Setting up the ESU-V decoders in the new Atlas RS-3's

The onboarding process with the third (renumbered) Atlas/ESU V BN RS-3 got a little involved, when I decided to try using some of the advanced features of their new LokSound ESU-V decoders. I had already standardized on using F9 for "brake", but the ESU-V's have three different braking rates, called, cleverly, "Brake 1", "Brake 2" and "Brake 3". After some experiments, I decided to go with Brake 1 (CV179=200) mapped to my usual F9, Brake 2 (CV180=220) mapped to F10, and Brake 3 (CV181=240) mapped to F11. While I was at it, just for kicks, I mapped "drive hold" to F12. All of this is "ok", but not ideal, because functions above F9 are only available by double clicks on most of my NCE throttles. I use F9 for the brake mainly because it is in the lower left-hand corner of the throttle face, and easy to find when you're in a hurry to apply brakes to a moving locomotive.

I mainly use the LokProgrammer to set the CV's in ESU LokSound decoders, but I've heard that the JMRI interface is getting good enough to do this without using the LokProgrammer. It would be more convenient to use JMRI, because then my locomotive roster would all be on one computer, and accessible during op sessions by WiThrottles, among other advantages. I got into this hobby to run trains, not to become an electronics and database technician.

Once I had the three locomotives programmed with the three braking rates, mapped to F9, 10 and 11, I took them down and tested them on the layout. At first it seemed ok, but then once in a while, each locomotive, for no obvious reason, would randomly (and independently) come to a stop and wait about 13 seconds before resuming speed. The sound continued to be on, so it didn't seem like it was related to dirty wheels or track (although I did clean the wheels again just to make sure).

I didn't know what to do. I poured over the LokProgrammer windows, looking for ideas. I made sure all the DC modes and functions were turned off (since this is a DCC layout), in case the decoders were getting erroneous voltage spikes. Suddenly, about two hours into the hunt, I came across a section at the bottom of the "function settings" window in the LokProgrammer, where there was a section on "random functions". It turns out that the ESU V decoders come from the factory with a default setting which, when you press F11, causes the locomotive to randomly come to a stop in the middle of running! Since I had remapped F11 to be "Brake 3", as soon as I tested Brake 3 by pressing F11, the locomotive would thereafter be subject to random stoppages!

Can you imagine such a thing?! Shipping a new decoder to customers with a function activated by default which would cause the locomotive to randomly stop?! Someone back in ESU headquarters apparently thinks they're very clever. I think they owe me two hours. This is what is meant by "the learning curve". Sure, I was messing with their plans by remapping F11 to Brake 3. I get that. I should have spent another two hours studying the manual before doing it.

That said, the three locomotives are now running beautifully together in a lash-up. First generation Alco's are still alive and well, here on the Burrlington Northern in 1973.

renumbering a new Atlas BN RS-3

I obtained a second copy of the new Atlas RS-3 factory lettered as BN #1982, so I decided to renumber it to #4072. Mission accomplished, using Microscale 87-25 and 90051 decals from my decal box, Micro Set and Micro Sol solutions, water, a small #00 brush, Xacto knife, a shaved toothpick (to remove bits of the old numbers) and a piece of paper towel. Mission accomplished:

The good news is, this was a real BN loco number during the era I model (1973-76), and it ran long hood forward. The bad news is, I just looked online and discovered that they didn't repaint this from the original SP&S paint until the very end, if at all. So, I have a good loco number but the wrong paint scheme on the body. This is what comes of acting too fast without doing your research first. Of course, many of the details are wrong also, such as number boards, horns, lack of rotating beacon, etc. We will address that another time. For now, "all I have to do" is go through the "onboarding" process described in my last blog, on this loco. Cheers!

onboarding the new Atlas HO RS-3's

This week, I "onboarded" two Atlas HO Alco RS-3 locomotives in BN paint. They are good looking and running additions to the roster for my layout's 1973-ish era. You can see them here in action on YouTube. The onboarding process for a "ready to run" locomotive involves these steps:

