My dream/nightmare layout... July Update 7/31/19 Big Boy month!

I look forward to your updates Elliot. It's coming along beautifully.

hey Elliot consider this and last month as a well deserved vacation!  layout is looking good with progress made so far.

that gazebo looks nice am sure you will get many a evening pleasure using it. so when does the mosquito netting get hung around it??

a non related question.... has the 261 seen daylight and had a fire in her belly seems like it never is in charge of a consist as of late.

Thanks Ray, we already have been enjoying the gazebo. Matt stopped by yesterday to drop off some things, and we just hung out and had a good time. No netting, we'll just use some kind of repellant if it becomes an issue. Been dry this year, so not many mosquitoes (yet).

Not sure what's going on with 261, not a peep. They may be at the mercy of BNSF, and can't get track time. The oil trains have them pretty well tied up.

Happy birthday Elliot!!!

Hi Elliot. Happy belated birthday. It was nice to meet you at the Open House this weekend. Nice progress on the layout.

Thanks for the birthday wishes guys!!!

It was a great day.

On a whim, we altered our schedule a little, and headed up to Tehachapi to see the loop. We got up there around 2:30. We had seen a couple of west bounds along the way, but when we got there, nothing came through. We waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, at 5:00, disappointed at being skunked, we started driving back to LA.

By the time we got 15 miles up the road, we had seen 3 trains stacked up, so I turned around and hurried back. The floodgates opened and we saw all of them come through as well as an east bound for good measure.

I didn't even blow out a candle, but I got my wish anyway.

Doug and Matt J, it was great meeting you in person and seeing your wonderful layouts. I wished I could have spent more time.

I'll post photos of everything when I do my month end update. It may not be exactly on the last day of the month like usual, because I may not have internet service in a couple of our hotels as they are in National Parks.

Belated Happy Birthday. (Mine was on the 17th)

Thanks Spence, and a belated happy birthday to you too.

Happy birthday to Elliot and Spence.

Wow, Elliot; I'll say that was a great birthday!  I am glad you are having a great trip and had a mighty fine birthday!  We don't count the candles anymore anyway.

Happy Birthday a little late.  Your layout is awesome. I drive through the Twin Cities every year about late August for my annual Canada fishing trip.    

I get too tired when I look at it any more!  It is a spectacular layout, really well built, too.  Still, I truly do mean it: I expect it will be a full time labor just to keep it maintained and operating right. 

Thanks again guys!

Mark, it was even better than that.

I don't know if anyone remembers Farrell's Ice Cream Parlors. They died out back in the late 80's. They were a small national chain, with an 1890's theme. I loved Farrell's when I was a kid. They're coming back. We only discovered this when we looked in the brochure rack in the hotel. 

So on the way up to Tehachapi, we stopped in Santa Clarita, which was the first of the new stores. We were the only ones in the place, but clearly that was because it was lunch on a Monday and kids were in school. They said business has actually been very good, and the chain will be expanding. Right now they are just in California and Hawaii, but look for them to come to a strip mall near you in the next few years.

We always talk about childhood memories of trains here, but this one is of food and fun, and just as strong (at least for me). It was an excellent trip down memory lane, and I got a free sundae.  It turns out I'm three 18 year olds.

Pennsynut, drop me an email and you are welcome to visit.

You know Lee, sometimes I get tired of the layout too. That's why I'm on vacation, though I must say traveling is actually harder than just staying home. It will feel good to get home and back to "work".

Eliot,

Three 18 years old!  Ha, ha, that's pretty good.  I'm one short of three 20 years old, so we will still say a teenager.  Wish I could eat as much ice cream as I did at 19 and stay as skinny as a rail as I did back then.  lol   I do like ice cream and pop To wash it down!

The layout has been on hiatus all month, as my wife have been on a big western trip. We aren't home yet, but we are getting closer. We've been a lot of places and seen and done a lot of things. By the time we are done we will have visited 8 National Parks, 4 National Monuments and countless National Forests.

However, I still managed to sneak a decent number of train related things along the way. Some were scheduled, and some were spontaneous. Here are some of the highlights.

