Rebuilding the Blacklog Wye

Some years ago I acquired on eBay a beautiful hand laid wye, once part of an anonymous HOn3 layout. Perhaps the builder had passed away, or been forced to dismantle his model railroad for some reason. At the time I bought it, the wye didn't really fit on my standard gauge Blacklog Valley Railroad.  The ballast and scenery had a definite western character.  I had only begun to tinker with the idea of adding an HOn3 section based on the East Broad Top narrow gauge railroad, but the wye was so impressive I couldn't resist.  So for a number of years, while I did little more than add Tortoise switch machines, the wye sat gathering dust.

When we moved to Cape Cod, I found myself with an empty 20 x 17 room waiting for me to fill it with a model railroad.  Along the way, I also had purchased several brass models of EBT engines, as well as the gas-electric M-1 and a pile of narrow gauge rolling stock.  The model railroad that emerged was a combination HO/HOn3, with a dual gauge yard and space at one end to include -- you guessed it -- a dual gauge wye!  I inserted the wye at the end of the Blacklog yard, with the tail track wrapping around a mountain and quarry, and a brickyard on the opposite side.  Here you can see the wye with the mountain on the right and the refractory on the left, while a conveyor belt soars above.

Almost immediately, I began to encounter problems with the wye.  The hand laid trackwork, especially around the dual gauge turnouts, was beginning to show its age.  Rails came loose, and the original ties were so old they failed to hold new spikes.  The techniques used for constructing the switches were decades out of date.  The wye was built long before anyone thought of soldering rails to PC board ties.

There was frustration over keeping the rails in gauge.  A key problem area was the "draw track" on one leg of the wye, where the narrow gauge rail moved from left to right to allow the tracks to meet the switch correctly after turning.  Engines and cars derailed constantly.

Part of the problem was that the wye was constructed on a sheet of 1/2 inch plywood with cardboard under the ties.  The rest of the layout was built on 2 inch foam with cork roadbed.   The rails on the wye were not at the same height as the rails on the foam, and I was constantly fiddling with rail height.

As beautiful as the wye appeared, it was not particularly reliable for operating model trains.  I wanted the narrow gauge railroad to move cars prototypically, hauling empty hoppers from Blacklog to Robertsdale, turning the train on the narrow gauge wye there, then pulling strings of loaded hoppers back to Blacklog where the coal was cleaned and transfered to standard gauge hoppers.  The engines would then be turned on the Blacklog wye and the whole process would repeat.   Maintenance of the dual gauge wye soon became a constant problem, making operation less than enjoyable.  Something had to be done.

My first idea was to tear up the two legs of the wye leading to the wye switch and tail track, and replace them with Shinohara code 70 HOn3 track and a #3 Shinohara wye turnout.  I reasoned that the change would simplify the trackwork and replace the undependable hand laid track with commercial flex track.  I wanted to leave the main line dual gauge track since there was a long section of three rail trackage on the far side of the wye, including a dual gauge spur serving a brewery.  However, the rails between the switches would be removed and replaced with Micro Engineering weathered flex track.

Once the tracks were properly laid, wired, tested and ballasted, scenery was reapplied to the wye to disguise the damage caused by removal of the two dual gauge legs.  The result was pleasing to the eye, as can be seen in this photo of the altered wye.

Unfortunately, while the commercial components of the wye worked as expected, I had overlooked one little problem:  The entire wye still depended on two ancient, hand laid dual gauge turnouts.  The issues that confronted me with the original (all dual gauge) wye were still there, as soon as a locomotive encountered one of the hand laid switches.  Derailments were not eliminated; if anything, they were worse than before.  All the handling during the conversion had only made the switches more unreliable.

You might ask why I didn't simply replace the original hand laid turnouts by building new ones, using PC ties and modern methods.  The answer is two-fold.  First, the only remaining components of the original dual gauge wye were the turnouts.  There was a certain nostalgia in wanting to preserve some trace of the original track work.  Second, even though I am pursuing the NMRA achievement certificate in civil engineering, which includes building several switches, I wasn't prepared to take on anything as complex as a dual gauge turnout built to exactly fit the space on my layout.  At least, not at that point in time.

After having struggled with the same problems for years, I finally decided it was time for drastic action.  I would remove the entire wye -- the plywood base, the original turnouts, and the newly laid flex track, and replace the hole in my layout with a block of 2 inch foam on which I would lay a completely new, narrow gauge wye, using all commercial components.  Before I had a chance to change my mind, the deed was done.

