Category: Seattle-North Clinic

By Jeff Moorman / Photos by Jeff Moorman

Please come join us this Thursday (April 5) when our clinic topic will be scratch building turnouts in N scale. The basic techniques are applicable to all scales, so if you can build them in N you can build them in any size. If you have seen Stu R’s turnouts before, then you know these make for good looking track. Stu will be showing us how he does it.

If you were there last month, when he showed us how he uses Cadrail, then you might have gotten a hint of how Stu starts the turnout process. Cadrail can do a lot more than just pretty, scale layout drawings. But, before we talk about some of those other things, here’s what I took away from the demo of layout drawing:

• Like any drawing software, there is a learning curve. If you just want to whip out a quick drawing (without bothering to learn much about the product) then you should probably stick to paper and pencil.

• Once you learn it, it is pretty easy to make changes to an existing plan. The parts that don’t change do not need to be redrawn and you can easily save multiple versions.

• Doing a plan with something like Cadrail seems to lessen the chance that you will cram too much track onto too small of a space. When you draw by hand it is easy to “cheat” on the dimensions (especially for turnouts and turn radii) and then you have a devil of a time physically building and operating the layout.

And here are some other things Stu showed us can be done by Cadrail:

• You can simulate running a train on a layout diagram to check out how the design works and whether the track segments (i.e. pieces of the drawing) are properly connected and aligned.
• You can do scale drawings of buildings, rolling stock, trestles, and etc. You can even do a scale drawing of a turnout – hint, hint.
• You can import a photo with a known dimension and then use Cadrail to measure all the other items in the photo and use that information to construct a scale drawing.

John B brought in some photos of the small logging layout he is building, so we could see what he is doing. It was interesting to see his paper mock-ups of a sawmill and some buildings; also to see some of the buildings under construction.

Dennis T brought an Olympia Beer plug door reefer and a Sante Fe ballast car, both in N scale. He had acquired these on a vacation trip to San Diego. He also had an On3 flanger which he had just cleaned up after getting it some time ago at a clinic mart.

Here are a couple of pictures of the dioramas David C brought to the February clinic and that I wrote about last month:

Feb Clinic – Dioramas from David C

Feb Clinic - Diorama by David C

Feb Clinic - Diorama by David C

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. You can no longer make cross-traffic turns on Aurora, so you need to be going southbound (so you can make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location).

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, except July and August. In June we usually do a tour. For regular meetings enter the lower level of the church from the parking lot at the rear. Doors open around 7:00 PM and the program starts about 7:30.

Remember the next meeting is April 5 and the one after that is May 3. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.

By Jeff Moorman

Our next meeting is Thursday, March 1, 2012. Time and place are at the end of this piece. The topic will be CADrail. You’ve seen the ads, now you can see how the software works.

Dennis T did a mini clinic on building N scale Kadee couplers from the kits. Dennis did it this way, instead of buying them ready-built, because he needed a bunch of them for locomotive conversions. There are lots of little pieces, but they all go together just fine, if you take your time and keep referring to the instructions.

Dennis built a little jig (on a big piece of wood) to help with the assembly. The size of the wood was immaterial, but it did make the jig appear more impressive. Basically the jig was a small post to align the parts of the coupler as it is being put together.

There was lots of variety during show and tell. Guest David C brought along some little dioramas with some nice looking evergreen trees. His explanation of building them turned into its own mini clinic.

David uses what he calls the “Low Bucks Railroad” approach. When he started doing the trees the trunks were used chopsticks and the foliage was a fern like moss that grows all over Western Washington, especially near the rain forest. How he whittles the trunks from whatever is handy. He drills tiny holes in the trunks to accept the little moss “branches.”

The trees were over 5 years old and had held up well. David says the fern gets pretty brittle when it gets dry (like in Eastern Washington) but bounces right back when the humidity climbs.

David says that for deciduous trees he has started using maple suckers for the trunk/branch structure.

CJ Riley showed a HO boxcar made with preprinted cardboard car sides like those that used to come in the old NMRA Bulletin. From typical model viewing distances the car still looked pretty good.

