I think these two locomotives could increase the number of folks involved in Z scale dramatically, as they address two glaring gaps in the Z scale world. Let’s start with the Mikado, our choices for years in Z scale were Marklin’s Pacific or Mikado as far as North American steam. Both very nice models (I have several Marklin Pacifics I wouldn’t part with!) but they’ve basically remained unchanged since the 1970s. It’s 2012 and simply put, we need better moderately priced steam in Z scale. If these AZL Mikados run as well as the Tenshodo Japanese-style locomotives, I think we’ll be seeing lots of new users in Z.

I don’t know of any official stats or studies, but in model railroading I think people are strongly drawn to steam locomotives. Maybe it’s no more mysterious than seeing the side rod mechanisms come to life and move the massive driving wheels forward, maybe the appeal of steam is the part they played in history. In any case, model railroaders love steam and I think the AZL Mikado will be a big hit.

The announced MTL SW1500 diesel switcher addresses a different but no less important Z scale need, SWITCHERS! Today most Z scalers are using either AZL or MTL Geeps for switching duties. This works well but it would be nice to have a dedicated yard switcher on every layout (though the SW1500 can also operate as road switcher!).

There’s an appeal to switchers in Z scale that’s much less technical though, their size! Although we’re seeing larger and larger layouts in Z scale, many people still build small Z scale layouts. In addition, we’re also at a point when we’re seeing more talk of dedicated Z scale switching layouts. A smaller diesel would be perfect in these situations. The MTL SW1500 would be a much-needed addition.

Another thought on the MTL SW1500, and again I don’t know how this fits in to the big Z picture, but here goes. Prior to the MTL GP35 and the diesels that have followed from MTL and AZL, Marklin was the source for Z scale. It seems no matter what country or era a person modeled, they always had several Marklin 8800 steam switchers in their collections. Marklin did an amazing job of marketing these little switchers, bundling them in specialty and novelty packaging: Christmas, Easter, Halloween, beach themes, etc. People collected these little beauties like baseball cards!

Times have of course changed since the heyday of the Marklin 8800, but I think the pull to own a handful of cool little switchers will remain, maybe more so now as these new switchers will be truly at home on North American layouts.

The fun thing about what’s coming to Z scale… these are just two of the new products talked about at the 2012 Z National Z Scale Convention!

When you’re involved in model railroading for awhile there are a handful of notable names you’ll come across time and time again, people whose modeling work stands out from the rest. Pelle K. Soeeborg is definitely one of these names.

When I began looking at model railroad scenery set  in the US Southwest, I’d come across Pelle’s name and photos on a regular basis for very good reasons, his work and his photography are stunning! Pelle works in HO scale but his aesthetic sense and style can be studied, and borrowed from, by all model railroaders. I contacted Pelle recently and he was gracious enough to be our Ztrains Guest. Enjoy!

Pelle K. Soeeborg

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became involved in model railroading?

I have always liked trains and like most European men of my age, I had a Marklin train as a kid. When I became a teenager, I lost interest in my Marklin trains and sold them all. On a summer afternoon in the early start of the 90s I went to a specialty book store in Copenhagen – I don’t remember what I went there for but while I was waiting in line to pay for whatever I got, I spotted a basket full of old copies of Model Railroader Magazine. I picked one of them up and looked at the cover thinking: wow, is that really a model? I ended up buying them all.

The magazines inspired me to take up my childhood hobby but this time I wanted to give American trains a try. I soon realized that models of American prototypes were as good as non-existent here in Europe at the time, but I managed to get hold of something via mail order from the US. Remember this was before the internet was a common thing.

You’ve written several books for Kalmbach Publishing, including: Mountain to Desert: Building The HO Scale Daneville & Donner River. Living in Denmark, how did you become interested in US railroads and specifically, the railroads often associated with the US Southwest?

