Working with PECO and Micro Engineering Track

During the shortage of Atlas “O” flextrack from a year and more back, I bought some other brands while I was waiting for Atlas to reestablish their source of supply. Although I did not install them at the time, I am using these sections of flextrack now; this is my experience with them.

PECO

PECO is an English brand that is rarely seen in the USA. PECO makes two lines of O scale flextrack. One uses “bullhead” (i.e. English) rail and matching ties; the other has flat-bottomed rail, wooden ties and is supposedly US prototype. I bought some PECO track on sale at Walthers for less than $11 for a 3 foot section; quite a bargain as O scale flextrack goes. I bought the minimum six sections to see what it’s like.

PECO is nice stuff. Code 143 rail of a nicely formed cross-section (unlike Atlas); with larger, more widely spaced ties than Atlas/Micro Engineering/Old Pullman (that's not surprising since European O scale is 1/43.5). 

Tie Spacing: PECO (foreground); Atlas (background)

It’s sturdily built and flexible – a very little stiffer than Atlas – but still very flexible. It forms nicely along curves; and I would not hesitate to use it in “S” curves or other serpentine track work. It would be an option, except that the fasteners for the rail to the ties are not simulated tie plates and spikes but what looks like European and/or modern screw-type clamps, somewhat akin to the old Atlas/Roco track from the 1970s.

Peco Track Fasteners

Unfortunately, this track is not acceptable appearance-wise. Therefore, I installed the PECO track on the lower level, inside track of the helix where the unusual fasteners will be difficult to see. It installed smoothly and runs well.

Micro Engineering

I’ve successfully used Micro Engineering (ME) code 148 flextrack at some locations on the layout before. I was able to curve this very rigid “flex” track to large radius curves by working slowly and carefully. Now I’m installing it on the two outer tracks (64” R and 68”R) on the Graveyard Curve and I have worked out a procedure for bending it that someone else may find useful.

My standard procedure for installing any flextrack on a curve is to solder two straight sections of flextrack together on the bench. The resulting 72” (or 80” with Atlas flex) is just big enough to handle. By soldering the two sections together while they are straight you do not have to try to join these two sections on a curve and risk a kink at the joint; the soldered joint will curve smoothly without kinking.

My latest procedure for bending ME flextrack relies on the fact that the roadbed is in place on the layout and set to the curve’s radius. This procedure will work for constant radius (circular) curves. I use the roadbed as a guide for bending the flex. Now for ME flextrack, drill a hole centered in each tie on either side of the soldered joint. This hole should be a fit for a wire brad.

Holes drilled at joint in Micro Engineering track

Place the track on the roadbed approximately where it will be finally placed. Push brads through the holes into the roadbed on the roadbed’s center line. That fixes the ME track in place at its center point. 

ME flextrack temporarily affixed to the roadbed

 Now using both of your hands, begin bending the track – gently and gradually – simultaneously on each side of the center working from the center of the two sections outward. If you work on only one side of the center, the track on the other side will bend into weird shapes in response. Very slight pressure applied primarily to the outside rail, moving along the track from the center outward works well for me. Continue bending, using the roadbed as a guide to keep the track at the proper radius.

When you have worked about 1 ½ to 2 feet either side of the center, it will become difficult to work both sides simultaneously; unless you have arms as long as a gorilla’s. At that point, work one side only until it is nearly to final radius and sits centered upon your roadbed. This will cause the other side to partially undo; but that can’t be helped. Drill a hole into the last tie at the end of the section and push a brad through it into the centerline of the roadbed to temporarily fix this side of the track in place. Go back and work the opposite side to final radius. When you are satisfied, drill and pin that side of the section to the roadbed’s centerline.

Now put your head down to track level at either end of the newly formed section of track and sight along the rails (not the ties) and look for kinks or places where the radius is not constant or the curve is not smooth. If you cannot get your eye down to track level, due to where the track is placed on the layout, use a mirror to sight down the track to check for these discontinuities. 

Using a mirror to sight along the track

Straighten out any defects with repeated gentle hand pressure until they are worked out. Repeat this procedure, sighting from the other end of the newly curved section.