Dennis T showed an N scale coal load that he had enhanced with additional real-looking “coal.” Chris F displayed some grain cars he was working on building/painting.

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. You can no longer make cross-traffic turns on Aurora, so you need to be going southbound (so you can make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location).

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, except July and August. In June we usually do a tour. For regular meetings enter the lower level of the church from the parking lot at the rear. Doors open around 7:00 PM and the program starts about 7:30.

Remember the next meeting is March 1 and the one after that is April 5.  Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.

By Jeff Moorman, Photos by Jeff Moorman

Our next meeting is Thursday, February 2, 2012. Time and place are at the end of this piece.

Robert “Bob” Stafford was our January clinician and the topic was weathering structures. Bob says structures seem to be the last thing modelers weather, yet buildings near real railroads were always pretty dirty. And Bob should know, since he worked for the prototype for many years.

There were lots of little tips in Bob’s presentation. Here are a few from my notes:

• People often add onto a building over time. A little seen trick is to do more weathering on the older parts of a building than on the more recent additions.
• It is always nice to do something different to a kit-built building, so it doesn’t look just like everyone else’s. Bob’s clinic sample was a Walther’s coal dealer’s silo to which he added a roof over the unloading chutes.
• You really don’t always need specific “model railroad” paints for coloring and weathering structures. Spray paint often works well for basic color. Craft paints offer many colors for buildings and scenery, and at a very attractive price. One brand Bob likes is Delta Ceramcoat. Hint: they have a metallic silver that is quite useful as a general color for metal.
• Weathering chalks do wonders to make structures look like they have been out in the real weather. And usually, if you don’t like the results, you can wipe them off and try again.

Bob left us with the observation that structure weathering is not hard, you just have to pitch in and “do it.”

Show and Tell was initiated with a home-built resistance soldering unit, however yours truly failed to get the builder’s name. The workmanship and appearance of the final product was very clean. Apparently the plans for this were the subject of a clinic some years ago.

Michael P showed a watch that once belonged to a street car conductor. Chris F had both a powered and a dummy Athearn GN diesel in the same blue and white color scheme with the same cab number. The number wasn’t so unusual as was the fact that the colors didn’t really match, nor was the lettering applied the same. It would appear that they were from 2 different production runs.

Tom had an un-built Vau-pe cardboard building kit from the late 50’s or early 60’s. He also talked about the evolution of European kits paralleling the rebuilding of their industrial base following WWII.

Dennis T talked about his recent experience doing coupler conversions on some locos he acquired at the clinic mart a couple of months ago. He will expand on this at the next meeting.

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. You can no longer make cross-traffic turns on Aurora, so you need to be going southbound (so you can make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location).

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, except July and August. In June we usually do a tour. For regular meetings enter the lower level of the church from the parking lot at the rear. Doors open around 7:00 PM and the program starts about 7:30. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.

Remember the next meeting is February 2 and the one after that is March 1.

Jeff Moorman

Seasons’ Greetings to you and yours. Our next meeting is Thursday, January 5. Time and place are at the end of this piece.

Show and Tell was a bit slim at December’s meeting. Bob S had a couple a nicely done structures. Both were from the same kit, but didn’t look at all alike. Bob has graciously agreed to talk about his weathering techniques at our next meeting. Come prepared to learn about looking old and used. Of course, a couple of us do that sort of naturally.

Di Voss was back to wrap up his piece on Digital Command Control. This section was mostly about using Decoder Pro to set, and reset, and experiment with configuration variables (CVs). Wow, this sure is a lot easier than setting the codes for each individual CV.

For illustration Di showed how to customize a locomotive’s bell, whistle, and speed response. He also covered how much easier Decider Pro makes dealing with the multiple use variables, like that pesky CV 29.

I ran out of time to include any pictures this month, but I will try to get them in the next installment.

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. You can no longer make cross-traffic turns on Aurora, so you need to be going southbound (so you can make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location).

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, except July and August. However, in June we usually do a tour. For regular meetings enter the lower level of the church from the parking lot at the rear. Doors open around 7:00 PM, announcements at 7:15, and the program starts about 7:30. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.

