What did you do on your layout today?

I test fitted a reversing loop track at the end of my yard area.  My bench is 36" wide and I have room to add another foot to the edge.  4 pieces of O36, 1-O60, 1-10" and 1-5" straight and a O60 Right hand turn out.  Can't turn the Big Boy on it, but the GP38 will make the turn.  Once I add the extension to the bench and find my camera I will post pictures.

Hey there TrumpTrain,
Thanks for the kinds words about my mountain. Once upon a time it was a 4'x8' sheet of Styrofoam. My Niece is the Colour artist and my design. The water is Realistic Water.
The Rocks, all except the ones on top are from Woodland Scenic's two moulds #C1232 and #C1237 using WS Lightweight Hydrocal. The ones on top are real and are from Greece from some of our trips. I think that the realism is mainly due to the expert painting and shadowing done by my niece Julie. For some of them I took the C1237 mould which is one big rock and carved other rocks from it. They are all stuck on by good old No More Nails.
I'm working on the dam now and then it will be the trees, which have been on and off so many times to help figuring out the design. Here are a couple of better PICs of the rocks.
I'll send along a PIC when I get the trees on.
Cheers,
Eric.

Eric Bradley

H 902-443-3486
C 902-237-9633
ericlinda@ns.sympatico.ca

Today I just spent running a mix of trains today Legacy, DCS and conventional. Found it to be relaxing after finding my electrical problem. Also during the day I spoke with Bruce a fellow member on the forum here. That was a great conversation. Found out we had a lot in common on our layouts. Made for a good day.......................Paul

Chugman, do you do layout videos on youtube? Your train layout is amazing! Now do you tend to use more lionel or MTH on your layout?

 

I got the week off to a good start. After gathering pieces over the last month. I started assembly of my table extension. I am going from 4 x 8 to 5.5'x 12' with a 30"x 48" extension. The top will be 3/4" insulation. This uses up all of my available space.

Azgary

Dan - I find myself running more Lionel than MTH, but I like both.

 

I am on You Tube with my handle being Chugman4 and have a fair amount of videos posted there.

 

Art

Cleaned all the debris and tools off the layout from the blue point and turnout work. Then, ran the very first train from each end without touching the locomotive or turnouts, controlled all from blue points.

I found one kink in the rails right out of a curved turnout where I think it went out of gauge. But that's in the open and close to the edge, so it shouldn't be a tough fix at all, just need a few spikes and some ties.

I also ID'd where I put fascia near one turnout, it needs to be cut down to accept the pilot of the locomotive going past. No big deal, that'll be 2 minutes, tops, with a Dremel.

That's all I found. And I took the loco over every inch of track, even the sidings, to be sure I didn't screw anything up while fiddling under the layout on the blue points and turnouts.

Reaffirmed that I must be model railroading's worst body man; more Tamiya putty; more 3M wet/dry sanding; more rattle can primer applications; and, repeat.  I'm getting 3 PW F3 A units and a B unit closer to "right" and ready for paint, but it's maddening.  I guess I'll blame it on loss of visual acuity brought on by age and inadequate lighting. 

Thanks For the nice photos and telling me about your mountain. I look forward to seeing your finished product!

Ran a lot of trains including a neat, vintage consist of 3 tinplate passenger cars, 4 wheelers all, an AF, an Ives and a Lionel. Thy had hook couplers, used an Ives tender and pulled it with my 1915 Ives engine.  Also ran two windups for a couple of loops. Have a deal going to add a nice train set to my collection. It will need some work but that is part of the fun. The weather has finally broken and the ice and snow is lting so, hopefully, I can get out and about for a change.

   I removed the rubber bands I used to secure my Ameritowne Homestead Furniture structure while the glue cured and gave it a good wash to remove the mold release agents, and prepare it for painting.  I figure I have enough structures to fill out my yet to be built layout.

 

     I had two police stations.  One was an original K-line kit that I bought in an antique mall at a good price.  The other was a built up K-line by Lionel that I bought in a bundle.  I converted the K-line by Lionel into an auto parts store.  I left the original K-line police station box stock.

 

    Some time ago, I bought two Ameritowne Flag Stop station kits.  Why two?  I discovered that the kits could be built more than one way, and there were enough parts left over to get a good start on a third structure.  