As mentioned my interest in modeling American railroads was caused by Model Railroader Magazine. My first attempt to build an American railroad scene was not successful. It didn’t look right and I couldn’t really figure out what was wrong with it. At the time, I had never been in the US and decided that I needed to go there and see how it really looked. I got in contact with a passionate train photographer from Southern California who recommended me different good railroad locations in California.

I arrived in Los Angeles in the summer of 1992 and my very first stop was in Mojave where I had breakfast at Denny’s and while I was sitting with my coffee at a window table, a beautiful lash-up of sparkling new red and silver Santa Fe Warbonnets rolled by, followed by and endless string of flat cars with trailers. That was my first impression of American railroading. I spent several days exploring the Tehachapi, which also became the prototype for my first layout. As you can see, Mojave never left me. To me it represented the perfect western railroad town and the town “Daneville” on both my previous and my present layout is based on Mojave. Over the years I have traveled a good part of the US but my heart belongs to the vast spaces of the Southwest.

Your scenery work is amazingly realistic; did you have any model railroading influences when you began your work?

I remember a couple of fantastic layouts from my first copies of Model Railroader Magazine. One of them was called “the Berkshire Lines” or something like that. It was a club layout featuring New England railroads. Another was David Barrow’s “Cat Mountain & Santa Fe” and Chuck Hitchcock’s “Santa Fe Argentine Division”. Even though I would never have the space for a model railroad of this magnitude, I was captured by the balance between the scenery and the track. The realism of these model railroads was stunning, nothing like the spaghetti bowl of track I remembered from the layouts featured in my childhoods Marklin catalogs.

Two areas that stand in your photos are your soil and your pavement work. Do you have any tips that you could share with our readers?

The key to realistic looking soil and pavement is using light colors. When I tried to use real Mojave dirt on my layout, it looked too dark so I “diluted” it with lighter dirt to make it look right. To make the roads look realistic I paint them in a color that matches the surrounding scenery. If the road runs through a desert, I mix the gray asphalt color with a beige color. A desert road is covered with dust and the pavement will therefore take a lighter and warmer shade of gray than a road in more lush green or urban areas.

What sort of advantages or disadvantages do you think Z scale, or even N scale, modelers face when trying to create high quality scenery?

I have always modeled in HO scale and have never tried to model in N and Z scale but I would assume you can make just as convincing scenery in these scales as in HO. Nowadays you can get so many great looking scenery materials.

Another book you’ve written for Kalmbach is titled: Essential Model Railroad Scenery Techniques. Now I don’t want to give away too much here, but are there one or two top techniques or ideas that you think are especially important for good scenery?

One thing could be that applying all ground cover including the ballast to a scene before wetting and gluing it. Not only makes this scenery building quicker but the scenery materials also blends together in a more natural way.

You’ve obviously seen lots of other train layouts. This question is very subjective of course, but in your view what elements do you think separates very good layouts from average layouts?

I haven’t seen that many actually. What separates the good ones, in my opinion, is when the scenery dominates the track. I like when you get the impression of a landscape with a track in it and not a track with some landscape around it. Modeling in smaller scales like N and Z will definitely be an advantage regarding this issue. I know most of us who are modeling in HO scale don’t have the space for building a model railroad that way, myself included, but I have tried to keep the amount of track on my layouts to a minimum to obtain the most space for scenery.

When a new modeler sees scenery like yours it’s possible that they could become discouraged, thinking they could never achieve these results. What advice would you give to a new and enthusiastic scenery builder?

The techniques I use are not complicated at all so I will say that with a little practice anybody can achieve a good result. My best advice is to use your eyes. If a scene doesn’t look right to you it will probably not look right to others too. We all make mistakes but as long as we learn from them, it is not a problem. My second layout was better than my first, my present layout is better than the one before, and my next will probably be better than my present.

Another element to your work that stands out is your locomotive and rolling stock weathering. You’ve spoken about airbrush use previously but we still see many model railroaders hesitant to use an airbrush. What are your thoughts on single vs. double action airbrushes, and what would you suggest for a beginner?

