North switch guard rails

As far as I’m concerned the guard rails are largely cosmetic. However, they need to get soldered, so I do them before the detailing stage of a turnout. With Micro Engineering code 55 rail, anything bigger too (and probably code 40, but I don’t know for sure), the profile is a little wider than the […]

North switch points

The points are by far the hardest part of getting Proto:87 running. The flanges are so tiny that they like to find any excuse to go the wrong way. For this switch, I originally planed the points using the Screaming Banshee Rail Grinder almost a year ago. Miraculously, I found them in my increasingly dusty […]

North switch closure rails

The first step in forming the closure rails is to bend the wing rails at their ends, leaving them over-length. I then bend the closure length so the rail wants to lie very close to its final position. Here the diverging rail has been bent and is awaiting trimming. Once I am satisfied with the […]

North switch feeders and stock rails

To accurately locate the feeders, I place the rail in position, and then file a groove in the bottom of the foot with a triangular file. I use my old file, so it doesn’t get gummed up with Pliobond. I then flip the rail over and deepen the groove slightly, and then scrape the Pliobond […]

North switch ballast and rail preparation

I am getting the bulk of the ballast in before the rails go down on Pembroke. I’ve always found that ballasting after the rails takes a lot of fussing, and then it moves anyway. I’m leaving the areas around solder clean until they are proven to work, but the plain track, which is glued, is […]

North Switch Tie Colouring

Before getting on to colouring ties, I had to correct the throw rod hole. Unfortunately, when Andrew was here on Wednesday, we aligned the hole for the throw rod with the original centreline. Now that the centreline has moved, I needed to move the hole over as well. This was a simple matter of whittling […]

Ties for the North Switch

After scratching my head for a while over the misalignment here at the north switch of the siding, I decided to pull a few more ties off and smooth it all out. With the aid of a wooden spline and my darling wife, who braved basement and sore back, we got a new centreline marked […]

Solution to Broken Headblock

Well, it wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it would be. When the headblock tie first broke, I had visions that it could mean tearing up the turnout and re-laying it. However, once cooler heads had taken over, a good solution presented itself. I cut a length of .005 brass sheet, and bent it […]

North Section Track

The track on the North Section is finally complete. The elapsed time was longer than the south section, but that was due to real life getting in the way of the trains. Overall, I think the effort was less for this section than the first. Compared to the south section, I made a couple of […]

My first video – fixing a frog

Some things are harder to explain in words than to show. So, I thought I would try shooting a video instead. Let me first tip my hat to people like Greg Amer, who have produced instructional videos on modeling topics. Even with the minimal editing I did, the work involved is tremendous compared to a […]