In my next post, I will describe, step by step, how I built a replacement wye, some of the issues I encountered along the way, and what I did about the remaining dual gauge track extending beyond the wye.

Resurrecting a Scratch Built Gem

Like many modelers, I began to experiment with structures from kits.  Many of those projects from decades ago are still around today: a Campbell water tank and bandstand, Fine Scale Miniatures of a two story station and a coal and sand facility.  But my first foray into the wonderful world of scratch building was a coal elevator made from plans and pictures in Model Railroader or Railroad Model Craftsman -- I can't remember which.  Because it was my first, the J. D. Owen coal facility has always had a special place in my memory.

The original plans called for three wooden silos with an overhead structure where coal, having been hauled up by an internal bucket lift, was distributed among the three bins.  I built the silos by wrapping scribed basswood around three (empty) Horseshoe Curve beer cans.  The wooden wrappers were glued to the cans and secured with rubber bans that represented steel bands.   I was delighted with the finished product.

Over the last 40 some years and five layouts, the coal elevator had a place of honor on every model railroad I built.  But the passing of time and the gradual drying of the Ambroid cement that held the structure together led to its slow disintegration.  The final insult was the rotting away of the rubber bands, leaving the entire facility in a state of collapse.

Oh, I played with the idea of rebuilding the structure, but other projects took precedence, and the coal elevator ended up on a shelf where it appeared unlikely to ever appear on the layout again.

Then a wonderful thing happened.  Walther's brought out a reissued Cornerstone kit for the Golden Flame Fuel Company.  One look and I realized that the Walther's kit was a modified version of the original coal facility that had graced my layout for all those years.  The superstructure on the coal elevator was different -- more modern -- and the silos were concrete, not wood; but it was a dead ringer for my ancient scratch built building.

I bought the Cornerstone kit, threw away the elevator roof and superstructure, and tested the J. D. Owen top on the three silos.  The towers of the kit are made of styrene rings that nest together to form the silos.  They were slightly taller than my original design, but discarding one ring from each silo left the towers almost exactly the same height as my original elevator.  I spray painted the towers with Floquil concrete and test fit the parts on my work bench.

I was ready to move ahead with assembling the structure when friends in the Yahoo! Narrow Gauge Chat group suggested that since the original towers were made from beer cans, it might be fun to make the new silos resemble beer cans!  A couple of folks even sent photos of old farm silos painted to resemble a can of beer.  It didn't take much encouragement; I was up and running!

A quick Google search for beer logos netted dozens of potential candidates for my "three pack" silos. Since I model central Pennsylvania around the year 1950, I needed to find a local brew from that time and place.   I finally selected a logo for Iron City Beer, brewed in Pittsburgh, where East Broad Top coal was used to fire the steel furnaces.

To get a feel for what the finished product would look like, I printed off three Iron City logos on copy paper using my HP ink jet printer.  After cutting them out, I curled them around the three silos and took a picture.  It really looked sharp! I knew I was on the right track.

The next step was to print the logos as decals that could be applied to the styrene towers.  I opted to use Testor's decal paper from my local hobby store.  After printing three logos on my ink jet printer and allowing the ink to dry overnight, I sprayed them with Testor's Decal Bonder Spray to fix the ink. The decals were left to dry overnight again before cutting them out and applying them to the towers. Be sure to follow the instructions carefully or you will have a mess trying to slide the decals off the backing and onto the structure.

Once the decals were set in place I applied Microsol from the blue bottle to settle them on the surface of the towers.  This proved difficult because of the size of the logos, and required a lot of finagling. Where the decals had air bubbles, I used a common pin to prick the surface and applied additional Microsol solution.  Two of the decals were still not all I had hoped, and I hoped that weathering would help cover any irregularities.  Before weathering, I sprayed all three towers and the decals with Dull Coat.

Brick and concrete structures will sometimes emit a white secretion from water seeping into cracks.  I used acrylic white paint to suggest these discolorations.  To do this, I took a small piece of blue painter's tape and ran it just above one of the circular seams in the tower.  Then I dry brushed some of the acrylic to look like discoloration running down the tower.  I even tried the technique over one of the decals where too much touching had removed some of the paint.

