Streets and more specifically, between the Cadillac dealer on the south and Deseret Industries to the north. Going southbound on Aurora, make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location. The parking lot is at the rear of the church. For regular meetings enter the lower, left side of the church from the rear lot.

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, September through June. However in June we often do something different, so there may be no “regular” meeting. Doors open around 7:00 PM and the program starts at 7:30.

Remember, the next regular evening meeting is September 4. The special prototype activity (with prior permission) is June 5. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.

By Jeff Moorman

Please join us for our next meeting on Thursday, May 1, 2014. We are scheduled to have a discussion with a retired railroader whose experience ran the gamut from roundhouse laborer to road foreman. He has some great stories.

Last meeting I previewed a clinic, titled “Vision and the Aging Model Railroader”, which I’ll be doing at PSX2014 in June. It basically covered the effects of aging on the eyes, how those effects might impact model railroading, and what can be done to mitigate them.

Here is a high level summary of the key points:

• This clinic is not “medical” advice
• Make sure you see your eye care professional regularly
• As we get older our eyes:
  • Have trouble focusing closely
  • Let in less light
  • Adapt more slowly to changes in the environment
  • Tire more easily
  • To deal with these changes we should:
    • Practice the 20-20-20 rule – once every 20 minutes focus on something at least 20 feet away for 20 seconds
    • Increase intensity of light
    • Use cooler [higher K] light sources that render color accurately
    • Make judicious use of magnification

For show and tell 7-year old Allison J brought along some freight cars she had built with the help of her Grandfather. Here’s a picture of one.  Notice her name in graffiti on the side.

Allison’s Boxcar

We meet at the Ronald United Methodist Church, 17839 Aurora Avenue North, Shoreline, WA. That is on the west side of Aurora (State Route 99) between 175^th and 185^th Streets and more specifically, between the Cadillac dealer on the south and Deseret Industries to the north. Going southbound on Aurora, make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location. The parking lot is at the rear of the church. For regular meetings enter the lower, left side of the church from the rear lot.

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, September through June. However in June we often do something different, like a layout tour. Doors open around 7:00 PM and the program starts at 7:30.

Remember the next meeting is May 1. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.

By Jeff Moorman

Please join us for our next meeting on Thursday, April 3, 2014. Our clinic will be a discussion of “Vision and the Aging Model Railroader”. It will cover how the eye functions, the basic effects of aging on the eyes, how those effects might impact model railroading, and what can be done to mitigate those effects.

Last month our planned guest speaker (on collecting brass) wasn’t available. Dennis T saved the day by making arrangements for us to view the YouTube video on moving UP Big Boy #4014 from a park display in Pomona, California to the UP yard in Colton. Eventually it will be moved to the Cheyanne shops for restoration.

First they pulled it off its display track and moved it across a big parking lot using panel track. Then, at night, a connection to the nearby mainline was made to pull the locomotive out across what appeared to be an impossibly sharp curve and drag it to Colton. Of course, the mainline had to be operational the next morning. If you get a chance to see this, I think you will find it interesting.

For show and tell Dennis T brought along several pieces of N scale rolling stock with scratch built loads. You can see them in the photos below:

We meet at the Ronald United Methodist Church, 17839 Aurora Avenue North, Shoreline, WA. That is on the west side of Aurora (State Route 99) between 175^th and 185^th Streets and more specifically, between the Cadillac dealer on the south and Deseret Industries to the north. Going southbound on Aurora, make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location. The parking lot is at the rear of the church. For regular meetings enter the lower, left side of the church from the rear lot.

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, September through June. However in June we often do something different, like a layout tour. Doors open around 7:00 PM and the program starts at 7:30.

Remember the next meeting is April 3. The meeting after that is May 1. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.

By Jeff Moorman

Please join us for our next meeting on Thursday, March 6, 2014. Our guest speaker will be a railroad enthusiast and brass collector.

If you weren’t there for last month’s guest speaker, you missed a very interesting and entertaining evening. Dave Honan is a civil engineer for HDR here in Seattle and he specializes in railroad and transit design in 12 inches to the foot scale. We also discovered he is an excellent railroad photographer and slide show producer.

Dave talked about some projects he’s been involved with which varied from coal hauling railroads across the Great Plains to local transit works. Hearing about everything he has had to deal with was fascinating. He mentioned lots of things I had never considered before. Here are a couple:

When you plan the route of a railroad in varied terrain, not only do you need to look for a pretty steady grade, but you should match the volume of material in cuts to the volume of material used for fills. That cuts down on earth “moving” costs.

