The Lowe Over-rail 'Lectrocar, Mk. I

Experimentation into new casualized hybrids continues here at 30Squares Labs. Our last successful synthesis was the N₂HO^c compound, Ramsey's Garage. Our latest is the N₂S^c-9 vehicle derived from Thaddeus Lowe's personal electric rail car he used to tour and inspect his Mt. Lowe electric railway. In this case the elements to be synthesized are a Kato N-gauge drive unit, product #11-108, and a scratch built S-scale superstructure based on the aforementioned Thaddeus Lowe vehicle.

I won't go into a full how-to, but just hit a few highlights, and discuss a little bit about its design.

For reference, I used photos on pages 45 and 48 in Charles Seims' book, Mount Lowe: The Railway in the Clouds, published by Golden West Books in 1976. My copy is the 6th printing from 1993.

I chose S as the scale and 9mm as the gauge for a few reasons. 

The Kato drive unit looked about the right size when S scale figures stood beside it. It seemed too big for HO and too small for O. I should mention I settled on 9mm as the gauge because the Mt. Lowe inspired micro-layout I have in mind for this vehicle will have some sharp corners and steep climbs that I think only 9mm gauge track can handle.

There are going to be some automobiles in cameo appearances on the layout. Since many Hot Wheels and Matchbox toy cars are close to S, that scale seemed like a good choice for providing a variety of low cost, easily modifiable vehicles. 

None of these design choices were made in a flash of brilliance. I hummed-and-hawed for a long time about what to do. And all thinking about the vehicle's design was always weighed against the layout I wanted it to run on. If I had tried to build a true representation of Thaddeus Lowe's vehicle, I wouldn't be able to run it on a micro layout, well, at least one I was capable of building.

The Kato drive unit is more or less box stock. The only modification was to clip off the stock couplers and epoxy on Kadee HO scale ones. You can see in the photo that I cut off the magnetic guides that trail from the Kadees. Later the unit was painted with mixtures of acrylic rust and grey paints.

The superstructure was mocked up with cardboard to test some ideas about size. I find that when doing casualized models it's important to test the item's dimensions against figures. If the item looks ok with respect to figures, it's on its way to being a viable model. In this case I also compared the figures and mockups to the book's photos of the real vehicle with people onboard and standing nearby. In the end I settled on a deck 5' wide and 15' long, with an 8' tall centre pole to support the trolley pole. In the above picture the centre pole is only about 7' tall, and, again, after some more humming-and-hawing, I decided it was too short.

The deck is built up from styrene scraps that I felt looked right. I know this is a sacrilegious way to go about construction, but I didn't have any prototype dimensions to work with and so decided to make something that didn't look too bad with respect to the figures. The deck isn't glued to the power unit, it's a tight friction fit, which I rather like since it makes it easy to clean or replace the drive unit.

The truck side frames were built up with the same devil-may-care attitude. I drew the frame outline on a piece of card and glued up the side frames on it. They're styrene strip stock.

The rivet and nut-and-bolt details - those brown dotty things in the photo - are Tichy Train Group items. Yes, these are way too large. I think of them more as greeblies instead of detail. Like greeblies their purpose is to provide a suggestion of detail and surface texture instead of prototypically accurate representations of actual fasteners.

The control station baskets are built up from styrene strips and Aluminum Micro-Mesh from Scale Scenes. The mesh was initially held in place with dabs of Weld Bond, but later was sandwiched between styrene strips as the basket was built up.

The detail items were scavanged from a variety of sources. The trolley pole is from an unpowered Bachmann HO scale trolley. This is just a placeholder until the layout is built when I'll replace this pole with something more suitable to the layout's geometry. The brake wheels are brake wheels pried off two HO scale freight cars in my scrap box. Those springs, which when cut down are used as the front and rear springs on the car, are from a 1/24 scale AMT Moonscope kit.

Here's the superstructure being test fit on the drive unit. At this stage it's just about ready for painting. 

The centre pole is a piece of 1/8" diameter styrene tube. The poles on the ends of the control station baskets are 1/16" diameter styrene rod. Each brake wheel is connected to a piano wire shaft. Thread is used to cross tie the control basket poles. 

In the previous photo I said the car was about ready for the paint shop because after taking the photo I remembered I had left off the stake pockets. They are bent up from 0.003" thick brass strips and superglued to the deck's side frames. Some of those big bolt greeblies were then superglued on to give a hint of how the stake pockets were attached.

Finally, it was weathered a bit with thin washes of Revell Aqua Color stone grey and flat black. 

Here's a brief clip of the trolley running over a section of the Loonar Module. It can only run over a section because an S-scale vehicle is pretty big in an HO-scale world, even if it is narrow gauge :-)

Movies ‘N’ Stuff Criterion Closet: Christian McPherson‘s & Peter Thompson's Picks

Today Peter was telling me about a homebrew 'Criterion Closet' that was shot at his store. If you're a long time reader of this blog you might remember the model I made of Movies 'N' Stuff a few years ago. Some interesting picks, and you'll see a bit more inside Peter's store. If you're a movie lover in Ottawa, drop by the store. You won't regret it.