After the paint had dried I applied powdered black chalk and MicroMark grimy black weathering powder to suggest years of grime and coal dust accumulated on the towers.  The roof was brushed with grungy gray weathering powder, which came out more of a dirty brown.  The end result was pleasing to me, and the finished structure once again occupies a place of honor on my layout.

Finishing the Turntable

In previous posts, I have detailed how I constructed the pit and bridge for a 65 foot steel girder turntable from Kitwood Hill Models.  This HOn3 turntable (with minor differences) is a replica of the turntables in Durango, Colorado and Rockhill Furnace, Pennsylvania.  My model was detailed for the EBT turntable as part of the turntable and roundhouse module that will be integrated into my layout.

Once the pit was finished, it was time to paint the concrete sides, ballast the circular support rail, and add loose gravel and weeds at the bottom of the pit.  Care was taken not to interfere with the turning of the bridge, so a small area around the center of the pit was left a light brown color to suggest dirt. In the following photo, I am using a mix of Modge Podge and water, with a drop of detergent, to glue the scenery to the turntable floor.

You can see the turning plate that will support the bridge in the center of the pit.  The wires coming from the plate, which fits neatly into the bottom of the bridge, provide power to the rails.  Here is a view of the finished scenery.  Honestly, this is pretty much like the bottom of the prototype pit.

I have not super detailed the pit wall, which in the prototype is stained with soot, dirt, ashes, and rust from the rails.  Eventually, detailing will be added, once I have fixed the turntable into place with the approach and roundhouse tracks.

After test fitting the bridge in place, and sanding a little from the planking where it was rubbing against the pit wall, I was ready to connect power to the bridge rails.  The wires that were included in the kit (the purple wires emerging from the turning plate) were rather stiff, so that when the bridge was set on the plate, it tended to pop off the plate instead of riding smoothly on the support wheels. The instructions also said to hard wire the bridge in place, but I wanted to be able to remove it for servicing when necessary.  So I picked up a two pin micro connector from the model airplane department at my local hobby store and soldered one side to the purple wires after cutting them as short as possible.  I used flexible computer ribbon wire soldered to the bridge tracks, and ran the wires to the other micro connector.

The micro connectors sat on the plastic gear.  Careful measurement indicated that the connector would just clear the bottom of the bridge deck.  Unfortunately, when I tried to reassemble the bridge, I couldn't get the bridge firmly down on the plate.  Even a micro connector was too big!  So I ended up having to solder two #30 wires directly from the plate to the bridge track.  I can still lift off the bridge for minor repairs, but anything more requires unsoldering the power leads and moving the bridge to the workbench.It took several tries to get everything folded up neatly.  The final test was to rotate the bridge 360 degrees under its own power.  I placed EBT Mikado #16 on the table for a more realistic test.

The tiny motor that turns the bridge through a series of gears requires only 1.5 volts to operate prototypically, but it is very powerful.  The instructions call for a single AA battery, but you can safely use two if you want it to turn faster.  I found that lining up the rails was easier if the bridge turned more slowly.

Clearly, there is still a lot of work to be done to finish the module.  The roundhouse tracks have to be powered, lighting must be installed, the roof remains a work in progress, and the entire module must be scenicked prior to placement on the layout.  The tracks between the turntable and the roundhouse are ballasted with gray stone  in the prototype, while the interior floor of the roundhouse is covered with gravel.  Around the outside of the turntable there will be gravel, grass, weeds and of course, the two lead tracks will be ballasted.  The main lead (directly behind the tender in the above photo) also passes over the ash pit, and that will be modeled as well.

In the next installment of this series, I will return to work on the roundhouse.  But even in its unfinished form, I am excited by how this project is developing.  I hope you will continue to follow the work in future posts.

Modeling the Turntable Bridge

In previous posts I detailed the construction of the turntable pit and mechanism.  Now we turn to the construction of the turntable bridge, which will fit over the bridge turning plate in the center of the pit.  The bridge is assembled from laser ply sides that are laminated together to resemble the steel girders of the prototype.

The sides were laminated with contact cement, and pressed together with wooden clothespins.  The two sides are connected with cross pieces.  I used ACC to connect the two girder plates.

The cross beam assembly and deck is made of 1/8 inch laser board and rests on the tabs on the top side of the bridge cross pieces.  Here is a view from the bottom.