When you are happy, you can pull all of the brads and move your new curved section to butt against your already installed track. You’ll have to cut at least one rail of the new track as the inside rail will now be significantly longer than the outer rail. Cut and file the ends, attach rail joiners, do a final fit check and final check for radius before soldering the new section to the older track (that is if you solder all rail joints – I do).

Smoothly curved ME flextrack on the layout

This procedure takes more time than using a more supple flextrack like Atlas; but it allows you to use the finer-looking ME flex.

Thoughts on Modeling Coal Operations

The section of the B&O’s “West End” that I am modeling was known for its heavy grades.  The grades mattered because of the primary commodity carried over the line – coal.  The challenging and long Cranberry Grade faced the eastbound tonnage; while the short but equally steep Cheat River Grade impeded westbound trains of empty coal hoppers.  During the steam era on the prototype, eastbound trains of hoppers were limited to 55 cars because of the grades; and then proceeded up Cranberry at less than 10 mph.  Road power in the late steam era was an EM-1 2-8-8-4 up front and pushers on the rear which could be one or more EL class 2-8-8-2s, Q4b 2-8-2s or an A-B-B-A set of F7s.

Superficially, this is all that you need to know to model this section of the line.  Assemble a reasonably long train of loaded hoppers, slap an EM-1 on the point, put some helpers on the rear and you’re good to go.  This was the operational concept of my railroad at its inception, and still is.  However, I’m the type who wants to know more, specifically the why and the how of coal operations, to make my railroad more accurate without going overboard to reproduce the exact operations of the prototype down to the smallest detail.  Collecting the data to enhance my coal operations has been a long, on again, off again effort; but I believe that I now have a better picture of the composition of a late steam era coal train.

Coal Cars

While we model railroaders think of hoppers in connection with transporting coal, the industry referred generically to “coal cars”.  Through the years many car types carried coal, not just hopper-bottomed gondolas (the proper name for what we call hoppers).  Solid bottom gondolas, drop-bottom gondolas, “battleship” (70 & 100 ton) gondolas and, going back to the beginnings of the B&O, the “pot” hopper, all were used at one time or another for the transport of coal.

B&O Pot Hopper

By the early 1950’s the hopper, in its many variations, reigned supreme.  The gondolas, having fallen into disuse because of the cost of unloading, would make a comeback in the future with the proliferation of rotary car dumpers. But what hoppers should be in your trains?

Some modelers would put together a train having hoppers from a number of different railroads and think nothing of it.  However, I got to considering the prototype situation.  Coal was an inexpensive commodity and it could be made uncompetitive if the price of transporting it was too high.  If the originating railroad used any hopper that was available they would have to pay a per diem on foreign road hoppers for each day that they were on its rails.  The per diem would increase the cost of transporting coal and, therefore, its selling price. Some railroads owned mines and sold coal; they would certainly have been sensitive to the cost of producing and transporting said coal.  In addition all railroads had to publish tariffs (rates) for transporting various commodities.  The rates for carrying coal had to be based on some assumption as to the cost of supplying coal cars. For all of these reasons, logic would seem to dictate that most coal would be carried in the company cars of the originating railroad.  I had never heard of this topic discussed in the model press (that does not mean that it wasn’t done, just that I had never read about it). Could I prove my suppositions?

My on line searching eventually turned up this report: From Mine to Market: The History of Coal Transportation on the Norfolk and Western Railway.  Although this report is not specifically about the B&O, it deals with the same region, and the time frame is about right.  By this point in time car allocation and tariffs were being overseen by the Federal Government (ICC) and some state governments; so a certain uniformity of practice across the railroads would be expected.

