Trolley Barn ~ Thursday, December 29, 2022

Any trolley layout needs a barn. A small layout calls for a small barn--mine has room for one car, though it's "future-proofed" for any future slightly larger layout, and can potentially hold two. For now the extra space can be for maintenance equipment, or maybe the transit company has a bus or two too.

I don't think there's any of-the-shelf small trolley barn kits in N Scale, but there's a plenty of kitbashable industrial building kits, like this venerable one:

It was longer than I needed, but vertically speaking, too short. So I cut and glued walls to suit what I needed.

And windows.

The roof clerestory of this kit just has vents, but I rounede=d up extra plastic window frames and improved the interior lighting a bit:

Here it is assembled. Some Squadron putty helped fill gaps left over from my cutting and gluing.

For brick structures, like to first spray primer, but then apply craft paint by brush. The window glazing is Micro Kristal Clear, which works nicely for the larger multi-pane industrial windows.

You can't quite see it in the pictures, but it's open at both ends. That might or might not be prototypical (I'm sure there's at least a few examples somewhere), but it's useful if I park a trolley in there and it doesn't quite feel like moving again without an encouraging tap! This makes the interior semi-visible--it's not detailed, but I painted it brown. This was another reason to use Kristal Clear for glazing--when you get a peek at the inside, it blends in better than a clear sheet of plastic would.

Live Overhead! ~ Saturday, December 24, 2022

It works!

I actually got this working a while ago, and have been sitting on this update. Sorry! Anyway, here's proof:

A big thanks to Corky Whitlock, for encouragement, tips, and a stash of wire and line poles!

Well, here's a few misadventures and observations from building all this.

• Mostly I followed standard NCAT designs, except that for hangars from span-wires, I used a simpler design from a German modelling how-to book. Basically just created a U of wire, and folded that over the span-wire.
• Appropriate wire is hard to find; I ordered some from The Instrument Workshop.
• I hung various parts independently. This way when things go wrong, there's less to redo, and less chance of losing your mind because fixing one thing breaks another.
  • On the downside, this means I can only use pantographs. I really wanted to make trolley poles work too. Next time!
• It would be good to make each span wire a separate piece of wire, instead of trying to make one wire wrap around a pole and cover two spans in a V. Also, when attaching to more than one span wire to a pole, it'd be good to solder them at slightly different heights, so that soldering one doesn't un-solder another.
• It's useful to leave extra ends of wire on as long as possible, so I recommend waiting to trim it til you're really, really done.
• Use lots of wooden jigs. In particular, it's good to have wooden blocks of exactly wire hight to hold up what you're working on.
• To get the wires under some, but not too much, tension, I clamped various tools to the loose ends and hung them over the side of the workbench.
• I hear it's very helpful to use liquid flux. I didn't hear that or think of it before I started, but it's a good idea.
• When you start hanging overhead, it's insanely difficult, but keep at it and you'll start to get the knack. By the time you're done you'll feel a little bit like ripping it all down and doing it over again "right" (Not that I did).

Portolá Monument ~ Sunday, October 30, 2022

Little Green House and Garage ~ Monday, October 24, 2022

This is a project that has been almost done for quite a while. I scenic'ed these folks' back yard with a tree and a picnic table, dusted the edges with foam weeds, and that about wraps it up.

Little Free Library: We have a Door ~ Saturday, October 22, 2022

Overhead Installation ~ Sunday, October 16, 2022

Little Free Library: Done Except the Door ~ Sunday, October 09, 2022

Little Free Library: Starting to Look Like a Box ~ Tuesday, October 04, 2022

Little Free Library: End Walls ~ Saturday, October 01, 2022

Skunk Ride ~ Sunday, July 17, 2022

The kids and I visited the Niles Canyon Railway today and rode California Western (aka, "Skunk Train") motor car #M200.

Unlike the the usual NCRy ride through Niles Canyon, the trip ran east from Sunol, to the current end of track. The museum plans to someday extend the line all the way to Pleasanton.

End of track.

When it runs in reverse, the conductor sits here.