Westside Models 2-10-0 The Brute

 In 1979 Westside Models released the first in a proposed series of free lanced HO scale locomotives.   This was a fictional 2-10-0 that appears to have somewhat inspired by John Allen's Gorre and Daphetid model railroad.  The story is that Westside had too many B&O U-1 0-10-0's made.   So 173 were converted to this model.  It came with a tender that could be either oil or coal. It also had a Franklin Booster on the lead tender truck  It may have been partially inspired by John Allen's 4-10-0 #34.

I was fortunate to find one online from a brass locomotive dealer.  Since my model railroad is DCC I needed to added a decoder, current keeper, and a speaker to it.   There wasn't enough room in the boiler for all the electronics so I installed them in the tender as is shown in the following photographs.   I drilled three 1/4 inch holes in the center line of the tender for the speaker and wiring.  Used a couple of lengths of  shrink tubing super glued to the underside of the tender to keep the wires from dragging, and some flat shrink tubing to gather the wires together.  The speaker is from Railmaster Hobbies.  The decoder is a Soundtraxx TSU-2200 steam 2.

I used a colored four wire TCS micro connector between the engine and tender.  Unsoldered the wires from the can motor, connected the red and black connector wires to the track power wires, and soldered the grey and orange wires to the can motor.  

The decals are from the K4 Gorre and Daphetid HO, S, and O sets.  The numbers on the engine cab are from the O scale set, Gorre and Daphetid are from the S scale set and the emblem is from the HO set.  The next step will be to test it and set the CV's.  Then I will paint the smoke box silver and weather it.  

Layout Update

 Over the past few months I have been looking at shifting the locations of some of the industries between towns.  After determining where all the industries would be I then completed the track arrangement for the far end of the line.  The industry images are just place holders and do not reflect the actual size of the buildings.  The final track arrangement for the end of the line, Terminus is shown in the plan below.

Willamettes

 The residents of the Willamette Valley in Oregon have a mnemonic to help with the pronunciation of Willamette.  The saying is "Its Willamette dammit!".   The wineries in the area sell T-shirts and mugs with the mnemonic on it.   

This past weekend I received the Willamettes that I had sent to Dennis at ELS Train Service to have decoders, speakers and current keepers installed.   Some additional gear repairs also had to be done.  The three locomotives were two OMI three truckers (Rayonier #2 as class 75 three truck and Medco #7 a class 70 three truck with the open "sport" cab) and a two truck construction number 25.

All of them run very well, starting at speed step 1 and then at higher speed steps.  All have Tsunami 2 decoders.  The two truck is already painted and decaled for Modoc and Lassen #25.  Rayonier #2 will become Modoc and Lassen #2 and Medco #7 will become Modoc and Lassen #23.  Videos of the locomotives being test run will be posted on YouTube.

Modoc and Lassen #25 

Future Modoc and Lassen #21

   Future Modoc and Lassen #2     

Control Panels

I found a good deal on three pole double throw on-on switches.   Two of the three poles are for power to the switch machine motor and the third is for powering the insolated frog on the DCC friendly turnouts.  I have completed that panels for the narrow gauge, two of the towns on the standard gauge and the two ends for the staging tracks. The third town is still being planned as I determine where each industry will be located. The turn table and the cement plants are both located, but I still need to place the sawmill/lumber manufacturer, fuel oil dealer, team track, warehouse company, and station. The turntable is the red circle.  

Middleton control panel

Terminus control panel 

North end of Junction control panel 

Middle of Junction control panel 

South end of Junction control panel 

Back side of south end of Junction control panel

Narrow gauge control panel

layout update

Due to the high temperatures experienced during the summer and early fall months, I didn't do much in the garage. Instead I assembled about 11 building kits from Campbell Scale Models. These were four stations (three for the standard gauge layout and one for the narrow guage layout), three of the oil tank kits for the Quincy oil company (to be used for the two oil dealers), two of the supply company kits to also be used for the two oil dealers, and two of the freight platform kits (to be used for the team tracks at all the towns on both layouts), along with a cardstock model for the cement company at the end of the line. In addition to the building kits, I have been installing DCC in several locomotives. These are an SP C-9 consolidation, an SP TW-8 4-8-0, an SP Berkshire, and a Northwest Shortline import Willamette. The SP locomotive installations were fairly easy with all the electronic components and speakers going into the tenders and wiring TCS four wire micro connectors to the locomotive motor. The Willamette was more involved. I had to remove the weight from the tender and saw about a guarter of an inch off of it so that I could fit the Soundtraxx TSU1100, and a current keeper in the tender with the remaining part of the weight. Two sugar cube speakers are going inside the cab on the roof. The previous owner had replaced the open frame motor with a can motor. A TCS 6 wire micro connector was used to connect the decoder to the motor and speakers. I will be posting videos of the locomotives on the Modoc and Lassen YouTube channel after applying decals to them.

evolution of a track plan

 While I am slowly working on the wiring for the main standard gauge layout, I started working on an HOn3 switching layout.   There have been way to many interruptions while working on the wiring for the main layout.  

The HOn3 layout will be 2 feet by 8 feet and is a modified timesaver.   The original plan came from a shelf layout plan book and is one leg of the L shape.  see below.  I increased the original sections length and width.

