All Aboard the Tallulah Falls Railroad!

Coal Dock Complete!

2011-11-30T19:33:00.003-05:00

Here's a southbound view from the top of the new coal dock.

TFRR Postcards

2011-11-05T18:29:00.028-04:00

I have been collecting postcards that have any depiction of the TFRR. Here they are in the order you would see these scenes along the line.

A tip of the hat to my Grandma Betty, who first excited my interest in postcards!

Coal Trestle at Cornelia Part 2

2011-09-18T13:22:00.017-04:00

The general location of my model of the Cornelia coal trestle was established early on; just north of the oak tree on the way "out of town", generally following the positioning of this feature on the prototype. The effort to design the model began with stacking and rearranging lots of pieces of scrap wood on the worktable to try to get a sense of the geometry of the thing. A key factor was the need to keep the design very open so as to allow easy blowing of the leaves, acorns and other debris that pour like a woody waterfall off the giant oak tree overhead. A secondary goal was to repurpose a rugged looking piece of wood saved from the little laundry room that preceded the nice porch that we have now, which is the horizontal piece with the rusty nail holes on the middle level in the photo below:

From there I carefully cut and attached everything together into the first version of the trestle, but upon mounting it on the line and attaching the 1/2" conduit to reveal the shape of the track I was dismayed to see how incredibly steep the approach would be!

This seemed like it was sure be a source of trouble when trying to spot hopper cars atop the trestle, so it was back to the worktable to cut the legs down to a more reasonable height. By also moving the switch farther up the line I ended up with a much more gradual slope. Here's a long shot of the whole siding.

As an added bonus, the longer grade allowed me to build in a flat spot large enough to spot a car about halfway up the slope, shown here centered on the post on the left.

I'm planning to model this spot as the Spencer ice factory, proceeding with the idea that northbound and southbound reefer cars would have been iced at this plant before proceeding up the TFRR or being spotted on the Southern Ry interchange track before moving on to the wider world. Perhaps additional research will reveal a photo of this operation! Here's a stock photo of a model icing platform in HO scale:

In the meantime, the next elements to complete were the supports along the grade. This was extremely easy to do with the plastic conduit in place, as I only had to position the boards that would become the piers next to the conduit to see how tall each one needed to be, as well as the angle of slope atop each. These are spaced roughly 12" apart, allowing plenty of room to dispatch any leaves and other debris with the power blower.

Now all that remains is to lay track, which will happen as soon as my back order of flex ties is finally fulfilled, and then to model the little hut that was positioned at the left end of the middle level, which I can only presume was a place for the wheelbarrow operators to get out of the weather when not working the coal pile.

Three Photos from Ebay!

2011-08-27T12:31:00.014-04:00

I just acquired negatives for three TFRR photos from "Lemonade Squeeze", an online vendor.

The first is extremely exciting, as it provides the only clear view I have ever seen of the 10,000 gallon water tank that is indicated on those 1922 Sanborn maps. A 1938 photo on page 32 of the 2nd Edition of Brian Boyd's book shows the tank peeking up behind loco #75, but a 1943 photo on page 33 shows that the tank has been removed. The tank is a match for the tanks shown in undated photos of Joy and Mountain City. Other photos in Mr. Boyd's book indicate the water was delivered by a boring old water hose in later years.

I'm not totally sure where this photo is located, but I think we are atop the deck girder bridge that crossed Tallulah Falls Lake looking east at the intersection between the two legs of Terrora Circle.

Likewise, I am not totally sure about this photo, but my guess is that we have just come through the deep cut that is now filled by the modern, four-lane version of US-441 and are looking southbound, with "Old 441" and the Tallulah River on the right. The Joy depot and water tank should be in view on the track just ahead to the north. I think the cut behind us was the one decorated to look like a tunnel for Disney's "The Great Locomotive Chase".

Coal Trestle at Cornelia

2011-08-05T22:57:00.016-04:00

From its formation in 1898 until the purchase of the two GE-70 Ton diesels in 1948, the Tallulah Falls ran entirely on steam power. At the turn of the century that meant wood burning locomotion, but photos in Brian Boyd's book shows coal burning engines in photos dated as early as 1917.

While larger railroads used coal towers to load tenders quickly, the TFRR built an elevated coal dock onto the tall embankment on the east side of the tracks just north of the shop so that any northbound locos would pass right by it.

Here's a snapshot of a photo of the coal trestle from Dess Oliver's TFRR museum in Rabun Gap, which shows how open hopper cars filled with coal could be dumped through the trestle, then transferred to the locomotive tenders waiting on the middle level by men wielding the fleet of wheelbarrows seen on the middle level. I think I can see the headlamp of an approaching loco at the far right!

This 1922 Sanborn fire insurance map shows the location of the coal dock circled in red, found at the end of a block-long siding that is shown as originating just north of Clyde Place (now Elrod Street). Note the second siding that peels away to the southeast, serving "Robert Spencer's Planing Mill" and a "Lumber Storage" building or area, as well as a building labeled "Ice Factory" between the coal and industry sidings (circled in blue). Before the introduction of mechanical refrigeration cars in 1951, all railroad cars of this type used ice to keep perishables fresh. However, whether or not the Spencer ice factory was providing this service to cars on the TFRR is unknown to me.

Here's a southbound view taken in 2009 that looks across Clyde/Elrod Street. The very end of the surviving TFRR mainline is on the right. At the left we can see the remains of the curved Spencer siding in the little alley between the two buildings. It may be my imagination, but it seems like there is a track-shaped double bump that crosses under the asphalt and continues directly under the parked semi truck in the spot where the map indicates the coal siding was located. Since the corner of existing warehouse sits atop this siding it must have been built after coal service ended.

However, upon shifting to a northbound view and moving alongside the same warehouse, we see the remains of a switch, the mainline on the left and the beginning of a siding that continues up the hill behind us. So perhaps the coal siding was merely shortened sometime after the November 1922 date on the Sanborn map?

Walking up the hill reveals tracks that are still in place, as well as a few concrete bases for uprights that are no longer present. All of these relics are virtually invisible under a tremendous tangle of kudzu, undergrowth and trees small and large.

Mysterious to me is this skeleton of a belt conveyor in the vicinity of the coal trestle. Was the labor-intensive trestle and wheelbarrow system abandoned in favor of this conveyor in the later years of steam power? Using a conveyor to move coal directly from a hopper car to the steam engine's tender was a pretty common way of loading coal in small rail yards, but I don't really know if that's how this conveyor was used.