1. Carefully taking it out of the box, which in this case involves unscrewing it from the bottom and replacing the screw holes under the loco fuel tank with special plugs provided in a plastic bag within the box. (which need to be cut from the sprue using an xacto knife or flush-cutting pliers) (5 min)
2. Placing it on the track and seeing if, and how, it works. Sounds, lights, movement. (5 min)
3. Put some alcohol (iso or eth) on a paper towel, and clean the wheels by running it at full speed while holding one of the trucks on top of the wet paper towel on the rails. This also confirms that both trucks are picking up power, which you want to know. (5 min)
4. Run it at full throttle for about ten minutes in each direction, to "set the gears" (break it in). (20 min)
5. (optional) Clean the wheels again, now that you've picked up whatever dirt was on the mainline track since you ran trains last. (3 min)
6. Placing it in a cradle and replacing the couplers with KD #58 "scale head, center set, medium shank, whisker" couplers. (15 min)
7. Putting it back on the track and checking if the coupler height is ok, and if the trip pin needs to be bent. (2 min)
8. Opening a jar of "light india ink wash" (india ink diluted in lots of alcohol) and using a soft brush to cover the body and trucks with it. This somewhat dulls the sheen of new paint and brings out all the joints and details in the model, and dries quickly. (8 min)
9. Taking it upstairs to my office and putting it on the test track, opening up the LokProgrammer app on my computer, and adjusting a variety of CV's in the LokSound ESU 5 decoder (which has 2000 user-adjustable CV's - don't get me started on that topic!) (10-60 min)
10. Taking it back downstairs and testing to see if it still works ok. It may not, which may involve several more trips up and down stairs to get everything adjusted right. If I'm doing a lot of locomotives at one time I'll take the computer and test track downstairs to make the iterations easier. But climbing stairs is good exercise, too. (0-60 min)
11. Getting out the pan pastels and dusting it all up with some off-white to bring out the handrails and truck side frames, followed by some rust applied to the couplers, truck springs, exhaust stacks and radiator and fan grilles. I try to do this weathering before the final speed-matching step, to make sure that I resolve any electrical pickup issues that all that chalk flying around might cause. (10 min)
12. Getting out the speedometer and putting the loco back on the track. Setting the max and mid speed CV's 5 and 6 to give the same speed performance as your other locos. In my case, I'm using a top speed of 30 mph and a mid speed of 15 mph, which on these locos equates to CV5=88 and CV6=44. (It's good to do this later in the process, because you need to break the loco in at the higher speeds that it runs at, right out of the box.) (15 min)
13. Getting out a different locomotive, and seeing if the braking rates match. They usually do, if you set them consistently, but in this case I found I had to increase the "brake 1" braking rate to CV179=200 in order to be consistent with my other locos. Most of my other locos are older SoundTraxx and LokSound decoders, so I'm still getting used to the new settings on the ESU 5. (5-30 min)
14. Writing out a new "loco card" for each new loco you are onboarding. I usually put the manufacturer of the loco and the decoder on the back side in ink, and then some of the main CV values in pencil, so I can adjust them later on the fly if needed. (3 min)
15. Going back upstairs and firing up my "Waybills" (Shenware Software) program on my Mac (using a PC emulator program called "Parallels", which I also used to run the PC-only LokProgrammer software) and printing out a "DCC functions" card to insert into the loco card. This tells an operator what will happen when they push each of the function buttons on the throttles. Since different decoders and locos (and layout owners) have different functions, this is necessary. In my case, I use F9 for brakes and F7 for dimming. (10 min)
16. Going downstairs, inserting the DCC functions card in the loco card, and placing the loco card in the waybill box associated with the track that the loco is sitting on. We are now ready to run trains.

