Progress on terrain and turnouts

All things are continuing apace.

I am up to seven Fast Tracks turnouts, and am thinking I should really wire one up one of these days and give it a hot test with a real locomotive. I have been testing them as I make them with a voltmeter, and in two cases have had shorts that it has taken some time to resolve. Both times they seemed due to solder creeping across the gaps in the PCB ties.



It has gotten really fun to make them. The grinding of the points and frog is no longer such a mystery -- I just needed to acquire that skill of filing. The soldering is the best part, very satisfying.

I have made the mini table saw, incorporating the Dremel, with which to cut my new sheet of 1/32 PC board, which arrived very quickly. Tried it out on some 1/16 scraps given to me by a friend, and it works fine. Ground PCB smells horrible, though, like formaldehyde. I hope it isn't bad for humans. I think I will be doing the PCB cutting outdoors, on the patio.



A friend of my son who is interested in the whole process has been helping with the terrain-shaping, surforming and sanding away. Here are some pictures:


This is the "West Blob," with what passes or Signal Mountain and a fictional tunnel. Chickamauga Creek is on the left, the branch line in the foreground.


This is the future site of Ergon Terminaling. The cardboard rings will one day be storage tanks, and are there to maintain a vision of the completed industry.


Here's a view down Stringer's Ridge, with the branch line on both sides.


The branch line rounds the end of Stringer's Ridge. This is a fairly true-to-life geographic location:



Here's where the interchange yard will be. The long ridge will be its backdrop, and will serve to mask the staging area behind.


Finally, this is the "East Blob" with its mountain and the future location of the railroad museum at the foot of the hill. The folders are the turnout "kits" I described: pre-cut ties and rails for assembling Fast Tracks turnouts.

Making my own N-gauge turnouts

Well, I took a big swing at turnout-building over the weekend, using my new Fast Tracks jig. It's for building #7 turnouts with code 55 rail, which, as I discussed in my last entry, is the standard for my layout.

Let me tell ya, it isn't easy!

Or let me qualify that. It isn't easy at first. It involves some skills and techniques that you may not have yet. Your first few efforts will be where you make your mistakes.

But that being said, even my first, mistake-ridden turnout is still going to be usable. The jig is excellent, and by the time you get to the soldering stage it gets really fun. The hardest thing for me was learning how to use the point-forming tool; I took a few unadvisable strokes with my file and shredded the end of one rail, and it can be hard to know how much to take off.

The experience I gained from just one turnout was amazing, though. Suddenly I knew what had to be what length, knew the trick for filing the gaps in the PC board ties, had a handle on how to get the frog point soldered together without having three hands.

My total output for about 5 hours of work was two completed turnouts, but that's not all. I also started making "kits" to assemble more, getting the ties trimmed, frog points made, stock rails and guardrails cut, etc. to assemble five more turnouts. So it should take only a couple more hours till I have seven. I think this is a good approach. Each of "kits" I am putting into a small manila envelope, and doing it this way really lets you master each of the turnout-building tasks.

The instructional videos posted on the Fast Tracks site are very helpful, as is the user's guide, but remember they're all in HO. N poses some unique challenges.

There's one more matter to discuss here: Cost. In the long run, the Fast Tracks jig will save you money. No question. If you're willing and able to do the work, you'll get unlimited, high-quality units that get cheaper with every one you build. You could even sell them on eBay, they're so high-quality.

But the materials cost money. I have already ordered my own sheet of 1/32 PC board from an electronics supplier, and plan to rig up a little homemade table saw with my Dremel (armed with a cutoff wheel) to cut it into strips for lower-cost ties. A 12" by 12" sheet of the copper-clad board costs $15, and should make LOTS of ties. The rail I'll probably order from somewhere closer by, to save on the shipping from Canada.

Talking about track

My first N-gauge efforts, (at age 8, and then age 29 or so) both used that old Code 80 track. The stuff with the black ties and the barlike rails. Times have changed, of course. There's more realistic stuff available.

I knew from the start that I would use this more realistic stuff. All that remained to be decided was what combination of sizes to use. I finally opted for Code 55 on both the main line and the branch, and for this reason:

Switches.

Something else I knew from the start was that I was going to build my own switches, no matter how hard it was and how long it took. That's the point of a hobby, right? The goal is in the process, and the joy is in the work? Well this looked liked a whole lotta joy.

Some experiences building HO switches (back when I thought I was sticking with that scale) convinced me that I could get excellent results, but that it was a heck of a lot of work, and quite tough on the back and the eyes. When I switched to N gauge, these concerns doubled.

In my searches for information on switch-building, I came across Fast Tracks, a Canadian company that builds aluminum jigs in all scales for all manner of track features. They also sell the materials needed, such as rails, wooden ties and circuit board ties.

After doing the math of buying dozens of Atlas switches, versus making all my own from scratch, versus dropping a big old check for a Canadian jig, the jig won hands down. I now have one in a box on top of a cabinet, awaiting use, and really look forward to it. With it came a bag of circuit board ties, and you solder just enough of these to the rails, all held in place in the jig, to create a switch that holds its shape. Then you add cosmetic, wooden ties once you've installed it on the layout. It also came with a point-grinding tool for very sharp, precise points.

It was expensive, no joke. But I can make unlimited switches with it. And they promise to be better than the factory-made ones.

Which brings me back to my choice of Code 55 for everything. I only wanted to buy one of these hunks of milled aluminum. They differ according to track code and of course turnout number, so I decided that #7 switches in Code 55, layout-wide, would be my choice. #7 seems pretty big to some people, probably, but one of my initial goals here has been realism, and real-life rail switches are pretty darn long.

The way I will distinguish the main line from the branch is by paint. The main line will be more blackish and greasy-looking, while the branch will be browner and rustier to reflect its lighter, lower-speed use.

Other track details: The flex track is by Atlas, except for the bridges, which will be Micro-Engineering bridge track with the more closely spaced ties. I still need to pick up one more piece of this stuff. The roadbed will be standard cork, which I have used in the past and liked. I plan to stick the roadbed down with white glue and the track with water-based Liquid Nails.

Stick with me here and you'll see how that goes.