Here you can see how the bridge looks with the sides fully assembled.  The outside laminate for the girders is very delicate.  Be careful not to break anything, especially if you use contact cement (as I did) and have to make adjustments when putting the parts together!  Fortunately, if you happen to break something, the repairs are virtually invisible once the bridge is painted.

As I pointed out in the previous post, the turntable tracks rest on cross beams or sleepers that rest on the bridge girders.  The top of the bridge for the model has slots for the flex track to rest in.  Along with the laser ply board the kit also contained a pre-cut length of HOn3 code 70 flex track.  When I first tried to line up the flex track ties with the slots in the bridge, I couldn't understand how to fit them together.  Then I reread the instructions, which suggested cutting the tabs that join the rails on the flex track, then sliding the ties along the rails to fit in the slots.  This took some care, as the ties had a tendency to pop off the rail.  Here I am matching up the flex track to the top of the bridge.

Once I had the flex track ties where they needed to go, I put a drop of ACC on each tie where it contacted a rail, to keep the ties from moving.  Then I dropped the track in place.

I had already painted the sides of the track with Floquil rail brown.  I still had to stain the top of the bridge and the cross beams.  Here is how the unpainted bridge looked at this point.

Just for fun, I put one of my brass EBT mikado locomotives on the bridge.  If it looked this good now, just imagine how it will look when painted and assembled!

The next step was to stain the cross beams and top of the bridge.  Actually, I could have left the center of the bridge unpainted since it will be covered with plank decking, but it was easier to immerse the entire top in a bath of gray stain, then let it dry on a paper towel.  The results were pleasing to my eye

After test fitting the top to the girder assembly, I removed the cross beams and painted the girders with Floquil grimy black.  I then used rust colored weathering powders to give a rusty appearance to the girders, and fixed the entire paint job with a coat of Dullcoat.

The planking for the deck comes in three sections, one for each side and one for between the tracks.  I secured the deck with contact cement after staining it with Hunterline gray stain.  The slots in the sides of the deck are where the handrail supports will go.

The turntable revolves around a central bearing, which on the model consists of a turning plate that fits up inside the turntable bridge when the kit is fully assembled.  But the prototype also rests on wheels at each end that run on a circular track around the bottom of the pit.  The support wheel assemblies come as laser cut parts on a sheet of laser ply.

The support wheels are made from pairs of 6 mm N scale wheels joined face to face. The supports are cut from 1/32" laser ply.  Assembly is tricky as these are small parts and have to be cemented at the proper angle with ACC.  On one or two occasions they were also cemented to my fingers!  Be careful because the inside and outside wheel supports are different.  Follow the drawings in the instructions.

Here is what the bridge looks like when fully assembled.  Note that the wheel assembles actually lie on top of the bridge.  Be sure they are turned the correct way.  The top of the bridge then sits on top of the wheel assemblies and holds them in place..

Here is a close-up view of the end of the bridge with the support wheels in place.

The last structural detail to add is the air motor assembly.  On both the Durango and Rockhill (EBT) turntables there is a motor to drive the turntable powered by compressed air from the locomotive through a hose.  I have seen videos of the motor working at Durango, but to my knowledge the one at Rockhill was never used.  So you could leave it off altogther.  However, I chose to include it.  The motor, like the support wheels, is assembled from laser ply parts that include the deck.  Here is a view of the motor in place.

As you can see from the photo, I have begun to mount the handrails, which are the last step in constructing the turntable bridge.  The rails are made of steel wire (included in the kit) which is run through wooden stanchions cut from laser ply.  I painted the stanchions black, but at this point I have not painted the railings.

Following are two views of the deck with the handrails in place.  The wire is bent to follow the air motor control deck.  Simon Cox recommends gluing the end stanchions and one or two in the middle, then running the wire through while adding the additional stanchions as you go.  This is a bit tricky, since you need to line them all up together and the wooden stanchions are fragile.

On the Durango turn table the railings lean out.  On the EBT version, the railings are vertical, which is how I made them.

Here is a close-up of the handrails for the air motor platform.  Note the control handle made of a length of steel wire.

Just for fun, you can see how the finished model will look with one of the EBT mikes sitting on it.

In the next installment, I will illustrate how the completed turntable was installed on the module with the roundhouse, ready for installation on the layout.