These two Alco's are very beautiful and smooth-running locomotives which I am very pleased to welcome to the fleet. #4082 is a duplicate (and significant upgrade) of the very first Atlas - Kato drive DC locomotive that I ever purchased, back in 1984, which was so smooth-running at the time that I re-discovered my love for switching cars, and decided to switch (no pun intended) back to HO from N scale, which I had been modeling in for about ten years before. That switch to HO in 1984, caused by this Atlas-Kato loco, was the start of a 35 year project to build the present Burrlington Northern layout that is the main subject of this blog. Here's a picture of that original loco, now displayed fondly in one of my display cases for "extra" equipment.

I never got around to weathering it, and you can see that the shade of paint is wrong. But it was probably cast in the same basic mold. I did put a basic NCE DASR decoder in it, so it did used to run on the layout, at least.

But, back to the subject at hand, onboarding a new locomotive is a complicated sub-hobby in itself. It took me about 4 hours to onboard these two RS-3's, which is typical. But much less than if I had to build the models from scratch, paint and decal them, etc! Still, however, there are a number of steps that I didn't do and would like to:

1. In my era these locos should have yellow rotating beacons operating on top of their cabs. This would involve taking the shell off, finding the correct size yellow LED, soldering the correct resistor to one of the leads, drilling the correct size hole in the correct place, using the correct glue to put it at the correct height, adding some leads to the LED, soldering those leads to the correct pad on the decoder (if there is one!), programming the decoder to flash the rotating beacon at the correct rate, testing it, putting the shell back on, and testing it again. What am I waiting for? (60-120 min)
2. You can see from the first picture above that the finish is still too shiny. Fixing this involves spray painting with a flat finish, which involves masking the windows. In future years I look forward to having the discipline to include this key step in my normal onboarding process. (30-60 min)
3. Painting the wheels a rusty steel color. This involves either removing the truck side frames or applying paint in from the side while the loco is running. (20 min)
4. Crew. There could be an engineer in the cab and a brakeman on one of the pilot decks. I do this as much as I can on switch engines, but it would look good on these locos too. Pre-painted figures wouldn't take long, but you could also custom-build people in certain poses and clothing and skin colors. (5-60 min)
5. More weathering. Various vents, oil drippings, white fading below the lettering, rust spots on the fuel tank and elsewhere, wheel splash markings on both ends, etc. (30-60 min)
6. Research and detailing. It would be fun to find pictures of these specific locomotives and to see what details are missing from the model that could be added. For example, BN 4082 was originally a Northern Pacific unit set up to run short hood forward, so the white reflector stripes should be on the opposite end. (10-200 min)

There you have it - what it takes to onboard a "ready to run" locomotive after you buy it. How you buy it is a whole different subject - the "purchasing department" of your railroad. That, too, has been changing over the years, and is both more complicated and easier than it used to be - a subject for another day.

switching large vs. small customers

I just had a long and illuminating conversation with Joe Green about his operating scheme for the large plants on his layout, and learned so much from him that I had to write a post about it. The photo above, which shows (out of focus) the three tracks representing the Scott Paper Co (just above the Roadway trailer) on my HO layout, will be referred to as we move through the subject. The main ideas are: (1) "constructively placed" vs. "off-spot" cars, (2) "open-gate" vs. "closed-gate" customers, (3) car orders vs. waybills, (4) the (sometimes conflicting) purposes of yards, and (5) ways to apply all this to a layout's operating plan (or, how to compromise between prototype and model practices so everyone has fun). I am no expert on any of this - these are just musings from a conversation between two model railroaders striving for "continuous improvement."

(1) Constructively placed vs. off-spot: If a railroad owns a car, it wants to use it as many times per year as possible, to generate a return on its investment. If a shipper has an inbound or outbound commodity, it wants to minimize the carrying costs associated with it. "Demurrage charges" developed so that railroads could charge shippers a fee for the use of a delivered car as a storage container, beyond a certain reasonable amount of free time (grace period) for loading or unloading it. This is fine if you have a small factory with a loading dock - the clock starts running on your grace period the moment the car is spotted at your loading dock. If for some reason the crew is unable to spot the car where you can get at it, it hasn't arrived yet, for your purposes, and is considered "off-spot," if it is on a nearby track but you don't have access to it yet.

