Christmas Present from Santa Bernd

Thanks Bernd for the wonderful Christmas gift. I got a box of foams, artificial grass, scrubs, ballast and mesh wire that I could use for my diorama and layout.

Jimmy Low

N-scale Maintenance Equipment

One thing I found lacking in N-scale was modern railway maintenance equipment such as Plasser & Theurer tamping machines, Gottwald 100ton cranes, etc. Some of these came in kit form but they looked horrible and expensive. For example, this Kibri Gottwald railway crane cost about 80 Euro and you have to fix it yourself. In the end, it looks crappy. I wished Kibri or someone would come out with a better version, perhaps a working version of this crane.

In the meantime, I would have to settle for Tomix N-scale Japan National Railway (JNR) SO 80 crane, which cost me 30 Euro. The parts looked sturdier and with some repainting and weathering, I will remove the Japanese wordings. The Japanese N-scale is 1:50 compared to the US/European 1:160. Slightly larger but then most railway crane were large anyway.

 

 

Jimmy Low

German ICE Diorama: Shaping the Environment

Initially, I planned to ballast the tracks. Then I had a second thought. Something was still missing. The environment! The surrounding of the tracks need to be up first. Ballasting the track should be one of the last steps. But always the bigger challenge is to make sure the surrounding flowed with the whole tracks.

I started by cutting the excess of the rails on either end using Dremel 300, which I bought at Conrad. Remember that the diorama was 800mm long. However, at each end I placed a 200mm x 500mm cardboard as the end fascia. Once I have drawn the position of the track structure, I offset by 3mm since the base of the track structure would be 32mm from the base of the plank. The roadbed and tracks will be above 32mm.

On the east and west end of the diorama, I added additional cardboards which were 27mm high to provide additional support for the track structure.

In the above photo, you see the cork roadbed sat above the side cardboard level. I have cut one part of the cork roadbed and track to show you how it looked like.

I glued additional cardboard to support the track structure along the length.

PET bottles and ceramic bowls made good weight while the glue set on the support structure.

Once dried, I added additional wing card boards along the structure to follow the contour of the landscape.

I spent a few hours yesterday in Hornbach, a hypermarket for construction materials and found this wonderful plastic fiber wire. I wanted steel mesh wire but found this Fugenband to be more versatile. Furthermore, it is sticky on the other side.

I cut the fiber mesh band into various lengths and used them to shape the landscape.

This week’s 2-hour effort has produced this diorama. I am half way there, with the bridge, ballasting and adding plaster for the landscape.

West (top), East (bottom)

 

Jimmy Low

Another Blog: germaN160 by Trai-N-master

I have created another blog for my German N-scale layout: germaN160.wordpress.com.

All postings on the layout will be in germaN160. The rest will remain in Trai-N-master.

Jimmy Low

German ICE Diorama: Ready for Ballasting

This is the result of 4 hours of work spread over 3 weeks. I spent averagely 1.3 hour per Sunday.

Next Sunday, I will ballast the tracks. After that, I will build the landscapes – slopes and river. I hope to complete this diorama before Christmas.

Jimmy Low

German ICE Diorama: Laying Tracks and Superelevation

I have used my kitchen as a temporary workshop (hmm, my kitchen served as a culinary lab as well as my model railway workshop). I am planning to set up a permanent workbench in my cellar.

I continued this week with laying the cork roadbeds and tracks. In real railway world, the sleepers sit on top of a roadbed made of ballast. In the model railway world, this roadbed is made of cork (preferred material) or rubber with sticky on the other side. Those who more cost conscious could use 3mm thick cardboard as roadbed too. I used Faller N-scale cork roadbed, each pack comes with 4 strips of 50cm long. Just enough for my 200cm diorama.

Carefully tear the pre-cut cork apart. You will notice that one side of the cork is squared and the other beveled. I spread and evened out the glue on side of the track center (TC) up to the 50cm length. Then I carefully placed the squared side of the cork on the track center line and pressed.

The above photo showed the first half of the cork completely laid. You will notice that I followed closely the track center. Then continue with the other half.

At the other end, I joined the cork and cut off squarely the excess.

The final result should look like this. Both track paths are now overlaid with cork roadbeds.

With the cork roadbeds, we now have 3 levels – ground, roadbed and track. One step closer to reality. I placed, but have not glued, both tracks on the roadbeds and took this driver view picture. Cool! (btw, the green tab was a marking so that I don’t mix up the south track from the north track. I have bended both tracks before hand)

I wanted to superelevate my tracks especially at curves. Superelevation or cant of the railway or road is elevating the angle of the road so that it allows the vehicles to travel at curves at high speed than normally would (see wiki). Superelevation allows the vehicles to remain horizontal while the bogies cant at an angle such as here.

