Spokane & BC Railway Circa 1955

Modelling what might have been in southeast BC and northwest Wasington

Month: September 2019

VanRail 2019

The biennial model railway operations event known as VanRail was held here from September 6 to 8th. I hosted sessions on all three days, and we operated using the new train scheme developed over the summer following that “Fateful Friday” and the lessons learned. More information about the event itself can be found on the VanRail web site.

All in all, the three sessions went well from my perspective, and there were no complaints voiced. The amount of work seemed about right, with the one exception of the Morning Star mine turn, which had been a last minute addition.

Of course, on the last day, Paul suggested a great way to enhance the challenge of the mine turn, and he then proceeded to successfully prove how it would work. The idea was to send the train up with more cars than could easily be run around, but that would still fit on the mine spur, necessitating more switching moves. In the end it all worked out as he expected it to, so now we can operate that train with two levels of difficulty, depending on the experience level of the operator.

Some photos from Friday with Dave, Rick, and Cal…

Some from Saturday with Andrew, Glen, and Jim…

And some from Sunday with Don, Norm, and Paul…

I am looking forward to having more layout built before the next VanRail in 2021. There is lots of work to do, but I have a great crew helping me!

Measure three times, cut twice

When “Measure Twice” is Not Enough

Fascia on the layout. It is a very important aspect that helps make a layout look finished, and it has to be good otherwise everyone notices. As one of the last construction steps before VanRail in September, the fascia around the corner with the Morning Star Mine was installed on Saturday with the help of my trusty Saturday gang. Everything was installed just fine, and it was left for me to drill out the three large holes for the switch control pushrods and guide cups. Due to the very tight space along that section of the layout with the track near the edge, there is no room for normal length pushrods. They are so short that there is no room for error and things have to line up well or it won’t work. So, I did a lot of careful measuring up, down, left, right, etc., etc., and made copious notes so that I could position the holes very accurately on the fascia, which is what I did. Or so I thought… I forgot to include the amount that the fascia sticks up above the plywood roadbed, so when I positioned the holes down from the top edge, they were in fact too high.

Oops, the push rods should line up with the centre of the holes.

Then, after remounting the fascia, and noticing my mistake and immediately knowing why, Suzy came along to inspect and tried to push the plastic control cups in and found that they hit the plywood. No problem, as the holes are too high, so that is to be expected, right? Well, it turns out that even if I had positioned them where I had so very carefully measured, it still would not have been right, as I had neglected to allow room between the cups and the switch mechanism attached to the bottom of the plywood. The track is so close to the fascia at that point that the cups have to be even lower than normal to clear the mechanisms.

Notice that the cups are hitting the switch mechanisms on the bottom of the plywood.

The solution was to install offset push rods that lower the rod so that the white cup can be below the switch mechanism and all will be well.

Now the cup can be lower and miss the switch mechanism.

So, even if I had “measured twice” and “cut once”, it still would have been wrong. I needed to measure “three times” and “cut once”. This is exactly what I did on the newly purchased second piece of fascia hardboard the next day. Tom was a huge help in coming over mid-week to help get it installed, and this time everything lined up correctly. We also decided that since we had a new piece of hardboard to play with that we would cut some significant undulations in the edge to add more scenic interest. So, in the end, it all worked out even better than had I done it “right” in the first place. Thanks Tom!