Shafts, countershafts, pulleys, belts, and belt shifters

Side view of the machine shop

View looking through the machine shop. More weathering is required.

The boiler and steam engine were the final machines to add to the machine shop. The boiler is a kit from Crow River.  I used Vallejo Model Air Black Metallic paint on the boiler. It make a nice simulation of Russia Iron typically used on boiler shells.  

 The engine was a file I obtained from GrabCAD. That is a website oriented to engineers vice hobbyists. Still, there are lots of files on it that can be printed in a scale model application. 

I decided the steam engine needed a governor as that was a common feature in mill engines. The governor helps keep the steam engine at a constant speed as the load changes. That is key requirement  when cutting multiple machines are running at specified feed rates and powered from the same source. So I drew a governor, printed it, and added it to the machine.

I installed the boiler and steam engine in an extension to the left of the shop. That means the structure will no longer fit in the wye at Aquia Landing. So, Plan A is now out. 

With all the machines installed, I added the main shaft and countershafts. Some machines get power directly from the main shaft. Other machines use countershafts. 

Countershafts have to fulfill three functions. They may drive at one speed, or at two speeds, but in the same direction; or they may run at two speeds, one for driving, the other for reversal. There are different ways of effecting these movements. I opted for single-speed countershafts with machines that have stepped pulleys. I 3D printed stepped pulleys for these countershafts.

Looking through the roof at the machine shop

Typical belt shifter design

The belt shifters are essentially the on-off switches for the machines. To make them I soldered pieces of 0.032 inch phosphor bronze to the roughly correct shape. I curved the belt shifters slightly to follow the shape of the pulleys. I used extra hangers that I printed to install them except in a few locations where there wasn't room for the full hanger. In those cases I used blocks of wood.

The belt shifters don't spin in the hangers. They slide longitudinally to shift the belts from pulleys that are loose to pulleys that are firmly attached to the shaft.  Each belt shifter was a long, tapered wooden staff that extends about 6 feet above the shop floor.  Operators reach up to grab the wooden staff to engage the belt shifter. I cut those staffs using 1/32nd in birch plywood on my laser cutter. The linkage for the staffs required that I solder a short section of rod at 90˙ to the direction of the belt shifters. I used 1/8 inch square sections of strip wood to hold the belt shifters to the joists.

Belt shifter.

All the shafts, countershafts, pulleys, belts, and belt shifters create a nice complex look. Installing them was almost as tricky as rigging a sail ship model. The view looking down the length of the machine shop is really cool.

Machine Shop Progress

 

Machine shop at the EBT Railroad. It is amazing how many machines they crammed into those old shops.

I finished building most of the models of the  machines I will use in the shop. I have only finished painting and installing the wheel press. The rest need final painting and weathering.  Here is a list with status.

Planer 1    Wildwest kit     

A nice, but expensive, model based a planer in the Sierra Railroad shops. 

Planer 2     3D print from artwork that I modified from a file drawn by dansfoundry at printable.com.  

This model was based on a New Haven planer restored by Vintage Machinery on YouTube. 

Engine lathe  Wildwest kit 

This is the newer version with 3D printed parts

Bench lathe  Wildwest kit Not built yet.

Slotting machine  3D print from my artwork. 

I only had one view of the machine, so I had to make a lot of assumptions about the how it all works and fits together. 

Wheel press  
 3D print from my artwork. Thanks to Marty McGuirk for finding a set of plans from a book on the Sierra Railroad.

This one had the most fiddly parts as there is a very delicate saddle to hold the wheels set in place while pressing it and a chain hoist to help lift the axles.  

I decided to print a wheel set with  33 inch railroad wheels with the cooling fins on the back. I found a drawing of this type of wheel used by the UP. Those wheels were lightweight and discontinued as material gots better and trains got heavier.

While I was at it, I printed extra finned wheels to use as clutter around the shop. 

