positioning

The full size paper templates that we made last year and used to lay out track centerlines and cut the roadbed got soaked during a rainstorm earlier this year, but I carefully unrolled them and laid them out to dry and was astonished to find that they had not shrunk significantly. I was able to use them to locate the positions of switches and with a little careful measurement I located the positions for bullfrog holes under each switchpoint throwbar.

There were a couple of spots where risers conflicted with either the holes or the mounting locations for the bullfrogs so I adjusted either the location of the switch or the riser.

Jeff Allen

drilling

The positive spring action on the ME switches meant that once we drilled holes for the throwbars we could lay all of the track, instead of having to install Bullfrogs and pushrods with each switch as we went along. Drilling those holes was a popular task for the kids - simple, easy-to-understand, and that thrill of a power tool in your hand.

MLR tools

I bought the MLR tools that Charlie Comstock uses in his video and have found them to be very useful, but I’ve been using too much downward pressure and have distorted the rail guides on the bending tool. It still works but I have to be very careful about shearing off the delicate spike heads on the ME track.

I changed the track spacing in my staging yard to that of the MLR track spacing tool, which I may regret as it is narrower than planned and may make fiddling difficult, but it sure made tracklaying quick and easy.

Jeff Allen

soldering joints

To save time I did most of the track shaping and cutting myself, but I showed the kids how to solder joints in the flex track before bending long sections. First I showed them how to dab a tiny bit of flux on the rail where the joiners would attach.

I had them work in pairs with one student holding the iron against the joiner while the other student waited for the flux to boil then applied the solder. Two simultaneous squeals of delight accompanied each operation as the solder flowed into the joint.

I was nervous about melting ties so had metal track gauges in place on both sides of the joints to act as heat sinks, and discussed the idea of heat flow with the kids ahead of time. With two students working in tandem I wasn’t sure they could coordinate their motions successfully, but it worked out well and every single joint was made without incident.

Jeff Allen

adhesive caulk

We traced the location of each component on the homosote, starting with the turnouts, and the kids took turns applying adhesive caulk and spreading it evenly with a putty knife.

It was nice to have plenty of hands to lift long sections of track into place in the staging yard. 

I left fairly substantial gaps at the ends of long soldered sections to accommodate expansion.

I’m excited. We’ll finish installing track this week, in time for a week of Spring Break. When the kids return we’ll install electrical feeders, which I’m hoping to orchestrate in a way that makes it go very quickly. If I mark each location with a push pin, one team can drill holes, followed by another team threading pre-cut feeders through the holes. A third team dabs on flux, a fourth team positions the shaped end against the rail web, a fifth team solders, a sixth wire brushes the flux residue and a seventh cleans up with a file. Another team can be cutting, stripping and shaping the soldered end of the feeders assembly-line style, and a last team can make the final connections to the bus wires using suitcase connectors.

I plan to install feeders to the frogs but will leave them unpowered until I install the bullfrogs. That’ll be a sort of experiment to see how I feel about unpowered frogs.

We’ll be running trains soon!

Jeff Allen

track installed!

We really got rolling and finished installing the last piece of track this afternoon. We still need to slide in the missing ties at the joints, but other than that we're ready to get started on electrical feeders. 

I had some kids run a few cars around the track to make sure cars would navigate turnouts reliably and stay put on car spots that were supposed to be level. 

Here's the overall view as of this afternoon. 

I wish I'd had more practice with the ME track before I started - it would have gone twice as fast. I'm ready to start the next extension!

Jeff Allen

Coming along nicely

Always enjoy seeing how it is coming along, thanks Jeff

regards Kenn

Wonderful!

Nice work to ALL involved in the build process!!!!! Keep it up

Red feeders

The topic for today's lesson was "continuous process improvement." I had marked the locations for each near-side (red wire) feeder using push pins.

I called out a student's name and assigned her to be captain of the drill team, told her to pick a partner and showed them how I wanted them to start at one end, pull up each push pin and use it's hole as a pilot to drill through the roadbed, staying close to the base of the rail. 

Then I called out another name as captain of the wire cutting team. I showed them how to follow behind the drill team, cutting a length of red insulated 22 gauge tinned solid core copper wire that was long enough to comfortably reach from the rail to the red bus wire.

As they got to work I organized the strippers. I had two combination crimper/stripper tools that were designed to work with wire down to 22 gauge, but even I found them somewhat temperamental on the small wire. I showed them some strategies for scoring the jacket about an eighth inch from the ends.

Another team had the very subtle job of shaping the ends of each lead to nestle unobtrusively against the rail web. 

Followed by inserters, to drop finished leads in the holes. 

And lastly a team to put a dab of flux on each lead.

There was a very energetic period when every team was working simultaneously:

Once all of the teams had finished, we went around team by team to review what had worked well and what could be improved. We'll implement a few process improvements suggested by the workers when we install black feeders tomorrow!

Over the course of the rest of the day I invited any student who was nearby over to solder a lead or two (there were 56 red leads to solder today), and we managed to finish, and even got about half of the suitcase connectors installed connecting to the red bus wire underneath. The push pins have been placed in the middle of the track to mark the red feeder locations but indicate a completed connection.

I'm looking forward to an even smoother operation tomorrow (I stopped by the hardware store on the way home to pick up a better stripper!).

Jeff Allen

Thanks

investment

Thanks John. Kenn and Leverretrailfan,

I feel very fortunate to be in a position to do this. 

Jeff Allen

Didn’t quite make it.

