You can see more of my model
railroading photos at:
http://home.comcast.net/~j.sing
Thank you for visiting!
Santa Fe 'Peavine Line' in
4' x 4'
To get a perspective, let's start by seeing what the N scale layout
looks like looking
into
the office from the living
room
back in January 2006. The layout is 4 feet x 4 feet, consisting
of two
2' x 4' modules back to back. Kato Unitrack was used,
ballasted with Arizona Rock and Minerals 'mauve' color ballast:
The front of the layout, the Glendale Junction module on the left, is
an attempt to use
diagonal arrangement
of
lines-of-sight to optically distract from the small size of the
module. Here's an angle shot:
As I tinkered with the track plan, the concept of Glendale Junction is
to loosely represent Glendale, Arizona.
I use two fairly
good size buildings at the ends of the module to act as:
- View blocks to track entering/exiting the Glendale Junction module
- Give some 'heft' to the scene, i.e. have the buildings appropriately
overwhelm
the trains a little - i.e. a little bit of visual illusion trickery
A view that shows the the Glendale Junction module from overhead, with
the 'Prieta Canyon' module in the back:
Another view of 'Glendale Produce' on the left side (decaling still to
be done). This is a standard Walthers George Roberts Printing
Company kit:
And a view of the right side of the layout and "Santa Fe Ice House
Number 1" (also a
Walthers kit) on the right side
of Glendale Junction:
Now we move to the back half of the layout, the 'Prieta Canyon'
module. The Prieta Grade was the old Santa Fe
Peavine Line through Prescott, Arizona, running on a 3% ruling
grade. The layout, however, is flat, there is no grade, the
scenery
simply goes up and down to visually distract the eye into thinking of
elevation changes. These shots were taken
in 2005 and 2004, before the Kato Unitrack was ballasted:
(by the way, Southern Pacific never ran on the Santa Fe Peavine
Line, but
I just like the SP Black Widow paint scheme)
Model photography can really fool the eye, the following shot, one of
my favorites, is taken from the stream
bed in the previous photo, looking up at the locomotive headed towards
the tunnel. You can see more about
my model photography thoughts by
downloading
my (free) NMRA clinic on "Photographing Railroad Models"
(1.3 MB Acrobat Reader file):
And here's another view that fools the eye in terms of the small size
of the layout,
this one taken on the Glendale Junction module looking right at the
overpass area:
As final proof that the camera really does 'lie', here's a shot of a
set of Santa
Fe Warbonnets departing the tunnel
on the Prieta Canyon module:
The layout is approaching some semblance of the original concept that
was developed in August of 2002.
Kato
Unitrack: Painted, then ballasted
As this was my first layout as an adult, and from research, clearly I
wanted to make sure I did not have any
track reliability problems - hence my choice of Kato Unitrack.
From a tracking reliability standpoint,
the Unitrack has been bulletproof.
Click here
to see how I did a simple modification to the Kato #4
turnouts to avoid some locomotives and rolling stock from picking the
points .
The layout's Unitrack was originally painted only, as you can see
in the view below from August 2005.
Click here
to see
an
overview of my methods for painting Kato Unitrack. The
painted track was satisfactory until I started to weather,
at that point, the ballasting became necessary to maintain the overall
appearance of the layout.
You can see in the above photo where ballasting the Kato Unitrack was
started where the bridge is.
A view that the track crews had in September of 2005, after ballasting
the Unitrack in the
Prieta Canyon module:
The steps I used are visible in the following picture. After
carefully placing the ballast where I wanted it, I first carefully
pre-wet the ballast with
an eye-dropper, using mixture of water with 91% isoprophyl alcohol
added (that breaks the surface tension and wets the ballast without
disturbing it). Then, also using an eyedropper, I applied 50/50
mixture of water and white glue to the ballast. I *never* sprayed
either
pre-wetting or applying glue - that would move the ballast out of
position. Here's a picture:
The Kato turnouts have been carefully have ballasted. My
basic method on the turnouts is to make a small thumbnail-sized
'glob' of ballast and 50/50 water-glue mixture, and then with a small
screwdriver tip, carefully spoon that mixture into the
appropriate places on the Kato turnout. This assures that I would
not glue shut the internal Kato switch machine:
Here are the results:
And you can see below, where I used PollyScale acrylic 'Earth' paint
for the areas that I wouldn't / couldn't ballast:
As you can tell by comparing the two photos, the eye can be easily
fooled. (smile)
Track Plan and
Kato Unitrack Uni-joiner Electrical Experience
Here is a track plan, with the curve radius of the Kato Unitrack
noted. I arrived at this plan by clicking different
combinations of Kato Unitrack together until I got an optimum
combination for appearance. Clearly, the
appearance and tracking created by using vary
curvature radius to create easements was worth it. Any of
the "straight track then abrupt transition to curve"
plans I tried, looked *awful* compared to this final plan:
By the way, the purpose of the run-around track is to facilitate a
simple switching puzzle for the three sidings.