33" Finned wheel set based on a UP drawing

Dill press small Wildwest kit. This will be mounted on one of the posts in the shop.

Pedestal Grinder  Wildwest kit. A small grinder that can be used for general shop tasks.

Radial Drill Press  3D print from my artwork.  

I based this on the machine that Iron Jonesy is restoring on his Youtube channel. He provided enough information about the machine that I could make a pretty good model of it. The only issue was that he never provided dimensions, so I printed it in two sizes to see which worked better.

This is the artwork of the machine.

I had to thicken up some of the parts to survive  3D printing.

The wheel press is the first tool I installed. It will be in the middle of the shop. I plan to work out from it. 

I should have left some of the beams of the structure off to allow me to fit my hands inside more easily. But this should work.

 I decided to attach the belts to the machines first. Then I will install the line shafts once all the machines are in place and secure the belts to the pulleys on the line shafts. 

I am using 0.010 inch thick resin impregnated board for the belts. It is a bit stiffer than paper and is the right color.

I also printed a bunch of hanger and pulleys that I drew. I am not sure exact ly how many I will need as it depends of how many counter shafts I install.

New Engine House and Machine Shop at Aquia Landing

 Work in Progress on the new engine house and machine shop

MYSTERY PROJECT REVEALED!

I have started work on a new engine house and machine shop. This project was inspired by a letter by Herman Haupt to General Burnside where he briefly described an engine shop at Aquia Landing. 

November 17, 1862-11 a.m.

Major-General BURNSIDE:
I have just returned from Aquia Creek. ....snip...
A machine-shop will be extemporized at Aquia by sending lathes, planer, portable, small tools, and shafting. Army forges will furnish smith-shops.
HAUPT.

From the machines and tools he described I assume that this would be a shop for light repairs and maintenance on locomotives and rolling stock.   

This project consists of three main phases, design and build the machine shop, build and add the tools,  install everything on the layout. These are somewhat iterative as the size of the machine shop needed will depend on how many machines are included.

1. Design and build the machine shop 

 I decided I wanted this to be a higher quality model than the existing engine house I built years ago for the Road Show. So I scrapped that structure saving the roof shingled sections. I plan to redo all the windows, so I removed the Tichy windows and put them in the spares box.

Engine house framing at City Point

 The  new single track engine house at Aquia Landing will be based on the one at City Point with just one stall instead of the 3 at that location.  The length will be 15 inches with the main posts on 10-foot centers.  The frame members will all be stick built with bass wood strips. Some I will cut on my laser for precise fit of the miters and tenons (yes they look like Lincoln Logs).  I used 3/16th inch wood as that scales out to 9 inches in O Scale. Heavier beams just didn't look right. 

Framing plan for new engine house

Engine house and machine shop
at City Point

At City Point, the machine shop was installed at right angles to the engine house. I opted to make my parallel to the engine house to maximize room inside for the machine tools and work benches. I have not decided where to place the boiler house with steam engine. That depends on where I install the engine house.

I initially planned to add the engine house and machine shop inside the wye and Aquia Landing where the current engine house is located. But several other plans came to my mind.

Alternative plans for location of new engine house and machine shop

Plan A is possibly the simplest (see lead photo). The engine house resides inside the wye. There would be no changes to the track plan. The drawback is that the location of the machine shop would make it hard to see all the cool detail inside. 

Plan B mock up

Plan B moves the engine house close to the aisle between Aquia Landing and Burnside Wharf. To accomplish that, the wye gets replaced by a turntable. I have an extra turntable leftover from the Road Show, so it would not be that much work to add it. The drawback here is that the turntable might be a little difficult to reach as it is deep in benchwork. The plus is that it gives the most flexibility as there would be two tracks to access the turntable. 

Plan C Mock up

Plan C has the turntable and the shop close to the aisle by placing it alongside the engine house. This is how they did it at City Point. Accessing the turntable would be easier here. But, there is only one track to access the turntable. 

