Tour the Southern California Traction Club

The SCTC displayed it's HO trolley modules setup at the NMRA L.A. Division meet at the South Coast Botanical Garden in Palos Verdes CA a couple weeks ago. This is my first show with the club. I pretty much spent the entire time video taping the layout in action, amassing about an hours worth of video. I was able to distill that video down to about 8 minutes for your viewing pleasure:



The Southern California Traction Club modules feature spectacular cityscapes, fully detailed scenes, long mainline running, multiple trolleys operating from live overhead, and a whole lot more. So sit back and enjoy the ride. Yes sir! Enjoy the ride!

Dandy

Niles Project ~ Headlight and Retrievers

Apparently, in the early days of trolleys, headlights were not standard equipment.

Since nighttime photographs were difficult and therefore rare, no photographs in my collection depict any of the Niles cars with headlights. For years I figured that either the cars didn't run at night, or they ran without headlights. But studying my collection closer reveals:

1. A bracket. And some wear and tear just above it. It could very well have been a headlight bracket and that it was often used.

2. A builders illustration including a headlight. It also depicts how the headlight sits low and rests on the front bumper (?).

3. Historical conformation of just such an arrangement. Pacific Electric 1001, which still exists today, sports a same sort headlamp. It fits onto a braket and you can see how a cord extends from it and has to be plugged in.

Precision Scale Co. Incandescent Headlamp For Interurban Cars #31004 seems to fit the bill quite nicely. The sprue on the back has to be cut off and then I filed the back for a good fit on the car. While I'm at it, I'll add the retriever fabricated from a 3/64" brass rod.

So now we are good to go with some night time running. Yes sir! We're good to go!

Dandy

Niles Project ~ Running Cost Tally

Model Railroading can get expensive. I'm going to try to keep a running tally of how much it costs me to rebuild these Niles cars. But don't blame me if I don't follow through with this. I mean, if I buy a 1 oz bottle of paint and use 50 drops of it, how do I tally that? The cost of the bottle? Or the cost of the amount used.

Suydam PE 414 & 1300 Niles Cars Rebuild Cost Tally

	#105 SD&SE combine	#107 SD&SE	#109 Point Loma RR	#110 Sightseeing
Original Car Purchase 1	$250.00	$250,00	$250.00	$250.00
Precision Scale Co. Incandescent Headlamp For Interurban Cars #31004	n/a	$3.50	$3.50	n/a
Total	$250.00	$253.50	$253.50	$250.00

Notes:

1. Today's (2009) going rate for these cars (some were purchased for more, some were purchased for less, but they averaged out to today's going rate).

Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Yes sir! Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching!

Dandy

Birney Project ~ Boom! Boom! Out go the lights!

Dammit! My worst fear has come to pass. I blew out all the light bulbs. F!

Deciding to take the plunge into the world of DCC, I managed to blow out all 10 light bulbs. I thought it was going to be a simple matter of replacing the Utah Pacific Constant Lighting Unit with a decoder. But no. Apparently a resistor is needed between the bulbs and decoder. The total rating of the bulbs have to be under 100 millowatts and how bright the lights shine depends on the resistor. The size resistor needed can be determined from the website of the manufacturer of the decoder, but not on the instructions that come with the decoder. I didn't know that so... pffft! Blown bulbs.

This disaster blew the wind out of my sails. I focused on other aspects of life for a while. Then, after a sufficient time of pouting, I'm back. Birney has been disassembled, blown bulbs ripped out, and new bulbs installed.

Sorry about the lack of posts for a while, but I'm back on track now. Yes sir! Back on track!

Dandy

Birney Project ~ Hold Down Hooks

Fabricating New Trolley Pole Hold Down Hooks For The Birney.

Trolley poles pointing downward is a bad thing. The hold down hooks are too short. So I'm going to fabricate some new hooks that are taller and more prototypically correct.

Using a cutoff disk on a Dremel, I cut off the old hooks.

Since the trolley poles are wired to the leads of the motor, the hooks need to conduct electricity from the brass body of the car to the pole. So I had to remove paint from where the hooks will be soldered to the car.

To fabricate the hold down hooks, I started with .010" x .030" brass bar stock folded in half.

Using a nail (I found a nail that was the same diameter of the old hook loop) I looped the brass around getting a nice curve by using pliers and a screwdriver to work the brass into shape.

Add a reverse curve in the brass so that the apex of the loop is in line with the main shaft of the hook. Solder only the loop, the reverse curve and part of the neck together.

Then bend the legs out and fold in the feet that will be soldered to the base. The hook assembly is now done.