Another item of design concerns coping with grades that have curvature. A curve adds drag to the train. So if you have a big curve in the middle of a long grade, when the train rounds that curve it till get harder to pull. The prototype solution is to reduce the grade through the curve, so there is a more consistent drag. For example, consider a long 2% grade with a 90 degree curve in the middle. The basic grade might be designed at 2.25% with a reduction to 1.5% through the curve in order to even out the motive power effort required to get to the top of the hill.

Dave finished out the evening by showing a couple of photo presentations he has done. My favorite included scenes from a narrow gauge peat railroad in Ireland (I think).

For show and tell Dennis T brought along an N scale model of a U-50 locomotive. He had added a decoder to the older loco, which was quite heavy. He said it pulls like gangbusters.

I brought along a kit for the Penryn Fruit Company. This is a small wood HO structure that will be the standard kit for a special contest at the regional convention in June. Everyone in the contest builds the same kit using the same basic rules. You can find out more on the convention’s website – http://www.wnrr.net/PSX2014/contests.html. Now that I have the kit I guess I shall have to build it, especially since it looks pretty straightforward.

We meet at the Ronald United Methodist Church, 17839 Aurora Avenue North, Shoreline, WA. That is on the west side of Aurora (State Route 99) between 175^th and 185^th Streets and more specifically, between the Cadillac dealer on the south and Deseret Industries to the north. Going southbound on Aurora, make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location. The parking lot is at the rear of the church. For regular meetings enter the lower, left side of the church from the rear lot.

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, September through June. However in June we often do something different, like a layout tour. Doors open around 7:00 PM and the program starts at 7:30.

Remember the next meeting is March 6. The meeting after that is April 3. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.

By Jeff Moorman

Please join us for our next meeting on Thursday, February 6, 2014. Our guest speaker will be a railroad engineer. Not an engine driver, but a civil engineer who works on local 12 inch to the foot scale railroad projects. I have also been told he is an excellent railroad photographer and we may see some of his work, if there is time.

As I write this another Pacific Science Center Model Railroad Show has been completed. As near as we can tell, this was the 40^th such show and if you were there to help on Saturday, you might have gotten a piece of the delicious anniversary cake. My personal thanks to all the Seattle-North Clinic attendees who came to the show to volunteer, especially Bobj, Dennis T, Norm C, Michael, and anyone whose name I missed.

I apologize for not getting a notice in the Grab Iron about our January clinic. I could not get the blog to upload my submission. And it was not just me as others had the same problem. As luck would have it, it did not clear up until after the clinic. So, I’ll include that write-up towards the end of this column

The missing notice and some wicked colds (flu?) going around thinned our ranks for the January meeting. The latter even got our guest speaker. Regardless the evening turned out rather interesting, which is often the case when you get a few experienced model railroaders together.

Roger F had brought several HO gauge locomotives that he was thinning from his collection. Much of the evening went like this:

1. Roger would say a few words about a particular locomotive and sometimes how he acquired it.
2. Folks around the table would chime in with what they knew about that locomotive, the railroad it ran on, and/or the model’s manufacturer.
3. Cycle back to the first step above for the next locomotive.

Roger is an eclectic collector and so was the discussion. All the old dogs learned a new thing or two during the course of the discussions.

For January’s show and tell Dennis T brought along an N scale model of an electric locomotive. It was painted for the Pennsy, but likely had European origins, which no one could precisely identify. But that was not what made it so interesting. Dennis had re-motored it by cannibalizing a motor from a more recent diesel model.

Now for what happened at December’s meeting. Our own Dennis T discussed the installation of DCC decoders. This was not how to plug a decoder into a DCC-ready locomotive, but how to install one in an older locomotive that wasn’t designed for one. And, as if that wasn’t difficult enough, he did it in N scale.

Dennis started with the premise that a successful decoder installation starts with finding the right decoder. He outlined a 6-step process for this:

1. The right fit – you have to find a decoder that will fit within the locomotive, whether in an existing space or space you “carve” out for it.
2. The right current draw – the decoder needs to be able to handle the current the motor will need. Older motors may draw significantly more current than newer ones. However, the more current a decoder must handle, the larger the decoder must be. You may have to do a little testing on your locomotive first to see what it draws.
3. Motor control – this is not so much a function of the decoder, but an analysis of whether or not you can electrically isolate the motor from the frame and run power from the tracks to the decoder and then to the motor.
4. Lighting functions – so you need to do more than just control the headlights. If so, you need a decoder designed to handle more than the basics.
5. Sound – sound adds another element of realism, but it takes room to install the speaker, which must be in a sealed enclosure to work property. The bigger the speaker, the better the sound. According to Dennis, the sound you get from an N scale speaker is not worth the effort to shoehorn it into a space not made for it.
6. Use you resources – there is a ton of information on the web regarding DCC, decoders, and decoder installation. Do your homework. Very likely it will prevent you from making a mistake (or two, or three).

