OCSMR-Ocean County Society of Model Railroaders Club Latest update 11/23/2024

Mark Boyce posted:

Yes Ted, I see the black above Geoff’s fine artwork in Bud’s photographs!  That is fine art work for sure!!  I can paint a black bear in a cave and a polar bear in a blizzard! ;-)

Just to clarify one thing, Mark.  Geoff and Johnbrandt are two different people.  Geoff did the black above the artwork.  The artwork on the panels is my work (Johnbrandt).

I was a little worried that he and the guys would accidentally get black paint on the murals.  Guess they had proven to do the job well from what I see in the photos.

John,

Thank you very much for clarifying!!!  I am sorry I misunderstood!  Yes, I wondered; I usually paint from the top down.  I can imagine you were nervous!  Thank you, John!  Your murals look great!!

Mark Boyce posted:

John,

Thank you very much for clarifying!!!  I am sorry I misunderstood!  Yes, I wondered; I usually paint from the top down.  I can imagine you were nervous!  Thank you, John!  Your murals look great!!

Thanks, Mark.

The painting crew was there today preparing the walls for Johnbrandt to do his magic brush strokes. More painting on Monday.

Ran CNJ trains on friday. Had fun.

Looks like some nice progress has been made. Those wide sweeping curves make the trains look great!

Thanks BTP.  Things got a bit jumbled as the painting crew attacked the walls.  Yup, incorporated the largest diameter  curves that the space allowed.  Curves range from 072 to 105.

The painting crew consisting of Eric, Jim S, Jim T and Ted were busy painting the walls these last several days.  Geoff was no where to be seen.  He's apparently roaming around somewhere.  Finished the black from the ceiling to the (or where the) backdrop will be and the background blue.

The west wall.

The north wall.

The east wall.  It stayed the same except for painting the south door frame tan.

Ta-da.  "How do ya like my paint job on the door frame?" asked Jim S.

The south wall.  Johnbrandt was busy on the sw corner.  We plan to incorporate some EZ-Streets in the town on the upper level.

Some train runnin'.  Merrill, a refugee from the HO side,  was whipping around the track at high speed with his CNW geep.  Claims that he can't run on the HO layout because they're always working on it.  Think that the HO trains just don't run as fast as the O-Gauge.  Guess he shouldn't have gotten those Lionel trains for Christmas.

OCSMR and the Historical Commission will be losing Sister Helen Neder.  She is being reassigned to Plainfield, NJ and was instrumental in us getting the use of the space for the club layouts.  She will be missed and we wish here well.  Her last effort was laboriously cleaning the ages of grim and dirt that was the chem lab.  It now shines almost like new.

All the painting looks great, Bud!  Thank you for the update!!

Been kinda quiet except for the noise of lotsa train runnin'.

Does this look centered?

Johnbrandt finished painting the corner.

The layout crew was working today liquid nailing another Masonite board to the concrete wall in preparation for some additional Johnbrandt design painting.

Yes Bud, that looks centered!!

Ted, Johnbrandt was hoping for some time off as you have been working his fingers to the bone!  Ah well!  The layout crew has put in the call for more OT!!  

Everything is looking mighty fine, Jentz!!

John K and Ted picked up 4 more sheets of Masonite.  Ted painted 2 sheets blue for backdrop use.  The remaining will be used as vertical walls for the ramps.

Vertical walls will be similar to these on a fellow club member's layout.  Ours will use rock paper between the verticals.

Ted redid some solder joints that appeared to need it.  Dusted off some of our old buildings and then we placed them on the layout.  Locations subject to change.

On the elevated south end.

Elevated area in the NW corner.  Considering extending the elevated to cover the tracks in front of the curve.  This will accommodate some of the MTH operating buildings we have.

Set-up the two sets of EZ-Streets we bought and used all the extra track.  Plan on having at least 3 loops of EZ-Streets with 2 loops inside the outer.  Plus, we're gonna need more track.

Wait'll you see what I'm going to do with these transition pieces.

Picking up 8 D21 pieces would make a nice 2 lane road. Just sayin'... I know "ya go with ya got" on the club layout sometimes.

