Trains @ Station Studios

The next completed piece of rolling stock on the Lost Hollow Railway is a Twin Mountains Model Works plantation boxcar. Once again, the kit is well-thought out and definitely easier to put together than the coach. The colour scheme:

• siding: Polly-S PRR Maroon, Rock Island Maroon
• wood: Floquil natural pine stain
• metal: Blacken-It

John Frank hosted a steamup at his house today. I did a lot of photography rather than running this time as my Regner Konrad has been having some troubles firing up. Thanks to John for hosting another great get together. The full photo set in available here on Flickr.

Here’s a favourite photo from ‘06.

Compiled by the LHR General Manager, B.J.Cott.

January 1: For a change of pace, I started work today on kitbashing my Regner Konrad. Photo set available here: “Regner Konrad Kitbash“.

January 2: Robin and I worked on the garden today, replanting a lot of the plants we had to remove to clean up the old garden. New photos in this set: “Rebuilding the Garden“.

January 16: I’ve been traveling a lot over the last couple of weekends so no progress on the Lost Hollow. We had the first big storm to hit our area in a while; it will be interesting to see if any earth moves around.

January 17: Received in the mail today, two Hartford Product log disconnect kits. Finally, we will have some rolling stock for the Lost Hollow. Also came across this most excellent article on MyLargeScale.com on figure building: I’m going to have try to build a few at some point.

February 2: Regner has a new locomotive out, one that looks a lot more North American: the Lumber Jack. Very cool. Haven’t been around much, so the layout has not progressed much.

February 4: Spent a couple of hours ballasting the track this afternoon. The improvement of the look of the railway is tremendous: no more white hardi-plank showing through everywhere. Need to buy some more flagstone before the ballasting is finished though.

February 5: Took the opportunity to run Engine No. 1 around the layout this morning to check on the quality of my ballasting. Had to adjust things in a few places but all in all everything was good. Finished the ballasting on all but the front section in the afternoon.

February 9: Despite having the two Hartford Product kits to work on this week, I spent the last couple of evenings building a scale figure. I’m pretty pleased with my first attempt.

February 10: I bit the bullet and disassembled Konrad today for repainting. I’m using Krylon semi-flat black to cover the orange and dark green on the outer surfaces. I also drilled and tapped holes for the new hex nuts to hold the rear coupler on. Now I just need to put it all back together properly!

February 11: Konrad is all back together. See the photo set available here: Regner Konrad Kitbash“.

February 21: Came across the Twin Mountain Model Works website yesterday. The small coach would be perfect for the Lost Hollow Railway.

March 11: Spring is coming to Houston so things are starting to grow rapidly in the garden. I’m clearly going to have to spend more time weeding over the next few months. I also ordered a coach kit from Twin Mountain Model Works. This now makes three kits I need to finish.

April 9: I got started on the Twin Mountains coach. The colour scheme will be Polly-S coach green with Polly-S beige highlights and Floquil maple stain everywhere else.

April 20: The coach is finished, which means I have finally have something to pull at the next steamup.

April 29: John Frank hosted the Spring 2006 Katy Steamup today. A photo set is available here.

May 20: Robin and I moved some more plants around and I reballasted a good portion of the line. This time I screened the decomposed granite ballast and used only 1/4″-minus material. I also harvested a good load of oregano, thyme and rosemary.

May 21: I started work today on the Hartford Products disconnects or “bobbers” as they are called on some logging outfits. Lots of drilling and distressing of the wood. I’ll use some old Floquil “Natural Pine” stain with a wash of Weather-It. Metal pieces will be darkened with Blacken-It.

May 27: I attended the Memorial Day Weekend Southwest Live Steamers/Houston Area Live Steamers meet at Zube Park in northwest Houston. Photo set available here.

June 10: I finally started back working on the disconnects today, after a few weekends off doing other things.

July 2: We’ve been traveling for a couple of weeks, and when we returned, we discovered the Lost Hollow has become seriously overgrown in several areas. A morning in the garden and things are back in order. I’m also trying to finish up work on the logging disconnects so that I can get back to other projects like some more figures and some buildings.

July 15: I’ve finally completed the logging disconnects to the point where they can be used. I haven’t yet put the brake gear on; it’s pretty fiddly work. Other than that, I’m pretty happy with the way they turned out.

August 20: Once again it’s been a while since I worked on the Lost Hollow; it’s just been too hot here over the last couple of months. However, after our weekly cutting of the lawn, Robin helped me weed the town end of the layout. The forest end has fared much better in terms of weeds. Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to run everything in September. I’m also looking at some more buildings.

Given the Lost Hollow Railway’s logging theme, some log hauling rolling stock would make a good start. I purchased two Hartford Product 1:20.3 narrow gauge logging disconnect kits. Disconnects were also known as “bobbers”.

Finescale Railroader’s March 2006 Issue has some excellent pictures of Michigan-California Lumber Company’s disconnects. I especially like the hand-painted car numbers and I will try to do something similar on the Lost Hollow Railway cars.

Here are a photo of the almost-completed bobbers:

The first completed piece of rolling stock on the Lost Hollow Railway is a Twin Mountains Model Works plantation coach. It is a very well-thought out kit; nice work on the laser cutting. Colour scheme:

• siding: Polly-S coach green
• trim: Polly-S SCL covered hopper beige
• wood: Floquil maple stain
• metal: Blacken-It

It definitely requires a “rooster” to hook it up to “Konrad”. A “rooster” was logging slang for a a piece of metal (3′ to 6′) used instead of a link in a link and pin coupler system. Here’s a picture of No. 2 behind Konrad.