I like how both B & C make getting to Burnside wharf seem a bit farther away than Plan A as crews can no longer back around the wye to get there, they have to go all the way back to the yard and them come down the back track. B & C also remove the wye track that was probably my least reliable piece of track. It worked well most of the times, but sometimes trains derailed on the wye, especially when backing. 

The location of the boiler house and steam engine to power the tools would change depending on which plan I pick. In  Plans A & B, the boiler house is parallel to the shop. In Plan C the boiler house is perpendicular to the engine house.  In all those cases, the steam engine pulley would be parallel to the main line shaft.  

What are your thoughts? Comment below. 

2. Building the Tools

I am just about done making the tools for the machine shop. I am using some kits from Wildwest Models plus models that I am drawing in Fusion 360 and then printing.  So far I have the following:

1. Planer 1    Wildwest kit
2. Planer 2     3D print
3. Engine lathe  Wildwest kit
4. Bench lathe  Wildwest kit
5. Slotting machine  3D print
6. Wheel press  3D Print
7. Dill press small Wildwest kit
8. Grinder small Wildwest kit
9. Shaper   TBD
10. Borer   TBD

Mock up of tools in the shop

I will do a more detailed report on the tools when I get them installed. 

Upcoming Talks and a Sneak Peek at a New Project

 I will be presenting two talks at the start of May about railroading in the Civil War.

The first is at the Carolinas RPM Meet on May 3-4 in Greensboro NC. You can get more information about the meet at https://cmrgreensboro.org/calendar/rpm-carolinas-may2025/

The second talk is the same topic at the Chesapeake Forum in Easton, MD on May 7th. You can get more information about it at https://chesapeakeforum.org/course/railroads-of-the-civil-war/  Note, they are charging a fee for admission. 

Next, I started working on a new project for my model railroad. I started off by getting a supply of scale lumber. Any guesses on what it might be?

Hint, I discussed this project on my blog before. It is a structure.

Dr. Brunnell The Embalmer

Several months ago, Doug Tagsold and I had a discussion about his great grandfather, Harvey Parker. Harvey Parker was a member of the 4th Michigan Infantry Regiment in the US Army of the Potomac. The Army of the Potomac is the Army that was supported by the USMRR Aquia Line, the line that I model in O Scale. Doug told me that Harvey would later be captured, survive Andersonville prison, and return home to father a family with 5 generations, three of which were embalmers and funeral directors.  Doug’s family donated Harvey’s letters to an archive at the University of Michigan. Alas, they are not available on line and Doug did not pay much attention to them when he was younger. So we didn’t have much to go on.

I was aware that there was an embalmer named Dr Brunnell in Fredericksburg in 1862. I assume that he moved his establishment to Aquia Landing when the US Army left Fredericksburg in late 1862. Doug and I speculated that his great grandfather may have been inspired to become an embalmer by seeing him and  other embalmers while serving in the Army. Wikipedia says, 

"Embalming became more common in the United States during the American Civil War, when servicemen often died far from home. The wish of families for their remains to be returned home for local burial and lengthy transport from the battlefield meant it became common in the United States.

The period from about 1861 is sometimes known as the funeral period of embalming and is marked by a separation of the fields of embalming by undertakers and embalming (anatomical wetting) for medical and scientific purposes.  Dr Thomas Holmes received a commission from the Army Medical Corps to embalm the corpses of dead Union officers to return to their families. Military authorities also permitted private embalmers to work in military-controlled areas. The passage of Abraham Lincoln's body home for burial was made possible by embalming, and it brought wider public attention to the possibilities and potential of embalming.”

I used the prototype photo of Dr Brunnell's facility in Fredericksburg, VA as inspiration for the model. I didn't have room for the whole width of the structure, so I just built the gable section using laser-cut wood. I used parchment paper to simulate the canvas sides. I made the signs on my computer using the prototype photos as a guide.

