What did you do on your layout today?

I had been running all my MTH engines conventionally. After installation of DCS, I am wondering why it took me so long to install the equipment after it arrived. Two best features - constant engine speed and lash-ups. OK three - the subway system control.  There are lots of other neat features if you want to play with the controller to run other features.  Constant Speed - my layout has almost no flat areas its either up or down - slower or faster in conventional. Lash-ups - really easy to combine and run engines together in a single consist. Having my subway cars start-up, make next station announcements, run to the next station, stop unload and do it all over again continuously - wow - someone was really thinking on that one. Even can run in a loop or point to point.

@ScoutingDad posted:

I had been running all my MTH engines conventionally. After installation of DCS, I am wondering why it took me so long to install the equipment after it arrived. Two best features - constant engine speed and lash-ups. OK three - the subway system control.  There are lots of other neat features if you want to play with the controller to run other features.  Constant Speed - my layout has almost no flat areas its either up or down - slower or faster in conventional. Lash-ups - really easy to combine and run engines together in a single consist. Having my subway cars start-up, make next station announcements, run to the next station, stop unload and do it all over again continuously - wow - someone was really thinking on that one. Even can run in a loop or point to point.

Funny, but that’s exactly the reaction i had when I finally took the plunge with DCS years ago.  Welcome aboard scouting dad and glad you finally took the purple pill, LOL! The “all engines” feature is also pretty cool, allowing you to simultaneously start, stop, and control all trains on your tracks.

So I had a great evening working on my layout, cleaning track and switching out some motive power. I wanted to see if the snowbird Lehigh Valley would run around the layout (the fuel tank swings out a lot on the curves) and after moving the 397 coal loader and taking out a Plasticville Cape Cod home the C-630 ran great. The silver Williams turbine is very dear to my heart but that's another talk show. It was good see it run again.

The pictures with the gargraves track are from the other night at my dad's layout. We have started on the commuter passenger line. He is modeling it after Ashland, VA and La Grange, KY so the track will be set down into "the street" for some street trackage. It's coming along slowly but we are having fun building another layout together. It's been 20 years since we built the last one.

I hope everyone had a great Tuesday!

I am attaching an extension to a Menard's engine house so that one bay will be long enough for a Russian Decapod, or the Great Western/Strasburg #90, or the Little River 2-4-4-2 when somebody makes the last two available.  The extension is a slightly bashed single stall engine house.  Spent time putting matching squares on the attachment floor tonight.   Menard's was not  a small building, and this doubled its depth.

@Berkshirelover726 posted:

The pictures with the gargraves track are from the other night at my dad's layout. We have started on the commuter passenger line. He is modeling it after Ashland, VA and La Grange, KY so the track will be set down into "the street" for some street trackage. It's coming along slowly but we are having fun building another layout together. It's been 20 years since we built the last one.

I hope everyone had a great Tuesday!

Virtual Railfan viewer?

Been through Ashland on the Auto Train. LaGrainge is fun to watch the cars and trucks scramble out of the way.

I love watching your layout progress Cody.

Thanks for sharing

@colorado hirailer posted:

I am attaching an extension to a Menard's engine house so that one bay will be long enough for a Russian Decapod, or the Great Western/Strasburg #90, or the Little River 2-4-4-2 when somebody makes the last two available.  The extension is a slightly bashed single stall engine house.  Spent time putting matching squares on the attachment floor tonight.   Menard's was not  a small building, and this doubled its depth.

Got a pic or 2 Colorado highrailer?

It has poured here the last few days.. so me and the boys wired up lights. These are all primarily battery operated LED lights that I've picked up cheap after holidays and from clearance.

Brought my new control panel to life this evening.  Concept mockup was about 2 months ago, been making slow steady progress.  Dual cab control through SPDT switches for each block.  Only have my GW-180 as one cab for now since I want to stay focused on the layout details now that the inner loop is wired.

@Aldovar posted:

It has poured here the last few days.. so me and the boys wired up lights. These are all primarily battery operated LED lights that I've picked up cheap after holidays and from clearance.

I like what you did so far.  Looks a lot like my basement through which I can't even move because there is so much stuff.  Did you face a similar situation and if so, how long did it take to clear it all out?

John

@Berkshirelover726 posted:

So I had a great evening working on my layout, cleaning track and switching out some motive power. I wanted to see if the snowbird Lehigh Valley would run around the layout (the fuel tank swings out a lot on the curves) and after moving the 397 coal loader and taking out a Plasticville Cape Cod home the C-630 ran great. The silver Williams turbine is very dear to my heart but that's another talk show. It was good see it run again.

The pictures with the gargraves track are from the other night at my dad's layout. We have started on the commuter passenger line. He is modeling it after Ashland, VA and La Grange, KY so the track will be set down into "the street" for some street trackage. It's coming along slowly but we are having fun building another layout together. It's been 20 years since we built the last one.

I hope everyone had a great Tuesday!