From the modeling perspective, conveyors are not as exciting as such an iconic feature as the original coal dock! The ice plant also offers nice potential, both for modeling of the structure and then as an operational feature when running trains, as it would make sense to send all reefer cars for icing either before running the train north or dropping those cars on the Southern Ry interchange track.

Life is Good

2011-06-25T17:10:00.003-04:00

Illinois Central Piggy Back

2011-05-29T14:42:00.008-04:00

Here's another great find from the sale at Trainmaster Models - a 1940's era piggy back car marked for the Illinois Central Railroad. These cars were the predecessors to the modern goods delivery system - the modular containers that have all but replaced boxcars due to their ability to move seamlessly from ship to rail to truck.

New Log Buggies

2011-05-29T10:51:00.006-04:00

This week our pals at Trainmaster Models have been having a spring sale, so I was able to pick up a string of used LGB log buggies for a song. I don't really know if the TFRR ever ran disconnected log cars like these, but there was definitely plenty of logging going on along the line, so these were too cool to pass up. Usually cars like these would run in pairs, but the deal I struck required that I buy all they had - seven of them. Since I ended up with an odd number, eventually I'd like to convert one of them into either a derrick or tool car.

New Neighbors Moving In!

2011-05-11T11:32:00.008-04:00

Here's the view from our bathroom window, followed by a clip of the family of Carolina Wrens that are moving in.

SO cute!

The Oak

2011-05-09T10:10:00.006-04:00

Railyard Ruckus!

2011-05-07T23:25:00.001-04:00

Signal Bridge Project Update

2011-04-20T20:40:00.022-04:00

In February I wrote about the idea of using a single track version of the signal bridge on the Southern Railway mainline in Cornelia to disguise the screen porch/ladder yard's train portal.

This project recently made some progress! I found an LGB/Model Power traffic light/signal on ebay for a few dollars that is very close to the style of the one used by the Southern.

But when it arrived I was was disappointed to find the bulbs were cheap screw-ins with color flaking off and two of them blown. Rather than launch a hunt for obscure colored bulbs, I replaced all three with low voltage DC LEDs that I had on hand. At the same time I also replaced the feed wires that connected the signal to the included four position switch (all three colors plus "off"), replacing the ridiculously flimsy wires with solid 18 gauge stranded wire and plenty of heat shrink tubing, color coded to match the plastic wire cover with the lamp colors. At the same time I added a connector for a 9 volt battery and spade connectors, allowing E-Z power upgrades in the future. Finally, I shortened the brass tube that supports the signal by about half in order to more closely resemble the geometry of the one in used by the Southern.

With this overhaul the lamps in this signal will last forever, while allowing the convenience of low voltage DC wiring!

Future Control Plans
While initially the four way control switch will be mounted in a box at the foot of the signal bridge, in the future I would like to separate the circuits such that the yellow and red lamps are controlled separately by two position toggle switches as follows:

The red lamp's switch would be mechanically linked to the track switch that controls access between the Arrival track and the Southern Railway's interchange track (found under the baggage car in the photo below). A train working the interchange fouls the 90 degree crossing that is directly outside the porch portal, so the signal would appropriately report immediate danger in the red position.

The green and yellow lamps will be controlled by the track switch that dictates whether a train continues around the Arrival track or crosses straight over the diamond and into the ladder yard (to the left of the observation car in the photo). If the switch is set for a train departing the porch to proceed up the line the signal will display green, yellow when set for the Arrival track.

Of course, I have no idea just exactly how to carry out the mechanical linkage between the Aristocraft track switch machine and an outdoor-grade toggle switch, but the idea and functionality of these lamps as a working signal makes the project too good not to continue chewing on!

Two New Structures Erected

2011-04-18T13:20:00.007-04:00

I found this birdhouse and bird feeder in the garden shed and mounted them on 1/2" black pipe atop the southern-most pair of posts.

Since the bird feeder is too inconveniently located to use for that purpose, I took out the plastic seed holder and simply left it open. It will be interesting to see how (or if!) the birds will use this little structure. I'd like to find or make a long bench to run down the middle of it to make it look more like a passenger waiting area.

The birdhouse required a bit of modification since it was originally designed to be suspended from a hook and thus featured a loose bottom. After making a fixed bottom from some scrap material I painted it with primer, then my wife painted the house with the same yellow paint as our house. I finished it up by painting the corners and eaves white to also match the trim on our residence.

Let's go play in the yard!

2011-04-12T23:40:00.012-04:00

I'm really looking forward to being able to actually run trains in the foreseeable future!

Some guys like to turn on the trains and watch them run a loop. That's fun too, but what gets me going with is the feeling of being the engineer - the fun of driving the little locomotives from stop to stop.

Part of the goal in Cornelia was thus to cram in as many elements as possible of a working rail yard so that I could then have the fun of running the little Aristocraft 0-4-0 switcher through the process of sorting cars, making up trains and breaking down incoming trains according to the operations.

With a piece of track stolen from the other end of the line I was able to complete the caboose track, which showed how close I am to having a proper yard in place:

The three freight cars at the far left are on the departure track, where outgoing trains are assembled. There is enough capacity in this track to make outgoing trains of 6-8 cars.

The adjacent track with the bobber caboose is the caboose track - a convenient place to add or drop a caboose at either end of the run.

The passenger train is parked on the southern terminus of the TFRR's mainline - the arrival track.

The future location of the run-around track is noted with those 1x2's running adjacent to the arrival track.

And at the right rear you see a reefer car parked on the interchange track with the Southern Railway, which represents the TFRR's connection to the wider world. From the standpoint of operating the railroad, that interchange is a magical source of incoming loads of freight, coal, fuel, empty cars and anything else not produced on the line of the TFRR. The interchange is an equally magical point of departure for anything produced or grown on the TFRR line that may not otherwise have a logical destination in the neighboring towns.

In the next, longer view you can see the 0-4-0 on the yard lead in the forward right corner. The yard lead is the bit of track necessary for a locomotive to have enough room to pull far enough forward that it and a couple of cars can clear the switches that, in our case, lead to either the run-around track or the interchange track.

The yard lead turned out to be deep enough that it might be possible to model the very tip of it as a single-car capacity freight dock and warehouse. There were several warehouses located around all sides of this wye there in Cornelia, so it would be historically sound. Always tempting to be able to add another source/destination for traffic on the line!

Looking through the door you can see the ladder yard, the other element typical to any rail yard. The ladder yard is a place to sort and store cars while waiting to be connected to the next train heading the right direction.

