Dan’s Train Blog

I haven’t written much lately but I’ve been building a LOT. As I mentioned in July, We moved to a new house with a workshop . The plan was to use the shop space for the layout (of course) and a workshop space for model building.

So much for plans. We’ve started teaching “build stuff” workshops on weekends for
teenagers/young adults. We started with a three month class meeting for four hours on Saturdays. That filled so we added a Sunday section. The projects are really great and since part of what the kids are doing will be blogging about their work I’ll just show a sample of what they are doing and I’ll provide a link to their blogs once they are up.

Ian is building an Airbus 380 in 1/144 scale.

Nick is building a micro layout in HO with a bridge and tunnel – the only model railroad project!

Sarah is building a fantasy diorama of a bed flying over a city at night.

Peter is building a super complex Gundam kit with a bagillion pieces.

Phoebe is making a ¾” scale room box of a Vamire’s Steampunk style home.

We’re all taking turns practicing airbrush and other painting techniques on my old model of the Millennium Falcon.

Kris is building a 1/48 scale tank for a diorama.

Not pictured: Reggie’s free-lanced 12” Globe, Devon’s Manga stage model and Steven’s world of eraser people.

It’s a huge amount of work but also tremendous fun.

The Carquinez Model Railroad Society is having its annual December Open House on December 6, 2008. The open house will be 10am to 4pm, December 6, 2008. A donation of $2 per adult, $3 per couple or $5 per family will help them keep moving forward.

The Carquinez Model Railroad Society is located at 645 Loring Ave., Crockett, CA, across from C & H Sugar.

The Carquinez Model Railroad Society’s layout is HO scale, DCC operated, and is inspired by the Southern Pacific line from Oakland to Truckee.

In less than two years the club has completed the bench work for all three levels, installed track, and wired the mainline on the first two levels. We have about 500 feet of double track mainline currently operating. Trains move between the levels via the two large helixes. Work continues adding more track to the second level and planning for the third level.

Also please check out their new web site at: www.carquinezmrs.org

Thank you,

Greg Ockander

Corte Madera Creek trestle. Facing east, north is to the left.

One of the clearest remaining artifacts of the Northwestern Pacific Railroad in southern Marin County is the Corte Madera Creek trestle and bascule span.

I’ve always been attracted to the railroad-to-water interface and this captures a lot of that charm and has a lot of small elements that could be incorporated into a layout.

Built in their current form in 1923, these were designeted by the railroad as two bridges: the North and South Corte Madera Creek approaches and both were specified by the railroad as structure number 14.61 with a combined length of 1,252 feet.

The bridge was originally two side-by-side bridges (the trestle is one track but the bascule may be seen to be two-track) for the orginal dual track main line but was single track for as long as I can recall, back through the 1970s.

I assumed the number 14.61 referred to miles from either Tiburon (SF&NP mileposts) or maybe Sausalito (NPC or NS mileposts) but this location is about 5.6 rail miles from Tiburon and 8.5 rail miles from Sausalito so I’m stumped. The mystery was solved when I found that Milepost 0.0 is the San Francisco Ferry Building, south across the bay so the 14.61 signifies “miles from San Francisco.”

Google Earth kmz file to the location

The bridges are largely intact other than the recent removal of the rails and 165 feet of the north end that crossed East Sir Francis Drake Blvd — thanks to damage caused by an idiot colliding with the bridge in a too-tall truck.

There is a foot/bike path nearby which is a nice spot to take pictures. The bridge is climbing a short sharp grade leading up into the tunnel number 3 on the way to San Rafael.

Almost the same view in 1949 with NWP 178 and leased SP 2336.

Note the galvanized steel caps on the piles. This is where the truck-damaged section of the bridge was cut away.

Volume 3: Electrical and Control (Including DCC) is a case study of how Joe’s layout is wired and an in-depth look at DCC wiring, installation, and configuration.

Joe Fugate was kind enough to send me a review set of his Siskiyou Line videos. The five volume set covers almost all aspects of the design, construction, and operation of his HO scale Siskiyou Line layout based on the Southern Pacific’s Siskiyou Line in the 1980’s.