The layout's Unitrack continues to use the standard Kato Unitrack
Unijoiners. From an electrical conductivity
standpoint, after all these years, these have held up to an adequate
level. The fact that they continue to work as well as
they do is a testimony to Kato's engineering - no other non-soldered
rail connection would
have lasted this long.
As the layout ages, I do notice the Unitrack does 'age' in terms of
electrical connectivity at the Unijoiners.
As a result, today at the 8 year age mark for the layout, the four
feeders at equidistant points
around the loop are
just barely adequate in order to maintain
the voltage to be stable. In retrospect, the
recommendations of major Unitrack users
such as
PowerSteamGuy1790
to solder feeders as much as possible, including every piece of
Unitrack... is actually a good
recommendation. If I were to do this layout over again,
that is one recommendation that I would follow.
DCC for the 4'
x 4' N scale Santa Fe Peavine Line
In 2007, I started acquiring a few factory sound-equipped
N scale locomotives. It's said that Sound Sells DCC... and that
was certainly true in my
case. So, I added an A/B switch to the layout wiring,
and with that can run the layout entirely on DC,
or with a quick change, I run the whole layout
on DCC. (I am very happy with my NCE
PowerCab).
The standard Unitrack wiring will work adequately on a small layout
like this to run DCC, but clearly, those wires are *not*
big enough to follow best practices for DCC wiring. I would
highly recommend that anyone using DCC, wire their
layout properly (see the famous Wiring for DCC
website).
That having been said, it is true that on this small layout, just by
switching the wires to a DCC NCE PowerCab.... the layout will
work and run on DCC. No modification to the track is
required to have DCC work.
Note, however, that due to
the small size of the Unitrack wires and the resistance introduced by
the
8-year aged Unijoiners.... I clearly found spots on the layout,
between the feeders, where the
short
circuit protection would not
trip on the PowerCab's wall wart circuit breaker.
That's not good, and is asking for trouble.
In my opinion, these experiences indicate
that for a
permanent layout that is using Unitrack, one should put *a lot* of
feeders, as many as
you can afford (ideal would be *every* piece of Unitrack IMHO), and
wire the power bus according to good DCC recommendations.
Despite the small size of this layout, those are the reasons why I
decided I would rewire my layout power bus with heavy proper wire.
As for extra feeders..... that would take a lot of internal layout
surgery for me, so for now the properly wired power bus is sufficient.
PSX-1 Circuit Breaker
I followed the advice of one of my local DCC experts, that even on a
small layout like this, a circuit breaker / short circuit protection of
some sort is very useful. Simple automobile lamps or similar
would work fine. However, since this little layout is
basically a test bed,
and given the above-mentioned situation where there were some spots
where the 'quarter test' failed to trip the PowerCab's wall wart
circuit breaker, I put in the acknowledged best solid state
sound-friendly circuit
breaker, the DCC
Specialities PSX-1:
A solid state circuit breaker like this is fundamentally optional on a
layout of this size, but it has the effect of providing additional
protection for the track other than just depending on the PowerCab's
short circuit protection. The PSX-1 would cut the power
to the track when shorted, whereas the PowerCab wall wart would not -
that's good for this layout. In addition the PSX-1 is
very sound decoder friendly. Finally, with the PSX-1, I know when
there has been a short via either visual
(the 'short circuit
LED' lights), or a beeper that can be soldered onto the PSX
board.
In a low power starter set DCC
configuration such as the NCE PowerCab (or a Digitrax Zephyr,
etc), I followed the instructions to setup the PSX-1 to trip at 1.27
amp.... thus protecting
the track
before the PowerCab's 1.7 amp wall wart circuit breaker trips.
It's having additional protection for the track,
which is
good DCC Best Practices. In addition, I have had up to 6 N
scale sound locos on the layout at once (collectively
they draw about .5 to .6 amp when they are all idling with sound
on).... I did an extended quarter test to short the track....
the PSX-1 recovers nicely and all the sound locos come up
fine. Good stuff.
I hope all this helps.
I hope you my photos makes your day more enjoyable, and if you'd like
to see more, please feel free to
click here to return to my
ATSF_Arizona Home Page.
Thanks for visiting!
John Sing
San Mateo, California, USA
Modeling the Santa Fe's Peavine Line (Ash Fork -> Phoenix, Arizona)
in the 1950s and 60s - in N scale