The next meeting is January 5 and the one after that is February 2.

By Dennis Terpstra / Photos by Dennis Terpstra

Di Describes DCC

At our meeting on Nov 3^rd, Di Voss gave us an introduction to setting up a DCC system using a Digitrax Zepher system. He also brought other command systems from Lenz, NCE and said that all will work. He also said that all decoders should work with different command systems.  During his presentation, Di primarily used the Digitrax Zepher and Digitrax decoders.

When modifying, remember to isolate both leads of the motor from the frame before installing the decoder and to find a good location for the decoder or modify the loco frame. A simplified wiring diagram (courtesy of www.ppdnmra.com) is below.

Click for larger image

Di showed examples of programing decoders using DecoderPro, a free program. After programing the decoder, he demoed running the loco on a test track and also ran two different locos on the same track.

Next month, at the December 1^st meeting, we will continue the DCC discussions, hopefully getting into sound decoders and locomotive programming.

We meet at the Ronald United Methodist Church, 17839 Aurora Avenue North, Shoreline, on the west side of Aurora (SR 99) between 175^th and 185^th Streets, between the Cadillac dealer on the south and Deseret Industries to the north. Enter the lower level of the church from the parking lot at the rear. Doors open around 7:00 PM, announcements are at 7:15, and the program starts about 7:30.

Remember the next meeting is December 1 and the one after that is on January 5.

Show and Tell:

Norm C - HO T-TRAK Module

Stu R - N Scratchbuilt Buildings

Bob R - Utility Poles and Mold

Dennis T – N T-TRAK Modular Layout

By Jeff Moorman

Our next meeting is Thursday, November 3. Time and place are at the end of this piece.

Jim B in his role as chief cook and bottle washer of Sound & Northwestern LLC brought along the box for the company’s next kit. It is a GN Standard Portable Depot and should be available next month through the Great Northern Historical Society. Apparently the railroad pre-built these in their carpentry shop, loaded them on flatcars, and delivered them wherever they needed a small town deport.

As promised we assembled the first T-Trak “layout” using only models built by Seattle-North regulars. Dennis T and yours truly supplied the trackage, which ended up more of an oval with a branch line than a simple loop.

Rob J showed some N gauge cabeese and a lovely Hiawatha set in that scale. Dennis T had an HO “Piker” he built from an old Walthers kit. Wow, that brought back a bunch of memories. But the stars of show & tell were three Canadian prototype HO diesels brought by Greg, who was attending the clinic for the first time. Nice work, Greg, and we hope you’ll be back.

Rob's N Hiawatha

N T-TRAK Module

Greg's Diesels

We started an informal discussion of Digital Command Control (DCC) to sort of judge everyone’s knowledge of the subject. And we got a range of feedback. A couple of folks were experienced in applying custom settings to locomotives and a couple could hardly spell DCC. So, when we start learning about DCC in earnest, we’ll make sure we start at the beginning.

Speaking of the beginning, when was the first product sold to allow remote (non-wired) control of electric trains? Well, according to Kalmbach’s book DCC Made Easy by Lionel Strang, that would be sometime in the 1940’s. That is when Lionel came out with a two-channel, frequency control system that allowed you to change the direction of the train.

Our exploration of DCC will get more formal in November when Di Voss will be on hand as our expert clinician. And we’ll see is anyone can top those HO diesels that showed up for last meeting’s show and tell.

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. You can no longer make cross-traffic turns on Aurora, so you need to be going southbound (so you can make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location).

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, except July and August. However, in June we usually do a tour. For regular meetings enter the lower level of the church from the parking lot at the rear. Doors open around 7:00 PM, announcements at 7:15, and the program starts about 7:30. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.

The next meeting is November 3 and the one after that is December 1.

By Jeff Moorman

Our next meeting is Thursday, October 6. Time and place are at the end of this blog.

If you like HO, last month’s meeting had one of the best marts seen in some time. A variety of rolling stock, motive power, and structures were all looking for new homes.

