I finished wiring the new yard tracks and uncouplers. Everything mostly works. I was running an RS-3 to test and found couple of dead spots going through the switches that I need to investigate.
Cleaned up the mess too!
Bob
@Trainmaster04 enjoyed the video of consist an lashing of the engines....
I noticed a different style painting if the C&O freight. Who makes this freight? interesting.
I am involved in construction an planning my downtown community of Olive Hill... Nearly finished with my Western Auto building kit.
No Western Auto Signs available on internet in Scale 1:48 so my graphic artist daughter will be designing a two sided sign for me soon.
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@Seth Thomas posted:@Trainmaster04 enjoyed the video of consist an lashing of the engines....
I noticed a different style painting if the C&O freight. Who makes this freight? interesting.
I am involved in construction an planning my downtown community of Olive Hill... Nearly finished with my Western Auto building kit.
No Western Auto Signs available on internet in Scale 1:48 so my graphic artist daughter will be designing a two sided sign for me soon.
I am glad you enjoyed the video! The C&O boxcar is a Lionel USRA double sheathed model that I got not too long ago. If my memory serves me well, I think Lionel produced this car around 2008 2009 area. I think they were not very popular since this particular one has been sitting on a shelf long enough for one side of the box to be sun bleached.
Have you seen the Miller Engineering lighted Western Auto sign ?
Yes, Richie C.
Thank you for the suggestion, but for some reason the Miller Neon isn’t in the plan for my little home town.
😊But not ruling the neon out just yet. I will see what my daughter comes up with.
Next kit is the city judge court and police station. Will begin after the mowing gets done this afternoon.
A young middle grader is visiting the layout Friday evening with his uncle. He’s into trains and his dad is supposed to start a layout for him soon. So I need to straighten up the train room and clean track to ensure all roads are clear and working...
I am excited this young fella is interested in trains and wishes to visit my layout....
Thanks again guys!
i appreciate the explanation on the freight.
I’ll check out the catalogs. I might see the graphics better. It’s one I’m not familiar with. The C&O really shows up 😊
I envy the forumites who undertake projects and, based on what they post, largely accomplish them with minimum difficulties brought about by their own mistakes.
Not so for me! As I mentioned earlier, I'd begun applying decals to the four NP North Coast Limited dome cars with the aid of prototype diagrams provided by their historical society.
Lo and behold, the very first side of the very first car I screwed up by applying a prominent decal (the "Vista Dome (monad emblem) North Coast Limited") centered on the car rather than the prototypically correct (as shown in my NPRHA furnished diagrams) monad-centered placement with the text skewed to the right!!!
Fortunately, having learned my lesson that I have elder-onset dyslexia and took precautions accordingly, the other cars were decaled without further disaster. The wrongly applied decal has been removed and the area is being repainted--a masking/painting sequence with which very familiar to me having painted and repainted these cars until an acceptable finish was achieved.
Today I soldered jumper wires to the two outside rails and connecting the center rails for a through path on the center rail on a old Ross switch. I only did the center rail on the main line route, the diverging is going to depend on power from a feeder on the adjoining track.
New Ross switches this is already done.
Caution only buy old Ross switches if there a low price and your confident of your soldering skills.
In soldering a jumper wire on the center rails a outside rail is close by and I managed to make a real good direct short, and had to undo it and redo it.
I was apprehensive because I have had trouble soldering wires to rails before but it went OK today.
Morning guys, sure is alot of great work being done! I sure hope you are all well and having a good weekend! As for me not to much, Iwas able to get out and finish my 3rd round of little people and that's about it!
Oh I did put together a military train for Mondays town parade!
Photos of the completed yard tracks.
Still debating how to finish the yard scenery. I'm leaning toward a paved look between the tracks.
Bob
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Excellent job Bob, it turned out very nicely. Why did you not use tubular track in your yard?.
I found the C&O freight in the 2009 catalog @Trainmaster04
After review of the catalog I recall it now along with a C&O steam in the same page.
Thanks
@Tranquil Hollow RR posted:Excellent job Bob, it turned out very nicely. Why did you not use tubular track in your yard?.
In order to fit the third spur, I had to use switches that could be cut shorter. I found MTH scaletrax on Cabin Fever auctions so I stayed with the same track for the spurs.
Thanks
I added a couple of industry spur tracks for the future industrial complex. 
I have my "test" vehicles working them now.
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Bob, the yard looks great!! You will be glad you did it.
John, good choice of test vehicles.
Ingenious Bob, thank you.