At about page 212, this report goes into a discussion of coal car allocation and, eventually, tariffs.  If you have interest in coal operations you can read the report (beginning about page 212), but for the purposes of this blog post here are the take-aways:

• Coal car shortages occurred from time to time.  At these times the railroads could not supply the mines with all of the cars that they requested.  To assure unbiased allocation of cars during shortages, the railroads had to rate the output of the mines and allocate cars in proportion to each mine's capacity.
• The mine owners, acting as a group, eventually had a say in approving the allocation scheme and its revisions.
• The report identifies three classes of cars: system cars (i.e. originating railroad owned cars); cars for foreign railway fuel (i.e. fuel for other than the originating road); and private cars (owned by a shipper or consignee)
• Cars for railway fuel and private cars are sent to the mines to which the car's owner designates.  Those cars are counted against the mine's request for cars or against its allocation of cars in times of shortage.
• The balance of the mine's request for cars or its allocation in time of shortage is typically filled by the originating road's cars.

The report goes into detail on the various systems that the N&W used, objections by the mine owners, court cases and other details necessary for the historian.  But the bullet points above are what we need to know as modelers.  In fact, it's the last three bullets that tell us what cars should be in our coal trains.

In the late steam/transition era your loaded coal trains should be overwhelmingly company hoppers.  Although I have no empirical justification for the following numbers, I would think that:

• 85-95% of cars would be company hoppers
• 0-10% of cars would be foreign road fuel hoppers
• 0-5% of cars would be private owner hoppers

Cars for foreign road fuel should be from railroads that do not have large on-line coal mines.  Roads that have on-line mines would patronize the local mines for the goodwill and for the shorter haul. Nor would it be likely to see UP, CB&Q or other hoppers from the west taking on coal in West Virginia; there are certainly mines closer than that.  On the other hand a NH hopper would be OK inasmuch as by this time there were no economically competitive coal mines in New England.

This picture of a train on Cranberry grade seems to bear this out.  Most of the cars in this photo are indistinct but there is a P&LE hopper in the foreground and there appear to be N&W H30 hoppers in train.  Otherwise, most of the cars appear to bear the B&O's 13 Great States logo.

The rules outlined in the N&W report raise some interesting possibilities for prototype based car routing and allocation.  In normal times, empty cars delivered to the mines should match my hypothetical 85-10-5 ratio.  But, for instance, you could have a large coal mine on your layout that receives a large number of private cars for a consignee.  In that case your 5% private cars could be more, conceivably a lot more, if the mine is a large source of carloads.  You could also declare a car shortage for some operating sessions and reduce car deliveries to all mines.  Just remember that private cars and foreign road fuel cars are not subject to allocation and should be delivered in numbers similar to a normal operating session.  In fact, figuring this all out could give rise to a new role at your operating sessions for someone who does not care to operate but prefers mental gymnastics.

What about hoppers in through merchandise trains?  Here I think that you have some leeway.  After loading at the mines, loaded hoppers would fan out across the country including for destinations within coal country.  Individual coal dealers could buy from various mines located anywhere because of: cost, the coal type (bituminous vs. anthracite), merchandising features (e.g. "Blue Coal"), or local shortages. So a through train (as opposed to a solid coal train) could have a hopper from anywhere within reason.  For instance, I would not expect to see a UP hopper delivering coal to the east coast; but a hopper from any of the anthracite roads (CNJ, LV, RDG, DL&W, LNE, and LHR) could be found anywhere because of the desirability of anthracite for home heating.  You also would have to watch the direction that a loaded through hopper is travelling.  You would not expect to see a loaded RDG hopper moving east from say, Illinois.

Coal Loads

During coal's heyday as a multi-purpose fuel, the size of the coal nuggets was tailored to the application.  The primary purpose of the coal tipple above the loading tracks was not, in most cases, to store the coal prior to loading; but it was to screen (and sometimes break) the coal into carefully graded sizes.

Coal would be passed by tables where men would pick out shale and other contaminants from the coal flowing by.  Then the flow of coal was passed over "screens", metal plates with circular holes, which would let coal nuggets of a given size fall through.  First over the smaller screens then the larger ones.

Common coal sizes during the steam era were:

Designation	Max	Min
Broken or lump	6	4
Egg	3 1/4	2 7/16
Stove	2 7/16	1 5/8
Nut	1 5/8	13/16
Pea	13/16	9/16

Smaller mines (like truck load-out mines) which could not screen the coal would load "run of mine" coal; that is, coal sized in whatever mixture of lumps that emerged from the mouth of the mine.  Run of mine coal would also have impurities still in it and was considered the lowest grade of coal. Conversely the smallest size of coal was called "slack" coal and it was sometimes stored in a cylindrical storage bin outside of the tipple until loaded into cars for shipment.

