James River Branch: News Archive

Website News Archive: September 2007

30 September 2007

The new James River Branch layout has undergone its first major design revision. As I've learned from years of designing layouts, what emerges in three dimensions is not always what was drafted on paper. Sometimes the changes are subtle; other times they are radical.

This change is not all that radical. I eliminated one of the two sidings—and thankfully, the one I had to drop was not the coal trestle! The problems cropped up as I was starting to lay the track in this area. By the time I had all of the ties in place, I knew I was in trouble.

First, everything wound up way too tight. This was a result of drafting the plans using only track centerlines, instead of drawing parallel lines indicating the width of the track. The turnouts would have had to be extremely short—number four or even shorter—and the crossing frogs would have almost merged with the turnout frogs. It was doable, but not something I'd want to attempt for the first time in Z scale using .015 x .025 wire for rail!

Second, a problem emerged from my not having properly perceived part of the topography while working on a flat plan. The coal trestle would have ended so close to the river that the road running between them would have straddled a 45-foot vertical difference. Tiers of retaining walls did not seem like a realistic solution, but doing away with the road was not an option, either. Something had to give.

I've been through this sort of thing many times before, and this one was a relatively simple fix. I simply eliminated the freight siding, and relocated the coal trestle further away from the river. Several benefits emerged as a result of this change, one of them being that the coal trestle is now closer to the layout edge and thus easier to see. Other benefits are fairly obvious: one less turnout to build, and no crossing to worry about (even though I was genuinely looking forward to having a go at them; there may be another opportunity for that challenge again one day).

This was also an interesting test of the construction techniques I'd chosen for this layout. As it happens, it was fairly easy to revise the styrene roadbed, cutting away unneeded portions with flush cutters and making parts to fill in new areas. Two foamcore risers were no longer needed and were easily pulled off of the base, and a new one was inserted with no difficulty.

In the end, I was quite pleased with how the revisions went. Meanwhile, all of the sectional track is down, and I am just about ready to start soldering rail in place for the handlaid sections. The only thing I need to do in order to proceed is to install the deck bridge, and this means having to make abutments.

25 September 2007

I'm sure many of the "regulars" have been wondering what I've been up to all this time—it's been over three months since the last update. Well, you already saw some big hints the instant you arrived at the home page: no more Pennsylvania Railroad. Now it's the Reading! And what's this about "Construction of this version of the layout..."? What is that thing in the photograph? What is going on?

Well, the James River Branch is now a whole new layout. Everything that's been done up to now is gone and is being completely rebuilt. I can hear the chorus of "Why?!" from the readers loud and clear. You can read all of the whys and wherefores starting with an all-new chapter, False Start.

It was a longer and more tedious change than anticipated. The decision to start over was made on 5 July, whereas construction on the new version did not get under way until around 15 September. What was going on in between? In a word, almost nothing. From the moment I started ordering new supplies, problems loomed at every turn.

For starters, an order for new track took over two months to arrive! I'd ordered it from a reliable vendor in Canada, but for reasons unknown, the Canadian postal service returned the shipment to them after it sat someplace for almost six weeks. When the track finally did arrive, I found that, of the three items I'd ordered, I hadn't ordered enough of one, and ordered the wrong version of another.

Meanwhile, I'd ordered some sheet styrene from a professional plastics supplier that normally ships the next day. But the person who usually handled website orders was on vacation, and their stand-in lost my order. It took several phone calls to straighten out that mess. After a while, I was beginning to feel as if the project was jinxed, or that the Universe didn't want me to do it. But now things are finally on the move, and visitors can expect to see more regular progress reports once again.

While the layout itself languished, I kept fairly busy working on various structure projects. Look for an expanded series on Franklin's. By the way, the layout "reboot" has also resulted in a complete website overhaul. As a consequence, some of the internal links may be a little flakey—bear with me as I re-engineer everything.

13 September 2007

Two new online resources have been spawned from the James River Branch website: First, American Z Scale is a database of links to American-prototype Z scale model railroading products and information. Then, inspired by my new N Scale blog, 1:160, I now have a Z Scale blog, 1:220. The idea behind all of this shuffling is to allow each website to serve an individual purpose, and not be diluted by too many functions: American Z Scale becomes a stand-alone information resource; 1:220 is a stream-of-consciousness commentary on the world of Z Scale; and the original James River Branch gets to focus on my layout construction.