Bob, Having walked in many RR yards (NYC, D&H, DL&W, Susquehanna,etc.)- NO roads between the tracks, paved, or otherwise just very hard packed oily earth (Black or very dark grey) where a pick-up might run. BUT it's your RR so do what you like.
@modeltrainsparts posted:Bob, Having walked in many RR yards (NYC, D&H, DL&W, Susquehanna,etc.)- NO roads between the tracks, paved, or otherwise just very hard packed oily earth (Black or very dark grey) where a pick-up might run. BUT it's your RR so do what you like.
No roads for sure but the oily dirt, gravel look is what I may do. Been looking at pix of yards too and most are a mess after many years of use.
I want to build up to the top of the rail head so I will probably use some foam board and then ground cover over it.
Thanks
Bob, If you go the oily look you may want to try masking the rail heads, and then spray the ground cover with rattle can black from 8" - 12" away to get as much or as little oily effect as you want.
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Finished the lighting for my subway tunnel. Finished with the gray paint for the walls. Next up will be adding some pipes.
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With my granddaughters coming over tomorrow, I've been busy today with the accessories on my layout. A recent addition is the Lionel operating horse car and corral.
I'll try to post a short video of it showing it in action later. It's not easy, IMO, to get it to work well, though maybe a tad easier than the operating cattle car and corral, which I always found challenging to get it to work without those critters toppling over and getting jammed in the car and corral. Arnold
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RSJB18 Bob as modeltrainparts suggested - build up the layers with foam to the level you want, but before you put anything on top, spray with the rattle can paints. It will eat into the foam depending on how much you spray. Light coats will produce a textured effect and then you can add ground cover as you wish. Mask off any thing you don't want covered with paint. Try spraying a piece outside to get a feel for how much the paint eats into the foam. For the most part I was getting an orange peel texture, but a heavy coat would eat down over a 1/4 inch.
I assume you will do this on you layout - if you have a box fan place a furnace filter on the incoming side and it will trap paint particles. If you need ducting use cardboard and duct tape.
Now working half a lifetime with lawyers comes in - the propellant is usually flammable be careful about using too much in a closed room. Provide ventilation as much as possible. Follow the manufacturer's directions.
Well, wasn’t layout work but I got my new Lionel NYC ESE Franklin D Roosevelt Observation car On Friday. I populated it with Lionel people and Little People from the 1930’s - 1950’s.
Looks great. Easy to take apart, three (3) screws and gently pry it apart and populate.
Took about 30 minutes. Some additional pictures later.
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@modeltrainsparts posted:Bob, If you go the oily look you may want to try masking the rail heads, and then spray the ground cover with rattle can black from 8" - 12" away to get as much or as little oily effect as you want.
@ScoutingDad posted:RSJB18 Bob as modeltrainparts suggested - build up the layers with foam to the level you want, but before you put anything on top, spray with the rattle can paints. It will eat into the foam depending on how much you spray. Light coats will produce a textured effect and then you can add ground cover as you wish. Mask off any thing you don't want covered with paint. Try spraying a piece outside to get a feel for how much the paint eats into the foam. For the most part I was getting an orange peel texture, but a heavy coat would eat down over a 1/4 inch.
I assume you will do this on you layout - if you have a box fan place a furnace filter on the incoming side and it will trap paint particles. If you need ducting use cardboard and duct tape.
Now working half a lifetime with lawyers comes in - the propellant is usually flammable be careful about using too much in a closed room. Provide ventilation as much as possible. Follow the manufacturer's directions.
There will be no spray painting in the house according to SWMBO! 
I'm going to experiment with a few ideas and see how it goes.
Thanks gents!
Ran some military themed trains and dusted up the wall, which seemed appropriate on Memorial Day weekend -
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@RSJB18M. Mitchell Marmel I enjoyed your story and photos.
I’ve been in the train room an shop painting and assembling this morning early. Will complete the police judge station this afternoon late. Will add the windows an powder later.
And I picked up my CTT magazine to read Lou Palumbo’s Views from the underground... he’s the first thing I read....😄
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Getting ready for a final pour of resin on river. Hope to do it Wed if temperature stays right. These are before pic's and I'll post some after the pour. We still have a long way to go before installing the river but everything just takes time as you all know.
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Your layout and scenery are second to none!