Looks good man! I really like how you are using the building flats. Boy what I would give to have that much space to add some of those type of buildings in the same manner.

Dave

@Strap Hanger

I thought it might be best to move the discussion about the track cleaners to this thread instead of hijacking the BACL thread further than we did already.

Bob, the pipe load you will use for your track cleaning car looks almost perfect. Are you repurposing them from another flatcar or did you just cut some lightweight pipe?  Does anyone have any suggestions on light weight plastic that I could paint to replace the logs and not over tax the side frame/dumping mechanism on this car?  This was very hard to find and I don’t want to break it with too heavy pipe. Can’t wait to get it dumping on my tracks!

The pipe is steel. It came with this unmarked flatcar that I bought a while back. I don't know much about the car but I'm guessing its MPC era based on the simple, no frills design. If you are looking for a good pipe to use, try PEX. I believe you can get it down to 3/8" (plumbing size). Try HD or Lowes.

@RSJB18 posted:

@Strap Hanger

The pipe is steel. It came with this unmarked flatcar that I bought a while back. I don't know much about the car but I'm guessing its MPC era based on the simple, no frills design. If you are looking for a good pipe to use, try PEX. I believe you can get it down to 3/8" (plumbing size). Try HD or Lowes.

Pics look great. That's coming along nicely. Wouldn't painting before mounting make life a little easier for you?

Thanks for letting me know.  That Pex looks good, but I'm now leaning towards going with a lightweight metal that can be picked up by the gantry crane after the pipes get dumped in front of it.  I'll head to HD over the weekend and see what i can scrounge.

@Strap Hanger posted:

Pics look great. That's coming along nicely. Wouldn't painting before mounting make life a little easier for you?

Thanks for letting me know.  That Pex looks good, but I'm now leaning towards going with a lightweight metal that can be picked up by the gantry crane after the pipes get dumped in front of it.  I'll head to HD over the weekend and see what i can scrounge.

I had just placed the pipes on the car for the photo op. I ordered some styrene yesterday to build a deck to mount the load on. I want to be able to remove the whole thing when I have to change the pads. Paint colors are in the works too.

Bob

Made the inaugural run of my DM&IRR tourist train which marks the completion of my four Covid Projects.   Here is the link to my original post "What's you Covid Project?" https://ogrforum.com/...5#156561156018757535 if you care to witness the run-by!  

Cheers, Dave

@Craftech posted:

I like what you did so far.  Looks a lot like my basement through which I can't even move because there is so much stuff.  Did you face a similar situation and if so, how long did it take to clear it all out?

John

So... yes and no.. we had the fortunate/unfortunate ability of ripping out 3 of the 4 basement walls down to the footers and pouring new floor and everything. That side of the basement is for trains and stuff so I kind of started building right as we moved into the house. Now... it is a disaster a lot of the time, but I find that under the layout has a bunch of the train stuff stored and built storage shelves along the one wall. Menards has 6 x 2 shelving frames that I made 10 foot long shelves for that stores a bunch of nonsense, train and other. That has helped.

My advice.. get a 20 yard dumpster and fill it up! I'm not exactly a Marie Condo advocate but recently I've found myself saying... why in the heck do I still have this, especially when I open a box I haven't looked at from when e moved 4 years ago, or a box of stuff from 15 years ago when I moved into my first house!!

Thanks @@RSJB18 @Strap Hanger for the thread info on gantry an PEX

I hate to buy something for the gantry but my grandson says, don’t you have anything else for me to do? Can’t we pick up something else with this remote? 😂

headed to the TTru Value now My most favorite place other than home 🥰

@Mick60 posted:

Brought my new control panel to life this evening.  Concept mockup was about 2 months ago, been making slow steady progress.  Dual cab control through SPDT switches for each block.  Only have my GW-180 as one cab for now since I want to stay focused on the layout details now that the inner loop is wired.

Mick, That is a really neat looking job!!

Thanks Mark.  The ideas and inspiration to make progress are from you and the other posters on this thread.  -- Mick

Mick, thank you!  That’s what we are here for.  Someone else will get inspiration from your posts!  👍🏻

Grabbed my alcohol to clean the track the other day. Now it's worse than before. I have a bottle of 90% also and picked up the wrong one by accident. 😡

Now I have to clean it again so I can try my new track cleaning car. 👍

@RSJB18 posted:

Grabbed my alcohol to clean the track the other day. Now it's worse than before. I have a bottle of 90% also and picked up the wrong one by accident. 😡

Now I have to clean it again so I can try my new track cleaning car. 👍

Bob, use descented mineral spirits. You can get it reasonably cheap at HD/Lowes. It cleans the track wonderfully and prevents the build up of black gunk.  Also, make sure that one of your track cleaning pads is a scotch brite scrubbing pad. Using a liquid cleaner on one pad and the scotch brite on the other gives me pretty decent results with that track cleaning car.

