Denver and Rio Grande Mixed Train 17MAR14

Mixed Train on the Three Rail

Combining narrow gauge and standard gauge on one line is fun. It offers some operating opportunities and some wiring challenges. It is really not that hard.

The Dual Gauge Trackage Rules

• There are still only two polarities
• The two rails that are closest together share the same polarity for standard and narrow gauge.
• The isolated rail is the shared rail for the opposite polarity for narrow and standard gauge.
• The dual gauge turnouts work fine as long as you remember to wire from the point side of the turnout and isolate the diverging routes on the frog side.

Using these simple rules, even complicated switch combinations work well. Shinohara turnouts work well out-of-the-box. Trout Creek Engineering's dual-gauge BK Enterprises turnouts require hand-laying and manual wiring, but they work fine once installed.

Mixed Train Proof Of Concept

It is one thing to know the theory. The real enjoyment comes from testing how the theories play out in practice. So for my proof of concept test train, I included a Denver and Rio Grande refrigerator car that I converted, painted and lettered.

Even though it is hard to find ready-to-run HOn3 Denver and Rio Grande freight equipment, it makes for an interesting project to re-letter other makers' car bodies. With the case of the Micro-Trains HOn3 Refrigerator Cars, the underbody must be modified to back date it to the pre-1921 Denver and Rio Grande narrow gauge era. Later on, I'll be doing a couple of postings on this fairly simple conversion.

The body's roof is what makes this conversion appealing. It is close to what I have seen in my research. A good source of information on  Denver and Rio Grande (and Western) freight equipment and cabooses is Robert E. Sloan, A Century + Ten of D&RGW Narrow Gauge Freight Cars, 1871 to 1981, or the website, http://drgw.free.fr/DRGW/Freight/Wagon_en.htm.  You can also talk to Tommy Gilbert at Gilbert's Hobbies in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Forced Perspective 23FEB14

Hanging Out with Model Railroaders

One of the great things about model railroading is sharing your enthusiasm with other modelers. Rail fans tend to have a certain personality that lends itself to comraderie. In order to get a model railroad into operation, a person has to have imagination and creativity. Model railroaders can set goals and do the work required to see their dreams come to reality. Almost all model railroaders also have a playfulness about them and a sense of humor. These things, combined with an interest in history, industrial activities and trains in general tend to make railroad people fun to be with.

Big Trees

Dick Kilday is one of those delightful model railroaders who are thought-provoking and interesting. You've probably seen Dick giving his tree clinics at the Narrow Gauge Conventions or at other model railroad meets. I'd like to talk Dick into doing a shared blog on his incredibly realistic trees. After you've made a tree following his methods, you will end up wondering if you have to water it once it is installed on a layout. In this view above, he is holding an NCE Power Cab during some experimental operation on my layout.

Forced Perspective

One of the things that we got to talk about in our visit was the concept of creating the illusion of depth. How can you create the illusion of miles on a board that is only a couple of feet deep?

Put the Big Buildings in Front

No matter what the scale, when the big buildings are closer to the viewer and the buildings get smaller toward the rear of the scene, the distance to the background will seem greater. I conducted this imagineering experiment to prove this point with the layout of buildings on my HO model of the Denver and Rio Grande dual-gauge in Salida, Colorado.

The white building, closest to the camera, is a tall building with a false front. It is the Wickenburg, Arizona Telegraph Office by Bollinger Edgarly Scale Trains. From this view the Telegraph Office seems to tower over the other buildings.

In the middle distance is a Kibri log cabin that I modified with HO True Wood Rustic Shake Shingles by Builders in Scale. European plastic kits tend to be smaller than HO scale size. In fact, I put Musket Miniatures children that I had painted on the porch and for the Kibri kit, the children are perfectly sized for adults. So, this less-than-HO building is a good far-away building.

Put the Tiny Buildings in the Back

Just or fun, on top of the mountain, I placed an N scale false front building. It's only a couple of feet back, but it seems very far away because it is a smaller scale.

Converging Lines

To further add depth to the scene I have used converging lines to draw your eye to the rear of the scene. Particularly the roof lines tend to point to the mountain in the back. This gives a feeling of being pulled into the scene. In fact, when you first looked at this photograph, your eye probably went to the mountain before it saw the Denver and Rio Grande narrow gauge Class 70 Consolidation by Blackstone.

Setting the Course for the Stream and Background Scenery 20FEB14

Creative Use of Roadbed

Just because it says "roadbed" doesn't mean the Woodland Scenics product has to be used just as roadbed. Anytime a level wall or foundation is required, the flexible foam roadbed is ideal for creating shapes on a model railroad.

In these views, I am providing the walls to form the South Branch of the Arkansas River as it goes through the territory served by the Monarch Branch of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. The foam roadbed provides the support structure for the edge of the deep cutting stream and it also will provide support for the towns of Monarch and Garfield.