Solder the hook assembly to the roof boards and trim the feet. Give it a tug to confirm a good connection. Now its time to paint the hooks and while I'm at it, I'm going to right a wrong...

Roof boards were never the same color as the roof. Roofs were usually of canvas or thin sheet metal, so you don't want to step on it or you'll fall right through or bend the heck out of it. So roof boards were installed so that workmen maintaining the cars could stand on the roof without damaging it. They were usually made of wood and were painted a contrasting color so the workmen could see where to step out of their peripheral vision. My hands are pretty steady, but not at this tiny scale. So I masked off around the boards.

Brushed on some Scalecoat Roof Brown on the boards and painted the hooks black. Some weathering will kill the shine on the boards.

Now that's more like it! The car looks much better and the horizontal poles are getting a much better electrical contact with the hooks now. Storing the car with poles on help keep the connection from oxidizing. Got to do everything you can to keep good electrical connections throughout if you want to keep them doggies rollin'. Yes sir! Keep them doggies rollin'!

Dandy

Niles Project ~ Turn the Seats Around

Turning The Seats on Suydams' Niles Cars So That They All Face Forward.

George Huckaby of the Southern California Traction Club picked up one of my Niles cars and said "You know what people never do with these cars is change the seats so that... oh! You did it! You changed the seats so they all face forward!"

Suydam, for whatever reason, positioned the seats so that they face the ends. Since my cars are going to be working cars, I want them all to face the same direction, like the real deal did.

The seats pop off easily with the pry of a knife. I found this out after spending a lot of time and butane trying to de-solder them. Everything else was coming unsoldered but the dang seats! Turns out they're glued on. So... yeah, pop them off with a knife.


Next, I soldered the seats back on so that they all face the same direction (though I could have epoxied them on, that would have been faster), being careful that the seats line up with the windows and clear the side wall of the shell.

So! Now that I have everyone facing forward, lets move forward, Yes sir! Let's move forward!

Dandy

Niles Project ~ Make that Four!

Another Niles Car Joins the Roster!

I came into possession of another Niles car. That makes four, two more and I'd have the entire SDERy roster of Niles cars (which I don't think I'll do)! Hollywood Foundry is going to make a mint off of me!

Car #110
Sight Seeing Car:

This car will be painted Chocolate Brown (Floquil Roof Brown is a ringer for this) with either silver or gold lettering (I got to find out which).

I'm excited about this purchase, but now I have a whole bunch more work ahead of me. Yes sir! A whole bunch of more work to do!

Dandy

3rd Dandyversary

Three years and smellin' strong!

Boomin' along here! It's been a good year for this blog. This blog is now attracting crowds averaging 4.12 people a day! (That .12 guy is okay but those other 4 guys scare me). The biggest draw? Well, according to Google analytics the #1 search term that lead people to this blog is... "bending wood". And to those people, I truly apologize. I'm not exactly an expert carpenter. Oh! And let me tell you about the revenue stream from ads... averaging .5 cents a day its not exactly a stream. More like the dry wash near my house. A tumble weed blows through occasionally. Yes sir! This blog is the envy of cyberspacemen everywhere.

But to you, my loyal followers, I hope that you do derive some sort of value from this train wreck of a blog. Even if you are laughing at me rather than with me. If your learning from the stupid mistakes I'm making here, then the world is a better place. I have made a difference.

In all truthfulness, I'm actually having a blast maintaining this blog (and my happiness is whats really important, right? Right). I find that feeding the ferocious appetite of this blog keeps me focused and moving forward on my projects. Which is good, cuz I've got a lot to do if I want to get anywhere near completing this layout to the ridiculous standards I have set for it.
In addition, the fact that, according to Google analytics, the second most common search term that lead people to this site is "painting brass" is encouraging. To those people. I hope you found what you were looking for. I hope to hit on more useful topics in the future.
Finally, ad revenue. I have a couple of ads here and there. I try to prevent them from being overpowering. Hopefully they will compliment the content and provide a link to materials related to my articles. The money from ad revenue (of which I have received ziltch to date) will be put back into this blog to make it bigger, better, stronger, more entertaining and useful. And maybe a swimming pool.
So rest assured that more good stuff is on the way, I don't intend on stopping any time soon. This next year is looking good, the Niles project is well underway and is going well. I have a YouTube account set up so that I can start adding videos to this blog. And I'm learning a ton from they guys at the Southern California Traction Club that I intend to share with you on this site. So here's to a great big beautiful tomorrow! Yes sir! A great big beautiful tomorrow.

Dandy