Please see my comments on Volume 1 and Volume 2.

This is a really excellent guide for someone like me. I’m very familiar with traditional (DC) layout wiring but this new-fangled DCC is hard to initially get your arms around. Joe works up from basic DCC wiring, on to DCC decoder installation and basic programming, and advanced techniques like “consisting” (double-heading for steam guys like me) and using your PC hooked up to your DCC controller to configure detailed parameters of your DCC system.

This DVD is completely free-standing in that if you just want DCC information this one DVD would be an excellent choice independent of the rest of Joe’s series.

I hope Joe produces updated versions of this disc as time goes on since some of this material will eventually become dated.

I think viewers will get the most value from this video if they have seen Volumes 1 and 2 first but this video is also very valuable all by itself if you just want the DCC information.

Joe’s DVDs may be purchased at model-trains-video and retail for $24.95 each.

I recently mentioned to my wife that one of the books that got me interested in small railroads as a child was Dorothy Newell Deane’s 1960 book Sierra Railway, which I found in my grandparents’ library as a child. That original book got lost but it got me thinking so I searched at Amazon and several small booksellers were selling copies for various prices. I chose one seller because they were nearby – in Sacramento.

The book arrived promptly (I’ve had excellent luck buying used books through Amazon). It’s a first-edition and in condition as described by the seller.

Then I look inside and see the previous owner has written his name: T. Wurm.

T. Wurm, Ted Wurm? Ted Wurm is (was?) a prolific author of many railroad books with most being written in the 1950s and 60s focusing on the history of small western railroads. 

Link: Search for Ted Wurm books at Amazon

I have several books he wrote but I never expected to have one of his personal copies.

My son and I were walking around Sausalito one bright winter morning on a “photo walk.” I was teaching my son about taking pictures and turned back and saw he was taking a picture in a parking lot. “What’re you looking at?” I asked.

“A crane”

I’m wondering since my son isn’t into birds much, so I walked over and looked.

I had walked by it completely. A nice funky self propelled crane. My son was intrigued by the ship someone had painted on it.

We were walking near the old NWP mainline. The last tracks in Sausalito were pulled up in the 1970s. Today it is a mix of boating industry, expensive office space, cheap(ish) warehouse space, and funky artist spaces.

My son’s picture of me trying to photograph the cab:

I work hard at being a member of too many model groups. Probably as a means of making sure I never get anything done. One of my favorite groups that I don’t have time for is the Hyde Street Model Shipwrights. I love models of all kinds and I’ve found that model ship clubs, on average, are easier social groups than most model train groups. That’s just been my experience, your mileage may vary.

One of my favorite museums when I was growing up in San Francisco was the wonderful Art Deco SF Maritime museum near Fisherman’s Wharf, every room bursting with model ships and ship artifacts.

When I first joined the Hyde Street Model Shipwrights we met in the basement of that museum. However, for the last several years the museum building has been under renovation so we’ve set up a small shop in a cabin on the main deck of the old Northwestern Pacific ferry boat Eureka (National Park Service , Wikipedia). There are usually club members at the shop every Saturday.

What’s all this have to do with trains? Note that Eureka was owned by the railroad I model and started its life as the Ukiah, a combination passenger, wagon/automobile, and railroad car ferry. That’s no more than one degree of separation.

Last weekend Paul, a club member who is also a neighbor in Mill Valley, hosted the annual club picnic. Paul builds model ships on commission and has also published numerous articles on model ship building. I took the opportunity to take some pictures of Paul’s shop which he has made inside his one-car garage.

Paul divides his workspace into several tool-specific stations with several general-purpose stations where model ships take shape. In this way he keeps several projects in construction concurrently.

Above are two general stations, each with a ship model underway.

A 1:24 scale model nearing completion. This was almost four feet long overall.

A small 1:64 scale model that’s been a personal project of Paul’s for some time.

At this bench Paul makes all the little fittings for his model ships.

A half-model Paul is building on commission. This will be mounted on a wall in the owner’s home.

Interacting with Miniature Railroading posted a link to this great one-hour long video of a railroad in Eritrea.

Eritrea: Rebirth of a Railway and Steam Trains

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