Notes on Designing, Building, and Operating Model Railroads

Photo fun

After unpacking most of the freight car fleet, I was passing by the yard and the above view caught my eye. I decided to snap a few photos as the set up reminded me of a prototype photo.

I’ve been working through a few Wheeling Freight Terminal track issues. One of the rails zippered out of the tieplates and spikes during the move or set up. You can kind of see it in the image above. That obviously needed to be fixed before anything rolls across the rails.

Shawmut scale test car

Several months ago, Perry Squier shared photos of a scale test car he was building for his Shawmut layout. He shared photos and notes of the finished HO scale model recently. It is frequently used in his operating sessions. Here’s Perry with the details.

I model the Pittsburg, Shawmut & Northern RR (the Shawmut) in 1923. The railroad at that time had three scale track locations: St. Marys Yard, Prosser at the junction of the Olean Branch, and Moraine at the junction of the Wayland branch. All of these locations are included on my layout but I never modeled the weigh scales.

Unboxing

With the Wheeling Freight Terminal layout standing and wired up, it’s time to unbox the freight car fleet. Nearly all of my kit-built freight cars have been stored away in Plano boxes like the one in the lead image.

Setting up again – part 2

With all the layout sections back on their legs and bolted together, it was time to connect the wiring. Two wires connect one section to another via a Euro-style nylon barrier strip. The lead photo shows how wires from an adjacent section are about to be connected to the barrier strip.