Ours will be consolidated with the last common yard feature - engine servicing - as the ends of the two tracks to the farthest left will feature a model of the TFRR's two stall engine house. Out of view at the far right are the single car sidings with operations potential as fuel track and a "Repair in Place" (RIP) maintenance track.

If you embiggen the photo by clicking on it you can see the effort to suggest the street crossing at E. Chattahoochee Street/Martin Luther King Jr. Drive has made a little progress! After the basic shapes were cut out of an old scrap of tongue and groove siding, I cut grooves in them with a razor saw to suggest the long timbers in an old-timey wood plank road crossing. I used an Exacto knife to whittle out joints between the timbers, also taking out some corners and breaking up the too-straight grooves made by the razor saw. Finally, I tapped a nail punch with a hammer into the wood at the ends of my "planks". After I darkened the grooves up with a pencil the whole effect is relatively convincing from the requisite 10 feet.

Here's a picturesque inside view of the ladder yard and the yard lead. Note that in the gap between the oak tree and the reddish roof is dogwood exploding with beautiful white blossoms.

All aboard!

View from the Porch

2011-04-05T11:05:00.002-04:00

#1 Arrival Track Complete!

2011-04-05T10:36:00.007-04:00

Last weekend we got another couple days of warm weather, so I was able to complete #1 Arrival track, including the connections with the 90 degree crossing into the porch and all of the related switches!

You can see a real-life photo of #1 Arrival in this 1936 postcard I recently found on ebay - the track right behind the row of baggage carts. The tracks in the foreground are the Southern Railway mainline and the depot house track. Note the Cornelia apple monument at the edge of the postcard on the right.

Back on my version of the TFRR, you can see I also added a switch to the Departure track - the tangent that runs along the fence at the far left. This will allow addition of a caboose track, which is a little parking area for cabooses that allows them to be easily added to outgoing trains or detached from incoming trains.

At that point I ran out of track, so completion of #2 Arrival track and the caboose track will have to wait a bit longer...

Laying Track!

2011-03-20T19:45:00.008-04:00

A couple of days above 80 degrees meant there was considerable progress by the track crew!

The first loop is complete! We could officially run a train! Too bad neither of the locos have battery power just yet.

The return loop is complete as well. The track runs down to the switch to the coal trestle track.

#1 arrival track has reached the spot where it will junction with the Southern Ry interchange track.

Meet the New Bender!

2011-03-08T19:13:00.015-05:00

Unlike the smaller model railroad scales in which the track is light enough that it may be curved and bent by hand, garden railroad track is heavy enough that it must be bent by a machine - a rail bender. These specialized tools use a three roller pinching arrangement to force the track to take a curve. In this photo a short, single piece of rail has been bent all the way into a small circle:

A rail bender like this one requires the rails to be disassembled from the plastic ties before bending, then reassembled afterward. Because the inner and outer rails on a curve are of smaller and larger radii, the rails must be bent accordingly, with care taken to ensure that the rails remain in gauge (the same distance apart) from with each other. Because the tracks around Cornelia are a solid mess of curves and switches, I've been a little apprehensive about the upcoming track laying!

My mind was put totally at ease this afternoon after I tried the new dual rail bender I just got from Norm's Model Supply.

Unlike single rail benders, Norm's bender has two sets of rollers that bend both rails at the same time while they are still attached to the ties. You literally run the thing back and forth on the track in a motion like ironing a shirt and the curve appears immediately. Turn the big knob a little farther and the curve gets a little deeper.

Before:

After:

In a matter of minutes I was able to shape the lower half of the loop around the oak tree.

This bender also allows curves of specific radii to be made by using the gauge and a provided chart, but because I am bound to follow the roadboards that are already in place, I can merely loosen or tighten the main knob as needed to get the curve desired. Still, its nice to have the dial indicator and bubble levels to provide a "dashboard" to let you know what you are doing.

A little more expensive than the simple single rail benders, but the ease of use and ability to deliver perfectly curved track should make it well worth the extra investment. A huge "thumbs up" for this great tool!

TFRR Stock Certificates

2011-02-24T01:03:00.005-05:00

Here are examples of Common and Preferred stock certificates for the TFRR, both of which I captured in ebay auctions. The certificates are actually the same size, but the ledger has been glued back onto the left edge of the common stock making it look smaller. The last scan shows the back of the Common certificate.

X-5 is Looking Tired

2011-02-22T09:54:00.016-05:00

Speaking of surviving cabooses, X-5 is looking awfully tired! This caboose is parked on the sole remaining TFRR arrival track near the Cornelia depot.

Here's a peek inside the door at the south end.

And another looking in the north end, where we can see the coal stove is intact!

From here it is so easy to imagine we have just rolled into town, that the track still stretches around the bend and all the way to Franklin.

Breakthrough at The Hole!

2011-02-22T01:06:00.016-05:00

Last May I posted on the railroad's emergence from the porch for the first time, noting that I intended to disguise the hole and exposed frame as if it were a street crossing - specifically Chattahoochee Street.

This was always a problematic idea, as it was going to be hard to get a traffic scene right visually when the lip along that wall is so narrow. The other problem with the street crossing idea is that the locos would still have to pass under the wooden framework and out through the hole. This would be visually jarring and serve to snap the viewer out of the little diorama I am trying to compose. An overpass or similar structure would be a much better disguise for the hole, if such a thing had existed anywhere near this spot on the TFRR, as it would allow the viewer's brain to feel happy and perhaps even a little pleased to see a miniature version of that common visual experience - something passing out of sight as it passes under a foreground structure. With the street scene the train would pass in front of a truck and disappear into the Twilight Zone.

So I was flipping through some photos I had taken around the TFRR terminus, Cornelia, and came upon this exquisite detail near the depot. Its a northbound view of the block signal tower on parent company Southern Railway's Crescent Route - their mainline between Washington DC and New Orleans.

A model of this signal bridge is the perfect solution for the hole! One only has to make the tiniest speculative leap to imagine that the Southern may have decided to have built at least one signal tower for its loyal subsidiary somewhere along the way. Turning the wooden frame into a believable tower will only require painting it a dark color, covering it with a lattice of styrene plastic and topping it with one signal post for the one northbound track.

As a bonus, the simple free standing structure will open up the blank spot to the left of the hole to be decorated with a flat-front model of the machine shop that is noted on the 1922 Sanborn map of this spot in the yard, a much more believable alternative to the too-thin street scene.