The Turntable Bridge

The working part of a turntable is the bridge, which is exactly what it is -- a bridge connecting the rails on two sides of the pit.  In the case of the East Broad Top turntable in Rockhill, Pennsylvania, the bridge is composed of two steel girders held together by steel cross struts.  A few years ago, the EBT tore up the bridge tracks and ties and rebuilt the turntable.  Along the way, they also serviced the bearing on which the table turns.  Here is a photo of  the bridge partially disassembled:

The bridge turns on a central bearing that is so well balanced that two men can turn the turntable by hand.

Like its twin, the 65 foot Durango turntable in Colorado, the EBT turntable came equipped with a compressed air motor that could be operated by connecting a hose to the locomotive brake line.   However, there is no evidence that the motor was ever used.  During the restoration of the turntable, it was possible to see the compressed air motor.

From above, here is a view of the turntable bearing.

The rails sit on sleepers supported on the two main girders of the turntable.

Planks are laid over the sleepers on either side of the track and between the rails.   The handrails are made from iron pipe. Unlike the Durango turntable, the railings are not inclined away from the track, but are vertical.  In the following photograph, you can see one of the stout timbers used by the engine crew to push the turntable by hand. A similar lever is located on the opposite side.  Note also the stains on the sides of the pit made by rusty runoff from the tracks.  The circular rail that supports the ends of the bridge is ballasted with stone, while the interior of the pit floor is covered with gravel and weeds.

The turntable kit made by Kitwood Hill Models resembles both the Durango and Rockhill turntables.   The girders are made by laminating several layers of laser ply, and are joined by wooden spacers.   Rather than laying individual sleepers, the top of the turntable is a single unit which fits snugly over the girders.  Flex track fits into slots on the top, which is then covered by laser cut planking.  In the next installment I will detail the construction of the bridge and show its installation in the pit.

Assembling the Turntable Drive

In my last post, I detailed the assembly of the Kitwood Hill 65 foot turntable pit.  The next step was to mount the bridge turning plate on the upper side of the pit floor, and the gearbox and motor below.  The turning plate is a pre-assembled unit that uses two gears back to back, screwed onto 3.7 mm laser board with two machine screws.  A circular PCB board is held to the plate with doubled sided tape.  The PCB board is scored to allow two gold plated sprung plungers to route power to the bridge track as the bridge rotates.  Here is a picture of the bridge turning plate.

On the underside of the pit floor laser ply boards are assembled into the walls of the gear box.  The primary axle is inserted from the top side and two 60T gears are pressed back to back on the axle  Simon Cox has found that two large gears are needed to prevent slippage.

The idler gear is made up of a pinion gear and a large 60T gear.  It is inserted so that the pinion gear engages with the large gears on the primary axle.

Here is a view of the assembled gear train so far.  The two wires on the left are the power leads to the gold plated sprung plungers that make contact with the PC board on the turning plate, routing power to the track.

The final step is to insert the motor.  The motor is tiny -- about a half an inch long -- with an elaborate gear drive on one end.  In spite of its small size, the motor has plenty of power to turn the turntable bridge.

The motor is affixed to the motor plate with two machine screws.  In attaching the motor, one of the tiny 3 mm screws flew off into hyperspace, where it remains to this day.  I emailed Simon Cox and received an answer almost immediately.  He said he would send another set of screws at no cost.  I was impressed with the service and support provided by this small British manufacturer.  Kudos to Kitwood Hill Models!

Once the motor is secured to the plate, a small pinion gear is pushed onto the motor shaft.  This gear engages with the large idler gear, driving the turntable bridge plate.

The motor plate is secured to the sides of the gear box with small 3 mm machine screws.  Take note that the tabs that join the gear box to the motor plate are not symmetrical.  Be careful to follow the pictures in the instructions.  The parts must be assembled as per the instruction sheet or you will find yourself trying to unglue wooden tabs and slots without breaking anything .... a likely scenario, I can vouch for!

With the bridge plate, motor and gear train in place, it was time to test the mechanism to see if it all worked as promised.  The motor is low voltage (3 vdc) and the kit comes with a battery holder for two AA size batteries.  I powered up the motor, and with very little noise, the bridge plate began to turn slowly.  It worked!

With the completion of the pit and turntable drive, the next installment in this series will turn to construction of the turntable bridge, wiring the track, and inserting the model onto my roundhouse module.