UP Vallealmar Subdivision

08/11/2023

[Last night I put away the domestic intermodal train that had been sitting in my layout and gathering dust for several months, vacuumed my tracks and most of the layout surfaces, and put together a manifest train featuring the brand new Rapido Trains Inc. centerbeam cars I got back in September. This was the first time I ran a train on my layout since May, I believe (and aside from scrubbing a couple problem spots with a piece of scrap cork roadbed, I didn't even have to clean my track!).

My layout usually takes a hiatus during the Summer, like for most people. But this past Summer I had sudden vision issues that left me blind in one eye for two months until I had surgery in mid-September. I can see again, and my eyesight in that eye has been improving as my eye has been healing since the surgery. But certain minor aspects of my vision in that eye have been permanently affected.

Fortunately, while running my train last night, I didn't notice any detrimental effects on how I see and handle N scale trains. So though my vision in that eye isn't as good as it was before I lost my vision, my present condition hasn't ruined my enjoyment and participation in this hobby.

Running my trains again was a timely move, as this week, my UP Vallealmar Subdivision layout turns 17 years old! It was in the first week of November in 2006 I began building this layout, my 3rd layout and my first in N scale.

Regardless, I'm just glad to be running trains on my layout again.]

26/04/2023

Night train! Just got some Kato 11-214 passenger car lighting kit 6-packs (Indirect Lighting Type) from Plaza Japan and installed them in my Superliners. They don't really sell these in US hobby shops (only the 11-211/11-212 lighting kits, which have the VERY BRIGHT cool white blueish LEDs - the radiator light in my ALC-42 has a Kato 11-211 lighting kit in it). These have warm white LEDs and with the orange filter, they're much more prototypical in brightness than the other kits (which make the cars look like rolling tanning salons 😄). Even with $24 international shipping to the US, they're a bargain from that site at $23 each per 6-pack (plus I got them in less than a week!).

05/04/2023

[An up-to-date current Coast Starlight consist, led by ALC-42 #303 and P42DC #12. The Charger was speed-matched today; function lights not yet installed.]

05/04/2023

Charge 'er up!

04/04/2023

[Current project...Here we go, yo!]

19/03/2023

[Finally got my hands on the new Kato Siemens ALC-42 Charger! It don't have a decoder for it yet, so I haven't actually run it yet (I did run it back and forth a couple times using DC simulation mode (address 00) on my Digitrax system - it runs and has onboard sound without a decoder 😄 - but you never want to run it like that again...) It's wonderful Kato quality of course but I had a few concerns/observations - see the photo comments for details.]

19/03/2023

[My recent purchase from the popular suburban Baltimore online hobby store!]

17/03/2023

Caught Amtrak's Coast Starlight with new Siemens ALC-42 #306 passing the Glendale, CA depot last Saturday night (March 11)! I also was considerate enough to clean up my foam before I left. Always leave a place better than how you found it!

03/03/2023

[Went to All Electronics today and bought a bridge rectifier, alligator clips and some other stuff. Tested out on a breadboard a little track-powered marker light circuit to install in some of my passenger cars! Used 0402 red SMD LEDs wired in series and a 10k ohm 1/4w resistor. Looks like it works!]

19/02/2023

[Went to my first train show since 2020! Incidentally, the same train show as my last one - The Great Train Show in Ventura, CA (but unlike the GTS in February 2020 - just before all the You Know What went down - I remembered to make sure the headlights of my car were turned OFF! I had an adventure last time around coming back to a non-starting, non-jumpable car, removing my car battery, taking a Lyft ride to an Auto Zone to get it re-charged and taking another Lyft back to the fairgrounds parking lot before I could make it home! Lesson learned!).

The show wasn't that "Great" but I was able to buy a few things: A half-dozen cheap rolling stock shells (50 cents each!) for practicing my weathering skills, a Faller concrete fence for my station platform, a pair of pre-cut turnout cork roadbed pieces, a pair of BLMA trackside electrical boxes, and my best find, a pair of Blue Point manual turnout switches for $5! I also spent $20 on a stripper...Er, uh, I mean, a *WIRE* stripper. 😄

There weren't that many layouts here either - just an HO, two N-trak, an 027 and an S. But a new company called Cubed 6 had a booth showcasing their digital video water effects system, which allows a modeler to have operating ships and wave/wake/marine animal animation on a video screen ocean!

I missed the other GTS in the region - the GTS in Costa Mesa, CA last weekend, and it looked like a bigger show than this one, but in all, I was just glad to go to a train show again.

25/01/2023

[I recently went to my local hobby shop and bought an N scale Kato LED Lighting Kit for one of my Kato Amfleet cars. But I noticed that the light distribution was not very even throughout the car. I checked out a bunch of YouTube videos on Kato lighting kits and discovered this was a very common problem. But I came up with a simple and inexpensive solution!]