 Day one: stopped in Des Moines for lunch and managed to catch an Iowa Interstate train.

Day 3: flying along at 80 mph on I-40 in NM and AZ, my wife caught these on the old Santa Fe.

Day 4: In Flagstaff, we met up with forum member St Paul and his wife for dinner.

Day 5: After dinner we hung out at the Depot to watch trains. I took some videos.

I noticed these interesting markings on the rail.

Day 9: Some of you might recognize this shot of another forum member's layout, though I don't remember seeing this particular angle.

Laidoffsick and his dad on the ends with me in the middle. We had a wonderful visit, and ran the GoPro around the layout.

Day 10: The Old Town Model Railroad Depot in San Diego

and the San Diego Model Railroad museum.

Day 12: The Angel's Gate High Rail Club open house.

Another great time visiting with forum member AGHR Matt.

Day 14: We took a side trip from LA up to see the Tehachapi Loop. The whole story can be found further up this page. (May 18th)

Day 20 found us in San Francisco. They use old PCC cars as a regular part of their mass transit system. Oddly enough, the first of these cars that I saw was painted up in the old Twin Cities Lines colors. A little research told the whole story.

Day 25, we took a nice ride behind this nifty shay.

Unfortunately, I'll have to wait to share some other videos until I get home. Hotel internet speeds just don't lend themselves to uploading to Youtube. Taking more than an hour per minute shot, I'll be home before they would finish loading 24/7.

Here's a short one I did manage to upload while we went to dinner. Gotta love those pistons and gears!

Sounds like your having a busy vacation. Now let's get back to that layout.

Loved your vacation photos and thanks for including some of our Forum members.

Very busy Spence! Seems like I work harder on "vacation" than I do at home.

Off to Yellowstone this morning, heading into "dark territory". No internet for three nights. I'll be back online Thursday and home Friday night. As fun as it has been, a month living out of a suitcase, is starting to get old. I'm anxious to get back to the layout.

Thanks Brian, there are tons more that I have to sift through and more videos to upload too. I'll have to get more organized over the next few nights when I won't be able to post.

Looks like an amazing vacation. Enjoy the rest of it! To continue the discussion from the San Diego thread, we got to meet the Bossman the last time I was at Hodad's, which was like 2 weeks before he died. He was a super nice guy and even gave me a free tshirt for complimenting his restaurant. We alternate between Slater's and Hodad's when I'm in San Diego. Both are delicious. I also am a huge Triple D fan. We travel for work quite a bit and I have been fortunate enough to go to about 50-60 of the locations. The quality of both the food and the experience as a whole has been awesome. 

I'm glad to see that you are having a good time.  Some really spectacular railroad visits.  AND you are letting the crew back home get a little rest. 

Art

Elliot,

That certainly seems like a great vacation you and your wife are having!  Thank you for all the great photos, especially of your visits to Forum members!  Have a safe completion of your trip!

Sounds like you're having a fantastic vacation, Elliot. It was good to meet you and your wife at the club,

Thanks guys!!

Corey - I would have liked to have met him. When we travel, we use a combination of Triple D and Tripadvisor to choose places to eat. Never had a bad meal eating where Guy eats and Tripadvisor fills in very well when we are in uncharted territory.

Art - I hope they haven't forgotten how to do that stuff with all this time off. The bigger problem is, I think I have.

Mark - It is always great to meet forum members in person. What a bunch of wonderful guys. So when are you coming to visit?

Matt - That was fun watching you in action and just hanging out. I don't know what they're going to do when you move.

Signing off, see you on the other side.

Big_Boy_4005 out.

Elliot,

Thanks for the invitation.  I mentioned once that I now work for a manager who is in Duluth and if I ever went there, a side trip would be in order.  I doubt he ever brings U.S. To Minnesota, he will probably just visit us occasionally.  My wife and I would love to travel some.  It won't happen this year, but maybe we can swing it in the future.  One never knows.

Well, it's the end of another month, time for the update.