But what about a situation where you are a larger factory, and you absolutely must have a certain number of cars per day shipped in and out in order to maintain full production, which is vital to your profitability? Are you willing to pay demurrage fees on cars that remain on nearby tracks (or yards) staged and waiting for your factory's "just-in-time" need? If the answer is yes, then those nearby cars would be considered "constructively placed", and the clock starts ticking on your grace period and demurrage charges. When the factory calls the railroad and says "we're ready for that car, bring it in (or take it out)!" the switcher gets over there (within a negotiated period of time) and spots it at the right spot.

So, in summary, it seems that the costs of holding an "off-spot" car belong to the (a) railroad, whereas the costs of holding a "constructively placed" car belong to the shipper/receiver (consignee, but don't get me started on all those other confusing terms and issues about who is paying the shipping charges).

(2) Open-gate vs. closed-gate customers: As I understand it, these terms are (CSX) railroad shorthand for some of the long-winded discussion above. For an open-gate customer, as soon as you deliver a car to their factory, you are done and the clock starts ticking on demurrage charges. If you park it at the wrong door, or on the wrong track, you made a mistake and it is "off-spot". If you can't get it to the right spot, because the track is full (or some other reason), you park the car somewhere nearby and hope you can get it in there tomorrow. It is still "in transit" and the clock hasn't started on demurrage charges, even though the car is right across the street from the intended receiver. For a closed-gate customer, a car being held nearby is "constructively placed" anywhere it is handy enough to be delivered to the factory as soon as the railroad gets the call that it's needed. The factory is willingly paying the demurrage charges in return for the assurance that it has what it needs "almost" on hand.

But Joe points out that there are really two "railroads" involved here - the one doing the delivering and the one owning the car. The latter is receiving the demurrage charges, and the former, well that probably depends on the specific agreement between the railroad and the customer. I just don't know enough about all this yet, clearly.

(3) Car orders vs. waybills: You can probably see where this is going. For a closed-gate customer, you can't deliver a car to the factory until they ask for it (I'm calling that a car order, but maybe they would just call it a phone call). If you have cars in the local yard with waybills billed to that factory, you have to hold them in the yard until instructed to deliver them. Once they have arrived in your yard, they are "constructively placed" and you have no choice but to store them (but at least you are making money off them). For an open-gate customer, if the waybill says take it there, you take it there ASAP, and if you have to park it nearby, it is "off-spot" and you will keep trying to deliver it every chance you get.

(4) The conflicting purposes of yards: On the prototype, some yards are meant to break down, classify, and build trains as they come and go. Other yards are meant to support nearby industries, serving both to help the local switchers sort cars and as a place to store cars which are either constructively placed or off-spot. But in model railroad situations, things are rarely that clear-cut. We end up with yards that are doing some of both. We surround our main yards with industries. And we never have enough track, especially not for storing extra cars that are not in motion.

(5) Ways to apply this to model operations: The popularity of model railroad operations is growing and evolving with each year and each modeler that gets involved. In my case, I started out thinking that if I had a car card with a waybill saying take this car to that factory, it was straightforward: (1) put the car in a train going the right direction, (2) take it out of the train at the nearest yard and give it to a switcher to deliver to the customer, and (3) deliver the thing to the customer, placing the car card/waybill in the corresponding box for that track. Job well done (although it might take three (or more) operating sessions for it to finally get there). Same thing for the reverse situation. And if there is no room for it at the customer's track, park it somewhere nearby and call it "off-spot". Some layouts are handling this by having a divider in the waybill box for each track labeled "off-spot", so you can see right away which cars on that track are supposed to be there and which are just temporarily parked there. So far so good. But, what about larger industries, like paper mills?

