Standard Parts

As I’m working on a 3D model of a freight car, there are some parts that lend themselves to reuse. Brakes, stake pockets and pipe fittings are natural candidates for standardization. So, I’ve established an OnShape document of some standard parts that I can import and use on any other car I might design. John […]

Cattails Planted

The cattails are now installed, turning the small pond between the pasture and the cattle spur into a marsh. I left a couple of feet near the culvert free of weeds, as I reckon the section man would have dug up that area to keep the culvert free. The pond is about 40 scale feet […]

Coal Car Progress

For one reason or another, I’ve been absent from the railroad room quite a bit these past few months. This makes progress on physical projects difficult, but virtual projects can continue. The coal car, which I’m almost ashamed to say has been on my desktop for a year, is nearing completion. In thirty years of […]

The Spike Extruder

Even a small layout like Pembroke has surprising number of ties, and each of those ties takes one to four spikes. That leads to an alarming number of spikes. Allow me to demonstrate with a little mental arithmetic. Pembroke is about 16 feet long, but most of it is two tracks wide. So it’s really […]

Preparing Cattails

The stream that bisects the pasture gets sluggish and swampy before it passes under the tracks and continues down the ditch to tumble (somehow!) into the Muskrat River. The swamp will consist primarily of cattails or bulrushes – they’re too similar to tell the difference in HO scale. I’d already planted a number of them […]

Cattle Pen Fencing

Following last month’s experiment with the stupidly fine wire, I’ve gone on to refine the technique and produce enough wire fencing to keep any future cattle shipments enclosed long enough to get them aboard the stock cars. It’s still remarkably difficult to work with this material that I can barely see and that seems to […]

Throttle Back

One of the pieces that has been waiting on a bigger printer is a new back for my CVP wireless throttle. There was nothing wrong with the old back, except that it was attached to a throttle that would be found at some random place around the train room – kind of like the TV […]

Three at Once

If you’ve got a third machine that can make stuff, you really need to get all three machines working at once. So, on New Year’s Day, I revved up the two 3D printers, printing parts for the upcoming steam throttle project. While they were happily layering away, I fired up the laser cutter to make […]

The Effect of Detail

This morning The Algorithm pushed Stephen Travers Art at me, and because it is New Year’s Day and I have nothing better to do, except consume the remaining Christmas treats, take down the tree, put away the decorations, and a million other things, I clicked through to the suggested video to learn something while I […]

Frog Jewelry

When I first laid the track for Pembroke, I left the detail off until it was running the way I wanted. That day is getting near. There are a few persistent derailments, but I’m getting better and better at fixing them. So, the southern-most two turnouts are starting to get dolled up. In my previous […]