What did you do on your layout today?

I ran my Lionel scale J N&W 611 pulling 8 scale passenger cars.  Very nice sight!!  Also ran my MA & PA SW1 and new MTH MA & PA caboose  up on the Mountain Division of the Free State Junction Railway.  

While the trains were running I cleared some space in the center of the layout so I can get working again.  Not much progress, however, moving in the right direction.

I have been working on lighting buildings. today I saw at the lhs woodland scenic just plug system for lights. have to admit very simple can run off of a wall wart or track power I used track power for ease of running wires around the layout I also ran power to the Menards engine house.

Well, Norma Kitteh likes my buddy's Lionel F unit (in for horn repairs)...

Mitch

I am packing for tomorrows 1 day display.

The improved lighting sure makes your trains show up well!  Nice job.

After a deal was done and we shot the $hart for an hour or two a Craig's List buyer saw my G scale and commented about having a few Lionels from his childhood.

 The grand tour was in order.

He'll be back for more of his stuff(not train) and spend to some run time at test and tuning here.

I may have lit his Og fuse.

Bit of an oddity here...

I was noodling about with an old 3-car train of K-Line RDCs (to be painted for the P-R Seashore Lines at some point) and, when I hit the horn button on my modified RW transformer (longtime readers will recall my article on installing a Zener diode into same), I got a garbled sort of buzz from the motor car.  I shrugged, said "Tch!  Bad sound speaker" and popped the top off: 

Now I dunno about you, but I see nothing there indicating a sound system of any sort.  And, indeed, my Atlas transformer generated no response on either the whistle or bell buttons. 

So, what was making the sound?

Signed,

Confused In The Ozarks

I am no expert...just some theories...I assume those are plate weights?  What's under the red cover on the right side of the picture above the truck with two white wires going to it?

a) Yes.

b) E-unit on/off switch.

Mitch

 A speaker as we know it, isn't always needed, just something that vibrates.

and/or

I think you either had mini-relay(s) chattering and moaning, or you built a radio without trying.

If you have any old fillings, try sucking on a wire to see if reception improves

Obviously spoken from first hand experience.

WJR if I was in bed on my back head to the NE. 

did my first bit of scratch building I have a Bachmann coaling tower that was missing the steps and landings so I made some today for it I figured it would be a good candidate for learning on. here's the results

I finally got 6153 back on the rails today, looking like proper FEF.

Looks really good!!!  Congratulations !!

I had two brief and enjoyable running sessions today

I spent the entire evening, for the second day in a row, soldering together doodlebug

sides, that have been rearranged and shortened, to make a gas electric body for this

Industrial Rail trolley.  In addition three doors per side had to be soldered in.  I only

burned myself once, and the job is done, they match, and look good.  Now to start

assembling a complete body onto the trolley chassis.

Long day of RR fun. In the AM I went shopping and acquired a nice #60 Lionel trolley that I could afford plus an LW transformer that looked like new out-of-the-box. Too good to pass up. After that I spent the rest of the day photographing dirty, back & white NS engines with an occasional UP yellow thrown in. Did see an interesting sight near Rochester,Pa. The lead engine had an extra passenger in front of the conductor and it was a young(9 yrs old??) lady getting a cab ride. Snapped a picture but not a good one. She was wearing a hard hat and safety vest so must have been OK. Sorry I didn't get a better picture but I was caught by surprise. Spent the time with 2 other guys, both photographers and modelers, nice guys.

After a bit of oiling and maintenance, my 3-car train of B&O RDCs goes thundering down the mainline, taking commuters to work... 

Incidentally, does anyone have a good source for those 3-chime horns up top?  The rear RDC is missing its horns. 

I checked Brasseur, but at 3 bucks a pop plus shipping, that's just a wee bit dear for my tastes...   ;-) 

Mitch

I got this box-baggage car to the point where I am waiting on a decal sheet.

LOL, Not what I did, but rather my wife. She said she wanted to try weathering, (actually she said, "age"), a building on layout. She said the "Power House" looked so shiny and bland. I said "go for it". Here's her result finished this morning, she also took the photos.

josef

You may want to keep her in the train room more ofter .

Larry

Just a short day today. I started laying out the tracks for the station and industrial area. Going to be sort of a jig saw puzzle because I have a few manual Ross switches from an older layout that I am going to fit in somehow adding switch machines to them. I am figuring I can get a double track siding for the station, a single track siding  and a double track siding.....Paul

On Friday the UPS driver dropped off this large mailing tube from,

Glenn Snyder Display System

I have been out fishing, so I got the tube today.

Hope to install the shelfs sometime this week.