The doctor and the man with the shovel are figures by Knuckleduster that I painted. The Harvey Parker figure is from Sash and Saber to which I added a kepi-wearing Zouave head, also by Sash and Saber.  There was a Lieutenant Parker in the 4th Michigan, but Doug does not think Harvey Parker was an officer. That is why I depicted him wearing an enlisted uniform. 

The 4th Michigan was a zouave infantry regiment. They wore dark blue uniforms with either blue fez with red tassel or blue kepi. The prototype photo of the soldiers in the 4th Michigan is a colorized image from the National Archives showing the Zouave uniforms.

A little more research revealed that the Lieutenant Parker mentioned in the captions of some of  the photos of the 4th Michigan was actually Sewell Parker, thereby confirming that Harvey Parker was not an officer. 

Here is a photo of Doug pointing at the figure of his great grandfather on my layout. 

To complete the scene I  started building a Berkshire Valley model of an O Scale wagon used by a photographer. This is a very fine kit. I have not finished the kit as you can see the unpainted model in the photos. My plan is to show a scene where the photographer is taking a photo of the embalmer’s facility.

I also added a small vignette to the Primmer Farm. This shows Mrs. Primmer milking their family cow while a soldier looks on. The cow and woman were 40mm figures from Triguard Miniatures.

Pig Pen Palace

Eclipse stands ready while a gun boat comes to shore to get resupplies.

Improvements to the pig pen

The farms boys suggested that I make the dirt in the pig pen darker to reflect the typical mix of mud and manure found there. They also suggested some type of shelter for the pigs to get away from the weather.  

So I painted the soil with a dark umber color acrylic wash that I stippled on to the existing scenery. I made a small lean-to shed and placed it in the corner.  I put some straw on the ground so the pigs have a nice resting place. I also added boards to the lower edge of the pig pen to help keep the little porkies in the pen. 

Meanwhile, I noticed that the Eclipse headlight was not working. A brief investigation revealed that one of the CVs controlling the head light was somehow set to 63 vice 2 that it was. I don't know how it changed.

But the Eclipse was not done with me yet. As I was test running it, it started stuttering and growling. The source of the problem was the lead weights in the tender. The CAA joint where I glued them to the tender had failed. Some off the weights came loose and were interfering with the drive shaft to the rear truck. So I had to disassemble the tender once again. In the process, the red and black power wires broke off at the plug connection to the engine. So I had to resolder those. Good news,  all is back together and seems to be running well.  

Finally, I did some tuning of the double slip stub turnout in Falmouth. I noticed that the switch stand was not tightly mounted to the extended tie. So I used some 5-minute epoxy (which is really 30 minute epoxy) to reinforce the base. Once that was cured, the switch stand was solidly mounted, 

Crunch Time, Again

 The NJ-DMV Interchange is scheduled for this weekend. So local layout owners are in crunch time getting ready for the meet. I have been doing some tasks to help others to get ready. My layout is ready to go except for some minor repairs such as a broken switch stand from a last op session. 

One of the embellishments to operations on my railroad that I wanted to get done was to make random events cards.  I wrote about this idea earlier in this post. 

Last night I printed a set of random event cards. Most of them involve delays of some duration, longest is 15 minutes. A few require cars to be set out. About one third have no operational impact. 

I am trying to decide how to trigger the random event.  For now, I am going to place them near Brooke Tunnel and Stares Tunnels. Each train will draw a card when the pass Brooke going southbound or Stares Tunnel going northbound. That why I can have one box near both tunnels to house the cards. I am curious to see how they work out.

Meanwhile, I have been helping Marty McGuirk with building the paper mill for his layout.  

About 2 months ago I helped Marty with a redesign of the paper mill area of his layout to better match the prototype he was trying to model. The drawing shows the design I proposed to him.  You can see that the mill is a large complex and will be an important location for operations on his layout.

The clapboard building is 30 by 12 inches with some compression to fit the layout. The full prototype size in HO is about 36 by 12 inches. There are other structures in the complex that will be nearly as big. 