Even though I have run trains more then work on the layout since finding my short I had a small area where I decided to put in a small stand of trees. I may add some evergreens or I may just put in some more trees. The track with the switch by the trees on the left starts up the grade to the upper mainlines and going right off the switch is the start of the yard lead. Here are a few pics..............Paul

After realizing I need some stools for op sessions, I went looking for a pair of these. They're pretty hard to find and I was going to mail order them. Thankfully, I found a pair at a local WalMart this morning on the way to work (I'd never seen them in silver before). I love the look of them, they remind me a lot of Pullman steps used on passenger cars. They also have a much wider seat area than most wood stools (While I wouldn't consider myself all that terribly large, some of the guys who would come for op sessions are pretty big guys). I might even stencil the RR name onto the side of them.

 

Paul - That looks great!  The trees really add so much to the over all look of the scenery.  Great job!

 

Art

Lee,

those stools are really sharp, and will look great with you railroad name on them.

I got a good start on wiring Hiawatha. I'm about a third of the way done. Been burning through suitcase connectors like they're going out of style. The red ones are used for small gauge wires and are fairly easy to crush. It's the blue ones that have to pierce the 12 gauge bus wire that have killed my hands in the past.

 

The other day it hit me, employ an underutilized tool hanging above my workbench, VISE-GRIPS!!!! WOW, they make wiring almost pleasant. Now if only my shoulders  didn't hurt so much.

Elliot,

I hear you on the vice grips. Mine came in handy when wiring was underway on my layout for DCC. That, and plumber pliers (with the comicall wide mouth) also worked really well on the suitcase connectors, I found, due to good leverage.

I was under my layout Sunday night getting the last of my blue points mounted and the turnout replacements under way. Yesterday morning I felt like I'd run a marathon the day before, I was still and sore like crazy, espcially in the upper thigh area, from I supposed all the squatting and kneeling while working underneath the benchwork. And to think, I wouldn't even think twice about filling a ruck sack full of heavy rocks and going on a road march, or climbing the outside of 50+ foot repelling towers, just for the heck of it, when I was still earning Uncle Sam's paychecks. I'm only 44 years old, but Indiana Jones said it best, "Raiders of the Lost Ark":

It's not the years, it's the mileage...

 

Lee, I tried my 10" Channel Locks, and they were just OK. The Vise Grips were far superior with their built in mechanical advantage that goes beyond simple leverage. I think the odometer on my butt has rolled over.

 

Kerrigan, I looked at those specialty tools, but the ones I saw were insanely expensive. Maybe I missed something.

You didn't miss a thing, that's the purpose of specialty tools, to drain your wallet and only get used once or twice, right?

Not sure if you are into Food Network at all, but Alton Brown had a cooking show years ago called Good Eats. He was always talking about how he hated "uni-taskers" in the kitchen, and whenever possible choose more general use tools.

 

Good advice for the train room as well as the kitchen.

Just popped open the Marx 1249 transformer that came with my Marx store display layout.

 

Now.  I know Marx was cheap, but a NAIL for the wiper shaft?   Criminy! 

 

 

Mitch

Laying track

and then ran my favorites together

That double cross over looks great. Who make it please? Ross? can it be adapted to ScaleTrax? TIA...

It's ross not sure about adapting

The double crossover is very cool, it's 48 inches

Monday • March 9th, 2015

Made a YT Thumbnail for my next video.

Hi Paul2, I think your stand of trees look really nice. You gave attention to groundcover among the trees and, in my opinion, crafted that aspect very nicely, giving the whole scene a realistic look. Also, where you placed the stand seems just right, too. IMHO, I'm not sure you need any more trees, esp. not conifers. It all seems right as it is, from what I can see in your photos.

FrankM.

This morning I took the lichen I had piled up from re doing the scenery which had gotten kind of brittle and spread out and sprayed Glycerin mix on it. While that soaks in I run a few errands and when I get back I'll place that where I have lichen that is dry. Then I'll do that bunch...........................Paul

Your tree work is fabulous!!!  Looks awesome!!!

 

Not my layout, but the RMD-TCA modular layout. We were set-up at the Rocky Mountain Train Show. It was quite unbelievable how many people were interested in how we were building the new modules. We almost started laying track, but ran out of time.

 

Yard Entry Modules

 

 

Wide modules to accommodate siding passings

Today I hit a cumulative 100,000 views on my 28 layout videos.  The first 14 are a previous layout, with Lionel operating accessories and two levels.  The second 14 are my current in-progress layout, with more realism and wider curves.  Both attempt the look of the red-rock desert country around Colorado and Utah.