As an additional bonus, using this model here will have terrific visual symmetry with the model of the Cornelia depot that will be located on the other end of that hole, helping to tie the inside and outside views together for that tiny minority of viewers that will recognize both elements. Welcome to that exclusive club, good readers!

Not X-3 After All?

2011-02-21T23:13:00.011-05:00

I had assumed the caboose parked in Tallulah Falls was X-3, as this caboose was the only one to have the unique offset cupola, as seen in a photo in Brian Boyd's Tallulah Falls Railroad: A Photographic Remembrance (pg 23) and as a sketch in Foxfire's Memories of a Mountain Shortline: The Story of the Tallulah Falls Railroad (pg 40).

But comparing the photo and sketch with some pics I took on the way to work today revealed that there is no way that is X-3! On X-3 the cupola was moved even farther to one end, and windows were in a different pattern.

So what caboose is that in Tallulah Falls?

North toward Demorest on #12

2011-02-20T12:47:00.010-05:00

Aside from the extravagance of the refrigerator car, this consist echoes the one seen in the following photo, which is posted in a display in X-3 - the surviving TFRR caboose that is currently located in the town of Tallulah Falls. The same photo can be found in Brian Boyd's Tallulah Falls Railroad A Photographic Remembrance, where he designates it as 1930's era and notes its anemic size as compared with the earlier years.

Passenger traffic on the TFRR was at its acme in the 1910's prior to the decline in tourists that came with the damming of Tallulah Gorge. By the 1930's the TFRR was running on nothing but rattle and fuzz.

The displays in X-3 are thoughtfully assembled and include a couple of TFRR photographs I had not seen previously. Stop by and check it out when you are passing through!

White Christmas on the TFRR!

2011-01-03T23:28:00.005-05:00

Outdoor progress has largely halted for the winter, but this rare Christmas snow scene is worth sharing. Happy holidays everyone!

Track boards complete!

2010-12-07T01:32:00.016-05:00

The Cornelia/porch phase of the track boards is all but complete! All that remains is to build the ramp up to the coal dock. And, of course, to lay most of the track.

Here are some photos that show the mainline and the yard areas, as well as the loop around the oak tree.

I love that feeling of heading off into the woods there at the end of the line!

How Trains Stay on the Tracks

2010-11-12T11:08:00.006-05:00

In this short clip physicist Richard Feynman explains why trains stay on the tracks. You may be surprised by the reason!

Many thanks to Glenn for passing this along!

Finishing Up Loose Ends

2010-10-17T18:52:00.012-04:00

Receipt of a new box of track has allowed me to wrap up two details:

1. Completion of the Southern Railway depot/interchange track. This will be the arrival and departure track for all passenger trains, as well as a place to park those cars that are being left for the Southern Railway to take out to the wider world and vice versa. I've got 89" of storage here, which is enough for 4 passenger cars or 5 typical freight cars.

The track board here is a 2x8, which leaves 2 inches of clearance (4 scale feet) for a very shallow model of the Southern Railway depot. This scene will include a model of Cornelia's "Big Red Apple", probably to be erected on one side or the other of the train door. In this way I hope to capture this scene:

Notice the second caboose in this photo, located at the far left. That car is parked on the real life TFRR arrival track, as described in the last post.

2. Completion of the TFRR Departure Track. This is the track that will be used to store cars as they are being collected into outgoing trains by the yard locomotive. This track is 128" long, providing enough storage for 7 average freight cars, maybe 8 if some are smaller.

There is plenty of free space on that middle plank to the south of where the two arrival tracks curve away. I am tempted to add a short caboose track here to parallel the departure track, however for the meantime I am deterred by the fact that there will be no easy way to reach it OR the switch.

At the end of the three planks I plan to have a model of the TFRR's office, which was a tiny frame structure that is perfect for the spot. It perfectly fits the operation, too, as you can imagine the conductor stopping in the office to get any final paperwork before the train rolls out toward Franklin.

I haven't been able to find any photos that show what the ends of yard tracks actually looked like in Cornelia, so in the meantime I am using a pair of Bachmann's inexpensive timber and earth bumpers on both of these. As usual, a coat of paint did much to improve the look of them and cut the plastic shine.

Bridge Complete!

2010-10-14T15:18:00.036-04:00

It probably seems like the last month has been occupied by HO scale side projects, but in fact I have also been busy building the bridge that will allow the rails to span the walkway between the porch and the fence.

I had been stuck on the problem of how to support the 90+ degree curves that would be generated by the arrival tracks for Cornelia Yard - the place for inbound trains to be parked for classification and sorting. Mine is the most simple possible: #1 track will hold the inbound train and provide access to the Southern Railway depot through a backing move, while #2 will provide the run-around track for the locomotive to get to either end of the train to either push or pull it. This arrangement duplicates the southern end of the wye found at the junction of the Tallulah Falls and the Southern Ry, highlighted here in blue on a 1922 Sanborn fire map of Cornelia:

Even reduced to two tracks, if I used the same 2x6 and 2x8 planks for the right-of-way the result would be quite heavy, with more weight added by whatever would be used to tie the angled boards together. And the presence of the pathway underneath eliminated the option of adding support from below.

At long last I was inspired by a paleo-railfanning trip to the Central of Georgia Railway's bridge over the Apalachee River, which still stands proudly on a forgotten, tree-grown section of the track between Madison and Athens.

The timber decking revealed the solution! The ability to deck my bridge with small timbers would allow me to use a couple of light beams to support both curved tracks with one deck with no planks at all.

To see where exactly to put it, I once again used the incredibly valuable trick of bending that 1/2" plastic conduit around to reveal exactly where the tracks will need to go and the curves they will follow. This allowed me to put the beams more or less right underneath them.

I used 2x4 lumber for both beams, standing them on edge and bolting them to all three track boards along the fence, then notching them with a jigsaw and chisel to allow them to be supported by the handrail of the deck. The longer beam in the foreground of the next photo stretches all the way back to the right-of-way where it first emerges from the porch, providing additional cantilever support.

As a bonus, the short section of the beam between the handrail and the porch provides a way to support the south ends of the plank rights-of-way that will support arrival tracks #1 and #2 after they come off the timber trestle, thus solving what was going to be the next puzzle in this project.

The actual timbers proved to be more problematic! Test cuts of the 1x2 and 2x2 lumber available at Home Depot were disappointing. Not only were they not quite the same height as the planks, which would generate a distinct change in elevation, but eventually we realized that the dimensional lumber just didn't look right. Both the 1x2 and 2x2 had significantly rounded corners, while the timbers on the railroad bridge are sharp and square.