The various sizes of coal the mine was producing for that day would be held in bins above each loading track under the tipple.  Only one grade of coal would be loaded on that track.  So to be prototypical, the loaded cars on each track should have the same size coal and different tracks should have different sizes of coal as can be seen in this picture from  the N&W.

Carload lots of coal should be nearly uniform in size - unlike many model coal loads which have lumps of widely varying sizes.  Your assembled trains of loaded hoppers should reflect this too with different cars carrying different sizes of coal, as seen below.

What does this mean for your model hopper fleet?  If you want to look prototypical, I don't think that you can do it with readily available model coal loads - certainly not the injection molded "loads" that come with many model hoppers.  I believe that loads made from loose "coal", of varying scale sizes, made to fit you hoppers, is the way to go.

To see what I mean, here is a picture of a hand-made, scale sized (egg size in O scale, in this case) on the left and an injection molded "coal" load that came with the Atlas O hopper on the right.

Each track at your tipples should have cars with a single size of coal.  And any mine of significant size should be loading several sizes of coal, each on a different track.  

If you swap loads into and out of cars to change them between loaded and empty, you may want two or more loads of different sizes of coal so that each car does not always carry the same size coal.

At the receiving end, any particular consignee could require one or more specific sizes of coal rather than just a "carload". 

Providing cars in the proper numbers, picking loads based on some model of a mine's output and matching carload type to a particular receiver could constitute an accurate model of coal operations.  Thought of in this way, accurately modelling coal operations can be a game within the "game" of model railroading.

Busy, busy, busy...

Boy, this year is off to a flying model railroad start!  Jan 15-17 I was at the recording of Model Rail radio Show 100.  The show was recorded on the 17th; on the 16th I operated on Seth Neuman's layout and that evening on the Silicon Valley Lines.  I enjoy operations, however I don't think that it will displace my preference of seeing big-time mainline railroading in miniature on O scale layouts.

The weekend following the 100th show was the Springfield show.  I had not intended to go, having just completed a cross-country trip; but when a business trip to Massachusetts arose for the following week how could I resist getting a two-fer-one?  I drove up to MA on my own nickel and attended Springfield. On Sunday after the show I drove to the location of my business meeting which was cancelled later that night because of the impending storm.  That left me to drive back on Monday before the storm hit.  I made it in good shape with only some dicey driving conditions in the mountains.

The weekend after Springfield, traditionally, is the show at Timonium, MD.  Again, I had absolutely no intention of going, but the Friday night before I bought a canoe on closeout  at the Bass pro Shop in Baltimore and since I had to drive back with my truck to pick it up anyway...

Here are some pictures from those events:

Here's the yard at one end of the Silicon Valley Lines.

Here's another of their yards along the route.

The other end of this same yard.

One scene near the entrance to the SVL.  The SVL is double decked throughout its entire length; and makes extensive use of new technology.  iPads are located along the layout as control points (there's one visible in the picture above) and they have few conventional throttles.  They were out of throttles when my train was called,  Luckily, I had the JMRI throttle program on my tablet, so I used that to run my train.  Lucky for me that I had it; I've had that program on my tablet for a couple of years and I have yet to try to get it working on my own layout.

New United Motors Manufacturing Inc (NUMMI), the major industry on Seth Newman's layout.  That's Seth in the background.  Seth's layout has a working signal system (which I managed to overrun, but just once) and Seth has a working RFID system to track his car fleet (he also runs the RFID4MRR Yahoo group).

The model Rail Radio crew at Springfield.  From the left, yours truly, Peter Stemple, Bryan Schilling, Ron Klaiss, Clark Kooning.