This is my second order from them, and I like The Glenn Snyder Display Systems

She is starting to really enjoy running the trains now. I was surprised when she volunteered to weather the building, and thought she did a good job. Picture doesn't do justice to the bricks and light and darker bricks.

Ran my outdoor and indoor trains today. Raised the far loop of my outdoor to level it out more. Thought about putting bricks under it but went with some limestone chips I scraped up to build up the embankment. More fun to mess with the gravel. Had to put in a tin culvert so rain water would drain under the track. Used a tin can flattened a bit.

I am doing it, waiting for the epoxy to set on the styrene rails I am running down the

inside of the soldered and rearranged Walthers gas electric sides I am using on this

Industrial Rail trolley chassis.  The rails will allow me to lower the sides to just clear

the trucks and make for a lower and more realistic level for the body, and not so

much daylight above the rails.  (I need to do that for an MTH doodlebug, too, but it

didn't look as easy)

As I was running my scale Lionel J 611 this morning on my layout, I made a knee jerk decision to jump in the car and go see the real J 611 in Manasas VA today!  Glad I did it!!!  WOW WHAT A THRILL!!!!!  I have loved this engine since I first saw it in the Lionel catalogue in the late 1950s.  To see and experience the real 611 in action was absoluteley AWESOME!!!!!!!!

Yanno, I betcha a K-Line RDC would make a nifty doodlebug; the motor's in the truck, so it'd be easy to mount on a floor. 

Mitch

Dunno about the K-Line RDC... I have an RMT one that I picked up to consider making

it into a scale length RDC-3, by extending it, but that looks difficult, vs. some other, expensive, shorty RDC-3's that are out there.  RDC's came after my modeled time period, so I have no business with one, anyway.   I will probably use this RMT chassis for a much longer gas electric than the one under construction.  I had to cut the side rails off and redo them last night, as the original location was to low on the sides and the sides still set too high (trial and error..do it right or do it over) I did it over. Epoxy is setting now on a much better relocation that does just barely clear the trucks.

Nice work!

You can add my silhouettes and blinds to add more realism.

http://www.riverleafmodels.us/...ttes-and-blinds.html

Andre.

I like that Idea. how do they work are the silhouettes free standing or go against the inside of the structure against the window. the blinds I figure go against the windows.

The blind are close to the glass as in the real life. The silhouettes have to be 1/4" away from the windows to create the effect. My recommendation is stick a  1/4 square dowel in the bottom of the window and then stick the silhouette on the dowel.

Andre.

Planned the placement, cable run and program action of an additional 4 LCS Sensor Tracks.  The four I currently have on my track (2 for grade crossing and 2 for sounding the bell) are such great fun that I am planning an additional 4 (2 for another grade crossing, 2 for arrival/departure fro station). 

Continued breaking in the 3rd Rail NP 2626 while starting to un-package the fueling rack setup Crescent Locomotive Works put together for the CL&W!

Nice to be working on something other than a darn automobile for a change!

This morning to work on the industrial area I had to move all the boxes and engines I had stored there. That took a bit of time to figure where I could put those boxes. Now that the table is clear I can lay out some more track and switches to see what will work and figure which buildings I'll use..........Paul

I found another redo....but didn't have to cut anthing off.....had to add another set of

styrene rails down the side to widen the RMT trolley chassis, as the cast (lead alloy?)

gas electric front from a Walthers kit is wider than the chassis.  While that is taken care of, I didn't want to use the heavy Walthers cast rear end, and stole a lightweight

plastic one, with better detail, doors, steps, etc. out of a Williams plastic coach kit..

(yes, Williams once offered coach kits).  The glue is now drying on that.  Needed to

get one end on so I could be sure the sides lined up and fitted as they should.  Do not

know if I will shape the kit roof, or borrow one already shaped from one of my junk box

found gas electrics.

finally got the junk off the round house roof.

and trying to figure out a storage method for the extra rolling stock.

plus I tried a different tender behind the 2055, and she ran some varnish today.

I purchased a NKP 8617 Atlantic set from a good Forum friend recently, so I thought it fitting to setup the 027 track on the Patio Pacific and give it a test run.  Worked great just as advertised.  I knew it would.  Interesting thing I didn't know, the 8617 looks to be the exact same as the Wabash 8604 a friend gave me in a trade recently.

While le I was at it I gave an ALCo AA Texas Special that I bought off a gent on a FaceBook group.  It ran very well too!  Now I need a passenger set for the the TS.

Now if anyone is wondering why I got these, the way I see it I had better stock up because the way things are going, I'll be one of those 'fixed income' guys by the time there are any grandchildren coming to see Pappy's trains!  I want them to have something that doesnt have details little hands will easily break.  I think I will have to run the Imperials and Premiers on a mountain division, a high mountain division, and these can take the water level route, low in the valley.