And so I finally broke down and bought the least expensive table saw available, assembled it, read the manual, then immediately set about ripping 2x6 lumber into nice square-edged timbers that were 1" wide. Here you can see the comparison with the Home Depot 1x2.

Despite the amazing low price of the saw and my jitters about using it, the whole thing was a snap and the Riyobi purred like a kitten.

The decking process went quickly from there. I cut each timber to be 3" longer than either the edge of the track or the edge of the supporting beam, whichever was longer. I used another piece of the timber as a spacer between each new timber added and the one before it, ensuring perfect spacing and evenness between them.

I am really pleased with the results!

I love it when a plan comes together!

A Side Project to the Side Project

2010-10-14T14:53:00.011-04:00

I decided to make a supplementary display for highlighted items and singletons that do not fit with the rest of the fleet using some short pieces of trim that were left over from making the main display. This was super simple. I just cut them all the same length and screwed them together with some old tomato stakes I found in the garden shed.

I painted the resulting ladder with white primer, followed by a coat of some dark green paint I found in the crawlspace. At first I was alarmed to find out that the dark green paint had gone south to some degree, but the effect was actually kind of interesting - a textured "antique" look.

I thought the results were ok, so I ran with it. Here's what this corner looks like now that both displays are complete.

Side Project: Display for HO Fleet

2010-09-14T01:45:00.030-04:00

While some have been sold on ebay or at swap meets since the switch to G scale, I still have quite a few HO scale models hidden away here and there left over from what was going to be my dream layout but never got past the armchair phase due to a lack of space. (Scroll to the bottom of this page for details.) Having recently seen Toy Story 2 again for the first time in many years, I was struck by how much the toys hated being put away in boxes, away from the light of day. I began to feel sad for all my poor rail cars stuffed away in drawers and boxes and decided to build a simple display cabinet so we could all enjoy each others company.

Here's the basic frame, which was made from 1"x4" pine and attached directly to a 36" by 68" piece of 1/8" masonite hardboard, which would fit perfect in the spot above my bedroom dresser. I got the folks at Home Depot to cut the masonite on their large panel saw, which ensured the cuts would be square and perfect.

All the painting was done before assembly. The masonite was painted concurrently with the blue sky for Cornelia Yard, while the frame and shelf pieces were painted with primer and then some leftover brown paint.

The shelves are 2" wide casing material (baseboard trim) that are turned so that the side that is usually mounted flat against the wall is instead facing upward. This side that is usually the back has a couple of grooves running down the length that are slightly too wide to be an exact fit for HO wheelsets, but is close enough to trap the wheels and prevent any danger of the cars rolling off.

Using a trick I learned from my friend Landus, I cut three blocks to ensure the correct spacing between each shelf - 3.25 inches to squeeze eight shelves into a 34.5 inch space. (The flat edge of each shelf also used up a little less than 0.75 inches.) Each shelf was nailed in place from each end using finishing nail. I pre-drilled each hole to make sure that the nails would go exactly where I wanted them without any possibility of splitting the wood.

Once the ends were secure, I put a couple of #4 screws into each shelf from the back to stabilize them and tie them to the back panel. I made parallel pencil lines across the back to make sure I hit the shelves correctly. Pre-drilling all the holes once again ensured the screws went where I wanted them.

Here's the display with all shelves installed.

Next I added two vertical rails of 1"x4" to actually support the display on the wall. Instead of spacing them evenly, I used a stud finder to locate the studs in the wall where this display will be mounted, then positioned the rails accordingly.

Here's the display in position for mounting. Note the weight is all supported by a motley collection of ammo boxes, blocks of wood and shims at the bottom to get it to the correct height and level without my having to support the weight of the thing.

All done! Almost all of my HO cars on display, as well as a small set of "O" scale tinplate trains made by ETS that we picked up some years ago during a trip to Prague. They, too, have been in a box for 10 years and seem very happy to be out in the light of day in their new position on top of the display.

I know I am delighted to have them all out! Over and over I find myself staring happily at all these rail cars for long periods of time since the project was complete - hypnotized, almost.

Blue Skies for Cornelia Yard

2010-09-06T00:45:00.010-04:00

This was a relatively quick and easy project, inversely proportional to how long it has taken to get it done.

"Before", with masking and drop cloth in place:

The blue and white paints were both from the "random quarts of paint" shelf in the crawlspace. The blue was a little too deep and needed lightening with the white, then a little white was swirled back through to make wisps of clouds. I think I may have overdone this on the short wall. I may go back and "blue that over" a bit more next time I've got the can open.

What was the nice was the complete lack of a need for a crisp line or any care at all on four sides since I knew those borders would be covered by the trim. I just had to stay within 3.5 inches of the pencil line that I had made with a level.

Its amazing how the trim board really defines the two spaces - the lower as part of the rail scene, the upper as a part of the porch. The height of the trim board is such that we have the option of installing above it a row of 28 inch tall cabinets over Cornelia Yard. This would be a huge increase in new storage space harvested for the residence - a place for sleeping bags, tents and cooler chests. Having a "ceiling" of cabinets would give this scene a diorama-like quality, which could be very cool if done well.

We got visits from some railroad inspectors.

The finished result! Its a huge improvement and a giant step forward in terms of defining this scene.

A Tangent and a Curve

2010-09-02T22:32:00.012-04:00

Today I got the roadbed mounted for the tangent track that will allow the oak tree circle to serve as a return loop - a teardrop shape that allows trains to be turned and sent back the way they came. Here's a ground level view looking north across the switch. The straight leg heads north - the return leg. The curve to the right heads around the tree.

On the south side of the tree I trimmed and attached the supporting plank for the first section of the #1 Cornelia arrival track, then mounted the plastic conduit that magically reveals exactly where the bridge over to the house needs to be.

Perhaps more importantly for smooth operation, the conduit automatically bends itself into these curves with perfect spiral easements - transitional curves between straight tracks and fixed-radius curves. These were proposed as the early as 1828 for track laying but did not become standard until locomotives began to move at speeds high enough for these spiral easements to matter.

On the tight curves in the Cornelia Yard area of the TFRR these easements will allow the trains to move more smoothly with less binding and less chance for derailments. This is especially important in the flattened "S" shaped curve at the bottom of this photo, between the two switches.