Three consecutive weekends and three model railroading events; not bad.  So it's not surprising after attending three events with large crowds that the following weekend I was laid low with a cold.  So this weekend is the first in over a month that I have spent significant time on my layout.  The backdrop on Graveyard curve is taped, sanded and painted; and I've been laying track in isolated sections, inching the ends of the mainline ever closer to one another.  

Model Rail Radio Show 100

This week I  will be in almost continuous motion until late Sunday night the 18th. First up, I will be on a business trip to Florida ( Yes, yes, I know...boo hoo for me, leaving the Northeast in a cold snap to go to Florida!).

On Wednesday I return, switch bags, and head for San José to record Model Rail Radio show 100. I know that most of my followers here know what Model Rail Radio is all about. However this post is directed at those people who do not.

Model Rail Radio is the creation of Tom Barbalet, and I've been a participant from some of the early shows.  What Tom has done in the virtual world is recreate the local hobby shop; except that this hobby shop is worldwide. Remember when you could hang out at the local hobby shop on a Saturday afternoon to just chew the fat (remember when there were local hobby shops)?  Model Rail Radio is the modern day replacement for the vanishing hobby shop.

A bunch of model rails gather via Skype on a Saturday evening and just talk model railroading. Occasionally, "famous model railroaders", names that you would recognize from the magazines, drop in. And, unlike some other model railroading podcasts, MRR is strictly noncommercial.  You are free to participate or just listen. Of course, you can be totally passive and download the podcast after the fact and listen at you leisure. Model Rail Radio has almost 100,000 downloads a month; so we must be doing something right!

I've made friends all over the globe in this way. And when I do get a chance to meet them,  we meet and greet as long fast friends. I had heretofore pooh-poohed social media; now I'm a firm believer.  Participation in MRR has opened new vistas for me. As a technologist by trade, I have long eyed 3D printing and the application of microcontrollers to model railroading. MRR gave me the confidence not only to plunge ahead with these technologies, but to popularise them through a series of clinics. And I've made the contacts to present these clinics at the NMRA national through MRR.

To my fellow O scalers, we have a somewhat deserved reputation as grumpy old men, set in our ways, practitioners of archane rituals and resistant to change. I remember an article that Lorell Joiner did for Model Railroader in which he described O scalers as "hitting their cast bronze boilers with ball peen hammers and listening to the bell-like sounds.". The article was accompanied by a cartoon of someone attacking his O scale model with a full-size welding torch. Exaggerated maybe, but with a ring of truth to it.

So I invite my fellow O scalers to join us for show 100 and shed the technophobic curmudegon image. Tom is a nacent O scaler and Jim Lincoln (P48) and I will be sharing hosting duties from time to time during this marathon show.  Let's have a good turnout of O scale for this show!

You will need to install Skype on your computer (instructions can be found all over the web). You'll need a microphone if your computer does not already have one. Clicking on the MRR logo in the left column of this blog will take you to the MRR website for more detail. The show will be recorded on Saturday Jan. 17 from 10 am to 9 pm, Pacific time; so there must be some time when you can tune in.

For those who are attending in person, Friday there are a whirlwind of activities planned. Layout tours, a DCC lunch, an operating session and a dinner.  I hope that I make it to Saturday!

Since this post will be up long after show 100 is in the record books, join us for subsequent shows. Shows are recorded about every two weeks on a Saturday evening (eastern time). I think that you will find it enjoyable time with friends sharing their projects and experiences. There are layout design contests and MRR swag. You'll pick up new techniques along the way and get pumped up for you next model railroading project!

All Major Backdrops Are In

Yesterday and today were reasonably productive.  In spite of continuous rain for two days, I was able to finish installing Masonite backdrops on Graveyard Curve, which completes all of the major backdrops and you can no longer see basement walls unless you peek-a-boo below track level.

To do this I had to violate my rule of not cutting wood indoors because of the dust that it raises.  Had I not done that, two valuable vacation days would have been lost.

Here's a panoramic photo of Graveyard Curve with it's unpainted backdrops.

While I should have gotten these in before the subroadbed went into place, at least they are up before any of the track structure was laid down - unlike elsewhere on the layout.  With a little bit of stretching into the first 4 days of 2015, all of the backdrops went up in 2014; that's my major accomplishment for the year.

