John's Alaska Railroad HO Scale Layout

December 01, 2021

The bottom part of this photo shows drywall compound being put into the space between the rail and the center board to hide the ties. Ties are not visible on the real barge. The top part of the photo shows all five tracks completed with no ties showing. A second pass will need to be done as the drywall compound will shrink as it dries leaving some voids. The wood slats will need to be painted white.	While running hopper car trains over the past week I experienced lots of derailments. The culprit cars were underweight reminding me I needed to...add some weights. Rick brought his scales to train night and we confirmed what I suspected. Many of the hoppers were under weight In HO, a 6 inch car should weigh 4 ounces. That is a 1 ounce minimum plus 1/2 ounce per inch of car. 1 + 3 = 4 ounces. Obviously this car needs an additional 1.6 ounces.	While cycling as a teenager I picked up wheel balance weights I found along the road. I brought them home, melted them down and removed the attaching clip. I placed aluminum foil in the bottom of my hoppers to create a mold. I removed the foil and poured in hot lead. This worked well. Many years later while tearing down the layout I put the lead weights in an old margarine container. Tonight we located the container and dumped out the weights.

Rick used a pair of nippers to trim off part of the weight. Through trial and error we eventually got the amount of weight needed. We then spent the rest of the evening running a 26 car hopper consist. Almost all the derailments vanished. We did have some cars come uncoupled and John will try to run this to ground over the next week.	This is a short video of the 26 car consist headed by GP38 #2001 and SD870MACs #4011 and #4014 traveling through the double track section. I am so excited to have smooth operation of this mixed hopper train. It will be a fun show piece for visitors!	This is a longer video showing the same train passing by Alaska Marine Lines, taking the long outside curve and then passing the Dairy Queen. You can find a much longer video of this train here. Just a reminder that RailPro uses true load sharing technology so each locomotive "shares the load."

Last week Rick video of a two train meet near Dairy Queen. Wave to the engineer as we pass the SD70MAC pulling five coal hoppers and a caboose.

December 08, 2021

Rick continues to work on the barge. The track, wall compound coverage and wooden mid-track slats are all in place. Final finish work should take place next week. In regards to barge movement, Rick purchased motors and gears as well as manufactured custom components. The motors will power gears which will drive a custom threaded rod. Power is provided by a repurposed AC/DC Power Supply Adapter. The above video shows the motor and secondary gear powered by the adapter.	During the week I ran a 26-car hopper train just for fun. I found it slowed down on the main next to the Anchorage yard. Rick came over and extensively checked voltage levels and continuity of this section. He also cleaned the rails. After all this Rick found nothing amiss.	Much of train night is now spent running trains and troubleshooting ankle biters. One SD70MAC came with couplers which barely cleared the body. Kadee long centerset shank couplers are now on order. We worked 26-hopper slow down issue and through a long process of elimination found #16005 to be the possible culprit. He put #16005 on his portable test track and found nothing wrong. For now we've bad ordered #16005. In the future we are planning a truck swap with another hopper.

December 15, 2021

Rick continues to work on the new rails and surfaces on top of the barge. Most of the dry wall compound sanding is done. Rick has started to fix the dark spots in the flange ways. Look at the left track, left flange way, the first few inches.	Sanding is now complete. Rick is now painting flange ways to hide the spike heads. He does this painstaking painting with a toothpick. The lower flange way in the photo has been painted while the upper one has not. He eventually will do touch up painting on the bumpers and cleats.	Rick also is working on motorizing the barge. He made bearing blocks for each end of the screw. Each one has a brass bearing in the wood block. Back in August or September Rick found a rat-tail rasp file while on a bike ride. It was 14” long and 1/2'” diameter. Rick used the rasp to enlarge the holes in the barge carrier under the barge. He can put the threaded rod through the carrier and support each end with the bearing blocks. The barge can be moved from side to side without the carrier rubbing against the threaded rod.

The gear to go on the end of the threaded rod has a 5/16 hole. None of Rick's drill bits would work on it. Rick was able to turn down the end of the threaded rod to 5/15. He then used a die to cut threads on the end of the threaded rod. The photo shows the die in a die wrench on the end of the threaded rod. The gear can now be mounted on the end of the threaded rod.	This photo shows the motor mount plate. It is now down to assembling the parts and the barge will be motorized.	On train night Rick brought the barge in for testing. The track alignment still looks good. We timed barge movement for two tracks and found it took five minutes. Rick will try a smaller gear to get the time cut in half. He will also create cutoffs for both sides so the motors won't burn out when reaching maximum movement.

The Portage switch won't close completely. Rick got underneath the train table and adjusted the Tortoise machine's fulcrum to correct this issue. What I want to know is how did it change over time? It worked correctly when installed. I am chalking this up to the layout settling over time.	The above video shows the hopper train pauses at the north end of the double track switch. Could this be caused by the floating six axel SD70MAC trucks?	We replaced the MACs with GPs and the above video shows the problem remained. Rick is an amazing troubleshooter and used his meter to determine one of the rail joints is flaky. After a date with the soldering iron everything now runs smoothly.

