I was working near the livestock chute today, and found this partially buried next to it:
It's a case for a hex wrench, otherwise known as an Allen wrench. It should have occurred to me that the name of the tool came from the name of a company, which was the name of a person. I also had no idea that it was invented/patented in Hartford.
But that's the case, The Allen Manufacturing Company was yet another Connecticut tool manufacturer. There's little reason for me to write up more since there's an excellent overview of the company on this blog.
But I will note that they opened a manufacturing facility in Bloomfield in 1958, although it appears it wasn't directly served by the railroad, based on the location of their plant.
Regardless, it was interesting to see yet another common tool comes from a Connecticut company.
Progress on modeling stuff is largely invisible. I'm continuing to work on the new website, feeders, additional panels to finish off the layout, and working out how I'll finish the space under Whiting St. Yard. I do have a few parts and tools on order to get moving on a couple of other projects in the next week or two.
Since there isn't much to show from the layout side of things, here are a few more pictures from work.
This is an old pipe-connected derail. It looks almost identical to the operating ones that modeling buddy John Grosner has on his layout.
The new poles are going up pretty quickly, at least I think so. Here's a tidbit (I'll let you decide if it's interesting). The state required the poles to be higher (this one is 95' tall) and spaced to allow room for catenary in case they want to electrify the line. I don't think that's likely on a one-train-a-day freight only branch line, but they are thinking ahead.
Here's another one going up.
I continue to be impressed with the whole process. There are as many as 4-6 crews working on any given day. The bases for the east side of the line will probably be completed this week. Erecting the poles themselves will slow a bit when they have to work directly from the rail. The outage for the west side of the line isn't until November, so we'll be here for a while.
While continuing to work on the new version of the website, I decided it was time to finally pick up Porter Steam Locomotives published by the NMRA.
This is a reprint of a 1930 catalog, plus a complete roster. I was also able to find a reprint of a later catalog as supporting material. This is, of course, to acquire whatever additional information for the Stanley locomotive:
I was able to compile quite a bit of useful information between these sources, verified against the measurements I took in July, 2020.
Stanley No. 1
The Stanley Works rostered a 45-ton 0-4-0F (fireless) steam locomotive, the Stanley S1.
HK Porter no. 7230 built in September, 1936.
Cylinders - 22" Diameter, 18" Stroke
Drivers - 36"
Wheelbase - 6' 3"
Length (over bumpers) - 23' 0"
Height - 12' 8"
Weight - 90,000
Advised radius of operation - 60 feet
Sharpest radius of operation - 35 feet
That works out to ~8" or ~5" in HO(!) unless my math is wrong...
They are rated to haul 1,420 tons on level track, the equivalent of ~twenty-eight 50-ton cars. Even as much as 170 tons up a 3% grade.
It was sold (donated?) to the Connecticut Trolley Museum at Warehouse Point c1970.
A fireless steam locomotive has no firebox or smokebox. Instead of burning coal or wood to heat the water in the boiler and generate steam, the locomotive is connected to a steam line at the factory. Only a 5th of the tank is filled with steam, the rest is water. Each charge can run for two to five hours. Recharging takes about 15 minutes.
The Connecticut Trolley Museum sold the locomotive to Railstar who, to the best of my knowledge, intended to put it back in service. On July 2, 2005 a 12- and two 13-year old girls started a fire that burned the warehouse where it was being stored. The locomotive was damaged significantly and moved outside where it has remained.
There were eleven other locomotives built with the same specifications. They did have a streamlined version (that looks a lot like an I-5). I haven't found photos of these 11 units, so I'm not sure which, if any, were streamlined.
Last night Chris, Bruce and I convened at Bill's to test the new layout. Today Bill posted on Facebook a reminder that 7 years ago the four of us dismantled his old layout, taking it out in pieces through the window of the second floor bedroom while it was snowing. That layout lives on at Bruce's and I've mentioned many times how influential that layout (and Bill) have been in my modeling.
Jason has threatened to fire Bill if he has an operating session before Jason. Obviously this isn't an ops session. Just several guys running trains. With a schedule. And switch lists...
This is a test, it is only a test.
Looking down the right aisle. The Delhi branch is the lower deck, with scenery well underway along with many of the structures. The upper level is Sidney (not started yet), along with staging on the right wall (also not started). If I recall, Chris and I were over to help start the benchwork 15 months ago or so.
Chris and Bill working on the first problem of the night - getting a second throttle to work. Bill has an NCE Power Cab along with an SB5 booster. The booster is supposed to remove the limitation that the Power Cab must be plugged into the same location all the time. As it turned out, the SB5 supports 6 additional throttles, with cab numbers from 1-7 only. Bruce and Chris both brought throttles, and we just needed to change the cab number to be in that range so they would work.
This is the second aisle of the layout, with Walton the major town on the lower level on the right. It continues around to a helix off to the left of the photo, then continues around the upper deck to Sidney in the other aisle.
Bill and Chris still troubleshooting the throttle problem, back in the Delhi aisle.
Bruce and Chris are running the Delhi local, coming out of staging here.
After coming around the end of the peninsula from staging, it goes through the wye in Walton to come back over the staging it just left.
In the meantime, Bill and I ran a through freight around the entire layout other than the Delhi branch.
Another look at Bruce and Chris running the Delhi local.
Walton station. Bill purchased a laser cutter last year since he has so many buildings to make. Of course, it doesn't hurt that he's responsible for the line of laser-cut buildings that Branchline produced.
More Chris and Bruce.
Bill and I ran a local with one of Bill's camel back steam locomotives. We wanted to test the primary steam since it's likely to be the most finicky. (It was).
Overall things ran quite well. There is definitely some work to be done with the turnouts, almost all of which are Microengineering. Chris and I haven't really had any issues with them, but we have found that the gauge is sometimes tight between the frog and guardrails. That seems to be the case here, particularly with steam. It's an easy fix with a file, and the tight tolerances means that once it's corrected they will be very reliable.
For fun here are some videos.
There was a lot of joking around and chatting, but when our through freight was approaching the trestle it was pretty quiet so I decided to take this video. Bill's running the train at this point.
This is more like a typical initial shakedown session. I was also attempting to run the train and take a video, and decided it wasn't working. Overall things ran much smoother than this implies.
And this is a glimpse of what it's like when the four of us are together. I tried very hard not to laugh while taking the video. I took this from the vantage point of somebody in front of their house in the valley.
One of the things I need to finish (once I get the track completed again), are the roads. I experimented a bit with AK Interactive's asphalt which I really like, but the texture is a bit too large for HO scale.
I tried sanding it down to see if that helps, and it's a bit better, but I was still looking.
I then found some craft paints at Michael's that are lightly textured. It's very subtle (and perhaps more noticeable in person). I tried four colors, and various degrees of blending and dry brushing on a piece of cardboard:
Here's a bit on the layout, as a base coat:
I really like the light texture. These are thick acrylics, I may want to thin them to cover more surface area. Now to find some reference photos to see if I can match the coloration.