The more you post, the more you are tempting me to make the 400 mile trek from Western Pennsylvania to see this O Gauge extravaganza some day.    Believe it or not, but I have never been to New Jersey!

Carl - The intent is to have 2 lane highways with EZ-Streets running thru parts of the town.  The two inner loops would also form an intersecting 2 lane highway.  Not sure if we will go with D21 or D16 curves on the inner loops.  We bought two EZ-Street sets.  Wanted to see if the geometry would let us have the inner and outer loops touch with just the D21 curves.  It fits,  but may cause some problems in our final plan.  Using the D16/D21 pairing allows a one-to-one track section geometry.  What you see is just about all the track we now have.   We're buying more straights.  Definitely need more curves for the second inner loop.  Not sure about the open crescent with the D21 curve pairing.  Tho using D21 pairing allows more clearance for overhang of larger vehicles.

Mark - Would be honored if you showed up on our doorstep one day.  Would also get you to see the "other" club member's layout too (the one I show selected pix of).  It's about twice the size of the club's.

LocoBudd posted:

Carl - The intent is to have 2 lane highways with EZ-Streets running thru parts of the town.  The two inner loops would also form an intersecting 2 lane highway.  Not sure if we will go with D21 or D16 curves on the inner loops.  We bought two EZ-Street sets.  Wanted to see if the geometry would let us have the inner and outer loops touch with just the D21 curves.  It fits,  but may cause some problems in our final plan.  Using the D16/D21 pairing allows a one-to-one track section geometry.  What you see is just about all the track we now have.   We're buying more straights.  Definitely need more curves for the second inner loop.  Not sure about the open crescent with the D21 curve pairing.  Tho using D21 pairing allows more clearance for overhang of larger vehicles.

Mark - Would be honored if you showed up on our doorstep one day.  Would also get you to see the "other" club member's layout too (the one I show selected pix of).  It's about twice the size of the club's.

 

LocoBudd,

The nested D16/D21 is what is was referring to. I just thought the straight looked a little weird when both loops weren't that way. N, I see that you were only doing a mock-up. The other catch is that the streets bring a lot of work with them creating a scene with more realism. Curbs, sidewalks, street lights, fitting buildings with bases and no bases.

Depending how you want to go with this, a big diorama board for "city scene" would permit the work to be done comfortably on a table. All of the building lighting wiring and such could all be and attached to the diorama base. Then, the city could be placed and put into operation with one or two power feeds. Just a thought...

Anyway, I like streets on a layout and the action that it brings.

Moonman posted:

LocoBudd posted:

Carl - The intent is to have 2 lane highways with EZ-Streets running thru parts of the town.  The two inner loops would also form an intersecting 2 lane highway.  Not sure if we will go with D21 or D16 curves on the inner loops.  We bought two EZ-Street sets.  Wanted to see if the geometry would let us have the inner and outer loops touch with just the D21 curves.  It fits,  but may cause some problems in our final plan.  Using the D16/D21 pairing allows a one-to-one track section geometry.  What you see is just about all the track we now have.   We're buying more straights.  Definitely need more curves for the second inner loop.  Not sure about the open crescent with the D21 curve pairing.  Tho using D21 pairing allows more clearance for overhang of larger vehicles.

Mark - Would be honored if you showed up on our doorstep one day.  Would also get you to see the "other" club member's layout too (the one I show selected pix of).  It's about twice the size of the club's.

 

LocoBudd,

The nested D16/D21 is what is was referring to. I just thought the straight looked a little weird when both loops weren't that way. N, I see that you were only doing a mock-up. The other catch is that the streets bring a lot of work with them creating a scene with more realism. Curbs, sidewalks, street lights, fitting buildings with bases and no bases.

Depending how you want to go with this, a big diorama board for "city scene" would permit the work to be done comfortably on a table. All of the building lighting wiring and such could all be installed and attached to the diorama base. Then, the city could be placed and put into operation with one or two power feeds. Just a thought...

Anyway, I like streets on a layout and the action that it brings.