Seattle-North’s first operational HO gauge T-Trak modules were shown. Jeff brought his newly-built straight and corner with just the inside track installed. The first “train” run on them was a test drive of a locomotive being offered at the mart. Jeff is thinking that if no one else is going to build in HO, maybe he’ll convert these modules to a On30 diorama.

October’s meeting should see the first complete layout loop of Seattle-North N gauge T-Trak modules. We did this once before, but had to borrow a couple of corners to make it work. This time it should be all Seattle-North and you’ll see a few modules you have never seen before. If there is something you have been wanting to run in N gauge, bring it along and we’ll work out a dirt cheap right-of-way leasing agreement for 5 or 100 minutes.

We’ll start our discussion of DCC in October as well. This will be an introduction and Q & A to determine just what we want to have covered at later meetings. For that we have a clinician lined up – we just need to tell him exactly what we want to learn about DCC.

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. Most of the construction along this stretch of Aurora is now completed, but you may no longer make cross-traffic turns. You need to be going southbound (so you can make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location).

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, except July and August. However, in June we usually do a tour. For regular meetings enter the lower level of the church from the parking lot at the rear. Doors open around 7:00 PM, announcements at 7:15, and the program starts about 7:30. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.

The next meeting is October 6 and the one after that is November 3.

By Jeff Moorman

Mark your calendars for Thursday, September 1. That’s the start of the 2011-2012 clinic season for Seattle-North (probably the start for all of Fourth Division as well).

Typically our September program revolves around “what did you do (railroad-wise) this summer?” If nothing else, you’ll hear about the National Convention. Several of our clinic attendee where there.

This is a quick reminder about the upcoming meeting. I know I still owe you a write-up from our June road trip and a few photos.  Sorry, I’ll get to those when I can.

If you got your T-TRAK kits or have decided to build your own, we’d like to see them (in running order) at the September meeting. By the way, I still have a few T-TRAK module kits. Contact me for availability and prices.

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 and Deseret Industries. Note that there is still a lot of construction along this stretch of Aurora. You need to be going southbound (so you can make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location) because you can no longer make cross-traffic turns on Aurora.

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, except July and August. However, in June we usually do a tour. For regular meetings enter the lower level of the church from the parking lot at the rear. Doors open around 7:00 PM, announcements at 7:15, and the program starts about 7:30. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.

Jeff Moorman / Photos by Jeff Moorman

After introductions and announcements, the May meeting started with a discussion of the tradition tour in place of the June meeting. Yes, we are going to do a tour this year and, like always, we are not going to tell folks where we are going ahead of time. There might be some last minute change, but right now the plan calls for model railroad-related destinations, a variety of scales, and maybe something more than just looking at layouts. Note that we need to know who is going ahead of time. You cannot just show up for the tour. If you have signed up, here is your official reminder:

VANS LEAVE FROM THE CHURCH PARKING LOT NO LATER THAN 7:00 PM, JUNE 2. IF YOU ARE LATE, YOU WILL MISS OUT.

Next, Bobj received his fabulous prize for being the first (and only) person to come up with documentation on the origin of the phrase, “The human mind is like a railroad boxcar, guaranteed to have a certain capacity, but often running empty.” Congratulations, Bobj; use your plastic parts box with pride.

A good part of the meeting was then devoted to the topic of “operations.” Here are some highlights: Operation is the running of a model railroad in a manner which simulates prototype activity. While there are reams and reams written about operation, they appear to be mostly concerned with designing a model railroad for operation and then implementing that design. But, it is all pretty daunting for those unfamiliar with the concepts. So, at the risk of gross oversimplification, here are some tips for trying to make sense of what’s going on, for those new to operating a model train like a prototype.

Some have called operation the ultimate board game. That is one way to look at it. But it is a board game where the players do not compete with each other; rather they cooperate to ensure smooth “operating” of the whole railroad.

Another way to look at it is that there are two basic processes: one is freight movement, and the other is train movement. Consider a semi-truck; deciding what to load it with, where to pick that stuff up, and where to deliver it, is fundamentally different from operating the truck itself, moving it safely over the road. For model railroading, freight movement is typically by carload. The entire car is filled with something going to the same place.

