You never know what you’ll find.

 Over this Memorial Day holiday I paid a visit to the Twin City Model Railroad Museum. It’s a place I used to volunteer at when I first arrived in the USA over 20 years ago, until I got a proper job. I haven’t been back much since then.

A few years ago, the museum had to move from their old premises in Bandana Square, the old Great Northern Railroad Como Shops, to a new premises a few miles away. 

The Mississippi River bluffs scene on the TCMRM Ow5 layout

The main layout is a large Ow5 layout that has featured in Model Railroader. It features a nicely detailed area based on the St Anthony Falls milling district of Minneapolis and a super Mississippi River bluffs section. 

In the years since I offered my help there, the museum has expanded and now a visit offers layouts in all scales.From Lionel standard garage to Marklin Z scale. All layouts are set up for “push button” operation. You can push a button and watch the trains run. A great feature for the kids.

A couple of scenes from the old G-Whiz gang layout that was very popular at shows hereabouts for years

LEGO models can be pretty neat, not like I used to make as a child.

While I was there, I took a look on the members sales shelves, and came across this for the princely sum of ten dollars.

Weaver Railbox “kit”

A Weaver boxcar kit. A Railbox. I like Railboxes. It’s a “kit” in the sense that you have to assemble it yourself. Much like the old Athearn “blue box” models. It’s lightly weathered and came without wheels, trucks, and couplings so I have my choice there.  I have one of these kits already, and started off improving it until my protocrastination phase set in about eight years ago. That project was going really well, and if I can remember how I did what I was doing.  I should be on to a good thing with some nice boxcars, and if not? Well, I am supposed to be modelling a scrapyard layout. So they might find themselves modelled to be waiting for the cutters torch.

I think it was a good idea to head over to the TCMRM. 

Reliability test.

I've just taken delivery of some Micro Engineering Code 70 flex track from Terry at Lakeside Hobby. As soon as I got home I joined up some lengths of track either side of the P87's turnout to see if it really did work properly and didn't derail the P87'd boxcar. I'm pleased to say that the car went through both roads of the turnout time and again in both directions.

Score one more confidence building point to my abilities.

Extreme Close Up!

Wifey does like to sleep in of a morning at the weekends. I, unfortunately, do not. So with Lorrie still firmly ensconced in her slumber. I headed into the model railway room to finish off the conversion of the Micro Engineering Turnout I had started a few days earlier. This time I added the rest of the guard rail clamps. This task was much easier the second time around. I think it must be a case of experience revealing a passable technique. Buoyed on by this success I added the frog bolt head detail. This is just a plastic strip of bolt head detail the you can just superglue onto the rail side. That was all the detailing for the frog that comes with the ME turnout. There is still some detailing to add at the switchrail end. This is what it looks like. (bear in mind these are extreme closeups of a first attempt)

Above: Here you can easily make out the added detailing. The guard rail clamps and the frog bolt head details.
Above: This for me is what its all about. Scale clearances. This is a scale model of a turnout. Not some half-arsed mass produced attempt at a model turnout. The close up does make some of the rail alignment look bad but a P87 truck does run though it OK. I will be testing further to see how reliable it is.

Some of it looks a bit clumsy my supergluing technique needs some work but I expect that will come with experience. But once again my confidence eases up a notch.

Still a bit more work to do. With some work on the switching end of the turnout. Plus I do have some P87 stores superdetailing to add as well.

It's fiddlier than T scale!

New Years day and I start the year the way I mean to go on. Wifey was still in the land of nod when I awoke at 7:30 or so.

Looking for something to do I decided to work on my ME turnout conversion. When I left it on Wednesday I had run a truck through the frog just to see if it would work. This morning I fixed the frog in place with some CA. I then added the guard rails.

To my delight my LBF railbox runs through this turnout perfectly. A HUGE confidence booster. Next comes the work of adding the details. This is going to be a long job methinks. In the time I had available to me I only added the guard rail clamps. This was a rather interesting task. I have modelled in T scale so I know a thing or three about gluing fiddly small pieces of plastic together. But this was a bit more difficult than I expected. I just couldn't find the right tweezers for the task of putting the clamps in place and believe me I have a goodly selection of tweezers. Angled, bevelled, needle point none seemed perfect for the task. I muddled though though and got four of the eight in place before brekkers called. I'll try some more later.

Confidence is building though with every tiny piece that I successfully add. I think that the P87 idea was a good one.

More first P87 steps

Following my old friend Yan's first steps in converting an R-T-R loco to P4 standards you'd think I'd be inspired to do the same. That I'd get out my Ultrascale 08 conversion kit and convert it.
Well I was inspired but not in the way you'd expect.
I decided to try to see if I could convert a Micro Engineering HO scale #6 turnout to P87 by dropping in a Proto87 stores frog. I just hapenned to find a #6 turnout for cheap in Hub Hobby on Sunday so I thought it doesn't matter if I ruin it testing the method.
The first step is to make up the frog. I followed the instructions at the P87 stores website. Which I was most nervous about given my soldering skills (I am wont to refer to instructions as destructions to give you an idea of my abilities) But, I had a nice new soldering iron and set to, following the "destructions". On reflection I should have used my new 40W Iron instead of my new 25 watter as it would have heated things up quicker. But apart from that everything went as per the instructions. I looked at the finished item. It was then I got my first inkling of just how fine P87 standards are. The flangeways are barely there through the vee area. Still, I was most amazed that I had managed to construct such a piece. It did wonders for my confidence.
My confidence was so boosted that I then took the ME turnout in hand and ripped out the old coarse scale frog and wing rails. "Ripped" is a slight exaggeration. You have to exert some force to remove them but use careful force. They come out pretty easily. Then I had to file some protruding bits off of make the frog sit smoothly and level. The new frog is pretty much a direct exchange for the old one on these ME turnouts. I placed the frog in situ and carefully pushed a P87 truck through the vee...
Now good readers you'll have to wait for part two of the story as after that I had to go and start dinner.

My first P87 car

Well, I now have my first P87 freight car. My LBF models Hi-Cube Railbox. What I thought of it was covered in the 7 day model railroad blog.

Today my order of turnouts and wheelsets arrived from the P87 stores. The turnouts will have to wait until another day. But converting a freight car to P87 was simplicity itself. It was so easy even a character from a Geico car insurance commercial could do it...

All I did was take the old wheelsets out and replace them with the new. A two minute job. Here follows now the cliched picture of a car truck with one standard HO scale wheelset and one P87 wheelset in it for comparison.

There is nothing more to say. P87'ing a freight car was a doddle. I should have bought more wheelsets so I could have converted more of them...