Golden Valley Route

Fremo F96 adapter to 28cm-MMM

My Golden Valley II project is using the Fremo F96-profile, but for compatibility with my MMM buddies, I need adapters.

The MMM-profile, 28cm variant looks like this:

Here is a drawing of the two 30cm adapters:

Plywood frames

The end-panels and sub road bed are 10mm plywood. the sides are 4mm plywood




With the 4mm sides in place:




Pink foam and cork roadbed

Pink foam cut and glued using hot glue. some contours filed/carved/sanded.
I used a white primer to give the plywood a base for the next color.




The sides painted green and cork strips glued in place.
Instead of plaster cloth that I've used before, I tried glueing felt on top (using regular white glue diluted with water)


Gound foam

First layer of ground foam

Dried Grassland

The recipe for the 'Dried grassland' can be found here:
http://www.fremo.org/h0-usa/index_en.htm
  • 2 parts Woodland scenics T43 (Yellow grass)
  • 1 part Woodland scenics T44 (Burnt grass)
  • 2 parts Woodland scenics T50 (Earth blend)


Ground foam 'Dried grassland' + some higlights using WS T44 (Burnt Grass)


A closeup of the ground foam ontop of sand colored felt. IMO a bit better than plaster cloth

Punktband aka center studs

One Erbert Herei punktband in place. I used spikes to attach it to the cork


And a close up

Ties

Here I have used Central Valley Model Works 'Main line ties': I've painted the ties various brown and gray colors.


In this close-up, one can see that I drilled through some ties since the distance between the Herei-punktband (optimized for European Peco or Tilig code 100 flex) is not a perfect match with the tie spacing for N. American main line

Ballast and Rails

After preparing the ties and glueing the rails (Micro Engineering code83) with CA to the ties, it's time for the ballast.
Here I have used Woodland Scenics fine gray blend. After the ballast has been glued using white glue / water/detergent/alcohol mix, I weathered the ballast following these steps.
The rails and tieplates where then painted with Polly Scale's Roof Brown





As an extra detail, I added 'fish plates' from Proto87.




I felt something was missing. So I added WS fine cinder as a sub roadbed.

Wiring

The cables are now in place. The black cable feeds the 'back rail' and the red wire feeds the center studs.
In 2R-mode, the red cable feeds the front rail. In 3R-mode, the black cable feeds the front rail.
I use a one pole on-off-on toggle switch to control running mode.
Later on, the toggle switch is to be mounted on a panel that can be attached to the side.


Test run

Time to test the tracks. I want to make sure the track is ok, before I continue with the 'landscaping'.
Here the F96s are connected to my 2 16degrees modules.

Turf and Foliage

Using white glue, I attached some WS clump foliage (light green) and coarse turf (burnt grass).
The pole is from Walthers 933-3101 Electric utility pole set.