I recently bought a Kato N Scale LED Interior Lighting Kit (11-211) at a local hobby shop to see what my passenger cars would look like when illuminated. Aft...

22/01/2023

[Also got to re-align some flextrack to even out some curves and minimize some track gaps. It was all a matter of carefully prying up the track, scraping off the old adhesive acrylic caulk and re-applying the caulk, using map pins to temporarily hold down the flextrack to the caulked roadbed.

The white line is .020" Evergreen styrene strip underneath the outside rail to create superelevation in the curves. It's very subtle but adds a real prototypical touch.]

22/01/2023

[Some pics of the layout from alternate vantage points]

17/01/2023

[Had to perform some long overdue benchwork surgery on the UP Vallealmar Subdivision layout due to an uneven surface that was causing trains to uncouple. Fortunately, the layout was made semi-modular so that it could be split into two in case of a move. Here was the process of splitting the layout and fixing the uneven surface!]

26/12/2022

Merry Christmas from the UP Vallealmar Subdivision! 🎄

Just remember, in the universe where the Vallealmar Subdivision exists in, Santa Claus says, "N! N! N!" 😉

25/11/2022

[Happy Thanksgiving! I'm thankful I got to successfully complete my very first wired DCC sound decoder install late last night! After procrastinating for 4 years (and buying the decoder 7 months ago), I finally wired an ESU LLC - LokSound 5 Nano in an Athearn F59PHI, with brighter headlights, flashing ditchlights and a prototypical reverse single marker light! I'll be posting the whole process and what I had to do by next week. It wasn't an easy job at all, and I even messed up a few times, but in this hobby, if you're creative and dedicated enough, there's nothing that can't be fixed. Enjoy the holiday!]

22/11/2022

[Progress is slow but steady...]

14/11/2022

[My first wired sound decoder install! An ESU LokSound 5 Nano in an Athearn F59PHI. Will it work?]

14/11/2022

[This is what's up. LET'S GOOOOOO!!!!]

02/11/2022

[In addition to being a model railroader and a railfan, I'm also a big rail transit fan. This past month of October, there was not just one but two new rail transit lines that made their debut - the Metro Los Angeles K Line light rail on October 7 which runs from L.A.'s Crenshaw District to Westchester (and will connect to LAX's under-construction airport people mover in the near future) and the Metrolink Arrow hybrid commuter/light rail service on October 24 from San Bernardino to Redlands in Southern California's Inland Empire region. I got to ride both on their respective opening days. It's great to see more rail service in an area where none of it existed 33 years ago.]

28/10/2022

[Got some parts for my Iwata NEO airbrush! I've had problems with the needle clogging up using acrylic paints (even when well-thinned) and apparently the culprit was the stock .35 mm needle the airbrush comes with. I just bought a wider .50 mm replacement needle and appropriate .50 mm nozzle and nozzle cap from a great art supply store based in Oregon called The Merri Artist. I know model railroaders also like to shop at art supply stores for things like airbrushes, paints and scenery materials, like Sculptamold. I recommend The Merri Artist because they not only have great prices, but their shipping charges aren't ridiculously high like other places. Also if you live on the West Coast, your order will arrive quickly! You can order online at merriartist.com .]

27/10/2022

[Just chillin'! Got the new Jacksonville Terminal Company, LLC ONE re**er container + generator set and placed it in my intermodal train ASAP. What's cooler than bein' cool?]

27/10/2022

[Happy 30th Birthday to Metrolink, the commuter rail system in Southern California! It began service on October 26, 1992 and I rode it on its first day! It now serves six counties with 7 lines spanning 547 miles. To commemorate, here's a Metrolink train (made by Athearn) running on the Vallealmar Subdivision (as a special excursion trip, of course...)!]

25/10/2022

[It may be Fall but the layout has gotten a whole lot greener! Recently ordered a bunch of JTT trees direct from the MRC website, many of them had been out of stock for a while and none of the major online hobby shops have them in stock. Shipping was pricey but they arrived fast!

Central California rolling hillsides feature golden grass dotted with native Coastal Live Oak trees, so I got JTT 1 1/2" live oak trees in the lower elevations and JTT 1" live oak trees high up in the hills for forced perspective effect. I also got some JTT 2" tall sycamore trees. I simply drilled a hole in the hillside with a pin vise, put a drop of Aleene's Tacky Glue and "planted" the tree. The new vegetation makes a world of difference!]

15/08/2022

13/08/2022

[Haven't been working on the layout for a while; I've been running intermodal trains only occasionally, but lately on one of the N scale Facebook groups, a local model railroader needed help with some of his Atlas, Intermountain and Kato DC locomotives, so he shipped them to me and paid me for tuning them up and bringing a couple of them to running condition, like this Atlas GP-30 that was non-operating. After a cleaning and fixing a few internal parts here and there, I was able to get it running again! Maybe I can make a new sideline out of this!]