Dennis then walked through a typical decoder installation, using examples he had done. He said not to be intimidated, if you need to remove some of the locomotive weight to make room for the decoder or the wiring. You can do it with simple files and a motor tool. Just remove the weight from the chassis and “whittle” it away slowly and carefully.

Dennis ended with a couple of tips. One was to try and test as you go. For example, if it doesn’t run after everything is put together, how do you know the issue was not caused by putting the shell back on the locomotive? And, you did remember to test everything thoroughly before you took it apart to add the decoder, right? Another tip was to make sure to insulate all the wiring, using Teflon tape or heat shrink tubing.

Everyone was reminded of the need for volunteers to help with the upcoming Pacific Science Center Model Railroad Show on the 18^th, 19^th, and 20^th of January, 2014. This will be the fortieth such show and so some may take it for granted. But don’t forget it helps fund the activities of the Fourth Division, including this clinic.

For show and tell Chris F brought another HO passenger car he had acquired. Chris explained he was not just trying to paint these in UP colors, but to paint Milwaukee Road cars in UP colors as used on certain long haul passenger trains. This month he brought an observation car factory painted for the UP. His plan had been to remove the UP lettering, leaving the UP colors, and apply Milwaukee lettering. He was able to carefully remove the lettering, but in doing so discovered that the underlying paint job wasn’t up to his standards, so will now need to be repainted – exactly what he was trying not to do.

Bob R brought several commercial trucks in HO scale. These were simple toy trucks he had reworked to make more prototypical and, therefore, more useful on a model railroad layout. Bob thought that mud flaps were one addition that really made all these trucks more realistic. Another key “upgrade” was to weather the cargo area of dump and flatbeds. Other additions included mirrors, air filters, and painted on lights.

We meet at the Ronald United Methodist Church, 17839 Aurora Avenue North, Shoreline, WA. That is on the west side of Aurora (State Route 99) between 175^th and 185^th Streets and more specifically, between the Cadillac dealer on the south and Deseret Industries to the north. Going southbound on Aurora, make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location. The parking lot is at the rear of the church. For regular meetings enter the lower, left side of the church from the rear lot.

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, September through June. However in June we often do something different, like a layout tour. Doors open around 7:00 PM and the program starts at 7:30.

Remember the next meeting is February 6. The meeting after that is March 6. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.

By Jeff Moorman

Please join us for our next meeting, this Thursday, December 5, when our topic will be DCC decoder installations.

Last meeting Tom K took on the subject of track planning software. He was going to just cover free track planning programs, but since there only appear to be three contenders in this category he branched out a bit.

Tom started with the three freeware offerings he found: SCARM (www.scarm.info/index_en.html), TrainCad (www.traincad.com), and XTrackCAD (www.xtrkcad.org).

SCARM, which stands for Simple Computer Aided Railway Modeller, is the one Tom has spent the most time with. He used it for demonstrating the typical features one can expect in these programs. The very basic drawing features seem about the same, but there is quite a bit of variety in the how they are implemented. But more detailed features, such as the ability to do 3-D drawings, add structures and scenery, or run animated trains over the track plans you create, are not universally available.

And, although the developers of these programs may disagree, none of the features in any program seemed intuitive. You are going to have to dedicate some time to learning whichever automated track planning tool you choose. And, what you learn about one program may not necessarily carry over to another. For example, I personally have a couple of hours into XTrackCAD and do not feel I can really use it to design anything yet.

On the plus side, at least for these three, the price is right. You don’t have to invest any money to give them a whirl.

Tom then briefly covered some of the track planning programs that are for sale. Most of this was based on a MR article, entitled “Guide to Track-Planning Software”, that appeared a few years ago. It covered 3^rd PlanIt from El Dorado Software, CadRail from Sandia Software, and AnyRail from DRail Modelspoor Software.

All three of these products have demo versions that allow you to “play” with the product before making a purchase decision. These versions are either limited in size of the layout depicted or in the ability to save results.

There is also another commercial program Tom found that apparently wasn’t available when the MR article was written. It is called WINTRACK (www.wintrack.de/usa.html). It was created in Germany, but there is now an English version.

The MR article was not a comparison or review, merely a “guide.” Therefore, there was no clear winner. In fact, the general impressions seemed about the same as for freeware offerings: (1) they do not all implement functions the same way: (2) they do not all have the same specialty features; and (3) you need to invest some time to learn to use them.

