Woodsville Terminal

In my last post I mentioned the Woodsville Terminal Railway Co. This was a fictional shortline created by Mike Confalone that he modeled before switching over to the Allagash (which has been covered very well by Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine in articles, e-Books and videos). The older WTRC was covered in Model Railroad Planning.

Decals were made for the Woodsville Terminal by Highball Graphics, part of their Freelance Railroads series. I picked up their set FL-1 for Woodsville Terminal boxcars as it offers a neat paint scheme that clearly identifies the location of the (fictional) railroad being in VT and NH.

Highball Graphics set FL-1

On my car I went with a more orangish color than what Mike and Neil Schofield used in the examples from the Highball Decals web site, This was so it would not blend in too easily with the large number of Maine Central cars I have.

WTRC 2601 looks real spiffy having just recently been placed into service. This is an Intermountain car I stripped the lettering off and repainted.

What is cool is the slogan actually mentions Northeast Kingdom. The font is similar but not the same as the Lamoille Valley. All in all a pretty neat looking car that looks right for my region and era.

I have some other WTRC equipment, purchased from Perkins Road Depot. These are wood chip hoppers with extended sides. These use custom decals otherwise not available.

I picked up this wood chip hopper from Dave of Perkins Road Depot while at the Springfield show this year. It joins 2 others purchased in the past, one black and one brown, 

In the past I have staged woodchip hoppers in Morrisville yard for the LVRC to deliver to the MEC and ultimately to the B&M for use at the Groveton paper mill. I assumed that the WTRC performed an interchange with the LVRC somewhere along the line and at the start of an op session, these hoppers were already in the yard.

Lately though I have been thinking about establishing a WTRC train to bring some cars into Morrisville during the session. I think it will add a neat little enhancement to the LVRC operations without too much of an impact. It will also give me the chance to look into some WTRC locomotive power, perhaps a re-lettered D&H unit, and maybe at some point an actual painted loco in the WTRC scheme, something I'm not sure Mike C. even had completed, but I'll have to find out.

Morrisville Turnouts Complete

I finished off the work on the installation of the 2 turnouts in Morrisville that will provide an additional passing siding (see previous post). After having the track in and wired, and after doing some test runs, I needed to get turnout controls in place. The rest of Morrisville has front edge mounted Caboose Industry ground throws, but doing the same would be nearly impossible given the existing track and scenery.

During an Op Session, last year before the new turnouts were installed, Bill Howard(in white) has the ground throw controls right at his finger tips along the front edge of Morrisville. One new turnout is where the caboose is, but on the second track from the right pictured. No way to to run a throw rod there now, so undercount control became necessary. The other turnout is about where the CV brown boxcar is next to the silo.

So I figured the best bet was to put in Tortoise machines. A benefit to automated control vs. manual throws is that whenever a turnout needs to be thrown, both need to throw in order to have a clear path. That meant I could simply have 1 control for the operator.

I had read somewhere a while back that mounting Tortoise machines on a longer piece of wood can assist in getting the throw adjusted. By lining up the machine's rod with the throw bar and then putting a single screw towards the rear of the piece of wood into the subroadbed above, you have the ability to slightly move the turnout left and right to get the throw just right. This avoids needing to keep removing screws and repositioning.

I found this this method worked great and I wish I had done it on the other installs I had where seeing the top and bottom at the same time is not possible. Of course having someone assist also can help, but much easier to just drive a couple wood screws then try to screw the actual machine in over your head!

This is pretty good picture of the method. I mounted the Tortoise to the thin birch plywood panel. Note - I needed a second piece  (in this case scrap poplar) to prevent the small screws from protruding through, but using one thicker piece would have worked as well. I positioned the throw rod up through the throw bar and kept the Tortoise edge even with the throw bar so there was no bend to the rod. I set the one screw at the far left, then tested the throw. Pivoting the the plywood allied for a minor adjustment to the left to right throw, and once I had it working well, I set the second screw closer to the Tortoise to lock it in place.

With that work out of the way, I mounted a single DPDT switch for the operator to throw both turnouts. Oddly enough, this is the only DPDT I have on the layout as all other controls are either DCC or touch panel. It was a simple matter of getting the right wires matched up to have both turnouts throw the proper direction, and power was provided by a leftover 9 volt wall wart power supply mounted in this area.

I found just the right spot for the DPDT switch. Inside the Morrisville shelf area I had this angled piece. I simply drilled a whole for the switch and mounted it. The good thing is that it is directly below where the turnouts are, and nothing protrudes off of the fascia or into the aisle way.

With that work completed, I test ran sone trains and threw the switches to make sure all was well. 

On a related note, I have been thinking about adding a new train to the Morrisville operations. I currently have some fictional Woodville Terminal cars in the yard representing a fictional connection to the Lamoille Valley with this short line that used to be part of Mike Confalone's layout. It gave me a way to logically get these custom painted/decaled cars onto the layout. I thought about instead of staging these cars, I establish a transfer train for the Woodsville Terminal to deliver cars first to Morrisville, and return with anything going back to the WTRC. 

I put together a small train that I can stage beyond Sheldon Jct. using CV power for now, and ran it up to Morrisville. Here is a quick video of me using that train to back through the new turnouts and test things out.

With the track changes now compete, it is time to prepare for and schedule the next Ops Session!