My main desire for this layout was to run trains. With 258 feet of mainline I have ample room to watch them run. This one minute video shows the hopper train rounding Eppley's curve at 34% power. Smooth low speed operation is fascinating to me. Over time we will work out all the little ankle biters such as non-standard couplers being replaced.

December 22, 2021

Rick is in the home stretch on barge work. The barge's originally designed movement was too slow (5 minutes) so the large 28 tooth gear was replaced with a 52 tooth gear. Also shown are the smaller gears which have18 teeth each. Lithium grease was then applied to the threaded rod and gears.	This is a top view of the movement components. The twin motors are at the bottom, the gears in the middle and the threaded rod with wooden guide at top.	Rick used an old snap switch touch toggle to provide power.

This is a view from the motor end. Each motor is mounted to a milled brass mounting plate. Another milled brass piece was added to create more space. The nut on end of threaded rod is a six sides 5/16 nut. It was rounded to keep from hitting gears.	This is a view of the entire barge system. At bottom and top are the ATM drawer slides Rick repurposed for barge lateral movement. Recent additions include a separate control panel at lower right and two power cut off switches at top right and left.	This is a photo without the barge. Rick drilled holes in wooden blocks so it won’t rub the threaded rod.

The above photo is with the barge in place.	This videos shows the motors turning the threaded rod. Red clamps are holding the wood blocks in place until glue dries.	This video was taken before Rick finished work on the surface of the barge. Lots of sanding and painting was required. The rail spike heads were painstakingly painted with a tooth pick. Rick created a special sanding block which enabled sanding between the rails and the stern of the barge.

This video shows the threaded rod being turned by the motors. The wear plate on the other side of bolt keeps it from getting excessive wear from the screw.	This video shows the barge moving slowly in place. It takes about 56 seconds to move to the next track. The motor noise reminded John of the real motor noise made when moving the barge in Whittier.	During the week John tweaked operations on the hopper train. This hopper needed new couplers. It was quite the thrill to run a 16-foot long train nonstop around the layout at 33% speed without derailments.

Long time friend and Alaska Railroad employee Mike Gerenday sent John a stupendous care package in the mail. One of the items was this nice ARR hopper. The couplers were mounted upside down so they were replaced with Kaydee #150s.	Terry went all our for train night with a wonderful holiday buffet. Sombrero spread with Fritos scoops, meatballs, cheese ball and crackers, veggie tray, garlic knot rolls and fruit cups made for a wonderful meal.	Terry made each person an amazing candy locomotive. John's was special as the Hershey kiss was replaced with an Almond Kiss and one of the Hershey minis was replaced with a Mr. Goodbar. Ain't he special!

Excitement! Excitement! Excitement! Rick brought the barge in for the final time. Imagine carrying this heavy beast up and down a curved set of stairs for the past few months! Note the barge control panel is in the lower right corner of the photo. It will be permanently mounted in the space below it.	The barge needed a bit of extra movement space to the south into the wooden layout table structure. Next week Rick will bring a saw and cut out some of this wood. At that time, he will be able to permanently mount the barge and do final operational testing.	The swing gate track is level while the track to the east of it begins to increase in elevation. This created a dip which caused some cars to uncouple. Rick decided to install shims under both tracks to decrease the elevation difference. In the above photo he removes track nails on the swing gate track so it can be pulled up to accommodate the shim.

Upon finishing the swing gate shim Rick turned his attention to the east elevation rise. After pulling up the track nails he used a putty knife to free up the track and cork road bed.	He inserted the wooden shim under the cork road bed. Next, he used a pin vise to drill holes through wooden shim and then tacked everything into place.	This side view showed Rick decreased the elevation kink significantly. During the shim installation we lost power on the swing gate track. Rick traced this back to a broken wire which required numerous contortions to replace.

December 29, 2021

Using a pattern obtained from another modeler my daughter Anne used her Cricut (home crafters computer-controlled cutting machine) to create these vinyl letters. She applied them to smooth-side containers I purchased on eBay. She added several sealing layers which will prevent the decals from fading over time. I think these are drop dead awesome!	Whenever our Indiana grandsons stay with us my wife always plans a slumber party with our twin grandsons. And what overnight extravaganza is not complete without the running of the trains! I always get out my old buildings, people and cars for them to play with. These young men are the future life blood of model railroading.	Model manufacturers are always scrimping on parts and these SD70MACs came with short shank couplers with half functioning knuckles. I purchased long center shanked couplers with smoothly functioning knuckles. The result is easy coupling and no pull-aparts.

Complete barge movement to the right (south) could not take place as the motor works and barge base hit the layout framing. The first step was to cut a notch in the wooden framing using a jig saw. The white arrow shows the area removed.	Rick then used a jig saw to cut away part of the barge's base platform. Now the barge can move completely to the right (south).	Finally, Rick made adjustments (in three dimensions) so the barge tracks lined up perfectly with the Whittier yard tracks. Multiple test runs of passenger cars confirmed silky transitions. Finally, Rick put all four mounting screws in place.

Barge controls were placed in the layout frame opening to the right of the barge. Rick made a piece of fascia to fit these three toggle control switches.	The final result looks great! Next week Rick will install wood trim pieces at each end of the fascia.

Feel free to contact me at john@alaskarails.org
Page created 9/4/17 and last updated 1/1/22