Yesterday, the Friday before our Spring Break, we implemented the process improvements that students suggested after installing the red feeders on Thursday, to install the black feeders.

Instead of having all teams trying to work simultaneously at the benchwork, the wire strippers and benders sat at a table in the middle of the room and a new team called runners received location-specific workpieces from the cutters, handed each one to a stripper, received it back from a bender, and delivered it back to an insertion team at the feeder location on the track.

This cut down on the congestion at the benchwork, so the three teams working there could operate comfortably.

We also decided that it made sense to make fluxing and soldering a separate pass. That left those teams available to work on another project: sanding down the spike head and fishplate detail from plastic ties that had been trimmed off of flextrack so they could be slid into the gaps at track joints.

During the Thursday session we found that the strippers were on the critical path - the speed of progress was gated by how quickly they could strip each feeder, and with the tools they had it was none too quick. So we beefed up that team from two to three workers, and gave one of them a brand new, better-designed tool for Friday’s session. Problem solved, the gating process now shifted to the team that was trying to keep track of which returning “finished” feeder went into which location. They’d been cut to the length required at each location:

but we didn’t have a system for tagging them while they were being processed. I’d hope that the runners memories would serve to match them back up to their spots. This turned out to be overly optimistic.

When I sensed that we were starting to get stressed out about “finishing” the job I decided not to push forward with the soldering steps. Once all of the feeders were cut, stripped, shaped, and in their holes ready to be soldered into place we circled up to talk about what we’d observed and learned. I was pleased to hear that they really “got” the idea that processes could be improved by constantly collecting feedback and making adjustments.

I’ll be spending my Spring Break planning our first operating sessions, which should begin very soon after we get back. There’s a great article in this month’s opsig newsletter about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow that is right on topic.

Jeff Allen

Bravo!

I absolutely love your most recent post. As a student of TOC, Lean, and Six Sigma everything you described is near and dear to my heart. I am overjoyed you are instilling these concepts in young people in such a practical manner. If only every teacher was like you just think of how fantastic the next generation could be.

Yes

And maybe you could come to my work site and teach some guys about process improvement, too!

Thanks Alan

I sincerely appreciate the appreciation. I spent some of my diverse career in QA, which probably accounts for the orientation of my lesson. But when I think of how radically I often have to choose to adapt the principles and practices to the context of my middle school math classroom, I can't help but chuckle.

And when I compare the results, in the form of photos of benchwork, wiring, and workshop organization, to yours, it leads to mildly hysterical tears.

Nevertheless, your work and the account you've made of it has been a primary inspiration for me. I can't emphasize strongly enough how influential the exchange of ideas that goes on here is for me. Thanks,

Jeff Allen 

Fantastic

Kudos for your work, concern and creativity in involving these middle school students (most of whom seem to be female!) in discovering the joys of creativity and attention to detail.  Also thanks to admin for allowing this.

Who is funding all of this?  Most teachers (or at least the dedicated ones) tend to spend their own money on more traditional classroom stuff.

the joys of attention to detail

Thanks Alan T. 

One of the most vivid experiences of this project is how diverse and unpredictable the affinities that individual students will have for the various "aspects" of model railroading. As an undertaking, it is so rich in possibilities that I'm not finding any child is "left behind." The joys of attention to detail is a new sensation for some students, but resonates loudly for others. 

Admin is content as long as kids go home feeling good about their progress in math and are well-prepared for high school. I have a huge advantage by being at a small independent school - I don't have to be aligned on a lesson-by-lesson basis with any other math classes. 

My school pays for the regular math curriculum, and I buy everything else. I have a classroom budget, but I don't use it. It's small and I'm allergic to bookkeeping. My life is better since I stopped filling out expense reports. 

Jeff Allen

Middle school model RR: laying track

A wonderful project you are undertaking with these young people.  I am especially glad to see so many girls involved.  Maybe you will get some future model railroaders out of the group.

Wayne H.

Correlation of track laying to math

Jeff, math was my best subject in school but I could have received an A+ if I could have built a switching layout in class.  What a great idea, but I'm not sure I see the connection of laying track and learning math.  Can you help me out here?

correlations

uttrainman,

The connections to learning some of the specific math skills that are part of the middle school curriculum are somewhat oblique, I'll admit.

But the connections to the larger practice of mathematical thinking are rich and abundant. The curves, tangents and spiral easements of track alignments, coupled on the landscape with grades and vertical curves, form what is to me a stunning juxtaposition of the raw beauty of the natural landscape with the analytical engineering of the mathematically efficiency-seeking arrangement of a man-made but inner-truth inspired design of the path of the railheads.

What is a switch? It's really a kind of binary decision - shall I go this way or that? Young people fret over such decisions, until they realize that their choices are not dead ends, they are part of a network that connects them to future choices and multiple paths to common destinations. Network logic is very mathematical.

Scale, ratio and proportion. Thinking about how fast the model locomotive moves along the track from the perspective of a scale-sized person standing next to it, is a visceral exercise in proportional thinking in both space and time. 

Today, a girl who has been struggling to keep up with her math homework got to be conductor for a very basic switching task of picking up one car and dropping off another from her train. The process took her about 40 minutes, after which she exclaimed how much she enjoyed figuring out how to deal with both a facing-point and a trailing-point move, and that trains were WAY more interesting that she ever realized. 

One of the connections to math is fun. Great question!

Jeff Allen

!

Neat! Where I am, I am the only rail enthusiast i know of in my entire school, not counting my best friend! It's so cool to know that you have an entire class that can enjoy it!