I was really intrigued when I read Chris Walas’ articles on figure building  (chapters one, two and three) on MyLargeScale.com.  Here is an index into the key sections of Chris’s Chapter One: A Simple Figure:

• Material List for Sculpting a Simple Figure
• Building the Armature
• Roughing in the Body
• Pants
• Shirt
• Fingers
• Feet
• Head
• Hair
• Painting

Armed with all this good information, I started sculpting a figure: Engineer Bill.

He’s based on a photograph from the book "The Fossmill Story" and is designed to stand in the cab of my live steam Konrad engine. I found it much easier to get the proportions right working from a photograph. Here he is after painting:

The first engine for our garden empire is a Regner Konrad. It is a very simple engine that uses a single oscillating steam cylinder to drive the wheels through a gear system. Reviews for the engine have been very positive and I bit the bullet and purchased one. Here’s what it looked like right out of the box:

The Konrad looks like it could easily be kitbashed into a small turn-of-the-century logging locomotive. Here’s a list of things I’m considering to change:

• Install new wooden bumpers at both the front and rear.
• Install link and pins couplers back and front.
• Paint: red and green colors need to be repainted black.
• Add a new more-to-scale engineer figure.
• Add a roof.

Well, here’s everything done but the new roof:

And one with “Engineer Bill”, my scratchbuilt engineer figure:

Compiled by the General Manager, Mr. B.J. Cott.

October 19: Placed my order for a Konrad engine with the Train Department.

October 26: UPS delivered the engine today and I’ve been pouring over the documentation. Finding butane cans with the right adapter looks to be the biggest hurdle.

October 29: Went to Papa Ben’s and got a bunch of supplies including some Aristocraft track (5 ft diameter circle plus 12 feet of straight track). This should be enough to get something started in the back yard.

October 30: The first run for my Konrad engine. Ran it around the circle of track on the patio for 10 minutes.

November 12: I attended a steamup at John Frank’s house with the Houston live steamers. Had a great time and ran LHR Engine no. 1 for several loops around John’s beautifully landscaped garden railway. Here are some photographs: Katy Fall Steamup. It’s clear to me now that I need to get some rolling stock.

November 19: Steamed up at Zube Park, home of the Houston Area Live Steamers. It was their last public run day of the year and we had a lot of interested kids and parents stop by to watch the fun on the #1 gauge track. Engine no. 1 got about six runs in around the big loop. Photos here: Thanksgiving Steamup at Zube Park.

November 20: Robin and I surveyed the east part of the garden in our backyard for the new layout. We plan on putting a small layout within the footprint of the existing bed. It will require us move or remove several existing plants but nothing too important. I plan on using Aristo-Craft sectional track for simplicity and because I know there is a good supply near by at Papa Ben’s. Roadbed will be based on a “harditrim” system used by others in the Houston area.

November 24: On a lovely Thanksgiving Day, Robin and I started working in the back garden to clear a space for the garden railway. I’ve put together a Flickr set “Clearing the Old Garden” to document our progress.

November 25: We continued to clean up the garden, this time at the west end. We lifted up the flagstone patio we put in a couple of years ago; it really didn’t turn out as well as we expected.

November 26: A heavy rain is falling in Lost Hollow today, holding up construction. I did join a large number of track sections together in preparation of laying track soon.

November 27: I ordered the remaining track I needed today off the Internet. Robin and I also visited John Frank to talk about building his techniques of building harditrim roadbed.

November 30: I spray-painted all of the track I had on hand using the techniques outlined in this thread. Still waiting for the remainder of the track to arrive.

December 3: Picked up 5 pieces each of 1″x4″x12′ and 1″x6″x12′ harditrim from the local Home Depot. Proceeded to cut out the roadbed for all of the curved sections of the layout. I’ve put together a Flickr set Track and Roadbed to document this part of the project.

December 10: The remaining track has shipped so it looks like I’ll be doing some work on the garden railway over the holidays.

December 11: We cleaned up the remaining section of the garden today, so we’re all ready for track. New photos here: “Clearing the Old Garden”

December 17: The track finally arrived so I spray-painted it all first thing today. Then I started laying roadbed and track in the garden. Thank goodness for the 3rd Plan-it diagram of the layout as everything fit where it was supposed to. New photos in the “Track and Roadbed” photo set.

December 18: Up early today and back out working in the garden. I completed the west loop and the steamup area. Even took the opportunity to run my engine around the partially completed loop. New photos in the “Track and Roadbed” photo set.

December 23: Finished laying track today. A big job completed and now we can run trains whenever we want. New photos in the “Track and Roadbed” photo set.

December 27: Attended a steamup at Steve Speck’s place today. Steve was the perfect host and we had a great day of weather and steaming. Engine No. 1 pulled a 22-car train around Steve’s layout; I was pretty impressed.

December 29: Back in the garden today, rebuilding the retaining wall around the front edge of the layout. I’ve put together a Flickr set “Rebuilding the Garden” to document this part of the project.

We have only a small area in the back yard for a garden railroad: basically about 8′ by 32′. Robin and I did a detailed survey of the space so we would have an accurate idea where things were: sprinkler heads, fences, trees and other unmovable objects.

I then used 3rd PlanIt to design the layout. It was very easy to recreate the Aristocraft sectional track in 3rd PlanIt and duplicate as many times as needed. I played around with a lot of different ideas before settling on the following. It’s very simple but scenic at the east (”top”) end. The ruling diameter with the curves is 5 feet (2.5 foot radius) so the layout is for small engines and rolling stock only.

The other big feature was building elevation changes into the design. This appears to be a no-no for live steam engines, but my preliminary tests indicate that the 1.2% grade I planned should cause no major problems. And the layout definitely looks better with the vertical separation between the front and back.

While building the layout, I decided to add a bridge at each end to drain the loops. They add visual interest as well.