A Heisler up-converted to On30

As a new On30 enthusiast, I spent a lot of time surfing the web, and inevitably came upon several manufacturers who attracted my attention.

One of these was Wiseman Model Services, who have a wonderful selection of kits, including a kit to covert the venerable HO scale Rivarossi Heisler to an On30 version.  Since I had a three-truck Heisler from the old HO logging layout gathering dust in a box, I decided to try my hand at my first conversion.

The kit came with a new boiler, cab and tank, all resin castings, and some white metal details. In effect, everything but the mechanism was replaced.  It was intended for a two-truck Heisler, but after considering whether or not I wanted to sever the third truck, I made it work by upconverting said third truck from scratch with suitably embossed sheet styrene.  A large part of the reason why I kept the third truck was because it provided half of the power pick-up - something I had added to it long ago when I found that the pickups on the first and second trucks were one-sided only and prone to stalling on turnouts.

It was also surprisingly easy to convert to DCC, but even in O scale, there was little room for the decoder and none for a speaker.  I used a Digitrax DN163.

The conversion was not as easy as I'd hoped, requiring a lot of sanding and adjusting to make everything fit tightly.  As is the case with many of these boutique kits, the instructions were not as clear and detailed as they could have been, and left a lot for me to figure out.  It was at times frustrating, but I suppose the challenge is part of the fun.

In this case, I wired up the lights as the castings provided in the kit were easy to work with and accepted small 12v incandescent bulbs.

It runs very nicely, as it did in HO using DC.  The motor is fairly quiet so I wish there was a way to equip it with sound.

A very handsome little locomotive.

Salmon Run Lumber's #7 posing in front of the Robson Landing station

Track Plan Part 1

The space available for the layout was such that I had to build it in two parts, on either side of the stairs coming down into the basement.  The gap is bridged by a drop-in section when operating between the two parts.  Each part can be operated independently of the other.

As with pretty much all of my layouts, the plan simply "grew" as I went along.  I had a few ideas of what I wanted and how I wanted to operate, and started building to suit.

In this post, I present the schematic for Robson Landing, which is built along the wall to the left of the stairs.  The connection to the Salmon Run section of the layout is via the trackage labelled "to Salmon Run", where the drop-in bridge connects both parts of the layout.

The section itself is 15 feet long by 21 inches deep.  The shape is irregular due to a jag in the wall, which is covered, at track level by Peterson Tools, a false front building with two sides.

Benchwork is a simple 1x4 lumber grid covered with 1/2 plywood.  Metal brackets bolted to the wall, and two strategically-placed legs give it ample support.  The top of the benchwork is 45 inches from the floor, a comfortable height to work on and operate with.  There is room underneath the benchwork for my work table, and shelving for my modelling tools and supplies.

The plan below is pretty much to scale, drawn using the free SCARM - Simple Computer Aided Railway Modeller software, as is the 3D rendering of the section

 

A future post will describe the Salmon Run section of the layout

The first On30 "Critter" - a Climax of sorts

One of the reasons I jumped into On30 is the ability to scratchbuild "critters" using HO mechanisms.  Combining scratchbuilding with whimsy appealed to me.

The first of several such efforts was based on the ancient and not very believable Roundhouse Climax, ironically the first logging loco I bought way back in the day.  An example is shown here http://www.gearedsteam.com/climax/class_a_mdc.gif

It was not very difficult to convert to DCC, and now has a TCS T1 hidden in the water tank, on top of the motor.  Of the original body, I kept the boiler and stack, and not much else.

The rest was built from styrene, with a few detail parts scavenged off broken HO locos.  I can't say I used a single source of inspiration for the design but liberally cribbed from examples found all over the internet.

It runs okay and is fun to watch.  I briefly considered adding sound, but it's so noisy to begin with, any sound module would be drowned out.  As for the headlight, the challenge of wiring made me keep the original non-working light.

I think it looks at lot more believable in its new incarnation than it did as a pretend-Climax in HO.  If nothing else, it looks a lot more interesting.  And yes, that is real wood stacked around the boiler.

Backing away from the log dump

Heading off towards the junction

The mechanism with the decoder.  The motor is inside the water tank and the flywheel inside the boiler

Here is a short video of #8 pushing a cut of log cars onto the log dump - running at top speed.  Note how loud the mechanism sounds.  No point in paying big bucks for a sound decoder in this one. 

A "What Might Have Been" in On30

A desire to get back into scratchbuilding, and decreasing eyesight, attracted me to On30 over the last two years.  I'd previously built an N scale empire, which disappeared during a move 15 years ago, to be replaced by a double-deck HO layout based on the Esquimalt & Nanaimo as well as logging operations on Vancouver Island.  A desire to get back to my childhood trains saw the E&N transformed (and upgraded to DCC) into the Black Forest branch of the German Deutsche Bundesbahn, which takes 4 or more operators to run.  German kits are magnificent but the latitude for scratchbuilding is very limited if you want to get a good portrayal of Germany in the late 60s.  As well, operating a layout meant for several operators when you just want to play with trains by yourself isn't very satisfying

Enter On30.  The local hobby shop had a lovely Bachmann On30 Consolidation on display with no takers for the longest time.  It intrigued me, and I began to learn more about O scale narrow gauge modelling.  That Connie is now engine #2, the first On30 engine of what quickly became an obsession.

In what little space was left around the walls of the basement train room, I conceived and built an O scale, 30 inch gauge short-line.  Nostalgia for my old E&N and the logging operations had me set this fictional line on the east coast of Vancouver Island, somewhat further to the north and a few decades back in time from the HO logging layout.  And yes, logging is a feature, but not, at this time, visibly modeled through anything other than a log dump, and a cut of skeleton log cars.  Thus the Salmon Run & Robson Landing was born.

The town of Salmon Run is the in-land terminus of the SR&RL, and hub of the Salmon Run Lumber Company which exploits tracts of lumber in the surrounding mountains.  The clear waters of the Salmon River enticed an enterprising Beer Baron to build the Shipyard Brewery, a major customer of the SR&RL - at least until Highway 19 made its way up the island past Campbell River and connected Salmon Run to the outside world on land in the years after WW2.

Robson Landing, as its name indicates, is the coastal terminus and site of Salmon Run Lumber's tidewater sawmill.  From the town's lone pier, people and supplies for the area inland, are transported by the SR&RL up along the Salmon River, past a number of settlements and into Salmon Run.

The SR&RL, a co-venture between SRL Co. and local interests, operates mostly steam engines, with a couple of gas engine rail trucks/busses, and one single narrow gauge boxcab diesel which somehow found its way to Robson Landing on a coastal ferry.  By the end of WW2, the SR&RL was no longer economically viable, and its trackage was converted to gravel roads, with trucks hauling lumber to tidewater, the fate of many logging short lines in British Columbia.

In the next few posts, I will introduce the motive power.  Some Bachmann On30 engines, the rest kit-bashed or scratchbuilt using HO mechanisms recovered from the old HO logging layout.  All engines are equipped with DCC, and some even have sound.  I have not yet started on the scenery, but several buildings, kit and scratch have gone up, as have two turntables.

Stay tuned.