Sorry, we couldn’t tell you to just go get a single “magic bullet” track planning package that will do everything. You will need to invest some time analyzing your needs and what the market is offering. It some ways it might be like deciding on a DCC system. They all work, but just what features do you need, at what price,  and is there anyone around that can help you with it? Note that Tom’s research was not exhaustive, so you may find other programs out there.

For Show and Tell Chris F brought some used HO passenger cars he had acquired. They looked as if the previous owner had gotten half way through a truck replacement project before giving up. Chris’ challenge will be to complete the truck replacements and apply a UP paint scheme.

Dennis T brought an N scale Scottish train. There was a locomotive, a passenger car, and a small good wagon. The hobby store clerk in Edinburgh, Scotland, where Dennis got the models, assured him it was a typical contemporary consist in some parts of that country.

We meet at the Ronald United Methodist Church, 17839 Aurora Avenue North, Shoreline, WA. That is on the west side of Aurora (State Route 99) between 175^th and 185^th Streets and more specifically, between the Cadillac dealer on the south and Deseret Industries to the north. Going southbound on Aurora, make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location. The parking lot is at the rear of the church. For regular meetings enter the lower, left side of the church from the rear lot.

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, September through June. However in June we often do something different, like a layout tour. Doors open around 7:00 PM and the program starts at 7:30.

Remember the next meeting is December 5 and the clinic topic is decoder installation. The meeting after that is January 2. Hope to see you on December 5 or at least sometime on down the line.

By Jeff Moorman

Please join us for our next meeting, this Thursday, November 7, when our topic will be track planning software.

We’d all like to extend our thanks to Jim Sabol who came up from the Tacoma area at the last minute to be our clinician last month. Jim’s topic was “Freight Yard Design.”

What I appreciated about Jim’s approach, as opposed to many yard design presentations I have seen over the years, is that he stuck with the basics. This was information any model railroader can use, not just those who have a basement full of track and freight cars to organize. And he kept coming back to the fact that real railroads used yards to help them operate more efficiently, and model railroads should too.

Operations was another theme that kept occurring during the clinic. Jim claims everyone has space for some type of model railroad and any type of model railroad should include some aspect of operations. His basic example was a plain, wooden plank with a couple of turnouts where one could sort cars (just like a real railroad).

Jim’s next example was a long length of track with a single passing siding in the middle. He explained how this could be operated like a real railroad, moving a commodity from one end to the other. Jim reminded us that real railroads don’t move freight cars to make money – they move freight. The cars in Jim’s example were used to move beer, so he instantly had the attendees’ attention.

Of course, once you get beyond a couple of freight cars, moving beer is more efficient if you have a place to store cars that aren’t immediately in use or that cannot be loaded/unloaded right away. That’s where the freight yard starts to come in handy. And it becomes handier still if you have to move more than just one commodity, like food stuffs, building materials, petroleum, and etc. to fulfill the needs and wants of all those workers making the beer you ship.

So, once the need for a freight yard arises, there are a few basic questions to ask:

• Is it in a convenient location? Prototypically the yard needs to be near the industries and railroad facilities it services. From a model standpoint it needs to be “viewable” and “reachable.”
• Is there room to work? Typically yards are used to store and sort freight cars. If it needs to handle an average of 15 cars, then it also needs way more than 15 spot to put them in. Generally it is a good idea to leave at least one dedicated track free. This is where trains coming off the mainline can park and where trains getting ready to depart the yard can be assembled. And you’ll need a little free space on the other tracks to facilitate breaking down and assembling trains. Of course, if there are lots of trains coming and going, then you need space to put them until they can be dealt with.
• Can operations in the yard proceed without tying up the mainline? It is not very efficient to overall operations if the mainline is used every time you pull a length of cars out of a yard track. If at all possible, you need a way to work cars back and forth in the yard without using the mainline. This feature is often called a drill track or yard lead.
• Is there a way to get the locomotive back in service? Motive power is relatively expensive, so real railroads don’t like to have it “blocked in” by freight cars in the yard. You need a way to get incoming locomotives separated from their train and “back to work”.

Of course, getting all these questions answered affirmatively can be difficult on a model layout. Perhaps there is a way to get a single track feature to do double duty. For example, a run around track designed to get a locomotive off of its arriving train might also be used as the yard lead. Or perhaps a nearby industrial siding can be used to temporarily park a few cars to make more room for sorting in the yard.

Again, thanks to Jim for providing the clinic. It was quite informative.

For show and tell Dennis T brought a couple of HO box cars custom lettered for the “Shoreline & Puget Sound”. He found them at an estate sale, but no one seemed to know much about them. If you know anything about their history, please add a comment to this entry or drop me an email.