I will definitely recommend a double action airbrush. Especially when you weather models, it is essential that you can control the air and paint flow individually. I know that many modelers have a fear of using an airbrush and it could be because their only experience in airbrushing has been with a cheap single action airbrush. It is difficult to control the amount of paint you apply to your model, especially on a limited area, with a single action airbrush.

Invest in a high-end double action airbrush and a good compressor with an air tank then you will discover that it might not be as difficult as you think.

Much of the realism from your weathering comes from its subtle application… not every car is ancient or rusted through. Do you have an overall philosophy when weathering locos and rolling stock?

Not really, except that I try to reflect what I see when I go rail fanning.

Thanks very much for taking time for our readers, but before I let you go just one more question. I see you have a new book coming out: Rebuilding a Layout from A-Z. Given how beautiful the Daneville & Donner River layout was, why did you decide to rebuild?

A lot of reasons. The most important is probably noise reduction. On my old layout, there was a high level of track noise and I didn’t pay much attention to it until I started running sound equipped locomotives. The wheel noise from the freight cars almost overpowered the sound in the locomotive.

Another reason for rebuilding the layout was that I over the time had spotted so many things I wished I had done differently so I simply felt that the time was right for doing a re-build. I also tend to lose interest in my layouts when they are finished. I am a builder more than an operator.

Pelle K. Soeeborg books at Amazon.com | Pelle K Soeeborg Website

Digital Command Control (DCC) allows multiple model trains on the same section of track to operate independently of each other. Independent locomotive speed, direction and effects such as lighting are all possible through DCC.

Developed by Lenz of Germany for Marklin in the 1980s, Lenz donated the technology to the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) to better its acceptance in the model railroad world. Companies like NCE, Train Control Systems (TCS), Model Rectifier Corp (MRC), Digitrax and others soon followed.

Each DCC system is physically different but consists of 4 key items:

• Command Station (the brains)
• Cab or Throttle (the hand-held control and display)
• Booster (for a larger layout, takes the Command Station data and boosts it to track power level)
• Decoder (purchased and installed separately for each locomotive, these accept digital instructions and in turn control the trains)

Under the DCC umbrella, there are NMRA standards and then there are vendor specific parameters. Every supplier abides by the adopted NRMA specifics and each supplier has their own specific operational features, which can then have their own specific parameters. Running your trains however on any DCC system, it all works together!

Let me say this first, to connect DCC to your existing track requires essentially nothing more than the same 2 wires that you currently use. That’s right, just remove your DC power pack, take the DCC system out of the box and connect the 2 track terminals to your existing wires, install a $30 decoder in your loco and run it!

DCC provides constant power to the track and uses digital addressing to send values to each locomotive (or accessory). Each loco has its own address. Since each loco has its own unique address, several locos can simultaneously be on the same track, each running at its own speed and direction! One very visible advantage of constant power applied to the track is constant lighting. No more varying lighting, and any loco (or car) on the track visually assures that it has pickup power.

Is It For Me?

If you have only one or maybe two locos on the track, DCC may not be necessary or desirable for you. If you have 2 main lines and want to run one around while you do switching off the other main, DCC may not be for you. However, if you have 2 or more locomotives and want to run them completely independently on the same or interconnected tracks, DCC is for you!

Why or how is DCC better than my plain DC power pack (or Joerger, Snail or Gaugemaster controllers?)

As you may have seen at train shows, multiple trains can be simultaneously run on the same track at different speed and in different directions. Have you ever tried to run two locomotives that run at different speeds with the exact same voltage using straight DC? It can be uneven at best. DCC doesn’t care! In a two locomotive setup just run the one locomotive at different speed steps than the other, as each locomotive has its own decoder to drive the motor. In DCC you can tweak each decoder’s values so that any loco runs the same speed as any other loco. Besides multiple trains on a single track, lighting effects can be changed, horns or bells activated, etc.