Here is a magazine with a good article that explains why certain solvents are better than others for track cleaning - https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws...ay/online/index.html

@RSJB18 posted:

Grabbed my alcohol to clean the track the other day. Now it's worse than before. I have a bottle of 90% also and picked up the wrong one by accident. 😡

Now I have to clean it again so I can try my new track cleaning car. 👍

Whew... tragedy averted... for a while there I thought you you had mistook some of that adult beverage single malt for track cleaning alcohol

@Apples55 posted:

Whew... tragedy averted... for a while there I thought you you had mistook some of that adult beverage single malt for track cleaning alcohol

Paul, how did I know the gist of your comment as soon as I saw you were replying to Bob?  😄

@Apples55 posted:

Whew... tragedy averted... for a while there I thought you you had mistook some of that adult beverage single malt for track cleaning alcohol

@Mark Boyce posted:

Paul, how did I know the gist of your comment as soon as I saw you were replying to Bob?  😄

Now now Gents. The only time a single malt is near the tracks is in a glass with craft ice.  🥃🥃🤪🤪

You can lead some people to water but can't make them drink.  This is a recurring topic regarding track cleaning and what products to use. Over a year ago I cleaned my tracks with Deoxit, recently I wiped everything down with odorless mineral spirits because I thought a year between cleanings was a long time. Granted I do not run hours and hours, but my cloth had very little black gunk after a year. Using IPA was a different story - seems every time i touched my tracks I had black rail marks on my hand. Not any more.   

Started planning for the control area by checking fit on controls. The ZW(s) will go in the middle and below. I plan on mounting the track diagram(s) vertically with toggle switches for the blocks and sidings.

I installed a new front truck and coupler on the #53 snowplow that is being converted to a yard switcher, and cut and glued some homasote for the semaphore base(s).

I finished the marriage of the Menard's engine house and this plastic "brick" addition. Most effort was on the addition, to make a matching base, and widening its door for a straight shot through from the Menard's. Changed signs and moved a shrub on the Menard's, but hope addition looks like what a short line would do.  With Lionel doing #90, for GW, l may have to punch out a second backdoor and scratch build a matching double extension, OR find a second to butt together, with mods. to both. (I was cheating and taking the easy way out).   Will try to post photo later.

Finally began to work on new area of my layout. I'm putting in another high line for a reverse loop which will be tied together  with the entire layout.

@farmerjohn posted:

Finally began to work on new area of my layout. I'm putting in another high line for a reverse loop which will be tied together  with the entire layout.

This is a great shot. What a great train room and layout.

Round one of the cleaning......

220 grit sand paper, the car was run dry around the layout for several minutes after. Need to pick up scotchbrite pads and mineral spirits today.

Bob

Here , as requested, are a couple of  photos of the simple modification of a plastic one stall engine house to serve as an added on extension to the Menard's engine house, to accept longer locos. Nothing except sign change and shrub move was done to the Menard's, add on got a base matched to the Menard's, and a widened door to match the Menard's rear door. Painted foam board, blocked to match Menard's floor was used

Hello everyone! Well, after having a long week of health problems, doctors appoints, etc., I can finally say progress has continued on the layout. From where left off I had been working on the mountain and said I would start painting. That work came and gone and currently I am finally putting some ground cover down. Thanks for reading and hopefully I’ll be back soon with some more progress to report.

Colorado, nice bash. Too me that’s a fun part of a layout.

#85 said she chugged up the mountain, she chugged up the mountain, she chugged up the mountain to see what she could see. . . @Trainmaster04 Keep it up and we all shall see the other side of the mountain. . .

All I have accomplished today was review the OGR Daily Digest early this morning and searched to find an angle hooded light/ angled shade fixture to illuminate a double sided Western Auto sign. The one I found that I liked was fairly expensive.  But I will continue to search for a while tonight. I know that I have seen one that I can adapt to the sign but I cannot recall just where. My search has already taken to Woodlands, Tichy Group, Evans Designs.

This afternoon I traveled WV in the pouring rain and attended my grandson's eight birthday celebration and watched his family set off for the Outer Banks. 

Everyone enjoy the weekend

Trainmaster, yes doctor appointments really get into the way of layout building!  I hope you are well!  The layout is looking great!

@farmerjohn posted:

Finally began to work on new area of my layout. I'm putting in another high line for a reverse loop which will be tied together  with the entire layout.

Wow!  That is fantastic.  If I were only single...............................................................................

John

Ran the track cleaner for a while yesterday without the loco stalling every couple of inches. The pads were not as dirty as the first run. Still need to get to HD for the mineral spirits.

Bob

WOW- two days and no activity on this thread!

Come on gent's- I know it's summer but......TRAINS!

I finished cleaning the tracks and got some trains running again. I decided to go with Goo Gone, the mineral spirits had several warnings about its flammability and I didn't want to take the chance with it. I will continue to run the car periodically to keep the rails clean going forward.

After the track was back to an operable condition, I unpacked my Menards F7 and gave it a whirl.

Looking good Bob. How often have you been cleaning your track?