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Nothing on the layout but I did fix my E6 Atlantic.  the layout will get a clean up this week as I am having folks over next weekend.

No construction today, but earlier this week I finished replacing three ancient Gargraves switches with new RCS ones at the outbound end of my hidden yard. Also added springs to three switches to direct all traffic to the inbound lead. This allowed me to run trains on all 5 yard tracks for the first time in the eight years since I started the layout. 

 

Next up, adding power to the switch motors on the inbound ladder, so I don't have to crawl under to throw them.

Nothin, but did at the monthly TTOS SP meet we ran trains, picked up 3 A/F low end freight cars from about 1936 and two Lionel 629Xs and a 630X.

 

Steve

finally finished this huey which we bought at the february train meet in allentown, and my oldest son came home with this german tank from a gun show he went to with my dad. the military train is growing, a sherman, a german & a huey.

Rick - Yes, I used 2 X 2's for legs on the layout. Thanks!

 

Art

Saturday I was able to wire up my MTH traffic signals.

 

I woke up early today and assembled a side project, repainting and lettering a MTH 2-8-0, and then ran her on the layout.

 

Later today I plan to wire up a switch to tun the layout on and off so I don't have to crawl under the layout every time I want to run trains.  

 

For the last 30 evenings I finished my trestle:

Very nicely done!

Did you scratch it or kit it?

 

Argh! It was **** on earth, I never want to see a piece of scale cut lumber again!

Yeah but it looks great!

Rearranged stuff on the layout and ended up having a reaffirmation of my own preferences. It's a tale of two water towers. One is Marx, one is MTH. The Marx tower took forever to bubble. Took off the light bulb cover at the base moved the bulb closer to the tube and reinstalled. Worked great. Next up, I had a blinking MTH tower under the layout in storage, and wanted to see how it looked in the background. Put power to it.... nothing. Aghh. Opened it up, and lo and behold, a circuit board. Looked at it, noticed there was a plug to the bulb. OK, is it the bulb or the board? Sigh. Place back the newer tower back into storage.

I admire the work done by others on their highrail layouts. I've always been a prewar toy train layout person. I ran some Std Gauge & O-Gauge today, as I do everyday. It's nice to be retired. I wish I could be outdoors.

LOL! Had the same thing happen to me, but with a oil Pumper. Postwar and a modern one. Went to move/adjus the modern one - wire slipped off of the post and shorted the board, now only the postwar one is on the layout!

Look to me like a Panzer IV Ausf H 

A rather productive few days actually...

 

1) I retrieved the derailed locomotive in an inaccessible 4x4 foot tunnel with no access ports except the track portals. I also removed, cleaned, and rebuilt the track in there doing it all be feel with little working room and no way to see what I'm doing. 

 

2) Ran Trains.

 

3) The large "chain" LHS in my area, Hobby Works, sent me a $10 off coupon in the mail not very long ago so I went and picked up some scenery supplies and spent the past few days doing some major scenery work, some of it I've neglected for some time now. I rarely go and buy there but with the coupon I felt I "had" to use it. 

 

4) Made another rare stop at another LHS, Engine House Hobbies (I also rarely go there, preferring Catoctin Mountain Trains) and picked up two pieces of MTH Premier rolling stock to go with my new MTH Premier GP9. I unboxed them and gave them the inaugural spin around the layout. 

 

5) Ran trains.

 

6) Back to work tomorrow to run a 2 foot gauge excursion train. 

 

 

 

Next weekend, I hope to finish much of what I started this weekend, do some more cleaning and sprucing up around the layout, and give the train room a MUCH needed cleaning. 

Cleaned wheels and rollers on one engine. Used it to drag a long train out of the hidden yard. Broke that string in half. Programmed a new engine and had it take the other half of the cars.

 

But maybe the best thing was solving a mysterious electrical short that's been driving me nuts for months. One of my MTH superliner cars has a short in it, and I found which one.

My layout craftwork, today (11am - 1:30pm,) included finishing-touches

here...

 

...here...

 

..and here.

I felt real good about it.

Frank

Wow Moonson

 

Looks great!

Hang in there, Pappy. The outdoors is coming....pics and all. Got some 'kinks' with the posts to overcome...and it won't be much longer. I've promised to put a whole thread in here on building outside....with steel.

Well, it's summer and I feel that trains are a hobby for other than summer. I enjoy outdoor activities now, have to do that when you can, living in the NE. I do pick up some items and when delivered, don't open the boxes until my 'season' starts. Something to look forward too-which you may think is weird.

Well reading this today I put some corn in a row.  As they say to ear is human.

Some spline roadbed

Tore my Marx 333 apart, ran my home made track cleaning car behind an MPC B&M Geep, dug out some HO locos and parts.

