Slipping through the suburbs of Montgomery County Maryland in the early 1900’s the Georgetown Branch split from the Baltimore and Ohio Metropolitan Subdivision in Silver Spring Maryland and ended in Georgetown Washington D.C.
The mainstay of the branch was freight service mostly building materials, lumber, steel, coal for home heating, and in Georgetown coal for the steam generating plant that heated congressional buildings in Washington D.C.
Testing The Proto 2000 GP30 to Kato Conversion Kit While testing the new Proto 2000 GP30 to Kato conversion kit I shot some video and put together a short operations video. This is my first video of this type and it was shot with an iPhone in hand. Conversion kits are available in the FineScale Shop : Proto 2000 GP30
HO Scale Proto 2000 to Kato Drive Conversion Frame Proto 2000 GP7 and 9’s are well known for fantastic detail but suffer from electrical pickup issues, cracked gears, and mediocre motor performance. To achieve perfect running Proto 2000 Geep’s for my layout I resolved myself to the fact that I would, at a minimum, need to replace the motor and
Sometimes an Idea Just Hits You… I was in my workshop the other day and as I walked past my drywall tools I spotted some fiber mesh drywall tape when a light went off in my head… Instead of plaster cloth, why not put down fiber tape and coat it with a hard shell covering? What is fiber tape? Fiber
Operations on my layout have evolved from basic car cards and waybills, to switch lists, and now to what some call “prototype waybills”. Before I get too deep into this subject, let me state that “I consider prototype waybills to be an extension of the layout scenery” and nothing more. My adventure with prototype waybills started when I was searching
Push-button turnout control hiding in plain sight. Hidden inside this HO scale model of a Bethlehem Steel Co. Model 51 low-profile switch stand is a tactile push-button for local turnout control. Simply press down on the target to throw your turnout. A great solution to local control of a turnout without a control panel. Because the target will dislodge if
Choosing a style of model railroad benchwork can be overwhelming. There are so many different construction styles and techniques along with other deciding factors such as building a permanent structure or building the layout so it can be moved. After building two other, permanently installed, versions of this railroad, I decided this time that a free-standing, modular design was in
Construction of this HO-scale model railroad began in 2019, and the modeled era will be in the mid-1950s to 1960.
The room is approximately 25 feet by 25 feet. The benchwork is modular and constructed of 3/4 inch x 3-inch birch plywood. The modules are assembled with pocket screws and painted on all sides to help control expansion and contraction. The 3/16-inch masonite backdrops are removable and the entire layout is completely free-standing.
All track on the layout is Micro Engineering code 70 except for staging and the non-operable mainline tracks at Georgetown Junction, which is code 83. Turnouts for the most part are Mirco Engineering #6 with a few handlaid #9’s at the junction. I used a mix of Central Valley Turnout Ties and PC ties for those.
Trains and turnouts are controlled with DCC. A single Train Control Systems CS-105, and a pair of UWT-100 WiFi Throttles power the layout.
Turnouts are controlled with DCC Concepts Cobalt Digital turnout motors across most of the layout. They can be operated via throttle, local panels, or push buttons disguised as ground throws along the route.
In Georgetown I have gone to servo control of the turnouts. Because most turnouts in Georgetown are buried in the street it is hard to see the turnout position in most cases. To eliminate confusion, routes were created for the sidings, and those are configured in the Sprog ServoIO LCC nodes. that replaced the NCE Mini Panel I had previously used.
Control panels along the waterfront are hidden in barges, more on that later!
Locomotives are equipped with TCS WOW sound decoders and every locomotive is equipped with keepalives. Combining keepalive capacitors with powered frogs at the turnouts ensures smooth, reliable operation.
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