The photo below shows the first batch of laser cut parts that I cut for the building while they are in the glue up. Marty will install the windows and roofs. There are several other big buildings in the paper mill complex.

I have also been helping Doug Gurin with his layout design. He wants to have a refined drawing to show to the visitors this weekend.

 I also have a small modeling project to complete for Henry Freeman as he will be in town to operate and  pick up this model.

In between all that, I made some progress on the Pungy. I painted the hull and added stem and stem head. Next  I will install the railings and deck furniture. But that will have to wait until the weekend is over.

HOOCHES

 I built three hooches for the camp scene at Falmouth. For the tent portions I used plastic tents by Reneda Models. I built the log portions and chimneys from wood dowels, balsa wood, pink foam, and wooden meat skewers.

I reserved the place in front of the hooch with the brick chimney for the soldier doing his laundry. Since I don't have a figure like that yet, I added him with photoshop. I will look for an appropriate figure, perhaps to 3D print.

Amby gave me some red Virginia  clay from his yard to use in the scenery. This is good stuff as there is no mica in it. But, you must grind it to a powder. Clumps of clay are impervious to water, that's why civil engineers use it for water barriers in dams and superfund sites, so it won't absorb the scenic wet water and glue. But once it is a powder, it works well and adds an authentic color. 

Nettie Barnes and her Pig

Several years ago I when I was building the water mill on my layout, I read a story about Nettie Barnes and her pet pig.  I finally got a chance to put them on the layout near the water mill. The little girl figure came from Modelu's Ragged Victorians figure collection. They call her Harriet. I don't know what Nettie actually looked like, but the Modelu figure looked correct for this era. Her pose is perfect for this vignette.   I painted her as a red-head as her strong will and determination  reminded me of my own red-headed daughter, Danica, who is also a fierce animal lover. The pig is a 3D print I downloaded from the internet.

The Barnes family owned the Piney Branch Mill at the time of the civil war. Her father, Jack Barnes, and some of her brothers enlisted in the Confederate army. Wikipedia  has this following information about the Mill and the Barnes family.

 "Also known as Piney Branch Mill or Hope Park Mill, Robey's Mill is a 3-story frame building on a high stone foundation on the west side of Piney Branch stream. The gristmill likely was built between 1790 and 1804 by either Edward Payne or David Stuart. The property was part of a plantation named Hope Park. Stuart was the husband of the widow of Martha Custis Washington's son. Stuart offered the mill for sale in 1815. A miller named John Barnes Sr. bought the mill in 1837 and trained his eldest son, "Young Jack," the trade. Young Jack (Jack H. Barnes) inherited the mill and miller's house from his father's estate in 1853.

Jack H. Barnes became one of the band of infamous Confederate guerrillas known as "Mosby's Rangers" during the Civil War and was captured three times. 

The miller's office on the southwest corner of the second floor contains wall carvings made by both Union and Confederate soldiers during the war. Fairfax County saw repeated occupations by both sides during the war. The mill was a Confederate outpost "No. 3" during the winter of 1861 to 1862 but was in an area mainly controlled by the Union after this. Family history tells of Union soldiers raiding the mill property and confiscating a pig that was one of the pets of a Barnes daughter. The child and one of the family's enslaved servants went to the Union camp and successfully pleaded for the safe return of the pig."

More detail on the incident is described in  Charles V. Mauro's The Civil War in Fairfax County: Civilians and Soldiers, 

"During the winter of 1861/1862, Confederate troops used Hope Park Mill as Post No. 3.Confederate forces vacated the Hope Park Mill in March 1862, as Union Army troops advanced into western Fairfax County to conduct foraging and resupply operations against civilians. Union soldiers confiscated everything they could carry, including vegetables and pigs. One of the confiscated pigs belonged to ten-year-old Nettie (Jack and Mary Barnes' daughter), who according to the Barnes family story, objected vociferously. 