Foundation for the Foundation

Since I would like to use switch machines to control the HOn3 turnouts around Monarch and Garfield, I will place a sheet of plywood over the top of the oval-ish area, supported by the foam roadbed.

Just the Right Weight

Books are a good way to weigh down the foam roadbed to ensure that the glue sets with the foam as level as possible. I put wax paper between the foam roadbed and the books to prevent any contact between the Elmer's White Glue and the books.

I prefer using Elmer's White Glue because there is at least a half-hour or so that things can be adjusted. In the overhead shot, you can see the long path of the South Branch of the Arkansas River, which is a critical feature of the Monarch Branch.

Painting a Model Railroad Stream Bed Part 2 8FEB14

Paint Washes Over a Model Stream Bed for Realism

If you have been following previous blog posts, the next step in creating a realistic stream bed is to put a wash over the stream bottom that matches the source soils and rocks of the sediment. Think of what is about a quarter mile or several miles upstream. What is eroding and falling into the stream? On a very gentle stream in farm country, it might be top soil or cow manure. In an industrialized area it might be colorful oils and chemicals. In steeply falling mountain streams, rocks and gravel are tumbling in or grinding down to sand in a quartz area.

The South Branch of the Arkansas River has a lot of grays. I covered the gray part of the coloring process in the blog posting, Painting a Model Railroad Stream Bed Part 1 7FEB14.

Now, I would like to add some colors that you see in Chaffee County, Colorado. I wanted to mix a custom color that simulates the sunlight hitting some of those rocks.

The Color of Light

Here is where light enters into the model picture. Why is it when you see something in real life that it seems different than the color photographs taken of the area? The human eye perceives things differently than film - or digital. The reflected light coming off an object is subject to interpretation by the biology of the eye. There are filters in the human eye that make the world seem different to us. Even our brains are trained to perceive the world in a predetermined manner. This is what gave birth to Impressionist Painting.

The time of day can make a huge difference, too. You might have heard of the "Black Canyon of the Gunnison" on the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. The rocks were not black. The sun beamed down into the canyon only from certain angles or during particular times of the day. So things seemed like a dark gray. 

Check Your References

When you look at the pictures in a publication by Morning Sun Books, like Rio Grande Narrow Gauge in Color, 1947-1959 Empire Contraction and Railfan Discovery, the original slides - usually Ektachrome or Kodakchrome - are over 50 years old and have a color bias. Bob Yanosey and his staff do a great job of color correction, but the variances of color - particularly in the scenery - are noticeable. The time of day, season and even the storage conditions of the slide collections can affect the final color on the printed page.

Videos can offer a view of scenery, even if you catch this scenery in passing. I have watched the Colorado Narrow Gauge in the 1950s by Pentrex a gazillion times. This color video story of railroading on the Marshall and Monarch Passes has some wonderful detail shots of the scenery I am modeling. There is even a fleeting stream bed shot from the steam locomotive when it goes over a trestle.

 Mixing the Color

After really studying Chaffee County, Colorado, I realized I needed to layer on a color that I mixed by eye using Yellow Ochre and Raw Sienna. For this I used Windsor Newton Acrylics. You can get these colors in the Art Department of Gilbert's Hobbies in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

After mixing the colors, I picked up a glob on my paint brush and stirred it into some distilled water that I put into a recycled tuna fish can. We keep distilled water for a lot of things around the house, but tap water will do, too. The distilled water ensure consistency. You never know what is flowing out of a public water supply.

I squeezed out just a tiny bit of Mars Black tube acrylic onto the table immediately behind the stream bed I had painted so far. Then, I tested the wash over the edge and it seemed to be about right.

Washing the Wash

I painted a layer of wash over the entire stream bed, in the direction of the stream current. Before it dried, I quickly brushed it down stream with a paper towel.

Tinting the Top

I repeated the process several times, adding smidges of Polly Scale Engine Black shadows, and Polly Scale Undercoat LT Gray and Reefer White highlights. I freely mix tube acrylics with Polly Scale paints for scenery purposes. After a while, the painted stream bed started to look like it had a channel and dropped off in layers. 

Really, the stream is not as deep as it looks here. That is an optical illusion. I spread some wash tinted with Mars Black in the center channel.

Paint Out the Brush

I had some extra color left over, so I spread it around and colored the HOn3 Tru-Scale Roadbed from Trout Creek Engineering. Having been in the U.S. Navy, I was trained in the "if it doesn't move - paint it" philosophy. I even brushed the paint out of the brush before cleaning it. Having Irish heritage, I can't waste anything.

