Track bumpers

I picked up five track bumpers. Five more are on order. I'm sure glad I decided to buy the bumpers instead of building them myself. Although these bumpers are lightweight compared to typical ones you would find in a true terminal station, they will serve their purpose from a functional point of view. You can see from the photograph that there are some metal detailing on the bumpers. I like this attention to detail, but unfortunately it doesn't have the heavy appearance as the ones in the photograph I took when I was at the Munchen hauptbahnhof. The club has some from Marklin at HO scale, but I'd love to see Minitrix come out with some for my scale. By the way, I placed an order for four R3/R4 curved right turnouts. I'm slowly working down my purchase list of rail equipment needed for the layout. I think the solenoids and turn lanterns will be the very last purchases. The turnouts can be operated manually anyhow since I haven't made the jump to DCC yet. That's a whole different kettle of fish. For now, I'll focus on the architectural modeling. That's number one priority.

NachtZug

Christmas arrived early today. I picked up my NachtZug at HobbyTech. These are the Deutsche Bahn sleeper cars. With the NachtZug, I think my collection is complete, although getting the TGV Thalys train would be the icing on the cake. Unfortunately the TGV Thalys made by Kato is discontinued. I'd be happy if Minitrix would release an S-bahn train set with red and white color scheme. Overall, I'm pretty stoked with what I have. I think it works well with the white architectural model. Although I will have to spray paint the cork bed white or gray to reduce the contrast. It would be interesting to see how the model would look with Era III steam trains.
I also picked up some more supplies from PM Hobbycraft. I'm hoping to work on the jig for my arched truss structure this coming Xmas break. I still need to find some smaller clamps to hold down the plastic. The pinch clamps I picked up from Canadian Tire were great for holding the larger pieces together when I built the platforms, but now I need greater precision working with smaller pieces that compose the rooftop.

More lessons learned

In my desire to see how the trusses would turn out, I hurried the assembly of the prototype without the use of a jig. So I placed a printout of the truss on a piece of hardwood and clamped the pieces together using the printout as a guide and applied the solvent. What I discovered was that laserjet toner runs when it comes in contact with the solvent. Since I had clamped the pieces against the printout, it resulted in the other side of my truss turning black. So a jig is a definite must. However, I might consider trying to see if acetate is stable when in contact with the solvent. If so, I could create a printout on clear acetate and simply have the printed side facing down so the toner never comes in contact with the solvent. I don't think it will work as the acetate is probably some form of a hydro carbon just like the toner.

Another lesson was that it isn't necessary to score the styrene clear through the other side. In fact, that's absolutely not what you want to do because it will cause the edges to form a raised lip on the side where you score. This was definitely contrary to what I had expected to happen. I guess styrene has different properties than wood. After several attempts, I discovered scoring the styrene by a sub millimetre trench with the exacto knife was more than adequate. You just have to be patient when bending the styrene plastic so it will create a clean straight edge. Apply steady and constant pressure on the opposite side of the scored line until the plastic breaks away.

Lastly, the initial platform was created by cutting the styrene into 2" strips and gluing them together to form a longer strip. A problem can arise if not all the strips are exactly 2" wide. You have to sand the edges where the pieces connect to remove any obvious bumps. I discovered it was easier to glue three styrene sheets end to end and then cut out a 2" wide strip. This made for less sanding and cleaner looking edges.

Experimenting

I haven't got around to making the jig/template yet. Instead, I wanted to experiment with the 1.5mm square strips to see if they'll work be better than the smaller strips. I also wanted to see if this truss structure will work. I think it will, but it's going to take a long time to build all the arches. I calculate 70 across track trusses, 60 along track trusses and 90 diagonal trusses will be required. At one a night, it's going to take a long long LONG time to finish the platform module.

Slight revision

I think I've settled on the design for the rooftop structure. Instead of the 1mm square strips, I'm leaning towards 1.5mm square strips for greater rigidity. There seems to be some plasticity to the styrene to allow me to bend the thicker plastic to the desired shape. The only concern is possible twisting.

Arched roof top

I finished the final platform last night and picked up some more styrene from the hobby store today for the truss structure. It'll be employed for the arched roof top. However, I'm still working out the design. The above diagram is my first attempt. I used a program called Inkscape to design it. Just click on the link. It's an open source program free for download. My concern with the design is whether the curved part will hold rigid enough to retain its shape. I may need to experiment with it to see what will work best. I went with square 1mm x 1mm styrene strips. It was the smallest I could get that I thought could withstand the level of flexing required for the structure. I also had to consider durability. Anything smaller and it would be prone to breaking. I definitely want something that can take some physical abuse requiring minimal maintenance. But it also has to be easy to work with otherwise I'll be cursing all winter building this thing.

Arrived in the post

Sweet! My package finally arrived from Eurorail Hobbies today. My portals. The viaducts. And more importantly, the station announcer. The device is activated by a photo sensitive device, which is triggered when trains arrive or depart the station. However, it's quite large so now I'm trying to figure out how to install it so it's not visible yet still stay audible. I'll probably have to position the photosensitive device into one of the platforms and run wires into the station building. It's the only structure large enough to house the speaker. I didn't like the background noise. I was hoping the sound quality was a lot cleaner. I wonder if I can electronically replicate the bing bong?

Trains on the brain

Okay, this is bad. I was sitting at the bus stop thinking of how to build the jig for my roof top truss structure. I'm getting close to starting the roof as I'm nearly finished the last platform. It seems like every waking moment, my mind is on the model train layout. Hopefully this is a temporary phenomenon and I'll pursue other interests. However, I must admit that designing has given me a wonderful outlet for the creative side of my brain. My dreams have become more frequent and wild. Unfortunately I don't ever remember my dreams when I wake in the morning. Speaking of dreams, it was always a desire of mine to be an architect when I was younger. I guess all this modeling is giving me an opportunity to pursue this passion. I admit that the idea of building a model of my own town is very appealing.

By the way, my order from Eurorail Hobbies has been shipped. I'm so excited. In that order are a bunch of ICE portals, viaducts and a station voice announcer. I came across it on the website. It was only twenty bucks. I'm hoping the audio quality is good enough that I can incorporate it into my layout. I'm also hoping the announcements are spoken in German. That would be icing on the cake.