Hon3 Engine Terminal complete

Finally finished up the engine terminal. Finished building the Campbell sandhouse, I built it with the sandtower on the other end similar to the Chama tower layout. Dragged it outside for a few pictures.

Need to tone down the grass a bit I think.

My friend for whom I've built this for will add various details to this. This whole thing only weighs about 10 pounds or so. Very light and easy to carry. The coal tower is removable. This was a fun project and I'm happy the way it turned out. Thanks for following along ! I'm going to finish the Westerfield cars I started earlier and then ???

Westerfield car builds

While I'm waiting for my sandhouse to arrive, I thought I'd build though some of my stack of Westerfield car kits. I've probably built over a hundred of these over the years. This batch I got on eBay for around $12 a car. I like to build them in batches, as it seems to go faster.

 

I'm building a W1 B&O hopper, 2 PRR H21a hoppers and a PRR GTRA gondola.

I made a new deck for the gon using Builders in Scale laserwood. The kit had a cast "wood" floor that contains lead for weight, but I like the look of real wood. I'll paint the insides of the gon prior to assembly, that makes it easier to weather for me.

 I work on a glass table which helps to keep everything square.

Below is a pic of the engine terminal waiting for sandhouse. The white spot to the left of the turntable is were it goes.

All the main scenery is in, roundhouse installed. Man this is a lame'o picture.

However you can see my refinished floors and fresh paint on the walls. "We want train pictures!"

I'll drag this outside and take some nice pictures after the sandhouse in installed

 

 

Scenery on HOn3 engine terminal

After doing some major rework to my house, new bathroom, painting, new molding and new fixtures, I'm back to my engine terminal. Doing scenery is one of the things I really enjoy doing. It's nice to see the bare wood get covered and start looking like it's a part of nature.
First thing I did was to drag the layout outside and airbrush the track. I used different shades of grey, umbers and sienna's for colours.

I start by spraying the sides of the rails with a mix of burnt and raw sienna. I then paint the ties by spraying straight down with burnt umber. I then highlight using light to dark greys. After the paint hardens off in 20 min or so, I then use chalks and go over ties with some earth colours.

Here I'm starting the rock retaining wall

 One side is done. Used cinders for the ballast on top. Later, I also added some coal that would have spilled from the gons during unloading

 

More progress on the other side

The ground cover in place so far will have more shades and texture added. I like to build things up in layers, this includes paint, weathering and scenery. Here is a overall look so far.

Today I'll finish up the ground cover, add more colour and textures plus weeds. One building I don't have is a sandhouse. If anyone has one to sell (or donate) please let me know. (Spaceway1999@yahoo.com)

Wiring the Hon3 engine terminal

Between working on my bathroom remodeling project and this, I've just about finished wiring this up.
I wired this so that if I decide to put blocks in at some later date, it will be real easy to do. I highly recommend using some sort of connectors on the wires, makes it real easy to make changes, plus don't have to worry about a stray wire strand causing a short.

In the picture above, you can see I labeled at the tracks using a green marker. RH5 means roundhouse track 5. Also, next to the terminal strip I also wrote the track id on the wood

A benefit to building a module is I can set it up on the coffee table and work from the comfort of my couch

Since I'm using DCC, I'm ganging all the wire feeds together

Neat and tidy is the key to trouble free wiring. There will be 2 feeds that go to each terminal strip to supply track power

Bought cable anchors (the small black squares) to keep the wiring tidy.

Now that wiring is done. I can turn my attention to scenery.

Ash pit is installed

I painted and weathered the Model Masterpieces ash pit and installed it. I used real ash dust from my BBQ.

The picture above was taken without flash.

 

The picture below with flash. 

 

Started wiring the module.

 

Pictured below is a useful item to help with the wiring or hinder depending........

 

Fuller's and Stone brewery are two of my favorites!

This beer has a slight taste of honey, makes for a nice flavor and a refreshing drink on a warm summer day. If you can find it, I'd recommend picking up a few. Back to wiring or drinking. Hmm...