Now comes the really distasteful job of taping the joints!  After that, a coat of sky blue paint (as you see at the two ends) and it will be ready for photo backdrop prints.

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Happy New Year to you all!

The twelve days of Christmas in the title does not refer to the traditional Christmas season - not exactly.  It refers to something that I have not had since the late 1980's - Christmas week off!  This is a feature of my new job, the company closes for Christmas week; Christmas eve through New Years.  Because of the arrangement of Christmas and New Years this year, by adding a vacation day on Jan. 2, I can get 12 days off!

I've been looking forward to this for months as an opportunity for intense work on the layout.  Unfortunately I'm batting less than .500 on days in the basement - way less.  However, progress has been made nonetheless.  

Today, the final piece of subroadbed for the main line went into place.  Graveyard curve (so named on the B&O as the location of an actual graveyard) now connects with the top of the helix.  When track is installed, a complete circuit of the mainline will be possible.  The only significant part of the layout not yet started is upper staging - which replaces the upper return loop in the original plan.

Here's what the upper level looks like.  First, looking back towards the track coming up the helix:

That's camper tape in the foreground, which is the first layer of my roadbed.  Further back you can see cork roadbed on top of the camper tape.

Turning around and looking downgrade from the top of the helix:

Continuing downgrade, that's my workbench and cabinets in the background.  They'll be hidden by the backdrop.

Continuing around Graveyard curve; which at this point is at final grade and ready to begin to receive roadbed and track.

I took these shots standing on a step stool.  What's not apparent is that this roadbed is above the sweeping "S" curve that leads into lower staging.  Several of our local group have encouraged me not to cover this graceful curve so I have been trying to devise a support structure for the upper track that does not obscure the lower level.  I've built and rebuilt the support structure at least twice.  I started with 1x4 framing - much too thick, the lower track appears in a narrow slit.  1x3 framing was not much better.  On another section I tried to experiment with a framework made out of 1 1/2 inch slotted angle.  This was better, but not what I'm searching for.

Here are some photos that make the lower track more prominent.

The camera's wide angle setting makes the opening for the lower track seem more spacious than it is when viewed in person.  The 1x2 lumber holding up the front of each section supporting the upper subroadbed would be removed after the grade was established, the track laid and suspension wires tied to the floor joists above.

As I said, I'm not happy with this arrangement, but I have an idea for a thin subroadbed built along the principles of a through-plate-girder bridge.  Stay tuned for how it turns out.

Here are a couple of video walk throughs so that you can see the arrangement.  First, the upper level:

Now the lower level:

Christmas at the Summit

On Christmas Day I set the last piece of subroadbed in place at the top of the helix which, in turn, fixed the highest point on the mainline.  The height at the summit is 68 1/2 inches above the floor.  Here's a picture - decorated for the occasion with a department store bristle-brush tree.

The initial planned altitude at this point was to be a bit higher, but as the two ends of the railroad approached each other, it became apparent that the height difference between the two ends was larger than planned.  Therefore I reduced the grade on the last part of the upper turn of the helix in partial compensation.  In fact. the clearance between the decks of the helix at the point of the sign is only 4 3/4 inches vs. the NMRA recommendation of 5 1/2 inches, which I maintained almost everywhere else.  

As I don't intend to run double stacks or tri-level auto racks since they are out of my time period, this should not be much of a problem.

Another thing struck me today.  This track arrangement reminds me of the three-level railroad crossing in Richmond, Virginia; which I visited earlier this year.  Any similarity is unintentional, however.  Here's a couple of pictures of the crossing in Richmond.

There is a canal below the crossing too, just to make this a really unique site.  Today the area around the crossing is in a park.  Unfortunately, all three tracks are not active as the lowest track, now owned by Norfolk Southern, ends just beyond the crossing.  The upper two tracks are in daily use. Technically, though, since the grade-level track does still pass beneath, it's still a triple crossing.

Back on my layout, the lower two levels will be covered and out of sight.  And, no, I'm not going to alter the plan (already did that too many times) to make this into a scenic feature!