Painting a Model Railroad Stream Bed Part 1 7FEB14

CREATIVE VISUALIZATION

One of the most important steps in the process of creation is visualization. The Disney Studios used the term "imagineering" to design the wonderful world of Disney. In Anaheim, on the screen and around the world, people can enter a fantasy land that existed in the minds of creative geniuses.  This is because they create an image in their minds and translate that image into reality. 

As a project evolves, I like to continually compare scale size to whatever I am working on. On the Monarch Branch of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, I am working in HO scale with narrow gauge. That's HOn3. It is 1/87 scale size. So, one foot of model equals eight-seven feet in real life.

It can be hard to wrap the brain around this proportion. To overcome that mind boggler, I bring in something of a known size. In this case it is a Blackstone Models passenger car. I've ridden the prototypes of these cars. I know what they look like from the inside and the outside. In my mind I have established a sense of proportion - of what the size of the real passenger car is like.

Putting a 1/87th size model of a Jackson and Sharp narrow gauge passenger car on a tabletop tells me what size everything else should be. For me, this sometimes works out better than a scale ruler for figuring out how big a stream should be.

HOW BIG IS A STREAM?

As a "head-check" think of how many feet wide a stream is. Whatever measurement you came up with, you are probably correct. I've seen tiny and big streams. So, without going out to a stream and pulling a tape measure across it, you should be able to establish how big a stream should be by placing a known object near it.

To establish the stream, I sanded off the base paint I had put on the benchwork a while ago. The course of the stream became pretty clear. The next thing I did was mix up a color that was just a little lighter than black, but without looking gray. This would give the stream bed depth. Even though the first batch of this color was mixed by hand, I have since gotten a quart of a close match at Lowe's.  It is Olympic One Flat, D43-6, Black Elegance.

WORK UP FROM BLACK

I first learned the trick of starting with a black base coat on models while painting miniature figures for Le Petite Soldier shop in the French Quarter of New Orleans. It was my high-school job that the owner's son, Mike Weil had gotten me into. Mike - and his Dad, Don - taught me a lot about professional model building. I made a lot of mistakes back then and they both had the patience to help me fix them.

From the black base coat they taught me that it was easy to add colors that had shadows and depth. These are both necessary qualities for a stream bed that is often missing in the model format.

In order to get a fast start on the next layer, I used a hair dryer to speed up the process. After a couple of minutes of sweeping the hair dryer back and forth over the painted surface, I was ready to begin adding highlights.

In a typical Colorado stream, the water crosses submerged rock. Between the rock, sediment in the form of soils and gravel gathers. This is what creates the rippling water and white water of a typical mountain stream. The painting of this underlying rock is a critical step before adding rock material or water.

VISUALIZE THE STREAM BED

So imagine a base layer of big rock that has yet to be worn away by the action of the current. Then think of the rocks that tumble down and perhaps even stick up above the water level.  Small rocks, sand, soil and other detritus gather wherever there is an obstruction. If you have ever gone white water rafting, you know these details and how they influence navigation on the waters.

To represent the rock underneath the stream, I started with Polly Scale Undercoat LT Gray.  I thought of the direction of the current - which way does the water flow? As a stream makes a curve, what happens to the water? How would the rocks wear away through erosion? What is the center channel and what are the details of the edges? You can see some of my ideas, below.

Anxious to get on with the painting, I pulled out the hair dryer and sped up the drying process with the sweeping motion of the heat.  This dried the Undercoat LT Gray layer.

Then, I used some Polly Scale Gray Violet to give contrast to the rocks I had painted before. I painted the edges of the other rocks, almost like adding shadows. I went through this process fairly quickly.

THE SECRET OF LAYERS

Then, I did something shocking. While the gray violet paint was still wet, I got out a paper towel and brushed down the entire area of the stream - longitudinally - matching the downstream current of the water. This gives the bottom of the stream a feeling of flowing. There is implied movement when you look at the results. This also blends the gray violet over the Undercoat LT Gray rocks.

I went back and touched up some of the areas that had smudged too much. Not much touch up was required. The blending effect works well.

I should mention that I had sanded the center channel a little more than the banks. You can see the deepening in the center in this bottom photo. But, that depression is not as deep as it looks. I drew on the layers of the edge so that it would look like the shelves of water that would be cascading down. This is not quite a waterfall, but will look good in this location.

I will post my next step soon. I have another trick to show you that implies movement in the next blog. We're not done, yet. There are a lot of steps to go.

Cutting into Woodland Scenics Foam for a Stream

It is fun to experiment with what a model railroad is going to look like by laying out the pieces as parts of the layout come together. I use Tru-Scale roadbed from Trout Creek Engineering on top of the Woodland Scenics foam risers and inclines to create my mountain narrow gauge layout. That is a good combination for hand laid track or flex track.

While constructing the switchbacks for the HOn3 Monarch Branch of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, I noticed that the switchbacks were parallel and close together. I set up an early-version K-27 to see what things looked like. The lines wouldn't be as exciting as they looked when I drew out the plan on paper. Something needed to be added, but I had already glued down the Woodland Scenics foam for support for the trackage.