 

Engine terminal track plan, Coaling tower and ash pit install

Installing the coaling tower

Still need to add the elevated track to the coal drop

All the track is mostly down, still need to add the track to the coal drop next to the coal tower. I used Woodland Scenics 4% incline for the ramp up with a piece of .010" styrene over the top to cover the slots in the foam. Used foam with a styrene overlay on the right side of the elevated track  in the picture below

 

While I was looking for something else, I came across an old Model Masterpieces ash pit that I vaguely remember having. Of course I find it AFTER the track is down.....

Not to worry, foam core is easy to cut.

All ready to install the pit casting. I'll paint the rail before I install the pit.

Hon3 engine terminal track

I've got almost all the track down, the only one left is the elevated track to the coal tower.

The turnouts are Shinohara with Peco flex. I used 9 pieces of flex on this. Next up is to wire this and paint the track. I painted the 3 pieces for the roundhouse before gluing them in. I used Walthers Goo to hold the rails in place over the pits.

Below you can see the shims to raise the track

.03 shims added to the bottom of the RH floor

 

Track in at Roundhouse

The coaling tower will be on the left of the turntable

 

the most important tool !

more progress on the HOn3 engine terminal

Got some more things done today.

Had to shim up the track to the turntable by .08" The problem being that the rails on the TT bridge are too high. The rails really need to be glued to the crosspieces of the bridge and not the deck. I thought about redoing it, but it might destroy the bridge. If you are thinking of doing this conversion, lay the rails on top of the 8x8 crosspieces, then plank around the rail.

I laid out the lines to cut out areas for the pits. I made the openings a little larger than the pit walls so I could have room to wiggle the roundhouse a bit if needed. I drew in the track centerlines. The roundhouse floor has the centerlines marked from the mfg, so that makes it easy

Foam core is easy to cut, much nicer than plywood!

 

I'll be adding .08" plastic to the floor underside to match the shim height

2 caboose's and a box car

Thought I'd take a break from the HOn3 engine terminal and knock out a couple of plastic car kits that have been laying around for years. Nice thing about being retired, getting to all the projects that never had much time for when working!

The caboose's are Bowsers and the B&O box is an old C& BT Shops kit. Nothing magical, weathered the box car before adding the ladders and grab irons. Will be adding an etched roof walk to replace the kit plastic molded one. Replaced the wheels for all 3 using Proto 2000 ribbed back wheels. Cars were weathered with a mix of paints, inks and chalks. All sealed with Testors Dullcote.

 

More turntable work

After I glued the sub-deck to the bridge, I sanded the entire assy using 180 grit paper on top of glass. This got rid of the high spots and gave me a nice flat area to glue the deck to.

Made a new deck from Northeastern scribed siding (3/32 scr 1/32 thick) part no 332scr132P.
Used Walthers Goo to attach the deck to the bridge. Don't forget to drill 2 holes for the wires to the rail

Here are the new bridge support wheels

I re-attached the weights to the bridge

 

The photo below shows the TT and roundhouse. Still need to add rail and handrails to the TT

The coaling tower will be to the left.

 

 

Taking apart the N scale turntable

Taking apart the N gauge TT
The instructions are pretty straight forward and I had the TT apart in about 5 minutes.

First, the counterweights come out

Then the brackets holding the wheels

The other end

3 screws hold the deck

New sides have been attached. Before I glued these on, I used a sanding stick along the original deck sides to make sure that they were smooth. I had already painted and weathered this sometime time ago

I sanded the top of the bridge, avoid hitting the circuit card. I covered it with tape before sanding.

Here I've added the underdeck pieces on. You need to cut this into 2 sections where the wires come out of the bridge.

I was thinking about replacing the top of the deck with real wood. When I checked the kit piece against the original deck, horrors! the kit piece is too freaking short! Ugh!!! I guess the thinking is over, I need to use real wood after all......

The kit piece is laying on top of the N scale bridge and you can see it's about 1/4 inch or so too short!