All sorts of “paperwork” is used to keep track of what is the car and where it is going. Some modelers even use the same forms used by the prototype railroads. Often the paperwork includes a card for each car; a train is represented by a deck of such cards. What cards go in the deck depends on what’s in the car, where it is going, how soon it needs to get there, how much the locomotive can pull, the capacity of any sidings along the way, etc. Fortunately, new operators don’t have to worry too much about the more intricate techniques of train makeup.

When it comes to running a train, there are two basic processes. One is the assembling separate cars into a train and their subsequent dis-assembly. This is often referred to as “yard work.” Moving the entire train across the railroad from one place to another is considered “road work.”

As with a semi-truck, there are rules of the road for railroads. You cannot run a locomotive/train anywhere you want to. For new operators, learning the rules of the road is usually the biggest hurdle to overcome. There are two categories of rules: one for movement of a train, basically when it is and is not allowed to proceed; and rules for real-sized people interacting with a model-sized railroad, such as are you allowed to touch rolling stock and locomotives or not. Some consider the latter type rules “owner’s rules” and they can be the most important to know.

Hopefully you now know enough about operation to be intrigued. So, if you get the opportunity, give it a try. As long as you are making a sincere effort to learn, the more experienced operators will help. Always remember:

• Know the owner’s rules
• Be considerate of others – it is all about cooperation and team effort
• Leave turnouts the way you found them
• Have fun

Once again, Show and Tell brought out some interesting stuff. Dennis had his T-TRAK modules there to show progress and hopefully inspire others to get out of their armchairs and start modeling. Chris had several paint projects in both HO and N. Stu had a nice little N sawmill with interior detail. And Rob had the latest MicroTrains fire car and an SP sky box.

Chris' Latest Paint Project

Rob's Latest from Micro Trains

Stu's Sawmill

As we were cleaning up several of us had an interesting conversation about clinic name tags. Whew! There were almost as many opinions about that as there are about what scale to model. If you want to influence my thinking on the subject, let me know your thoughts.

I still have a few T-TRAK module kits. Contact me for availability and prices. For those who have already gotten their kits or have decided to build their own, we’d like to see them at the next regular meeting in September. No, we do not want to see just the kits; we want the resultant modules, in running order.

Remember the next meeting is June 2, but only if you have signed up ahead of time. Otherwise we will see you (and your modules) the first of September.

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) just north of 175^th Street, between the Cadillac dealer and Deseret Industries. Note that there is still a lot of construction along this stretch of Aurora. Therefore, it might be best to be going southbound so you can make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location.

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, except July and August. However, in June we usually do a tour. For regular meetings enter the lower level of the church from the parking lot at the rear. Doors open around 7:00 PM, announcements at 7:15, and the program starts about 7:30. Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.

Remember: for June’s trip, you need to be there by 7:00 PM!

By Jeff Moorman

Traditionally the Seattle-North Clinic takes a railroad-related tour instead of its June meeting. This year is no different. And, like always, we are not telling you where we are going ahead of time. Yes, we can promise some variety, plus maybe something a little different. Yes, it was arranged by a self-proclaimed professional railroad tour guide. And, yes, we still have some seats left.

The cost is $5 (bring it with you) to defer the cost of the vans and we will leave the church parking lot no later than 7:00PM on June 2. See directions below. We should get back to the church by 10:00.

There are a limited number of seats, so do not just show up on June 2 without me responding that we have room.

The clinic meets at the Ronald United Methodist Church, 17839 Aurora Avenue North, Shoreline, WA. That is on the west side of Aurora (State Route 99) just north of 175^th Street, between the Cadillac dealer and Deseret Industries. Note that there is still a lot of construction along this stretch of Aurora. Therefore, it might be best to be going southbound so you can make a right-hand turn into the church driveway immediately after passing the Deseret location.

Meetings are the first Thursday of each month, except July and August. In June we usually take a tour. The tour is by pre-registration only and leaves from the parking lot at the rear of the church building at 7:00PM sharp. If you are late, there is no provision for you to join the tour in progress.

Hope to see you there or at least sometime on down the line.