Carl - Thanks for the idea of the diorama.  It may be something to consider.  The southern upper level is approx. 2 1/2 sheets of plywood.  Useable area for the town is sorta triangular and a little over one sheet of ply.

Also like the use of the streets since it does lend additional action to the layout.  Three loops is the minimum.  The inner loops should be relatively small so the cars don't get "lost".  The outer is a natural for a trolley.

Some pix of our club member Joe's layout with streets.

Joe wanted to use a crossover and required some creativity in getting it to work.

In another part of town, 3 loops with 2 inner and a long outer.

Joe's Streets look great!!!

Mark - Thanks.  Having operating streets helps the layout come alive.

LocoBudd posted:

Carl - Thanks for the idea of the diorama.  It may be something to consider.  The southern upper level is approx. 2 1/2 sheets of plywood.  Useable area for the town is sorta triangular and a little over one sheet of ply.

Also like the use of the streets since it does lend additional action to the layout.  Three loops is the minimum.  The inner loops should be relatively small so the cars don't get "lost".  The outer is a natural for a trolley.

Some pix of our club member Joe's layout with streets.

Joe wanted to use a crossover and required some creativity in getting it to work.

 

In another part of town, 3 loops with 2 inner and a long outer.

 

 

 

LB,

Nice work on his layout! Reminds me of the Frankfort El in Philly.

I didn't realize the area was so large where you put the EZ-Streets. Perhaps neighborhoods could be on dioramas on 1/4" ply or masonite. I just observe how TW Trainworx does things for their layouts like the NY Transportation Museum Holiday layout. Store, transport, setup ,takedown and store each year. Buildings and lighting and stuff are removed and replaced each season. It's all wired plug-n-play with RCA connectors.

Former forum member Lee Willis had some good streets on his layout and wrote several books (Digital downloads on Amazon, I believe)  on using it and modding vehicles.

It can become a layout within the layout. proceed cautiously! One can bite off more than one chew on this project!  

Carl - More of a subway-surface guy (rode that more than the El).  The Market Street El  has been redone and looks nothing like it used to (same for the Frankford El).  The elevated on Joe's layout was an afterthought.  Had to integrate it into existing space (including track spacing) that wasn't planned.  Plus, he wanted to use his Real-Trax.

Read most of Lee Willis' Super-Street posts. Downloaded his book linked from the forum.  Don't know if we'll integrate streets or modify as much as he did.  We'll just lay the buildings out and take it from there.  May use connectors on the building leads so the buildings could be removed later if necessary.

Tom Griffin busy drawing lines for the HO layout helix they are building.

Bud busy screwing wood framing into the layout while giving me directions from his better side! LOL!

Very nice job installing the curved GG, well done!

Jim T and Ted showed up ready to paint the upper part of the hallway Blue Comet Cream but our roaming painter Geoff had already started.  Looks better than the stark white.

Ted checking how much space is needed to mount our club name on the wall.

Added a spacer on the bottom to raise the foam stonewall slightly above the upper level.

Ted brought his Chessie T1 with 6 lighted passenger cars in tow to check if the resoldering of the track joints helped in eliminating the slow down in that section of track.  Was much better than before but still had a slight slow down.

A night time pic on Joe's layout of the elevated scene shown a couple of posts earlier.  He installed blue lights for that twilight look.

Installed two sidings in the turntable area.

Trial fitted the coaling towers.  Track spacing is a bit tight.  The inner siding will be moved to give more clearance between tracks for the coaling towers.

The HO gang are painting the walls black to their backdrop.  Apparently, they  liked the O-gauge side's idea of painting the walls black to our backdrop.

The construction of the  helix on the HO layout  has started.  Have to complete one circle of track before the next is installed.  Has to climb about a foot and a half (the upper level is in the upper left of pic).

Not quite as high as this one.  Though there was some talk about going up to the first floor.

Thank you for the update!!  Looks great!

Johnbrandt finished painting the water tower on the southwest corner.

Jim S and Ted installed background panels on the northwest corner.

Ted removed the background bracing and replaced the buildings in the northwest corner, and painted the panel to mount the club name on the hall wall.  I moved the inner siding about a half inch inward to give more clearance for the coaling stations.