Here's a specific example: In/near Everett's Bayside yard (shown at the top of this blog post) I have three tracks with a total capacity of about 12 cars representing the massive Scott Paper Co. factory on the waterfront there. One of the Bayside yardmaster's job during their shift is to pull all cars out of there, and replace them with whatever comes in billed to Scott Paper. Sometimes they are so busy they never get to it at all. Sometimes they pull everything right away, and nothing comes in, so at the end of the session the plant tracks are empty. And sometimes they stuff the plant to the gills and there are still 6 cars in the yard billed to Scott Paper with no place to put them (we now know these have been "constructively placed" in Bayside yard). In several of these scenarios the plant would have been forced to shut down (totally unacceptable customer service!) and in others the yard is plugged up and not functioning well:

It seems like what we need is some sort of instruction to the Bayside yardmaster saying that "whatever you do, make sure you deliver 5 loaded woodchip cars, 3 empty boxcars and 2 tank cars to the Scott Paper Co. by the end of the session. Store anything else that comes in for Scott on your spare tracks in the yard, for next time. This way, at the next session, the next yardmaster can deliver these "constructively placed" cars to Scott right away, clearing up his yard, and then hoping the rest dribbles in from incoming trains during the session. The same sort of thing could be done for other major shippers on the railroad, such as the planned Bethlehem Steel plant in West Seattle. Now we know we can call them "closed-gate" customers. The rest of the smaller shippers, we can keep just using waybills to deliver cars to them, setting the cars "off-spot" nearby as situations warrant.

I seem to remember operating sessions somewhere (was it Al Frasch's?) where, when you started working in a town, you would find specific instructions about how to switch a certain factory, right there in the waybill box. I'm used to the idea of a "train instruction card" and a "car card/waybill" to explain the work I'm supposed to be doing, but now we are talking about adding a "switching agreement card"  in the car card box (or on the fascia) that would make it clear how a specific shipper is expecting me to meet their needs. I'm going to go back and review past issues of the OPSIG's magazine "The Dispatcher's Office" and see if this has already been written up, and I just wasn't ready to understand it yet.

Finally, there's the question of how many times in an operating session do you need to switch a particular customer. If the plant is big enough, we could do like Joe Green does with his pulp and paper mill, and have two operating shifts work the mill switcher job during a single operating session, to make sure the customer's needs are met, and the mill stays in operation 24/7. On my layout's paper mill, my three tracks aren't big enough to justify that. On his layout, it makes sense:

After all, in all the fun of operating a model railroad, you wouldn't want to be responsible for shutting down the regional production of airplanes, lumber, steel rebar, or toilet paper, now, would you?

copying prototype consists

One of my favorite "sub-hobbies" in model railroading is replicating a particular photo of a real train on the model layout. For me, it's not a planned activity, it's more of an urge that I give in to when the following conditions are present:

(1) someone posts or publishes a photo of a real train in my era (1970's) and location (western WA).
(2) I see the photo (this could be on Facebook or in a magazine such as FOBNR or MRHA).
(3) I realize that I have the same or similar equipment on my layout as in the photo
(4) I don't have a pressing deadline keeping me from acting on the urge to replicate the photo in HO.
(5) the urge to do it is stronger than the discipline to stay focused on building my layout.

These conditions being met, some focused fiddling around with locos and cars and camera(s) can turn into a photo of an HO copy of a prototype locomotive and/or train consist and/or full-on scene. If you work at this hard enough, on a large enough scene, there is even a certificate you can earn in the NMRA's Achievement Program (AP), but that's a story for another time. Today is about yesterday (irony intended).

So, on Sunday 24 May 2020, Brian Elchlepp posted on Facebook three great shots he had taken of a late 1970's BN consist moving southbound through what looks to be Stacy St. yard in Seattle. The consist was unusual - an Alco C-425 on the point, with three back-facing F units. All the conditions listed above were present, and I rushed downstairs to get to work replicating two of these photos.

I didn't get the camera angle quite right, but it sure was fun trying. The hardest part was finding my BN C425 Alco unit. I knew it was somewhere. Eventually, I found it under the layout in a tray, half-way through a decoder installation that I had long forgotten about. This explains why it has no headlight or number boards. However, it is numbered 4258, close enough to the 4260 of the prototype photo. The F units, I didn't pay as much attention to, but it turns out the first F unit in my photo is #826 - a perfect match for the second F unit in the prototype consist. At least I got them all pointed in the correct direction!