Since DCC always has power on the rails, it can more easily start your loco unlike a DC power pack, which takes say 1, 2 or 3 volts initially to begin moving. What also makes DCC better is BEMF (Back ElectroMotive Force), or let’s just say ‘feedback’, from the motor to compensate for any speed variations. This helps a loco get started from a stop or compensate for grades or dragging loads around a curve.

Some starter systems like NCE’s Power Cab have all the components in one-piece, known as the Cab, what you hold in your hand. Other systems can have the Command Station and Booster combined. Still, as mentioned earlier, there are just 2 wires to connect to the track.

As for the locomotives, a decoder must be installed. Any manufacturer’s decoder will work with any DCC system so you don’t have to worry about that. Decoders come in 2 types: “drop-in” and “wired”. Drop-in decoders are actually full circuit boards with a mounted decoder and are designed as direct circuit board replacements for specific locomotive chassis. Wired decoders mean you make the connections from the decoder to the loco’s original PC board, typically by soldering.

Micro-Trains Line GP-9 and GP-35, for example, use only the Digitrax DZ123M0 (that’s a zero on the end) whereas the Micro-Trains Line SD-40 uses Train Control Systems (TCS) MZ4A. American Z Lines locos use the TCS Z2 that must be wired in (essentially just 4-6 wires and well documented with clear pictures on TCS’s site).

What does it cost?

Starter sets, like NCE’s Power Cab are around $150 plus about $30 per loco decoder. MRC Prodigy Express costs about the same and the Digitrax Zephyr costs a bit more.

Where can I learn more?

http://www.ncedcc.com/images/stories/whatisdcc.pdf (Opens a PDF file)
http://ikm.digitrax.com/
https://sites.google.com/site/markgurries/ (http://tinyurl.com/6n83u7d)
http://www.nmra.org/standards/DCC/standards_rps/DCCStds.html
http://www.wiringfordcc.com/

On the coal tipple I was going to go with tar paper for the roof but I wanted something that would add to the scene without being too obvious. I went with our basic black wood roof with very fine ground (almost powder) ballast and once dry, I sanded the ballast down for a worn look. For our roof, a couple of masked off areas sprayed black to simulate some roof patches then a bit of weathering powder, and then one final sanding to blend it all together.

Static grass was added to lots of small areas, not a large continuous area of grass, but interesting little patches here and there. The track was treated with weathering powders mixed with alcohol to soak into the soil. A few random piles of coal are always a good touch!

Speaking of coal, on the rear of the diorama we had the angled coal chute and I thought it would be fun to have some coal spilling down the hillside. In a small scene, I’m always looking for visuals that suggest some type of scenic movement. I think our coal spill achieves this.

The conifers trees are from John McCarthy, some of them with John’s trunks attached, always good for those close up shots. Final touches include some ground-up twigs and leaves to act as ground debris and weathering powders applied to give this scene a little extra depth. Finally, several more black alcohol washes were applied to the structure, and the edges of the scene were filled in with soil to meet the edges of the wood base.

It’s been a fun build and I hope you’ve enjoyed it too! Now this diorama is off to Denver to be given away at the 2012 National Z Scale Convention dinner banquet. Thanks for following this build project with us here at Ztrains! Thank also goes to Micro-Trains Line for not only this kit, but for the work they do for the National Z Scale Convention.

The rock pieces that looked haphazardly placed in the previous article now begin to make sense as they give form to our hills. The additional soil placed around these rocks now make them appear as if they are fighting their way through the hillside soil, not simply attached to the hillside.

On the tipple itself, we shot the roof sections with inexpensive flat black paint, as we’ll be creating a tarpaper roof. The black paint catches the roof edges nicely so the entire roof will appear black. I was torn on how to finish the roof here… corrugated panels would have been good but I’ve wanted to try regular old black construction paper to simulate tar paper. I’ve seen good results this way in N scale and figured let’s give it a go in Z!

The window frames, which in the last article looked a bit too green, have been toned down here with weathering powder. They’re now a bit grungier and will be more so once the overall building weathering is applied. Corner edging has been applied to all areas where the slots-and-tabs were visible, including along the bottom length of the tipple.