Rooms with a view on VIA Rail's The Ocean train

 

When we went to Nova Scotia we took VIA Rail's The Ocean. The service runs from Montréal to Halifax and takes 22 hours. For us, living in Ottawa as we do, the trip took a bit longer than that once you account for the train trip from Ottawa to Montréal, a couple hours or so of layover in Montréal before The Ocean's 7pm departure, and around 3 hours of delays on The Ocean part of the trip. I can't complain though because it was a great experience.

We booked a cabin in one of the sleeper cars. They're small, but comfortable for two. There're two seats, two fold down bunks, a fold down table, cubby holes for storage, and a toilet room - it's hidden behind the open door to the corridor in this photo.

Speaking of corridors, here it is. There were a few sleeper cars in the train. Maybe 4 or 5, I lost count walking through them all. A crew member told us the train was 19 cars long.

As well as the chair and sleeper cars there was a dining car, which if you're staying in a sleeper, eating here is included in your ticket. This meant dinner on the night out, and breakfast and lunch the next day. I think my Uncle Bill would have enjoyed this.

Contrary to the image on the menu, there isn't a dome top observation car - the so-called 'Park' car - attached to this train. According to Wikipedia and the crew VIA got rid of it a couple years ago due to some operational problem with no longer having access to track they needed to turn the train around. I can appreciate the technical issues, but look, if there is anyone from VIA reading this, you really need to figure out how to bring that car back. The views from this train are one of its draws, so I suspect you're losing out by not having it. Think about this: it only took us 1 hour and 25 minutes to fly on Porter airlines on the return trip from Halifax to Ottawa, so it isn't travel time that attracts the long distance traveller. 

Ok, so enough grousing :-) The dining car has a lounge car attached to either end. One has an operating canteen and the canteen in the other car is closed. That photo up there is of the one with the closed canteen.

Here's that same lounge car, but looking towards the other end. It turns out Wifi seems to be only available in these two cars. It might be available in the chair cars, but it certainly didn't work in the sleepers. 

And here we are in the second lounge car during the night leg after I had had a couple of 'beverages' from the canteen :-)

The most unusual car had to be this 'Transition' car. Basically it's used to couple dissimilar cars. For such a prosaic car it's very nicely appointed with wall-to-wall carpeting and framed pictures on the walls.

I didn't get any photos of the train when we got in to Halifax station as it was late and cold and we were focused on getting to our hotel. But, the next morning I got that shot of the train in Halifax awaiting its return to Montréal.

Would I do it again? Probably not, but I had to do it once and enjoyed it very much. Although, VIA Rail, if you're listening, I'd be glad to return and do a 22+ hour build of some sort of railroad model streamed on YouTube live from The Ocean, with proper sponsorship of course :-)

Hydrofoil train

Left: Model of the hydrofoil train | Right: Model of Comox torpedo

Last week we were in Nova Scotia and had the opportunity to visit the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site. One of the many surprising things I learned while there was that Bell and his collaborators did extensive work developing hydrofoil vehicles. One collaborator, Casey Baldwin, came up with the idea of a hydrofoil train. I'll let the card accompanying the model take it from here:

I could have spent much more than a few hours at the museum. Hopefully I'll get back there someday.

Scenes from the Alta Vista Transit Commission: An unworkable, unfinished, unlamented model railway, 2017 - 2021

Last of a series....I think.

Opening Soon! Thé Noir at its new location

Paparazzi mob Thé Noir's big location reveal

After publishing the LOL video and thinking about Michael's comments I figured I should note that Thé Noir* has a place of honour on the current layout. Instead of being on a city street, it's now located on Ocean View Lane, with a view of the ocean :-) And, it's right beside the natural history museum. Prime real estate indeed. There is a problem though: no on-street parking. Walk-in and streetcar accessible only.  Stay tuned for the Grand Re-Opening!

*Note: Improvements include straightening the sign!

Tom Daniel on his Bad Water Western layout

Over the weekend Vince contacted Tom Daniel with some questions about his Bad Water Western layout. Mr. Daniel proved once again to be a great guy and graciously answered Vince's questions about the layout. Here's an edited summary (Tom Daniel's comments are in "Courier" as is the convention here):

Tom Daniel's Bad Water Western module "won First Place" at the 1973 MRIA meet.

"At that same contest, John Olson also entered his HOn3 module which also won First Place in the 'Narrow Gauge" category. John and I became lifelong friends - and he - being an accomplished model photographer - among all his other talents - John became the official 'company' photographer for my Bad Water Western RR ..."

"There is NO actual operating BWW layout - rather, a series of modules, all still works in progress. The original Module Contest winner was unfortunately destroyed many years ago."

"Other than one or two shots in MR in years past; and the BWW images you saw via Max Models, there has been no definitive photo and text story about how the BWW came into being in 1949."

"Thanks for your interest in the Bad Water Western."

I'd like to thank Tom Daniel and Vince for giving their time to help clarify this interesting piece of model railroading history.

Scenes from a lost model railway: The Lost Ocean Line, 2011 - 2017

"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened." - Albert Camus

Tom Daniel's Bad Water Western at Max's Models

Vince contacted Tom Daniel about the Bad Water Western. Tom Daniel graciously replied and said there was a video about it at Max's Models. Amazing stuff!