Nettie carried on so that mama finally told one of the slaves to take her over to the camp and see if the Union soldiers wouldn’t give the pet pig back. The two were met by sentries, who took Nettie and the servant before the commander. Nettie, between sobs, told about the theft of her pig and pleaded for its return.

        The Yankee officer asked Nettie if she could point out the soldier who had taken her pig. She said she could. So the officer lined up the raiding company up in front of Nettie and she quickly picked out the guilty one. The officer didn’t order the man shot, but he did order him to return the pig post-haste. The soldier saluted, got the pig and carried it back to our home, with Nettie and the servant trudging along beside him. "

Eagle Rock Milling and Mfg Co. Inc.

I just finished scratch building this structure for a client. It is a small mill located on the C&O RR near Eagle Rock VA. It is no longer standing. The client had only a few low resolution images, but they were enough to build a model. It had to fit an existing space, so that constrained the dimensions.

I think it came out pretty well and I am considering adding this to my line of kits for Alkem Scale Models. If you would be interested in this kit, please let me know.

Phase I is Complete

I finished the last punch list items for Phase I. I never officially defined Phase I, but it was the section from Stoneman's Station to the south end of Stares Tunnel. There are always more details I could add, but for now, I will move on. The Belle Air farm scene was to have a summer cook house. But I thought the scene was getting too cluttered, so I added a water well and omitted the summer cook house.

I will take a few days to reset, put away the scenery stuff, and work on some client models. Then I will move on to Phase II.  Phase II goes from Stares Tunnel to Falmouth. I have some time to think about what I want to do with Phase II before I pull the trigger. The current plan is to build as shown in the track plan at the right. But, I need to make sure that is the approach I want to take. There is also some work remaining at Aquia Landing.

I was planning on hosting an op session in early October. But now I'm not so sure that will happen. So it's good to take a pause.

Horny Cows

The farm scene is coming along

The finished barn

The internet hive mid is a tough mistress. I am making good progress on my farm scene. The barn is done and I have been adding livestock paddocks outside.

I based the barn on images of a barn at Appomattox, VA that is part of the National Park there. I omitted one of the side sheds to make it a little smaller to fit my space.

The model barn has interior details. The interior of the barn is hard to see as it is dark, but it has hay, a ladder and the framing of the barn visible.

Tools from Alkem Scale Models for the shop.

In the side shed, I added a workshop using a set of tools from Alkem Scale Models and some metal castings I have on hand. The tool kit is such a fun little detail to add.

I laser cut split rail fences and made two paddocks. One for cattle and one for horses.

I need to order some bareback horses, presumably for the officers that are staying at the farm.

I have one pack of cows from Woodland Scenics. I have another pack on order.

Being from the south, South Brooklyn, NY, that is, I know nothing about farming except what my brother and I watched on the early morning TV documentaries on TV in the 1950s and 60's.  Thus, I needed some help on how the barn yard should be set up. So I posted a picture to Facebook and asked for some help. And help I got.

I did get lots of relies from folks with good suggestions for water troughs, hay feeding, etc.  So I have a good handle on how the livestock would have been fed and watered. One thing to remember, this cattle pen is a holding area just before the animals would be slaughtered. So the accommodations would be pretty basic. The animals came in by rail, or were walked from Aquia Landing.

Apparently the horns are not a delicacy.

Scrawny cows at City Point, VA

One of the more interesting tangents we got into was whether cows in the civil war had horns or not. If you look at most photos or pictures of cows from the period, you see cows with horns. Of course, my O scale cows do not have horns. The hive mind was happy to point that out.

My options, buy cattle from Aspen Modeling Company. They sell properly horny cows but for a price of almost $9.00 each. Or, I could add horns to the Woodland Scenics Cows. That is the approach I will take.

Now, civil war era cows were scrawny, especially compared to the plump Herefords that Woodland Scenics sells. I do not plan to put my model cows on a diet though. There are some places where you just have to say, "good enough."