   Bob A.

 

Been working on the layout, making track repairs, finishing some structures, wiring a bunch of street and yard lights, making things ready for "prime time".   I also planned a bit of a surprise for my buddies in that all the Milwaukee Road engines, passenger cars and cabooses were removed from the layout and replaced with Chicago and Northwestern engines and cars.  Along with that I arranged to have all double track areas of the layout operate with a "left hand main" line, prototypically correct, the way the C&NW always operated. 

 

So, I invited about 30 of my local friends over for an operating session, last night, promising a "complete change in my model railroad" and that they would all be surprised.  Well, the bunch came over, we had refreshments and snacks, the basement was cleaned and straightened up and everyone, I think, had a great time.

 

BUT:  Nobody Noticed!!!  All through the years I've taken a beating from these guys for being a Milwaukee Road guy and they came downstairs, looked at the layout, studied hard and, to a man, no one was the smarter for identifying the trains that were running!  I was dumbfounded!  Finally, when I dropped a few hints, they started to notice the difference.  "Oh yeah!" they started to say, "the Milwaukee stuff IS gone."   (Actually, it was all on shelves under the layout that used to be occupied by the C&NW rolling stock.)

 

But then, when I began to refer to the left hand operation, not one really identified with that fact.  And, actually, on my layout, to operate "left hand main" makes the trains run the complete opposite direction of what they do under regular circumstances.  But, when the guys took over operations, later, they began to realize that operations were different from before and began to take a real interest in the change.

 

All in all, it was a fun experiment and I'm going to leave the C&NW stuff on the layout for a while and run it that way on my own.  The guys seemed to have a great time, and because of the weather (foggy and miserable) a number didn't make it and so I'm probably going to have to do it again in about a month.  A great evening of operation, train talk, good fellowship and BS, and I'm looking for more good times.  We did manage to toast the DCS circuit board on my MTH C&NW E-8's.  Fortunately, I had a pair of K-Line C&NW E-8's in reserve, and they took over.  They were pulling an eight car  train of K-Line aluminum, streamlined 21" passenger cars, so both engines were working pretty hard going up my 2% grades.

 

Paul Fischer

 

Paul Fischer

Paul,

 

  Can u share the pictures with us?

 

I finished this at 10pm, and of course I had to run trains, that last till 12:30 am.  Today I am wipped, good thing I have a desk job!!

Hi Guys--  WOW-- You guys are real Artisans.  Great layouts, great scenery, great everything!!  Amazing !  Sorry if I am getting off to a slow start.  This Friday afternoon, all the support tables get put together--lots of cardboard to recycle.  Today (this afternoon) my neighbor is coming over for a few minutes to find out my plans and see how he can help me construct the support grid out of 2 x 6 premium kiln-dried studs.

It's pretty tough to do that by myself as I don't have the strength I once had.  Anyway, he is a licensed contractor by profession and the Owner of a Construction company.

I think he and his guys can handle a handful of 2 x 4's and 2 x 6's for an "old guy" !

 

The 2 x 6 studs (on their EDGE) will give me about five inches of space between the bottom of the plywood tops and the top of the supporting tables.  GREAT for running wires for this and that !

 

USPS, Fedex and UPS keep delivering more stuff to my front door.  You guys have to make me stop doing this!  I've gotten carried away !

The ATTACHED photo shows what the UPS man brought to me just yesterday !  I know, I'm crazy, huh !

Last Friday, my wife Suzie got her longtime wish when we had Air Conditioning installed, which was quite pricey!  She is extremely happy !

So now that SHE got her AC ,  I got my  AC  !!   (grin)

 

Construction on the layout should start in earnest next Monday.  (finally)

Cheers.

 

KRK

Ken,

that's a handsome cab forward.  It will look good on your layout.  Sounds like you have a good man to help with bench work construction.  2x6s will be sturdy enough to drive a car on.  Did you have them on hand?  Sounds like a fair deal with Suzie's AC.

Ken

 

Two Acs sounds like a fair deal to me

 

Al Galli

Received an email from Menards about a new ceramic building.  I have the 2 previous ones--the store and the garden center.   Did the measurements and figured out where to put it.  It looks like a real beauty.