Last month's update came to you from Boise, Idaho. There weren't any trains on the last 5 days of the trip, but we did visit 3 more national parks and 3 more national monuments. Yellowstone and Tetons were magnificent, but the real surprise was Badlands. We got there at 7:30 AM and were nearly alone. I just left the car in drive, and mostly kept my foot OFF the gas, letting it roll quietly down the road with the windows open, taking in all the critters, the prairie and the perfect weather.

We got home on the 5th, but I didn't spend much time on the layout until Matt showed up on the 18th, almost 2 months to the day from his last visit.

We started a new long term project installing manual throws on hard to reach switches. There are 300 switches on the layout, with 125 Tortoises, 5 DZ1000, 73 Caboose ground throws, 3 spring switches, 9 trailing point with no mechanism, and the remaining 85 will get this treatment. I'll explain how we do this a little further down.

Here's Matt deep in thought working on the first one.

These don't look hard to reach, until I say that there will be a massive grain elevator in the way.

The first two from underneath.

A week later, Matt was back again and Jon was here too. Matt completed this really cool installation of two throws to control a Ross 3 way, and did 4 more to boot.

He really nailed it in spite of all the obstacles.

This is all the operator sees. Both knobs pushed in selects the center route. Pull the top for the right leg, the bottom for the left leg, and it even self corrects if one is pulled when you pull the other.

Jon spent the day repairing the damage I did to the fascia with the sander trying to smooth out the Bondo. He used lightweight spackle tinted with black paint to get it back to perfectly smooth. Then he gave it another coat of flat black. We'll finish it up with a coat of semi-gloss when Matt is done with all the switches.

This photo shows the workings of the manual throws. They are really quite simple.

They consist of a brass tube inserted and super glued into a hole drilled into the decking. Then a piece of piano wire is bent into a crank shape. The top which connects to the switch has to be bent first, then it is dropped into place and the bottom arm is bent.

I use radio control push rods which come with the clevis shown here.

The red outer tube is then trimmed off flush with the fascia. Finally the knob is secured with a 2-56 screw.

After all that, I was finally back up to speed and in the mood to get back to work. I started laying track on the bookshelf.

I still need to get the final alignment of this crossover, as I work both ends to the middle, to complete the last piece of mainline.

This 072 wye is at the top of the small helix.

I got it installed and screwed down today. I tried moving the points back and forth, when the solder on one of them broke. In the process of fixing it, I melted the throwbar just enough that it will have to be replaced. I know what I'm doing tomorrow.

Sounds like I'm going to have a full crew on Thursday when Patrick returns to action along with Matt and Jon. July should be a great month!

Looks great...

Are these Du Bro R/C push rods? Great idea....

Thanks Sam, actually those are Sullivan. They still make them more than 20 years after I bought them.

Glad to see you enjoyed the road trip, Elliot. Nice progress on the layout.

Trip of a lifetime really, Matt. Saw so many man made and natural wonders. Two and a half weeks in California alone. As much fun as it was, it's good to be home and back to my routine, layout included.

I am glad you enjoyed our state....Next time you are around, look me up we can meet for some trains and a drink of your choice...

The push rod idea is fantastic. You know it can go around corners and can reach awkward areas....I may do that on my new layout and save time, complexity, wiring and of course money...

BTW, may I suggest that you "lock up" the ny rods with a 2-56 nut to prevent some one turning the wooden knob and messing up the push/pull adjustment, or a drop of CA on the threads will do also

Again, great layout and great effort...Thx for sharing.

I've been to California a number of times, and always loved it. This was my wife's second visit. Her first was a couple years ago when we came down the coast from Seattle and Portland through the giant redwoods, stopping in the Bay Area before turning east for home. This time we covered much of the southern and eastern part of the state as well as finishing the coast. The only bad thing was that new 60 cent gas tax. The water situation is pretty scary too.

I would love to meet up, but it might be a couple years before we get out that way again. The next trip is looking like Carolinas and Mid Atlantic states including DC.

The push rod idea has been in my bag of tricks since I had my layout at Mall of America, back in the early 90's. I had designed my own screw drive switch machine, a big clunky thing that had replaceable components for easy maintenance. Using the push rods, they could be located in easy to reach places.

Glad you like the idea. That is what the forum is for after all.

Looking good, Elliot.