The switch sitting by itself in the middle of the photo designates where the #2 Cornelia arrival track will peel off. Arrival #2 will serve as the "run-around track" for Cornelia yard - a parallel track that allows a locomotive to move to either end of a string of cars as needed. The #2 track will run parallel to #1, a second curve over the walkway toward the house.

Will the Circle be Unbroken!

2010-08-28T16:57:00.010-04:00

Today I finished the ring of roadbed around the big oak tree. There was nothing like this particular feature anywhere on the TFRR, however for us it will provide the ability to have a train running on "autopilot" in the deck/porch area, as well as provide service as a reversing loop once the line is complete.

The ring is an octagon made with 2x6s for the diagonals and 2x8s for the straight sections.

In this photo you can see the ring of 1/2" plastic conduit that I used to get the circle right, a tip gleaned from the pages of Garden Railways magazine. The plank leading off to the lower left shows the approximate location of the return leg of the reversing loop. Finalizing and attaching this return leg is next on the list of things to do.

The new work has already been approved by the cat department.

Onward toward Manifest Destiny!

2010-08-25T19:08:00.012-04:00

I love this photo of folks out on a railbound expedition! It looks like they are rolling off over the mountain on a sled, but closer scrutiny reveals this to be a speeder - a motorized version of the classic lever-operated hand car with which everyone is familiar.

You can try one for yourself at the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City!

,

Last Fleet of GE 70 Tonners Retired

2010-08-17T21:58:00.016-04:00

The June issue of Trains magazine reported that the last "substantial" fleet of General Electric 70-Ton locomotives has been retired from California's Modesto & Empire Traction Company, where the oldest of them - #600 - has seen 63 years of continuous service. The tenacious little 660 horsepower diesel switchers were no match for modern high-efficiency railroading, where the M&ET was having to use as many as seven of the tough little locomotives at a time to move 100-car unit trains of grain to transcontinental giants Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe.

They were replaced by R.J. Corman Railpower RP20BD genset locomotives, which can pull the same size trains with just three locos. Genset locomotives ingeniously replace the single huge engine typically found in a diesel-electric locomotive with two to four much smaller engines that are brought on and off line by a controlling computer as horsepower is needed. The result is a tremendous increase in efficiency and environmental performance.

The M&ET is offering all but one of their venerable 70 tonners for sale to good homes if any of you has $95,000 burning a hole in your pocket. Understandably, they are keeping #600 for nostalgic reasons.

And while this was the last fleet of GE 70 tonners, there are still many singletons and pairs switching industrial sites and shortline railyards around the western hemisphere. The TFRR's own 70 tonners - #501 and #502 - were purchased in 1948 and run until the demise of the line in 1961, but I have never heard any details of their movement and/or disposition from there. Wouldn't it be something if either of them was still in service today!

Roadbed Progress!

2010-08-06T15:20:00.006-04:00

Just a couple of quick photos here that show the first run of "roadbed" along the fence. Now that this is complete we can build the loop around the big oak tree and the bridge that will come over the pathway to join the roadbed that currently extends from the portal into the screen porch.

The End at Last for Texaco in Clarksville?

2010-07-21T19:28:00.023-04:00

One of the remaining structures from the days of the railroad is a defunct Texaco dealership located just south of Clarkesville, currently found on the side of Georgia Highway 385, also called "Historic US-441". At the risk of sounding like Grandpa Simpson, when I was a kid this was THE road to Rabun County... now its "historic".

Here it is in a photo of a photo taken in Dess Oliver's TF museum in Rabun Gap, followed by a current photo of the same place where the old tanks have snoozed in the bushes for many years.

I have definitely been planning to model this facility with Clarkesville thanks to its simplicity and charm - a couple of pineapple juice cans will make great tanks, and I've already found an inexpensive Texaco tank car by Bachmann and a set of cool 1:25 scale Texaco gas pumps for the retail side of the operation .

So I was saddened the other day to come by and find one of the big horizontal tanks gone and the remaining tank strapped to a low-boy trailer - destined I suppose for sale or the scrapyard. This may be a one-off sale of these tanks, or possibly the first step is dismantling this little relic of the TFRR to make space for a burger joint, or perhaps a shop where the citizens of Clarkesville can buy lottery tickets and beer. You know, something important.

Here's the "before and after":

Fence Line Timbers Complete!

2010-07-11T14:54:00.008-04:00

Over the last couple of weeks I have been working on building and installing the arms that will support the rail bed on the big posts along the east fence. From the standpoint of the railroad, this is the southernmost section of the line - from Cornelia to the outskirts of Demorest, or about five miles. In the real world this will support the first 55 feet or so of track and structures.

This last photo shows the crossbeam that will support the rail beds in place. The carriage bolts allow exact adjustment of the the beam to correct height and to keep everything level. I expect this to be helpful as all of this wood ages out, with the inevitable twists and torques and warps.

The goal is to have all this in place and the track laid before the end of August so that we can be certain the track is at its maximum length when considering thermal expansion.

More on the TFRR's Passenger Train

2010-05-30T01:12:00.022-04:00

To me there is nothing that speaks more directly of the golden era of railroading than steam engines pulling "old varnish" passenger trains - wooden coaches and baggage/mail cars with open front and rear platforms, clerestory windows and a potbelly stove in one corner. On my imagining of the TFRR the passenger business is stronger than ever - a mix of public transportation, tourist excursions, and seasonal/event specials in an alternate universe where the crude experience delivered by the gasoline engine remains a distant second to the comfort and convenience of rail travel in the mind of the public.

So far the TFRR passenger fleet consists of these two cars: a baggage/mail car and an observation car, which is a passenger coach or lounge car with a bit of a fenced in platform out the back door. This platform would be the place for passengers to see the scenery roll by while moving and politicians to make speeches while stopped.

As noted in the previous post, both of these were gotten for a song on ebay, leftovers from the vast fleet of forsaken "Big Hauler" Christmas-tree-friendly train sets made by Bachmann Trains. I really like the look and weight of these cars. They don't the museum quality detail of cars by Accucraft or AMS, but do not succumb to what to my tastes (and for the TFRR) is the overly-cute look of the shortie passenger car fleets offered by LGB and Hartland Locomotive Works.

The black and white photos I've seen of prototype TFRR passenger cars give no hint of their actual color, so both of these were painted with this yellow and brown paint scheme that I imagined the railroad might have had or adopted.

At some point I'd like to add two more coaches to this train, then "name" each of the three passenger cars for a waterfall found in each of the counties where the TFRR ran: Panther Creek Falls (Habersham), Minnehaha Falls (Rabun) and Big Laurel Falls (Macon). Needless to say, they all also need basic lettering.

