Updates, Requests & Questions

The project reached a interesting level of completion and some aspects need to be addressed.

 

Updates

Grass and weeds are almost completed. I also started to heavily weather the concrete pads, particularly in the coal dealer areas. It's quite promising and it blends everything together nicely.

I also started to build the concrete ramp out of styrene. It's already in the weathering process and when dry, it will be permanently glued on the layout with epoxy.

Requests

I'm looking for second hand or unbuilt cars to populate the layout, mainly from North Eastern roads. I'm open to any reasonable offer and cars can be old kits or RTR models, as long as they are suitable for the mid-1950s and fit the theme. I have no preference for manufacturers, as long as they are decent. But remember, no trainset quality stuff (Model Power, old Life-Like, Bachman, Tyco, name it).

According to historic pictures of Harlem Station, here is a list of suitable cars to give you an idea of what I'm looking for. Sure, Erie cars should be a priority.

40ft Steel and OSB wood boxcars: mainly Erie, Pennsylvania, Milwaukee Road, Southern, Norfolk & Western, ATSF (Chief, DF), Monon

Steel hoppers (varied prototype): Erie, Pennsylvania, Reading, Lehigh Valley.

40ft & 50ft Flat cars: North Eastern Roadnames.

40ft & 50ft Gondolas: North Eastern Roadnames.

40ft Reefers: FGE (steel, insulated with plugdoor), wine (Chateau Martin, etc.)

Feel free to contact me at matlac@gmail.com

 Here's a more comprehensive list I once made:

Roadname	Type
Erie	Steel boxcar
Erie	OSB boxcar			Accurail 4116
Erie	Twin hopper outside brace		26551
Pennsy	Old 40' steel boxcar	Round Keystone
	Reefer
Pennsy	OSB boxcar 8 panels			Accurail 4304
MILW	OSB boxcar 6 panels			Accurail 7005
D&H	Outside brace steel hopper
C&O	Steel boxcar DD	With the logo
PFE	Wood reefer
	50ft gondola
ATSF	Steel boxcar 50ft	DF logo	11129
N&W	Steel boxcar DD		43384
Pennsy	Twin hopper g panel
Pennsy	Quad hopper 10 panel
Erie	Boxcar	Big logo
ATSF	Steel boxcar	Chief
B&O	Steel boxcar
Ann Arbor	Steel boxcar
Erie	Gondola
Monon	50ft boxcar
PFE	50ft reefer	Yellow
N&W	Steel boxcar	Large lettering
W&M	Rib hopper
CNJ	Steel flat hopper	55 ton
Lehigh Valley	Hopper 55 ton

 

Questions

Chris Schmuck kindly remarked another road crossing existed near the freight house. This area was never documented during Harlem Station's existence.

First: What's the exact location of the crossing (photographic evidence?). Here are two options.

Second: I need information about the freight house. The facade on East 150th Street is never depicted on photos I've seen so far, particularly the 2 storeys part. Any hints or factual information would be appreciated.

Some Greenery

Even a highly contaminated and mineral area like Harlem Station wasn't a sterelized place like we would like to believe.

Following historic photos, some vegetation found its way among the tracks and empty spaces surround the station. I tried to capture this appearance by using static grass. It's a mix of 3 colors, including straw yellow, greyish green and a Noch spring mix. In few area, grass was applied in two or three layers to add depth and variation.

While grass isn't a overwhelming presence on the layout, it does help to throw some randomness in that sea of dirt and concrete. I'm not sure if I'll add weeds and larger plants because old pictures mainly show very short grass here and there.

Weathering Concrete and Soil

Pictures of Harlem Station show the area was extremely dirty. The concrete pads were covered in coal dust and mud while the roadbed was a grungy mess with oil stains.

To reproduce this characteristic on the layout, it is crucial to do a weathering process following several steps.

Following several prototype pictures, I dusted the carfloat apron area with lots of weathering powder to reproduce the very dark and dirty look of the ballast. Following this application, a oil paint wash was applied.

Black weathering powder was also applied over the coal spills on the tracks.

Finally, a very liberal dirty oil paint wash was applied with a large brush over the concrete pads. Prior to this application, I carefully scribed a few cracks to give some texture to the cardboard surface.

This is only the beginning since the pictures show the concrete was far more dirty than that. The soil at Harlem Station must be extremely contaminated!

Improvements, Wiring and Operation

Motivation came back and work has resumed on Harlem Station. The first major modification was changing the bluish gray color of the concrete pad by a more prototypical light tan color. It was easier to do than anticipated but required a lot of masking tape!!!

It was also time to glue the steel girder on the wood supports over the pontoon. Some details and weathering are still lacking.

 Then it was time to do the wiring. With Jérôme's help, we did a minimal job here. Cleaning the rails, turnouts and connections was a real pain and there's still a lot of work to do. Later, I want to improve the wiring a little bit. But let's just say we can run train with not too much hiccups to be bothering.

The third thing to do was to add weight to the freight cars à la Confalone. Why? Because with radii as sharp as 13", normal freight cars have a tendency to derail at an alarming rate. Now, the cars all weight around 8 to 9 oz and they performed flawlessly during our first mock up operation session. Must I stress the layout is an "exact" replica of Harlem Station and that 50ft cars did find their way without problem - albeit at low speed - on this intricate set of tracks. Forget the fancy Bronx Terminal, Erie built a spartan affair without using a single curved turnout.

And finally, we enjoyed the first ever operation session on Harlem Station since the late Carl Arendt wrote about my project back in the days. I'm pretty sure he would have loved to hear about our impressions. Let's just say it is a very strange experience to be facing a model railroad devoid of any selective compression. What we saw and the miles we travelled were the real thing. That's quite impressive.

Some action during the operation session

Our improvised operation session took an hour at a leasure pace. We spotted 12 cars and pulled out the same number. The carfloat wasn't at full capacity, so I guess 90 minutes would be required if it was the case.

We had to improvised a little bit how to handle the cars, but it looks like you are almost forced to use the carfloat as a yard because there is no place to store all the cars on the property. It may sounds inefficient, but in fact it isn't. After a few moves, we got a good grasp of the pattern.

What is strange with such a small layout standing in the middle of the room is tthat you feel you are playing at some king of board game. Quite weird. We were sitting during the entire session with the layout at eye level. The weirdest thing of all was to be standing where famous pictures of Harlem Station were shoot 60 years ago. Since the layout is accurate, the panorama is exactly the same.

Return to Harlem Station

It's been a while since I had the chance and desire to work on this project. But summer is back and my interest in it too.

Most general aspect of the project are done. But a lot of structures and scenery are left to be done.

As a matter of fact, the big let down for me is the concrete pads color. Their bluish gay hue doesn't look very convincing to me. The contrast with the dirty soil around them is far too stark to be credible.

According to old pictures, the concrete pads were quite light in color, but no bluish at all. Much more a light tan. Before moving on with scenery, I'm seriously thinking about repainting the whole thing with a more natural tone. It means a LOT of masking in perspective. When done, it should be similar to the concrete retaining walls on the perimeter.

On a positive note, we will soon implement DCC on the layout. Since I started the project last summer, no train ever ran on it!