John's Alaska Railroad HO Scale Layout

December 6, 2023

John continued work on Terry's cabin diorama. He added Fireweed to three areas around the pond. Only one company currently manufacturers HO scale Fireweed and they are in the United Kingdom. They don't ship to the United States so I had to send them to a friend of mine in the UK to in turn send them to me.	The Fireweed is fairly realistic and has a strong adhesive on the bottom. The Fireweed is fringed with short green grass which tends to blend in everywhere on the diorama.	The work on the cornfield is now complete. The only remaining work for the garden area is the southwest end of the garden.

John purchased flowers for the tall field grass behind the cabin and pond area.	John used hairspray on the field grasses, and then sprinkled on the flowers.	Terry loves flowers so John purchased these daisies to go around the outside of the cabin as well as various places on the diorama.

First, a nail was used to punch holes for the daisies.	John alternated the white and yellow daisies on the west side of the cabin.	White and yellow daisies are used along the front of the cabin as well.

A wide variety of wildflowers were purchased as well. Terry did the installation of these wildflowers at various spots around the diorama. Here she is placing them by the rocks alongside the pond.	She placed several at the base of the weather vane. Also, seen in the photo is the water pipe that leads into the animal drinking trough.	John added two pine trees south of the cornfield. He also added a John Deere tractor and implement which was originally owned by Terry's father Doug. This is the first photo of a four section panorama.

This is the second panorama photo showing the addition of Jackie's outhouse, additional pine trees, and flowers along the gravel drive.	This is the third panorama photo showing the addition of more Fireweed, flowers, several of Jackie's small pine trees behind the goat pen, a red wheelbarrow and a yellow drinking trough for the goats.	This is the fourth panorama photo showing the addition of several of Jackie's small pine trees, tall green grasses along the side of the pond, a bench to sit on and watch the sun go down, and a ladder on the side of the dock.

Here is a close-up photo of the goat pen. The goats are, from left to right are Ramsey, Skipper, Scape, Butt-Head, Popcorn and Vincent van Goat.	Watching over the homestead is Max (painted by Rick). To the left of the cabin are chickens and a water pumping with drinking trough surrounded by Terry's flowers.	The final addition to the garden was a patch of watermelon. Now John will have something to eat with his Chocolate Moose.

A mother bear watches intently over her cubs, one of which has climbed almost to the top of a nearby pine.	Rick began the installation of the Woodland Scenics Plug and Play lighting system for the cabin. First, he cut out a hole in the control panel fascia.	Next, he used his Dremel to smooth out the hole in the panel.

Finally, the control panel was installed. The panel has four connections with knobs for controlling the brightness of each light. In addition to the cabin's porch light, Rick added another on the inside of the cabin. Three more plugs are available for future lighting projects.	Video: This shows the cabin's interior light. Yes, it leaks out underneath the structure as it is not sitting in its final resting spot.	Video: Rick ran a super cool F7 ABA locomotive configuration pulling a long string of hoppers. Several of the agricultural hoppers were modified due to wobbly trucks. After a few trial runs, it appeared the problem was indeed fixed.

Video: Rick ran a trifecta heritage paint scheme pulling this same hopper train. Very cool!	I had nine HO scale Terry possibilities and she picked this one. So here she is sweeping off the front porch of her cabin. Living the dream!

December 13, 2023

John began final work on the pond using JTT Realistic Resin Water. Poured directly from the bottle, it is self-leveling, non-cracking and has minimal shrinkage. Multiple pours are done, each once a maximum of an eighth inch deep and 24 hour drying time in between. The bottom of the pond must be completely sealed as the resin will eat through foam and come pouring out the sides or bottom.	Now that the diorama is complete John enjoyed taking close-up photos of each section. Terry loves her garden as well as the sunflowers planted on its perimeter.	This year's crop will produce some amazing sweet corn. Terry will boil it over her wood burning stove and then serve it with plenty of goat butter and salt. Mmm!

John added a left over section of backdrop behind the diorama. Advanced planning ensured the tree and ground color blended in well with the ones on the backdrop.	Terry is sweeping dirt off the porch of her cabin while Max keeps a sharp eye out for visitors. The chickens love to play, run, skip and flap their wings while bathing in the Alaskan sunshine.	The pond's first pour looks amazingly good.

Terry's goats love to climb, chew, and explore. John pledges to buy them some items to keep them entertained. Recently, Terry picked up a pallet along side the road and will place it in the pen for goat play.	A splash of Fireweed decorates the well manicured Combs farmland.	John poured a second layer of realistic resin water. He spent an extra bit of time ensuring the pond area was level.

The F7 locomotives always surge slightly when going downhill. Rick did a motor current test and found everything was correct. In this photo, Rick is doing a motor current test on GP40s 3009 and 3010.	Video: Three geeps pull a grain and coal train past the Whittier depot and through Eppley's curve. Yes, the Alaska Railroad still uses cabooses on their trains. Rick put in a fair amount of work to get those agricultural hoppers to run properly.	Video: Two geeps pull a 30 car consist through Alaska Marine Lines and past the Dairy Queen (future site of the Alaska Railroad's Anchorage Depot).