On ballast for our tipple scene, I have to admit I favor a look where the ballast is not even visible but mud, dirt and coal do the job. Having looked at lots of tipple photos online, grunge definitely appeal to me for ballast.

We’ll have the completed diorama, along with more build photos, online this coming Sunday, April 15. Make sure to stop back to see the final results!

I’ve laid my short track sections on cork subroadbed. I actually use a half-section of N scale cork and build up my tapered edges with ballast. I use Micro-Trains flex track and usually, as I’ve done here, spray them with a light coat of an oil-based white primer. The oil primer grabs very well to the plastic ties and allows me to really work the tie weathering without worrying about the base coat chipping off.

The rocks are cast using gray gypsum and placed into the foam scenery. Next, a base coat of soil is applied and allowed to dry fully before going further. I like to do my scenery in multiple layers, adding more soils, talus and then the top coats of grasses, etc. Starting off with this very generic coat of soil is a good start.

I tend to leave the track bare bones white until most of the surrounding scenery is completed, this way my carefully weathered track and ballast won’t pick up any stray soil dust or coloring along the way.

Once this soil is completely dry, I can start getting to the good stuff, and before long, this scene will begin to take its final shape. Hey, I better get busy, I’m on track to have this piece finished by this coming weekend!

The diorama base this piece will sit on gives us just 8 inches by 8 inches, inside dimensions, to work with so every bit of space counts. Given that the coal tipple is nearly 6 inches in length, we need to be clever in positioning our tipple and the coal chute.

To begin with, I decided to angle the coal chute at an upward angle, just slightly. I wanted to add a sense of movement and this angled coal chute suggests coal coming down a conveyor from the hillside. I added a small, flat extension to the open-ended chute to represent the conveyor.

As the chute in this kit is designed to come straight off the tipple horizontally, I needed to make a pair of small cuts to the chute’s inner walls; this allows the chute to angle upwards. I also then needed to cut the outer walls, the laser etched façade, to match the new angle of the chute.

Once the new chute was attached to the stairwell, I then gave this section a matching paint job, as on the main structure. Before attaching the stairwell to the main structure, I did a base coat paint job on the windows. The windows are cut right into the wall sections, so a little masking tape and a quick shot from the airbrush gave them color. The window frames are separate pieces, and these were painted a matching color. They’ll be toned down a bit during weathering, so I wanted to give them a strong, initial complimentary color that would stand up to this weathering.

Next the expanding foam scenery. Just a couple of shots of the foam, let it cure overnight and do a basic carving to get my shape. I cut a slight notch in the hill under the coal chute to give me some room for the coal chute support legs, which I’ll add later. Once the foam was cut, a coat of Flex Paste on top to seal the foam. I’ll give it one more coat to further strengthen these hills.

For a small scene, we’ll be able to position quite a few hoppers here. We have the double track under the tipple and I think I’ll add an additional track on the free side of tipple, the side opposite the coal chute.

On the backside of the hill I’ve cut several “steps” in to the foam, this will give me some good angles for both rock placement and tree planting. In an 8 inch by 8 inch space, I want to include some fun bits of scenery and good viewing angles, but I don’t want to choke the scene with too much “stuff” and muddy the feel of this scene.

I often like to tweak kits just a bit and I thought the walls on kit would make for an interesting challenge. I thought about covering the existing wall pattern; I could lay in lots of individual strips of basswood, I could cover the entire piece in corrugated metal, maybe a combination of the two?

I did some poking around online for ideas and I came across an old postcard featuring a coal tipple in Hazard, Kentucky. Once I found this postcard, I decided to utilize the existing wall pattern and accentuate this pattern just with, using this old postcard as my model.

The tipple in the postcard has an interesting color to it so I began by painting the assembled kit a dark gray. I used gray as a base so my actual color coats could go on a bit lighter and allow some of the dark gray base  to show through. I used Polly Scale concrete paint for the walls. The postcard tipple has an interesting color, not quite green or gray or any color you could easily identify at a glance, but it does have a look to it! The concrete color does a reasonable job of simulating this color.

