Remember slide film cameras? Last Saturday morning I drove over to Kaiserslautern to photograph a German 2-10-0 on display at the Kaiserslautern freight railroad shops.  I have had a lot of trouble finding the right time of day to photograph the engine because it never seems to be lit properly.  On Saturday the light was exceptional.  I spent 20 minutes cleaning up all the garbage in front of the engine and then shot about 25 photos. I used my new Canon digital SLR and tried shooting through the viewfinder for a change.  I never bothered to check the settings on the camera.  Turns out I … Continue reading No. 38: Ackley Depot Construction, Part 2

In an effort to gain a little more space for operations, I tried adding something I call a “bump out”. I saw a photo of such a “bump out” on Warner Clark’s Proto48 Nickel Plate layout in Indianapolis (seen below).  Warner has several of these extensions into the aisle to create space for structures or other features that–without the additional space–would’ve been off the layout.  Thanks Warner for the good idea. The photo below shows the area before I installed the bump out.  The track at the extreme left is the track being extended into the aisle.  That’s a beautiful, ice cold La Chouffe … Continue reading No. 37: The Bump Out (Ackley Layout)

I was e-mailing with Frank Hodina in early December and I mentioned to him that it was miserably foggy and cold and rainy here in Germany.  I had just been through Bastogne, Belgium a few weeks before and I said it would be a good time for a Winter Offensive on the layout. We both had an “LOL” moment and then I thought, hey, that’s not a bad idea. I talked to my wife about it and she approved my plan to take a few vacation days so I could start a Winter Offensive on the Ackley layout.  The objective was to finish up most of the big work on the … Continue reading No. 34: The Winter Offensive (on the Ackley Layout)

The Deutsches Museum While I was in Berlin in November I had a chance to visit the Deutsches Museum downtown along the River Spree. The museum is beautiful, clean, and well-lit and the exhibits are stunning.  There are many models throughout the museum, of ships, trains, vehicles, and other things. There are paper models on display that are over 300 years old.  There is a Dutch model ship on display that is about 250 years old. Whenever I see models in a museum, I always wonder who built them.  I wonder “Of all the models out there, why did the museum select this one for display?” … Continue reading No. 33: Painting Track on the Ackley Layout

My buddy Mike Clements, from Wakefield, Mass., recently sent me a very thoughtful e-mail on my Ackley track plan and how he would change the Illinois Central connection to add more operating potential. Here is his note. Hi John, Nice change-up with the staging. I think you will be happier with that. Good compromise. I agree with the need to keep the IC crossing on the layout. Particularly if you are going to use your layout to model other generic locations, it will come in very handy. In that case it matters less that you won’t have the capacity, I was … Continue reading No. 29: The IC Connection at Ackley, Iowa

A few weeks before I started laying track, I made a pretty significant change to the track layout. Originally–due to space limitations–I had located the Illinois Central interchange track on the city track on the opposite side of the IC crossing.  I was unhappy with this arrangement because 1) It was not prototypical and 2) Because it limited the number of cars that could be worked to and from the interchange.  You can see the differences in the IC transfer in the drawing below. I track planned a number of alternatives, none of which held much promise. Then I realized that … Continue reading No. 28: Ackley Layout – A Change in Staging

Back in the summer of 1981, while visiting family in Chanhassen, Minnesota, I got away and went over to the old Hub Hobby Shop for an afternoon of looking at model trains.  I liked going to Hub because there were some serious modelers there and they liked to talk about prototype modeling, and they always seemed to have some cutting edge products. Anyway, after talking to the guys there for an hour they took me downstairs to show me a layout they were building in the basement. They were using a new type of flex track.  It was Code 55 flex by Rail Craft and … Continue reading No. 26: Ackley Layout – Code 55 Track

On the current Ackley 2.0 layout, I began the track-laying process by laying the mainline roadbed and then laying track at the Illinois Central Junction on the south end of the layout. I am using Micro Engineering track exclusively. I like the track detail and ease of application. I wanted track profiles to match the prototype as closely as possible so Code 70 is used for the main line track and Code 55 for everything else. Turnouts were built at the workbench using Proto87 Stores parts and Central valley tie strips. I enjoy building the turnouts and have built about … Continue reading No. 25: Ackley Layout – Track Laying

The new Ackley layout is being built as a point-to-point, one-town switching layout with a staging yard on each side. I call the staging yard on the south side of town South Side Staging and the staging yard on the north side of town North Side Staging. To access the staging yard from the visible part of the layout, I first built a very simple corner module our of standard benchwork components.  The 2-1/2-foot square corner module contains a 24-inch radius curve made from reliable Atlas Code 83 sectional track, and connects the visible main line to the staging yard.  … Continue reading No. 24: Ackley Layout – The South Staging Yard

I photographed this car at the same time I photographed the UTLX X-3 (see the first Steam Era Freight Cars post on this site). It IS obviously a 1937 ARA box car, but obviously IS NOT a Pennsylvania Railroad car. Wanting to identify the car before posting the photo, I e-mailed Ed Hawkins, Bill McCoy, Pat Wider and Bill Welch, asking for their thoughts. I referenced the 40-ton trucks, apparent seven-foot door opening, and unique defect car holder as an identifying “birth marks”. Normally I don’t rely on trucks to identify museum cars since trucks were often changed over time. … Continue reading No. 22: Steam Era Freight Cars – B&LE 1937 Box Car