Video: The 30 car consist travel through the Canyon and Mountain subdivision.	Video: Two geeps pull a freight train through TwentyMile.	Video: GP40 3010 and GP38 2005 pull a freight train through the future site of Anchorage Sand and Gravel.
		Tuning up freight and passenger cars to keep them on track takes lots and lots of work: 1. Adding Intermountain 33” with .110” width with needle point axles 2. Tune each truck for burrs and correct size 3. Check wheel gauge 4. Graphite lubrication, if necessary 5. Eliminate wobbly trucks 6. Adjust truck kingpin 7. Adjust coupler height (add washers or shims if necessary) 8. Adjust coupler air hoses 9. Check knuckle springs 10. Weigh the rail car and add weight if necessary
Video: Railfans are out with cameras capturing this unique sighting of the bicentennial locomotive and caboose serving as bookends for a three refrigerator car consist.	These two rail cars are heading to the Eppley Shops for coupler height adjustment and fine tuning.

December 20, 2023

Video: The next two videos were captured by Rick last week. They show a 30-car freight train using the double crossover to change directions. The first thing to note is the operator must be quick to set the divergent turnout back to the main. This is especially true of a long train such as this one as you have less than two seconds to make it happen or the lead locomotive will hit the caboose. Second, DCC users told me reverse loop modules are notorious for causing problems. RailPro's AR-1 module has been flawless thus far.	Video: Taken of the same train, but at a higher angle.	You may recall from a weekly report a while ago, John's layout design included an S curve between Whittier and Usibelli Coal Mine. This caused occasional derailments, but more importantly, caused all Ultradome passenger cars to derail. John resigned myself to never run Ultradomes. However, Rick spent four train nights removing track and replacing track to eliminate the problem. In honor of this achievement, the area was renamed, "Eppley's Curve." Now to officially mark this location. First, John purchased two metal sign posts.

John printed two labels from his computer and glued them over the old signs.	John used his newly purchased pin vise to drill holes, one at each end of the curve.	The first sign was placed just past the Whittier turnout.

The second sign post was placed before the APU turnout. Clayton's Alaska Railroad is thrilled to recognize this critical work as it would be impossible otherwise to run those thrilling Ultradome passenger cars!	John made the fourth and final pour for Terry's pond. The level verified points in both horizontal planes are even. The positioning of the level was critical as it also weighed down the slightly elevated left (west) end.	An aerial view of the pond reveals some cloudiness as the acrylic material hasn't completely out-gassing.

Train night dinner: After making our salads at Jackie's world famous salad bar, we headed to the dining room table. Terry surprised us with a Christmas zing to the meal with red and green Jello. Yes, those are fresh cut French fries!	As a main dish, she created a holiday wreath from mini pigs-in-a-blanket. At the end of the meal, Terry served freshly baked cookies and peanut brittle.	Now to waddle our way to the train room to get to work. Here is a final view of the pond. Another 48 hours are needed for complete out-gassing as the water is still cloudy.

The diorama is put into its final location. Rick plugged in the connectors for cabin lighting. John turned out the lights and Rick demonstrated both the porch and interior cabin lights worked correctly. Next week, screws will driven around the edges to level out the diorama.	Video: The problem refrigerator car and bicentennial caboose returned from the Eppley Shops. This video shows smooth operations through the Portage depot turnout.	Video: We finally decided to tackle the "Ghost of RailPro" problem. The above video shows how power dropped to zero for a brief interval at this location. After a bit of troubleshooting, it was determined the caboose actually caused the problem. Why it caused the problem at this location confounded us. Long story very short, it may have to do with metal wheels with insulated metal axles (even though the trucks are plastic). We flipped the wheels so both insulated breaks were on the same side and the problem vanished. When we put them back to their original configuration, the problem did not return. What the heck?!? Obviously, more analysis needs to be done, but thankfully the problem is not RailPro related.

December 27, 2023

Last week we discovered the "Ghost of RailPro" was actually a mystical problem with the bicentennial caboose. This week Rick was bound and determined to find the cause. He hooked his meter to the track to watch for voltage drops as he ran the short train past the dropout point. Lots of caboose axle configurations were tried, but we were unable to repeat the problem.	Video: After an hour and a half, the problem could not be identified. Rick soldered joints, flipped axles, reversed trucks and used different consists. The above video shows we could not recreate the problem. The decision was made to replace the trucks and move on. There is a similar problem on the 30-car coal train. This will be addressed in the future.	In 2021, Terry and John sampled the off-grider life at their friend's, Curt and Renee Rudd, cabin 25 miles north of Talkeetna. Curt Rudd worked for the Alaska Railroad for 42 years and was a key part of their operations. They renamed the spur near his cabin, Rudd Spur. Terry wants this recreated on the layout. The only place with enough room is at Usibelli Coal Mine (turnout location circled in the photo). Therefore, John will procure a turnout and signage for the project.

Feel free to contact me at john@alaskarails.org
Page created 9/4/17 and last updated 1/1/23