My observation car started in a maroon "New York Central Lines" paint scheme with a broken rear step and deck.

Here's the "after" shot of the same car, where you can see that rather than repair the broken step I removed both rear steps altogether to increase the space on the enclosed observation deck. Since I'd removed the steps there was no need for the grab irons, so I removed those and filled the mounting holes with wood putty.

I also simplified the enclosing rail, trimming out all the diagonals and painting them green. On the very back I carefully trimmed out the right mix of struts to leave it spelling out a blocky "T" and "F" - a small short line railroad's answer to the fancy illuminated tail signs of the big, wealthy railroads. But I'm not completely satisfied with the yellow paint used for the "TF", as it tends to disappear against the yellow background of the car's wall when viewed from the rear.

Three passengers can be glimpsed through the windows, waiting for the train to leave the station. It amazes me how a few figures can instantly bring some life to the scene.

The interior got thin washes of brown paint that matted out the shiny plastic look, plus brought out wood grain cast in the floorboards. There was a large plastic blob left in the center of the car by the injection molding process. Rather than carve this thing out, I drilled a hole in the center and painted it gold, producing what I hope resembles a spittoon at first glance.

Here's the baggage/mail car.

I plan to model one end as a Railway Post Office (RPO), which was a special kind of mail car in which a postal agent actively sorted the mail picked up as the train rolled down the track, providing same-day mail service to the towns directly served by the railroad. (To learn more about the operation of RPO's, click here for a great 1936 documentary on the mail trains on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.)

The other end will be modeled as a mix of passenger bags, boxes and the various mix of other items that was transported by the railroad - anything from a crate of chickens to a bundle of apple tree seedlings.

This car is also missing some handrails on one end. At some point I would like to replace all of the rinky-dink plastic handrails and grab-irons on these cars with some simple brasswork - tubing and/or solid wire.

Still to do on these cars:
* All lettering!
* Interior details of baggage/mail car
* Complete Kadee coupler conversion. Right now there is a motley mix of one Bachmann coupler, two body-mounted Kadee 830's and a truck mounted Kadee 909 that looks grotesque on the end of that long arm.
* Finally, I'm hoping to win permission to use the cool reimagined TFRR corporate logo that you can see at the museum in Rabun Gap between the doors on the baggage/mail car. Or I may modify it into my own version by adding some simple mountain peak outlines to the inner circle.

Into the Great Outdoors

2010-05-21T19:18:00.025-04:00

The first foray for Baldwin Ten-Wheeler #77!

The "roadbed" is a pressure treated 2x6 connected to the house at one end with one inch "L" brackets and floating over the handrail of the deck on a pair of eight inch carriage bolts. Using the carriage bolts allowed flawless adjustment of the board at dead level.

The same technique will be used to support all the other trackwork around the deck and the portion of the track that will hang on the fence, meaning it should be easy to get ALL of it perfectly level for the whole area around the big oak tree. I like that the use of the same 2x6 construction from which the deck is built will help the railroad to feel integrated with the existing structures rather than merely perch atop them.

Here's the inside view of the First Class train pulling out behind #77, what was often called the "milk run" on small railroads - the out-and-back trip to deliver passengers, mail and packages. Both this baggage car and this passenger car with the rear observation deck were bought for a pittance on ebay. They are both refugees from the widely available Bachmann "Big Hauler" sets that appear around Christmas time. In the black and white photos it is impossible to tell what color these cars really were, so I repainted these in this yellow and brown paint scheme that I invented as being the "house" scheme for my version of the TFRR.

The whole indoor train yard is built to slide out to allow maintenance access to the washer and dryer underneath. That means that a gap in the track is also a necessity, meaning that the indoor board and the outdoor plank had to be as leveled and positioned as possible so that incoming and outgoing trains will cross the gap smoothly. To accomplish this I had to install a metal shim along the back edge of the ledger board that supports the plywood train board to overcome the effect of a slight bow that has formed over the last six months.

This correction revealed that the bottom board in the little tunnel through the wall was significantly elevated (relatively speaking) as compared with either side. Rather than try to chisel or sand this down I removed the middle section of ties, leaving only a pair at the end to hold the end of the rail in place.

Later on I will disguise the "free floating" track by modeling this hole through the wall to look like this spot is a crossing for a city street over the tracks. Specifically I guess I'll call it Chattahoochee Street, since that only requires a modest adjustment from the crossing in the yard on the prototype railroad, right in front of the TFRR's locomotive shop.

Here's a view of the exact same crossing on Chattahoochee Street in Cornelia today, where you can see that - amazingly - there is a dump truck repair shop (barn red metal building in the center of the photo) in almost the exact same spot as the TFRR's locomotive shop.

Here's a much closer view of Chattahoochee Street, where it is plain that only one track out of five remains. This view illustrates what I will try to achieve with the street crossing, where the street will seemingly extend into the wall. This will be a pretty good dodge if I can pull it off!

The fact that even this one track remains 40 years later is a small miracle, as the rail is still laid only for a few hundred yards further north, then is reduced to naught but the grassy roadbeds so common to fans of the TFRR.

A Big First Step!

2010-05-09T00:25:00.018-04:00

Today our railroad took a big step toward the out-of-doors!

The initial 60 or so feet of mainline will essentially be a shelf layout that runs on the fence, the track mounted on 2x6's that will be supported by sturdy brackets made from 2x4's. All of the trackwork and the brackets are going to be supported by 4x6 timber posts. All wood is pressure treated.

However, because the fence runs right behind a gigantic oak tree whose canopy covers two houses, digging a bunch of holes through the main roots to sink the posts was not an option. Instead I clamped the timbers to the vertical posts of the chain link fence with these cool brackets I found on the Interwebs. To keep the posts out of the way of water and rot, I positioned and leveled a 6" x 9" concrete paver at the base of each chain link fence post to act as foot.

I was working alone, so I used a nylon ratcheting tie-down to strap the top of the timber post to the metal fence post. This made it easy to get everything level and locked into place, then go around to the neighbor's side of the fence to install the brackets.

Here are the results - supporting timbers for all the track from Cornelia northward to the outskirts of Demorest - the first stop on the line.

Now I ache all over.

Can you dig it?

2010-05-07T00:57:00.016-04:00

I think garden railroading is uniquely linked to prototype railroading amongst the many scales in that actual digging - and often lots of it - is an integral part of railroad construction.