I also enjoy trying to match the cars as well as the locomotives, so you can see I took a stab at that. The hardest part about it, on an operating layout like mine, is keeping track of where you grab the specific car from, so you can put it back where it came from after the photo shoot. Those bright yellow Railbox cars are some of my favorites, but they weren't built until 1976, and I supposedly model 1973, so I get a little squishy with time frame sometimes. The most illuminating part is how much more weathered the prototype cars are than the models. When I finish a few more minor track changes on the layout, I'll get back to weathering more of the cars. I've been saying this for at least ten years, and keep discovering more "minor track changes" that I "need" to do.

The sheen and brightness of the model locos is appalling, but this is how we learn. Not to mention the sheen on the backdrop. Interesting! Who knew?

I didn't try replicating Brian's third photo, because I was annoyed that my model didn't (yet) have number boards or rotating beacon (plus, look at the cool rust spot on the side!), but I'm including it here just to celebrate the Alco C-425's that BN ran for its first ten years. Built in the '60's, they had served the SP&S well, and continued to show up here in the Seattle area during the '70's.

stabilizing videos using a hand-held gimbal

I recently purchased an OSMO Mobile 3 hand-held cellphone holder for shooting videos more steadily. The first video I made using it is posted on YouTube here. I'm not sure how it works, but it has battery powered coreless motors that keep the cellphone steady while you are moving around, say, the train layout following a train. It also has software that takes over your cellphone's camera and uses artificial intelligence to lock onto and track moving targets at your command. This can be nice for following specific moving or stationary features as you move around.

The main thing it accomplishes (in addition to giving you another maddening technology-related learning curve to climb up) is to slow you down while you are taking video, so the result is less jerky. I tend to take video like a jack-rabbit: Look at this, oh, now see how it's going over the bridge, oh, look at that grade crossing we need to blow for. As soon as I think of something you might like to see, I shift the camera over in that direction right away. This leads to headaches and dizziness on the part of the viewer. The Gimbal device forces you to shift your viewing angle gradually. I'm finding it to be a learned skill that I can only hope I will acquire with more use.

The reason I got into this was the proliferation of Zoom meetings that are replacing live model railroad gatherings and open houses. The thought was that giving a live layout tour would be better if a gimbal was coming in between me and my cellphone. We will see. If you look at my first effort, on my YouTube channel (linked above), you will find it, frankly, boring. Adding more plot and excitement are my next goals.

One more technical point - the OSMO takes over the cellphone's camera software to allow you to use the cool auto-tracking artificial intelligence features, use a zoom button, etc. But when you log into a Zoom meeting with your cellphone, Zoom also takes over and disables most of what your cellphone camera can do. This means that if you use an OSMO to steady your cellphone while doing a live layout tour in a Zoom meeting, all it will be doing is help steady your hand. None of the other features will work. If you want to use the other features, you have to shoot video clips, and edit them into a movie, and then post that on YouTube or run it on your computer while logged into the Zoom meeting. There also is some debate at these Zoom meetings about how effective it is or is not to show streaming video on your computer to a streaming Zoom audience - it is basically double-streaming. Which may not be that great for resolution or refresh rate. We are all learning as we go, how to share our model railroading hobby with each other during the Covid pandemic.

giving each track a "purpose"

Running trains is more fun if it seems to "matter" to somebody. And I like to have fun as quickly as possible in between spurts of construction. I recently completed one such spurt of construction on my (4' x 8') N scale layout, increasing the number of spur tracks from 8 to about 20. So here are a few pictures of quick and dirty things I came up with to make it more fun to operate now, while I wait for the time later to build more "meaningful" models and scenery around those new spur tracks.

The piece of cardboard above is simply cut, folded and taped to represent a future model of the Bethlehem Steel (now Nucor) in West Seattle. Instead of three random tracks in a yard, I now have a track for inbound scrap, a second one for outbound product (rebar, in this case), and the outside track for various additives and waste materials from this busy Electric Arc Furnace. (I know, the boxcars should be gons - I'm working with JMRI ops to get that fixed...).