In a response to Trumptrain you commented on his lake and he responded mentioning my name. Below are a few more scenes of a similar lake from our store demonstration layout from several years ago. The same artist did the painting for this lake as did Trumptrain's. Pat (aka Trumptrain) and I have been close friends for the last 46 years. Pat gave you a good description of the process to create the lake. My artist friend is quite old and can no longer work. However, I have done the painting for several lakes since then very successfully. If you need more clarification, feel free to contact me. My E-mail address and phone number are in my profile.
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Your lake really looks good, Randy! Your friend did a fine job!
The highlight is the canoe with Snoopy and the Woodstock clone scouts.
John, your River scenery is really taking shape!!
@farmerjohn @Randy Harrison- both great examples of water modeling. Love Snoopy and Woodstock(s) too!
@jrmertz- The tunnel is looking good. I wasn't sure where you were going when you stared but it really came together.
@Arnold D. Cribari- It's not easy to herd real cattle or horses either.
@Strap Hanger- nice collection. Dusting is appropriate today. 
@Seth Thomas- the building will be a nice addition to the layout.
It's been cold and raining since Friday afternoon here in the northeast. Saturday was the CEO's b'day, but yesterday I got some time on the layout. I did more trouble shooting on the yard lead switches. I ran several different sized loco's and found and corrected (hopefully), some dead spots. I think I'm good to move to scenery now. I'm going to try a mock up of what I want and see how it goes. Looks like the sun may return to the sky today so I can get the rattle cans out and try my ideas.
My Cab-1L arrived at my office Friday so I will have it in my hands tomorrow! 
Bob
@RSJB18 posted:I did more trouble shooting on the yard lead switches. I ran several different sized loco's and found and corrected (hopefully), some dead spots. I think I'm good to move to scenery now. I'm going to try a mock up of what I want and see how it goes.
FWIW, I recommend you do some running and exercise all the track and various routes well before you start adding a lot of scenery. It's way harder to do track work after you have all the scenery and ballast in place! I'm eager to start enhancing the looks of my layout, but I really don't want to have a lot of tinkering with switches and track after I get the scenery in place. I've been pulling stuff out of storage and running it around just to verify that a variety of locomotives and rolling stock run problem-free on all the routes. Still finding an occasional oddity that I have to tweak. 
@gunrunnerjohn posted:FWIW, I recommend you do some running and exercise all the track and various routes well before you start adding a lot of scenery. It's way harder to do track work after you have all the scenery and ballast in place! I'm eager to start enhancing the looks of my layout, but I really don't want to have a lot of tinkering with switches and track after I get the scenery in place. I've been pulling stuff out of storage and running it around just to verify that a variety of locomotives and rolling stock run problem-free on all the routes. Still finding an occasional oddity that I have to tweak.
Agreed John- I will probably not ballast for a while until I'm confident that I've found all the issues.
Thanks
Morning guys and please take a moment to remember those who fought for our freedom and paid the ultimate price!
Seth, you doing a wonderful job on the police station
John, the river is looking great and will be AMAZING on your layout! But I do have one question, how do you do the pour at the joint right above the falls so they match up and your still able to take them apart to install?
Randy, your lake is so inviting! I could see myself swimming or fishing there!
Bob, I am sure you know, TEST, TEST, TEST, and when your done testing TEST again! lol
I haven't done anything, but when I do get the chance I enjoy what you all are doing! If any of you hear of a big steam engine MTH PS2 or 3 for sale that wont take my arm or leg, please let me know! LOL
@mike g. posted:Bob, I am sure you know, TEST, TEST, TEST, and when your done testing TEST again! lol
That's for sure Mike!
PS- I just noticed that you are at the top of two consecutive pages, 1019 and 1020. What are the chances? I'd play those numbers today.
LOL wow now you have my attention! I just might have to run down to the store and try it out! If I win I wont have to worry about my arm or leg! LOL
Added a crossing and tall grass between the tracks.
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Nice Crossing Dave! But the big question is where did you get the tall grass?
For the rest of you I pulled the trigger on an MTH 2-8-2 USRA Light Mikado Steam Engine w/Proto-Sound 2.0 - Pennsvlvania RR at what I thought was a good price. Should be here Friday!
Now all I have to do is figure out how to make it BN, SF, or UP! LOL
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@Dave Ripp. posted:
There is nothing there Dave.
@mike g. posted:There is nothing there Dave.
That's odd. Anyway thanks Mike. I think the carpet looks better in person. You can get little samples at Menards by the carpet rolls but I ordered mine on line after looking at it there. I have also seen it at Sam's Club but I'm not sure if they still have it. Nice Mikado I had a Frisco Mikado that I wish I'd kept.