The South Branch of the Arkansas River is a significant feature of the Monarch Branch. It could be added, but would require some surgery. I took a marker pen and roughed out where I thought the watercourse should go. I also used a marker to outline the Tru-Scale roadbed around the 20" radius curve. That would make for continuity over the stream after I built the bridge.

Cutting out the Woodland Scenics foam was fast and easy with a Zona Saw. A flat-bladed wall board tool acted as a thin chisel to separate the previously glued-down foam from the plywood table. 

On the two inch foam risers, a little assist was needed from a hammer with gentle taps to separate the foam from the plywood.

After a some clean-up with a sanding block, most traces of the glue were removed and you could hardly tell that the roadbed had been there.

The course of the South Branch of the Arkansas river was starting to appear. Next, there should be some shaping to the stream bottom.

Blackstone Models New C-70 D&RG Consolidation

Yesterday, I got the phone call from Tommy Gilbert of Gilbert's Hobbies - http://www.gettysburghobbies.com - that the Blackstone Models D&RG C-70 Consolidation came in. I have been waiting for this model since it was announced.

The version that Blackstone produced is a model of a WWI era narrow gauge locomotive of the type that dominated Colorado narrow gauge from the 1880s until well into the twentieth century. The 2-8-0 locomotive hustled freight and passenger trains out of Salida, Colorado in all directions, including the Monarch Branch, which is the center point of the model railroad that I am building.

When I came in the shop, Tommy had it ready for me. He's changing the configuration of the shop, so his narrow gauge test track is being moved. But, that's okay. Blackstone packs in the locomotive so well that once it is out of the box, it's easier for it to stay out.

I picked out some Polly Scale Paints, a new palette knife, some styrene strips and a Woodland Scenics styrofoam block and I was ready to take a much needed venture into model railroad land at my home - even if only for a little while. 

Unpacking the locomotive carefully, I set it up on some BK Enterprises' ties that I had glued down, but hadn't gotten a chance to ballast and lay rails on. You can see the scratch built trestle to the right of the locomotive starting to come to life. Behind the C-70, the tiny town of Garfield, Colorado is going through an experimental arrangement. On the left is an auxiliary building from the Grandt Line 10 Stamp Mill kit - East Terrible Mill and Mining, customized to be a blacksmith's shop. To the right is the Campbell Scale Models Bunk House "B" which should be on everyone's HO layout.

Here are views of D&RG 401 and D&RGW 347, to give a comparison of the C-70 to the previously released C-19. In the 1920s, there were some phases of reorganization, rebuilding and reclassification. The C-70s became classified C-19 and were renumbered in the process. So, these two photo's represent two sequential eras. It is quite likely that in the mid-1920s, one could see mixed paint schemes as the Denver and Rio Grande was reorganized into the Denver and Rio Grande Western.

I am very pleased with the level of detail on the 401. I have a Westside 1903 K-27 that Tommy will be painting for me. We talked about what scheme that the 1903 K-27 Mikado (2-8-2) should have. Should it match the 401?

There has been a great deal of discussion on the internet about what color that boiler jackets were during this era. There are no color photographs of what the early twentieth century locomotives looked like on the Denver and Rio Grande. So, most discussion centers on a few lines of references in shop instructions and letters from the early twentieth century. Tommy and I think that the boiler jacket would have been a lighter color - maybe green or greenish blue. That assumption comes from the use of Russian Iron.

Russian Iron was imported from Russia and was a high-quality iron that surpassed American technology at the time. American iron before 1900 had varying degrees of quality. But, the Russians had developed a special sheet iron that worked well on boiler jackets. The color was probably lighter than black. Tommy believes that the color was a little lighter than the Pennsylvania Railroad Brunswick Green.

In a posting on UtahRails, the author talks about "Dark Green Locomotive Enamel" that could have been used as late as 1940 to paint D&RGW boilers. This posting is interesting as it gives a lot of detail about the possible green coloring of Rio Grande boiler jackets.

It makes me wonder if the 401 should have a dark green boiler jacket, also. Blackstone Models is located in Durango, Colorado. Since they are at one of the centers of the narrow gauge universe, I have to give them a degree of trust for their color choice for the 401.

But, I think Tommy will be putting a dark green color on the boiler jacket of the 1903 K-27, which will look good - and has a good chance of being very accurate. After the weathering is applied, it should be a star model. Tommy Gilbert is one of the best professional model railroad painters in America.

If you want to read a detailed discussion of sheet iron - and a detailed history of the iron industry in these United States, I highly recommend Robert B. Gordon's book, "American Iron 1607-1900". For anyone interested in the iron side of the railroad industry, this is a fundamental book. It's part of the Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology series.