I haven't finished assembling these tank kits I started in the '70's, but hey, stick two tracks next to a couple of tanks and you have a major oil terminal. These loaded tank cars need to be shipped out!

In theory this nice sloped hillside should be covered with trees, but I love the look of the Atlas 40' log bunks so much, and didn't have room for a proper log camp. Then I thought of the term "visible staging", and realized the hillside would work. Sure, it messes with the scenic integrity of the whole layout, but on the other hand, now I have a place for those beautiful log loads to come from. And it looks good nestled next to the trestle like that. Plus, the sawmill that needs the logs (which there also isn't room for)(see the weird-looking building behind the tank farm in the photos prior) is only 2 feet away, so I can easily re-stage the loads after every run.

Who doesn't like to see construction equipment being shipped on heavy-duty flatcars? I'm calling this track "construction contractor" until I come up with a better name, but doesn't it just seem begging for the delivery of another shipment of construction equipment so they can get on with the job? (social distancing requirements notwithstanding...). I'm not sure what all that stuff is, but it looks like it means some serious business. It would be good to put up an office and some chain-link fence, but for now we can definitely switch some cars in there!

This 50 year old engine house is obviously no place for these C44-9W's, but hey, it looks better than having them stand out in the rain! Plus, I also have a weak spot for short coal hoppers, and the smokestack on the engine house is clearly for coal-burning of some kind - for the blacksmith shop if nothing else. Note the effectiveness of parking a few cars next to it, also. The stegosaurus has wandered here from John Allen's layout, and, along with the blacksmith shop, is one of the few remaining coal-consuming dinosaurs left in the global economy.

This track with the station next to it comes out of the "Burlington yard" north of Everett, WA, and becomes the "Concrete Branch" up to the "logging camp" staging track on the hillside I showed a few pictures back. This is also a classic old N scale "freight station" kit, labeled "Adams Heights". If you've ever driven through the real Burlington, WA, on Interstate 5, you've no doubt noticed the house built out on stilts above the freeway. I thought, "why not prop up this station on stilts, and call it an intermediate town on the Concrete Branch, say "Sedro-Woolley", or "Hamilton"? Why not? Then it could receive (or ship) carloads of something and complicate the work of getting those log cars out of staging further up the line. This is an operational no-brainer!

Finally, and what started all this, was the pulp and paper mill in Everett. It will be a while before I build the real model, but in the meantime, how to make it look like it needs to be switched? Here are a couple of things I've done so far:

Pulpwood is needed for making pulp, so here I just parked my inventory of pulpwood loads next to the track, and it looks like a pile of pulpwood all right. I need to find a piece of unloading equipment and this scene will work for years.

I'm not sure which building kit this came from, but doesn't it look like a guard shack with the car parked next to it like that? I know, I need to paint and ballast the track and put road in for the car, but still you get the idea right away. The Micro-Trains tank load in the background works to show that that back track is where all the chemical additives are unloaded for the paper and pulp mill. (The ground throw on the right looks ridiculously out of scale, but that's a subject for another time. Hopefully your eye is more drawn to the guard shack and the auto.)

Finally, here's an overview shot of the paper and pulp mill. I added a short spur in the center to serve as both an engine pocket and a clean-out track. Whenever a switchlist calls for pick-ups or set-outs in the mill, I use the plant switcher to pull or spot from the mill tracks, and have the passing trains use the lead track in front to "interchange" cars with the plant, as you can see is being done here with the CN boxcar. This way the locals don't get bogged down with plant switching work, and the plant switcher can keep things organized.

I'm not sure where the baby on top of the pulp building came from originally. I may have had it since my own childhood. But it occurred to me that Scott Paper Co. in Everett used to have commercials about how soft their toilet paper was, featuring a cute baby, so I placed it there as a reminder about why we need pulp and paper mills, and always will....