At our house, the narrow lot means there is only a narrow strip of land between the fence/property line and the edge of the driveway, perhaps 30 inches. This is actually perfect for the railroad. The track only requires clearance of around 6 inches, so there is plenty of space left for sidings, structures and other scene-building elements, kind of like an outdoor shelf layout.

This driveway-side strip of land will represent the North Carolina section of the layout, with the town of Otto to be located directly out the living room window and the northern terminus at Franklin appearing directly across from the front steps:

However, to really make the most of this bit of real estate, control erosion, and generally improve the appearance of this somewhat raggedy monkey grass farm, we are going to build a simple concrete block retaining wall up the whole length of the driveway and tie into an existing wall in the back. Wall height will vary with the slope of the driveway, but the emphasis will be on easy and comfortable sitting along the entire line.

But first, the entire bank has to be excavated back toward the fence enough to allow a 16" wide foundation for the 8" block. Here are some photos of the work progressing toward the back gate, which will mark the Georgia/North Carolina state line on the railroad.

I actually like to dig! During the winter I'll find myself looking forward to the return of warm weather and digging season. Its damn good exercise when done in earnest, which is the only way to make any progress in our combination of red clay and tree roots. A hideous example of the latter is circled in red in this next pic.

Having the right tools is also essential. As far as I am concerned, success in these conditions requires the combined use of four tools: a combination pick-axe/mattock to break up the clay, a short pointed shovel to rough out the hole/ditch, a long-handled square edge shovel to square up the sides and carry out a lot of material, and a heavy digging bar with chisel tip for whenever you need to do some serious heavy hitting. Leave out any one of these and that part of the job slows to a difficult crawl.

The digging bar was a relatively recent revelation for me, a gift of knowledge from my friend John. Its an amazing tool, a 69" solid iron bar with a chisel tip whose 20 pound weight can be used to easily chops through roots and pry out rocks down in the hole where a shovel edge can gain little purchase. On this project, the digging bar allowed me to chop straight through the dense carpet of the monkey grass, then pry the whole root structure up so that big swaths of grass could be literally rolled up like a carpet. The main thing to remember with this tool is to use it vertically, where your strength and the weight of the bar work together. Try to swing this thing in the horizontal and you will soon be exhausted!

Here's a view of the progress from about 2/3 of the way up the driveway, which is about as far as I got before last winter arrived.

Now that pollen season has ended work has resumed. At this point only about 4 feet remain before we reach the "state line"!

Next to be completed:
* I'll have to work my way all the way back down the driveway taking this all down another 10" for the drainage rock and the foundation.
* Build forms for the foundation, which will probably have to be poured in at least a couple lifts due to the change in elevation.
* Build the wall!

I'm hoping to enlist my brother-in-law's help for the foundation pouring and the block laying, as he is an expert in both. For me, once the digging ends it goes back to just being work!

Making a Hospital and Troop Car for the 7th Calvary

2010-04-24T19:29:00.056-04:00

I've always loved the military train sets from the world of tinplate and Lionel, so this was definitely an item on my list of "druthers" for the railroad.

While I knew there were no full-fledged military bases along the line of the TFRR, from an operations standpoint I planned to justify this traffic by having this train serve a reserve unit in one of the towns. I was surprised to discover that not one of the towns had so much as as a National Guard armory! In the course of my research I DID discover that quite a few men from Macon County, North Carolina, were organized into units and sent off to fight Civil War. One of these, the 7th Calvary Battalion, seemed like a nice fit for the classic WWII-era M3 Lee and M4 Sherman tanks that I knew I wanted to model on flat cars.

As for the actual train, USA Trains offers a nice collection of military cars sized for garden railroading, however the modern tanks and humvees did not mesh with the mid-1950's era setting of our TFRR and the prices were quite a bit more than I wanted to pay.

Instead I decided to see if I could find some inexpensive cars on ebay that could be adapted to the purpose. Here is the first of these, an old Kalamazoo-brand passenger/baggage "combine" in 1:24 scale that I won for $24.45, shown here with the trucks and roof already removed.

The first thing I had to do was cut off the bottom step on each corner, as these had already demonstrated themselves to consistently hang on the housing for the throw mechanism that switches the track on the Aristocraft turnouts/switches. In this photo, the steps on the yellow Kalamazoo caboose on the adjoining track have the same problem, so the two cars give a nice "before and after" perspective.

After this came a couple of coats of brushed-on green house paint left over from painting the door to the back porch, thinned with water and mixed with a little black paint to get closer to military olive drab. The house paint immediately eliminates the shiny/slick look of unpainted plastic, so its impossible to do wrong. I intentionally kept the coats kind of light to allow the original plastic red/maroon color to bleed through a little - give it the uneven texture of paint that has been out in the sun and rain for awhile.

I also gave a quick coat to the inside of the car, as well as wash of dilute black paint on the floor to bring out the texture in the molded wood pattern.

There was some discussion about how to utilize the baggage end of the car, including possible designation as a mobile ammo locker, an HQ area and the idea we finally selected - the mobile hospital. This was chosen because the classic red cross on the white field would look so distinctive, while also serving as a reminder of the cost associated with the machines of war.

The circle was traced with a pencil around the cap from a bottle, then painted in free-hand with white paint.

I carefully laid out the red crosses in pencil, but the effort to free-hand the red infill was a disaster, leading to awful, wobbly looking crosses. Like a new barber trying to "fix" a haircut, the crosses got fatter with each attempt to square up the corners. Finally I used a fine tip red Sharpie permanent marker and a ruler to dress the edges, which worked a miracle and cleaned the crosses up quite nicely. Next I used a slightly larger bottle cap and a black Sharpie to fix up the equally unpleasant outer circle you see here.

The end result is that the crosses are still a lot fatter than I would have preferred, but - as usual - from 10 feet away it all looks pretty decent.

Next to be completed on this car will be:

Lettering the car with rail reporting marks and "NCNG 7th Calvary Battalion".
Installation of a Kadee coupler (the TFRR-standard) on the troop end of the car. By some fluke I found myself with an odd number of Kadee #830's, which I discovered after installing the one remaining coupler I had on hand on the hospital end of the car.
Some basic interior detailing, including some benches in the troop end and some bunk beds in the other.
Addition of some soldiers! I'm hoping to find some cheap green army men that can be improved with a little detail painting and placed to be visible through the windows of the car.

Here's a look at the new car with the rest of our short military train, which is basically complete except for lettering and detailing.

Valerie, for scale!