This plan is a modified version of John Allen's timesaver switching puzzle.   A reversed image of that puzzle is shown below.

This modified plan adds an extra two turnouts and spurs on the right side of the plan.   I also added an extra turnout and spur to the upper left spur and shifted the entire plan to the right providing additional length to the tracks on the left.  The water feature on the left half was moved closer to the bottom edge and reduced in size to a stream.  Other minor changes were made to some of the spur locations.  

Track will be code 55 HOn3 from MicroEngineering and turnouts have been sourced from EBay and Jamestown Trains.  I have four #6 turnouts that I found on EBay and Jamestown Trains is building four #5 turnouts.  I have glued down some N scale cork roadbed for the track arrangement using FastTracks turnout templates as a guide for locations.  The spurs have a capacity of 24 30 foot cars.   I plan to use one locomotive and about 20 assorted cars on this layout.   I have a pair of Southern Pacific narrow gauge steam engines and have made a reservation for a narrow gauge Bombardier (ALCO/MLW) DL535 from Northbound Model Works.   They may still be taking reservations for this locomotive and no down payment.   Hopefully this will be shipped later this year.

 Progress has been slow.   I hate wiring.   Plus, like keeps interfering.   I have been able to go to the California Central Model Railroad Club lately though.   They have a very nice layout in the old Agnews Sp station in Santa Clara.  It was featured in Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman magazines and on TSG Multimedia YouTube channel.   

The photo below is of my AC-9s 3810 and 3811 at the Tuolomne station from the meeting on the 6th of January.   

New YouTube Channel

 I have been slowly wiring the layout, installing switch machines and control panels.   A lot of other projects around the house have reduced the amount of time available for the layout.   

I have created a YouTube channel and posted some videos there.   (70) MODOC AND LASSEN - YouTube

Layout Update.

It has been a while since I posted.  Due to the high temperatures, I have not been able to work on the layout as much as I would have liked to.   Wiring and turnout motors are slowly being added.   Also, I have to clean and treat the tracks with no-ox-id to improve conductivity.  The older DC locomotives are getting decoders, current keepers, and speakers.   I also got a replica of Gorre and Daphetid #34 on EBay.   Some of the locomotives have been sent to a local locomotive repairer for new motors and a couple of  minor repairs.  I have added a video of a brief test of #34 and of a DCC installation in a Southern Pacific whale back tender.   The tender still needs to have the painting finished.

 

February Projects

 While I did get all the track laid and power feeds wired for Middleton, I was unable to install the turnout motors and control panels for it.   Hopefully, by next month.  I did make a test video of my C636 running on one half of the town.  

I also made a revision of part of the junction trackage, replacing the #6 right hand turnout that goes to  the staging loop a #8 right hand turnout.   This also allowed some minor track adjustments for the industrial spurs in the middle of the wye.

With the icehouse, sand house, fuel oil dock and engine house base made I was able to lay out all the yard tracks.  This led to the elimination of one yard track and repositioning the engine house and servicing facilities.  This is shown in the track plan below.

My Division Point Weyerhaeuser #108 2-6-6-2T arrived this month also.  A photo of it along with one of the NWSL 2-6-6-2Ts #6 and the Mantua 2-6-6-2T #13 is below.   The other NWSL 2-6-6-2T #4 is in the shop right now.   The two NWSL loggers are models of the Black Hills Central locomotives 108 and 110.  NWSL made these years ago and they need the open frame motors replaced along with adding decoders, keep alives, and speakers.

The next two photos are of the Sugar Pine Lumber company 2-10-2T.   This was used on their common carrier Minarets and Western railroad running from the logging camps to the mill.   This was the only one of this type built.  It served along with four 2-8-2Ts.   According to the data on this one it had greater tractive effort than the Mallets.  

The last two photos are of Willamette #25

January projects

 While I wasn't able to make any real progress on the main layout, I was able to accomplish a few things.   I started constructing some of the building kits that I have.  The first ones are for the yard area.    These include the engine house, fuel oil tank, sand house, icehouse, water tank, and maintenance. buildings.

I also bought some HOn3 flextrack and N scale cork roadbed for a 23 inch radius circle to test the narrow gauge engine that I purchased.  

After playing with it for a short while, I decided to convert it into a 2 foot by 8 foot shelf layout.   This will be based on one of the layouts in the book Shelf Layouts by Reid.  This will be the lower left part with a foot added to the bottom as shown below.   This section is similar to a reversed image of John Allens Time Saver layout which is also pictured.

I also added feeder wires to the frogs of the older DCC friendly Walther's turnouts that I have.   The new ones have a tab on the side that provides an electrical connection to the frog.  On the older ones the frog is isolated without power.  I removed the plastic under the frog between two of the ties and soldered the wire to the bottom of the frog.   I did the soldering on a metal rack for a heat sink to prevent the plastic around the frog from melting.   The photos show one of them with the plastic removed and another one with a short feeder soldered to it.   As can be seen in the photo of the top of the frog area the plastic was not affected.

I need to spend the next few months getting back on schedule for building the main layout and getting it running.  I also ordered some more flex track so I could finish.