 

Not weird at all.  Living on the east end of Long Island, summer time, is beach, golf, and outdoor time.   I do keep a ready train on each of my loops in case any intruders, or I should say, house guests, want to see the trains.

 

After the "grapes are picked" ( this is wine country) it's back to the trains.

 

Ken

Nothing today, babysitting 4 year old Grand Daughter while her Parent's regular Daycare is down for annual inspection and chief babysitter Grandma is pursuing MD appointments. So far all of my answers to questions of why? have resulted in questions of Why?

And, the lure of strange talking cartoon animals on TV has won out over my marketing of running "Thomas and Friends". 

Almost finished my "Star Grill". Used a Miller Engineering Pabst Blue Ribbon neon on the back wall instead of the window. It looks great at night with the lights low as it blinks. Don

Don, Master craftsmanship like this is astounding. I mean, it really is. The level of creativity you are showing with this "Grill" is wonderful. You are cool.

Frank M.

Frank, thank you but I don't in anyway think of myself as a master of anything. I just don't look at my layout as a layout, I look at it the way I see life. All people have to do is look around at their own town. Take picture of things they like and build it. Thanks again Frank and by the way I think your layout is wonderful. I watch all your listings. Don

Aaaahhh, but therein lies the challenge, Don, for me at least, translating what we see and value, passing it through our imaginations, out through our hands, and onto the "page." Myself, I'm not always certain of the results. Yet, I just jump in and take the plunge. Often, what emerges is not where I imagined I was headed.

However, I had a good old time of it and ended up happy w/ the results (most of the time. You'd be surprised what I have discarded or ripped up and begun again.)

Thanks very, very much for what you've said, Don.

Frank

 

I only hope my layout will end up looking as great as some of yours!

 

I didn't get much done on the layout over the last week but one thing I did for my layout is purchase a copy of Dennis B's book on how to do scenery.  I also received my big sheet of Aquatex glass in today and hope to cut it too size this weekend for my harbor scene.  

 

WOW DON SCALE RAIL THAT IS SOME BEAUTIFUL MODEL YOU BUILT.

JUST AWESOME WORK.

 

THANKS, ALEX

Nice work everyone.

 

Working on cinder block walls for an overpass.

  

 

 

Used these project bricks that I saw in AC Moore. They are styrofoam blocks painted beige and works well with regular Elmers white glue. 

 

 

 

Took Fast'N Final and started to fill in the poch marks on the blocks. 

 

 

 

 

More pics to follow.

 

Cesar

I was able to start working on my harbor/beach area yesterday.   I had purchased some Aquatex Acrylic glass and cut it too my harbor/lake front shape using my jig saw.  

 

Pics to come later this week.

Today a Corgi LJ Logging truck floated in, to get loads to my trains and then to the

small sawmills that cut ties and mine timbers.  Have other trucks located so will probably pick up another and then repaint and reletter them for Brannem Fuel and Forest, the company that owns much of the company town of Coalforest at the end of the coal and logging branch, as well as the railroad.

Friday the elusive cast "foam" stone walls floated in for another water mill, so that

building has one more wall installed and should gain another tonight.  A mill kit is

being kitbashed, made longer, wider, and taller, with a tall, thin rusty iron water

wheel added, and all taken back in time.  Decision has to be made as to whether to make it a breast shot, overshot, or undershot wheel.  (undershot would be a cop-out, as the overshot version will demand a tall, spindly, flume trestle) The front one third from the kit was done, painted, "glass" in windows and sat for a week waiting on the wall material.  The box contained no cattle prod to get me out from in front of the

computer or TV and back to work.

Started my next wooden trestle:

Added some figures, including a little white dogs that looks like my daughters.

Nothimg to glamorous, continued installing momentary pushbutton switches to replace the remote switches that came with the MTH Realtrax turnouts.  Spent some time prepping an MTH grainery building for the paintshop in the next day or two.  It's going to be the Batterton Shoe Company, "We Make A Shoe That Fits".  Also, spent some time making business signs for the town of Maryville.  Bo

 

You can visit my website Bo's Trains at http://www.bostrains.com to follow the progress.

 

Went down to the layout.  Looked at the HUGE relocation project for the control panel (made the wires too short for new location of course), and the unfinished warped turntable surround, gave a huge sigh, went back upstairs and sat on the deck in the summer sun with a cold one.

Felt better :-)

Couldn't put it off any longer so I spent the day up on the layout sanding down the rough joints between sheets of Homaboard in preperation for painting the engine servicing facility.

Today is more of the same ... sand ... sand ... sand ...

Tomorrow however I'm taking a field trip to see the new HUGE layout a friend is constructing in his converted RV garage.

It's going to be massive when completed.

Looking forward to the visit!!