In the postcard image, some of the wall panels are noticeably lighter and some are darker. Much of this color variation can be achieved through weathering but I wanted to give myself a head start. Once a light coat of the concrete paint was applied, I went back and randomly masked off individual as well as groups of wall panels, then airbrushed the same concrete paint to the exposed panels. The result is sort of like a random checkerboard pattern. These lighter wall panel sections stand out a bit now but once weathering is applied, I think it will have that slightly random, aged look I’m going for.

On the support structure, or legs, for our tipple, I think this could be painted to look like wood or steel. I’m going here with a rusted steel look so I’ve given this structure a base coat of rust color. This will be toned down a bit during weathering, but it’s a good color to start with.

The last bit I’ve done here is to paint the detail on the end wall sections white and the air vents at the peaks of the roof ends silver. The white is a bit too clean right now but again, weathering will take care of that!

Having gone from the idea of laying in entirely new wall material on top of the existing wall pattern to using this existing pattern to my advantage worked out well. In the next article we’ll add the coal chute and roof.

Trainini Magazine is a German language, monthly Z scale magazine in PDF format and it’s free! Hard to beat that. Each issue link will open in a new window for easy reading.

Don’t worry if you don’t read German (but good for you if you do!) as the photos tell the real story in this publication. Holger Spaing is the man behind this wonderful Z scale magazine and we’d like to thank him for his dedication to Z scale. Once a year or so Trainini is published in an English language version so keep watching… and in the meantime enjoy Trainini Magazine!

Each PDF issue will open in a new browser window.
Each issue is approximately 4 to 5 MB.

Download and print your own 2012 Photo Calendar: 2012 Trainini Photo Calendar

• Trainini Magazine: April 2012
• Trainini Magazine: March 2012
  
• Trainini Magazine: February 2012
• Trainini Magazine: January 2012

• Trainini Magazine: December 2011
• Trainini Magazine: November 2011
• Trainini Magazine: October 2011
• Trainini Magazine: September 2011
• Trainini Magazine: August 2011
• Trainini Magazine: July 2011
• Trainini Magazine: June 2011
• Trainini Magazine: May 2011
• Trainini Magazine: April 2011
• Trainini Magazine: March 2011
• Trainini Magazine: February 2011
• Trainini Magazine: January 2011

On the other hand of course is the whole sense of the seasonal renewal thing, the possibility for fresh starts, etc., that spring tends to bring. I’m soundly in this camp. When I have the windows open and the sun streaming in on a warm day, I want to get stuff done; my whole outlook is decidedly more ambitious.

Now today is only March 11, so the official start of spring is still 10 days away, but after last year’s snow-fest here in the northeast… it’s spring to me! As if I needed proof, the first crocuses are popping up here on Long Island. Like some kind of springtime idiot, I felt compelled to go out and take some photos of the season’s first flowers. Of course being well and truly addicted to model trains, of course I had to take a pair of Z scale buildings with me. Yeah, I know.

A pair of GCLaser buildings followed me outside to enjoy the warm weather!

Strange crocus photography aside, I’m already getting jazzed about the coming warm weather and the projects I have lined up in Z. Here at Ztrains we have the continuation of the Waterfront Project. Track planning starts soon. At the same time, there’s the diorama build for the 2012 National Z Scale Convention.  What makes this even more exciting is that I’ll be building an operating desktop layout at the same time, using the identical MTL kits, and this has to get done in weeks not months. Nothing like a little springtime ambition!

One more big project is a new Z scale website I’m working on for a client. Can’t say anymore, but it’s going to be both cool and useful.

Personally, I find new projects a little tougher in the winter. It gets dark early, the ground is crunchy from the cold and frankly, I eat too much in the winter and get all bear-like lethargic. Yep, the warm weather with the sun staying out longer always makes me more ambitious. How about you… ready to redefine model railroading season?