There is a limitation of how much you can elevate. For N-scale it is 0.6mm.

To superelevate the curves , I used the cardboard from Faller (since I don’t have styrene at hand). The thickness is less than 0.6mm so it will do.

I cut strips of 2mm wide and about 30cm long. This length covers the curve part of the tracks and a bit of the straight portion. You want a transition of the superelevation too.

So, which side of the tracks to superelevate? Remember my earlier posting on Base Preparation? I specified the compass directions of the diorama. As trains travel west on the north side of the track, hence on the west rail should be elevated and on the east rail should be elevated at the other end. The same thing for the south of the track. I have done one track as below

North (left side of photo), West (bottom)

You can now lay and glue the tracks to the roadbed. Watch out for the superelevation portions. Make sure these go underneath the sleeper.  The tracks were laid, superelevated at the right spots.

I used my diorama base, with books and my toolkit as weight, on top of the rails to let the glue set for the next 24 hours. That’s all for this weekend. Next week, I will ballast the tracks.

Jimmy Low

Concrete and Wooden Sleepers Do Mix

I have been more observant with the surrounding around railway tracks and stations. Sometimes, it is best to look around and see how the real world railways lay their tracks, build their stations and run the trains. Then incorporate them into your model layout for realism. I have been taking photos and mental notes (hmm, I should write down since age is catching up).

I noticed at Bad Homburg station, one of the tracks has a mixture of wooden and concrete sleepers. Although it may look odd, I guess there must be reasons why they don’t just replace everything with concrete. After all, as you can see from this photo, the track from the train down to the middle is concrete, then wooden, then concrete and wooden all the way to the turnout (behind this photographer).

So the next time someone tells you there is no such thing, show them this picture. I am looking for other photos of high speed tracks where there are wooden and concrete sleepers.

Jimmy Low

German ICE Diorama: Modelling Toolkit

With the diorama structure and roadbed ready, I am prepared to lay the tracks and do some ballasting this weekend. I have been doing some shopping the last few weeks and got myself glue, N-scale ballast, artificial grass, cutters, assortment of brushes, acrylic paints from Tamiya, etc. all in my modelling toolkit.

Let’s see my progress tomorrow.

 

Jimmy Low

Not A Time to Tighten the Curve

I asked my friend Bernd to take a look at my track plan for my ICE diorama. The first thing he noticed as the tight spacing between the two parallel tracks. Long rolling stocks such as the ICE wagons (about 25 meters / 80ft long) will scrap each other when both passing each other on tight curves. This is because the end of each equipment will overhang and increases the chances of derailment. These photos showed how the curves affect the equipment.

 

Another track arrangement called the reverse S-curve would also cause the same problem. My diorama was basically a reserve S-curve track arrangement. I minimised the problem of overhang and reduced the chances of hitting each other by (1) having straight tracks between curves (minimum length of 1 longest rolling stock, in this case ICE wagon), (2) easement or gentler transition from straight to curve and (3) the distance between track centers increased from recommended 25mm to 33mm.

It is always good to do visual check using the longest rolling stocks and see if they will hit each other especially at curves. I used the ICE to test mine.

As you notice the ICE at the bottom has overhang (nose is on outer rail rather than closer to the track center) but not as serious as to hit the ICE at the top.  If you want to eliminate the overhang completely (which is not realistic), then you need a very large around (probably over 1000mm radius). Thus, some compromises are necessary at times.

Always do visual check for overhang and tight spots before nailing the tracks.

Jimmy Low

Need A Tunnel?

If you take time to notice, you could turn any ordinary things into something special. One of them, toilet roll tube. Yes, good old toilet tube; the white/brown tube once you finishing the soft paper for your tush-tush.

What did I do with it? A tunnel for ICE.

Each tube is good for one track but if you need double tracks, just cut and join another roll. NEM 105 details how to build various tunnels according to DB AG standards.  You can cut the tube into various lengths but since only a short portion visible from outside, you don’t need the whole length of the tunnel to be tubed. For a normal toilet tube, you can cut to 2 and use each half for front and end of the tunnel entrances.

The other option is to use Pringles can. The diameter is 2x wider than the toilet roll and fits for double tracks. Now, let me pop a can and finish the chips – once you pop, you can’t stop!

Jimmy Low