Also, Tom K brought a Maarklin HO model of a German electric locomotive. He indicated he had once actually ridden behind a locomotive like this, and it was definitely not a fast, express train like experience.

We meet at the Ronald United Methodist Church, 17839 Aurora Avenue North, Shoreline, WA. That is on the west side of Aurora (State Route 99) between 175^th and 185^th Streets and more specifically, between the Cadillac dealer on the south and Deseret Industries to the north. Going southbound on Aurora, make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location. The parking lot is at the rear of the church. For regular meetings enter the lower, left side of the church from the rear lot.

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, September through June. However in June we often do something different, like a layout tour. Doors open around 7:00 PM and the program starts at 7:30.

Remember the next meeting is November 7 and the clinic topic is track planning software. The meeting after that is December 5 where the scheduled topic will be N scale decoder installation. Hey, if you can install it there, you can install it anywhere! Hope to see you November 7 or at least sometime on down the line.

By Jeff Moorman

Please join us for our next meeting, this Thursday October 3. Unfortunately I am not 100% sure what the program will be. We had a presentation on freeware track planning software lined up, but the clinician hasn’t gotten back to me. Hopefully that will happen, and if not, we’ll look into an unusual video or two.

Last month we did a roundtable of “what I did this summer” (railroad-wise, that is).  There was quite a variety. Probably the most interesting was helping build a model of Puget Sound in someone’s front yard for a TV promo. Supposedly we’ll all see this on the air sometime this fall.

Ted B brought a structure of a small boat builder’s barn. It had won a prize (for humor) with it at the last PNR convention. It was a contest where everyone builds the same kit. Apparently Ted will be arranging to do the same type of contest at the next PNR convention, which we (Fourth Division) are hosting in the late spring of 2014.

The meeting ended with a presentation of pictures taken of the various layouts on display at the National Train Show held in conjunction with this year’s NMRA convention in Atlanta.

By the way, how many of you read the Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette?  There is an article in the Sept/Oct 2013 issue about a model of the Gilpin Tramway. Yes, that is the same layout that was part of our tour this past June. I believe it is more impressive in person, than in the magazine – and it looks mighty good in print. Thanks again, Gary and Sherri, for having us over in June.

We meet at the Ronald United Methodist Church, 17839 Aurora Avenue North, Shoreline, WA. That is on the west side of Aurora (State Route 99) between 175^th and 185^th Streets and more specifically, between the Cadillac dealer on the south and Deseret Industries to the north. Going southbound on Aurora, make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location. The parking lot is at the rear of the church. For regular meetings enter the lower, left side of the church from the rear lot.

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, September through June. However in June we often do something different, like a layout tour. Doors open around 7:00 PM and the program starts at 7:30.

Remember the next meeting is October 3. The meeting after that is November 7. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.

By Jeff Moorman

Can you believe it? The 2013-14 model railroad clinic season is almost upon us. Join us on Thursday, September 5, 2013 for our first clinic of the year. Our topic will be what did you do (model railroading-wise) during the summer. If we have time, I also have some slides of the model railroads set up at this summer’s National Train Show in Atlanta

Our last meeting was in June when we did a layout tour. We tried the self-drive approach as opposed to the group transportation we always used in the past. It seems to have worked pretty well. There were 4 layouts open at slightly different times over the evening.

I found it very educational and low key. There was plenty of time to talk to our hosts and thoroughly appreciate their work instead of feeling rushed to keep up with a group and get on to the next location. If you weren’t there, you missed some fine modeling, including one layout with 3 different gauges of the same scale all working together to deliver goods for the customer.

On behalf of the Seattle-North clinic I’d like to heartily thank our hosts: Richard & Doris, Ron & Judy, Gary & Sherry, plus the Swamp Creek and Western Model Railroad Club. You all contributed to a very entertaining and interesting evening.

And I’d like to personally thank (again) Bobj for doing all the “heavy lifting” to arrange for the availability of these fine layouts.

We meet at the Ronald United Methodist Church, 17839 Aurora Avenue North, Shoreline, WA. That is on the west side of Aurora (State Route 99) between 175^th and 185^th Streets and more specifically, between the Cadillac dealer on the south and Deseret Industries to the north. Going southbound on Aurora, make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location. The parking lot is at the rear of the church. For regular meetings enter the lower, left side of the church from the rear lot.

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, September through June. However in June we often do something different, like a layout tour. Doors open around 7:00 PM and the program starts at 7:30.

Remember the next meeting is September 5. The meeting after that is October 3. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.