New beginnings: Thaddeus Lowe's personal trolley in S-9

An S-scale, 9mm beginning for a trolley inspired by Thaddeus Lowe's. It's built on a Kato 11-108 drive unit.

The last two months I've been working on a diorama for entry in this Loco-Revue contest. It was submitted last week and graciously accepted, so now I'm back to normal operations :-)

The thing that surprised me about the diorama project was how fast I completed it and the enthusiasm I brought to the work. I started from zero on 26 February and finished on or around 19 April - and that included a 10 day excursion to Texas in the middle where no hobby work occurred. The project involved making 3 little dioramas, designing and scratchbuilding a building, scenicking, and modifying and detailing a locomotive, as well as shooting lots of photos, two videos, and packaging them for submission. I had a great time. The best in a long while. Most of my projects take ages and drag on. There's a message or two in there for me.

I think one of the messages is that I need to park most of my existing projects for a bit and focus on fun - well, let's say getting satisfaction from building, not 'fun' as the popular media defines it. I was doing many projects out of a feeling they needed to be done. Forget that. This summer could simply be a random walk looking for hobby fun, as well as enjoying any good weather that comes along of course.

I may have finally figured out how to build a little layout inspired by the Mt. Lowe railway. First though I need a model - in this case a casualized model - of Thaddeus Lowe's personal trolley that he used to scoot around his railway. I've made a start and I'll continue until the fun runs out.

Story Miles

Story Miles: The imagined distance between two locations on a layout as defined in the layout's backstory.  

Usage: The island test facility was 25 story miles from the locomotive factory.

Source: The phrase 'story miles' was first spotted in a photo caption associated with John Olson's article, The Mescal Lines RR, that appeared in the January 1984 issue of Model Railroader:

"Saline Valley is a desert water stop. It's just above the scene in photo 2 [JDL: Above an area of "red desert" scenery shown in photo 2] even though it is some 25 "story" miles further north, a good example of how John separates scenes with a camera-like eye."

As the editor hints at, Olson makes the Saline Valley seem farther away from its layout neighbours than it actually is by carefully orchestrated scenic transitions.

Story miles are not scale miles.

from The Dictionary of Non-Existent Model Railroad Terms, 2nd ed., 1999.

Tom Daniel, Designer of Laser Cut Structure Kits

Ad snippet for a Tom Daniel designed Wood Freight Depot; MR Jan '99

While wandering around looking for some notes on Tom Daniel's Bad Water Western layout I ran across this interview with him in the February 2000 issue of Scale Auto Enthusiast. Near the end of the article he mentions what he was up to circa 2000 or so:

""I've done a lot of different designs since," Daniel says. A series of model-railroad scenery backdrops was among them. Daniel, an avid model railroader, designed those for his own company, HO West. Model railroad giant Wm. K. Walthers later purchased those designs, and continue to produce them under the Instant Horizons name. Daniel also designed HO scale buildings for Model Expo, and did some design work for Bburango."

This post's lead image is an ad for one of those HO scale structures that Model Expo ran in the January and February 1999 issues of Model Railroader. Regarding the featured Wood Freight Depot, the ad copy has this to say:

"New design by Tom Daniel is based on his boyhood memories of America during World War II. Although the Wood Freight Depot does not replicate a specific prototype, it combines many realistic elements for an authentic railroad atmosphere."

That's sort of an interesting tie in back to Tom Daniel's recollection of working in old boxcars from that era that he recounted in his May '72 RM article, An Inside Look at Boxcar Details.

I'll let the completist in me wrap up this post. There appear to be ads for Tom Daniel designed structures in these issues of Model Railroader: Mar '96, July '98, Nov '98, Jan '99, Feb '99, Mar '99, Nov '99, Dec '99, and Mar 2000. The upshot is his designs had been around for awhile before the Scale Auto Enthusiast article was published.

The search continues.

No sign of the Bad Water Western RR

Ad for 1973 MRIA show

I looked through all the 1974 issues of Railroad Modeler looking for other stories and photos about Tom Daniel's Bad Water Western RR layout as promised in the January issue but found none. 

Surprisingly I did find a mention of it in an article John Olson wrote that introduced his Mescal Lines layout to readers of Model Railroader's January 1984 issue - the famous 50th anniversary of MR issue. In the section on the railroad's background story he notes that:

"We [JDL: 'We' as in the Mescal Lines RR] connect the eastern Sierra with such serious and hardworking slim-gauge roads as the Bad Water Western of Tom Daniel (in Western Arizona), the Pelican Bay Ry. & Navigation Co. of Paul Scoles (who models the Northern California sea coast) and, of course, the Fiddletown & Copperopolis Ry. of those great old Carl Fallberg cartoons (we're still looking for it on the map!)."

Maybe I shouldn't be too surprised by the mention as John Olson also had a module on display at the 1973 MRIA show. Olson and Daniel likely have a connection that goes way back.

I'll have to see if Railroad Model Craftsman has anything to say about the 1973 MRIA show. Stay tuned!