Great progress. Are we getting another video in the near future?

Thanks guys.

Brian - I'm getting really close to the end of track laying. Should get most of it done this month.

Spence - A video would imply something moving. That hasn't happened in a while. However, my brother in law has a drone, and we are in talks about train related flights over areas that I am modelling. Another idea is to borrow the drone's steady cam platform and do another walk through video that isn't bouncy. Of course, when I get more wiring done I can shoot moving trains.

Another month gone, and lots of progress to report. I had the most help working on the layout to date. Patrick and Matt were both here twice, Jon three times and my new guy Joe was here 4 weeks in a row. I put in 52 hours working along side my crew and an additional 55 hours alone. Let's take a look back and see what all those man hours accomplished.

Matt's 3 visits were spent on a single large project, installing manual switch throws in yards and industrial areas on the upper deck.

He's become quite skilled at doing these, so when he comes over, I just turn him loose while I work on other things.

Jon and I have spent the month hanging fascia, in an effort to stay ahead of Matt and the switch throws. Here we see aisle 3 just getting started.

Some of my time this month was spent laying track. I spent the entire 4th working on the layout.

My wife came down and snapped this one of me painting.

I closed up the last bit of mainline on the entire layout on the 4th.

This was actually the second golden spike. The first was back in December on the other side of the layout.

And there was much rejoicing!

I'm not sure what I would have done without my white grease pencil. I drew out the "A" yard in fairly short order.

I finished carving the roadbed profile on this curve in preparation for paint and ballast with the ultimate goal of putting on the Roseville deck which will just about complete the benchwork.

Jon and I continued hanging fascia.

Then we ran into a little problem when the new Lionel auto racks hit it. The solution was to shim it out 1/4". Problem solved.

Back in aisle 4, I hung the car card pockets. It is starting to feel like a real operating railroad.

The fascia is now filled and painted half way down the north side of aisle 2, but wait there's more.

This pretty bit of wiring is Joe's handy work. I taught him everything I know. Great student, and he's not even a train guy (yet).

How do you manage all this man power and all these projects? Time for a spreadsheet and a place to empty my brain. Projects down the side and time across the top.

Matt continues his progress on the manual throws.

Patrick's first visit in 3 months. Squeezing himself between the upper deck and the boxed in duct-work, he secures the supports for the Roseville deck.

The deck pieces are cut, but have to wait to be installed, until the track below is painted and ballasted.

The tallest rolling stock I own, the MTH premier husky stack car. Once again, we are off by 1/4", this time in the vertical.

This is Joe, happily wiring along.

I started to assemble the Ladder for the "A" yard. It takes a lot of chopping of 072 switches to get 4" track spacing. They fit together kind of like a puzzle. Art (Chugman) has alerted me to potential stalling problems with this arrangement. I have a neat idea on how to solve that. It could be Matt's next big project.

More brain off loading to a spreadsheet. This one is a punch list. Projects down the side again, layout sections across the top. The body is filled in with a percentage of completion for that item in that location.

The track is painted, ready for ballast.

Ballast is spread...

and glued!

The bottom of the deck is painted.

Back to fascia hanging.

The first section of deck is secured with 1/4" shims on each post. Like the problem never happened.

Joe was here Wednesday. We didn't quite finish this section, we'll wrap it up next time.

Jon was here Friday. Patrick and I hung 64 more feet of fascia last Tuesday, but it was just tacked in place. Jon shimmed and secured it, then I started the filling the seams and screw heads. The goal being to have this painted and ready for Matt Sunday.

I had a little time before Jon was far enough along on the fascia that I could start filling, so I installed half a dozen Caboose ground throws at Shoreham. That completed a punch list item.

If Joe is able to maintain this pace, we may very well have the entire upper deck powered by the end of August. We will have track laying done and 100% power by the end of this year.

Unfortunately, Jon has informed me that he will be unavailable for the foreseeable future, so that will shift fascia duty to Patrick and me. We only have about 48' left on the upper deck, not including some special sections. Then I guess we can start work on the lower.

It is really starting to come together now. The day we can actually operate is getting closer and closer.

Coming along nicely.

Impressive!

Peter