Had a group of people from a retirement community during the afternoon.  Turnout was light because most of the retirees were not able to negotiate the steps.  Ted ran his EM1 while I ran my Pennsy J1.  Later, Ed M came in with an MTH Pennsy SD70.

We did experience some problems.

Ed's SD70 would not run under DCS on track 4.  He had apparently run the engine before on the layout but it was nowhere to be found in the handheld.  Also was unable to load it into the system on either track 4 or 1 (different TIUs on those tracks).  It did run conventionally but could not be run while track 3 was being used.  Tracks 3 and 4 use our second TIU and is powered by track 3 power on the first input (no the fixed voltage TIU power).  The TIU for tracks 1 and 2 have fixed voltage power so those tracks always see the DCS signal when power is on.  In addition, tracks 1 and 2 are connected in passive TIU mode.  That way we can choose to power the tracks with either the Z4K or TPCs.

Did experience some TMCC ground plane problems with the EM1 and J1.  Initially ran the J1 on track 2 and had some problems going over one of the crossovers by the trestle.  Engine would stop and appear to lose power.  Thought is might be the connection with the switches installed back-to-back.  Later, after switching to track 3 and running for a while with no problem, the J1 would stop dead on the southwest corner.  Cleaning track didn't solve the problem.  The EM1 didn't stop there on track 3 but had some headlight flickering.  The J1 was able to negotiate the corner at a slightly higher speed.  The EM1 did experience stopping coming out of the northwest tunnel while running slow on track 2.  Increasing speed also solved that problem area.  Suspect the vintage of the engines since both were manufactured around 2000.

Again, very nice work by Johnbrandt!!!  The water tower looks great!  I'm sure you will get all the bugs worked out soon.

Ted finished the club sign.  Have to mount it on the wall above.

Installed the lead track to the turntable.

Building fronts were added to the west wall.

We're expecting guests.  Hope they bring some samples.

More buildings were unpacked and cleaned.  Final placement is TBD.

The HO crew has been busy adding to the helix.  Probably will need 5 or 6 circles.

Your guests will certainly get a treat seeing the layouts even if they don’t bring any treats with them 

That is fantastic, Bud!  I'm glad that the guys got together Friday to get buildings in place.   And I see by the Napa Valley Wine Train that Dennis is participating!  Whoo-Hoooo!

The bakery crew is excited to come down to see the layouts.  And I am looking forward to a good time.

See ya soon.

Ran a CNJ freight last weekend.

Will send him a separate email and update my post on this but in case he sees this post, thanks again to CNJ #1601 for his RS3 horn and handrails. 

The visit was not without incident.  On arrival around 4pm, there was no electrical power in the building.  A call was made to the electric company.  Electric company's response was to have power restored by 7pm.  Expected guests to start arriving at 6pm.  Fortunately, power was restored by 5pm.

Here're some pix of the festivities.  Theme was, obviously, food trains.

The Wegman train.

This is how DCC works.  Unfortunately, didn't get many pix of the HO layout.

Group shot, guests and crew.

All in all, everyone had a good time.

Nice group!  Lots of smiles!!

How many people does it take to mount the OCSMR sign?  Six. four workers (Jack, Frank, Mark and Ted) and two photographers.

The finished product.

Ted doing some roadway "paving".

Did some rearranging of buildings on the north end.

Trains?  Junior member Sean and his father John running Sean's Pennsy passenger train.

Tom's Conrail freight needed a steam assist to make the grades.

Frank takes his Midland freight past the Red Bank station on the HO side.

I’m glad you are to the point you can run some trains!

Mark - We've been running trains, in one way or the other, for quite some time.  It gets pretty hectic (and noisy) with trains running on all four tracks.  It's even more fun running more than one train on a track with all the others running.

Bud, I tried to contact you via you club website and your contact page is not working. Also tried to send you a private message and could not. Can You please contact me via private massage or email. Thanks Rich 

Richard,

The contact email is mine at captnkraft@aol.com. I take care of the website.

Thanks,

Ted