What did you do on your layout today?

Thanks, Mark. I'd dreamed of a layout I could operate on ever since I was about 13 or so. I built a tiny switching layout which I kept into my late teens when I dismantled it. I hadn't run trains on it for probably a couple of years by that point as it was crazy small.

My current layout is pretty small, especially for O scale, but it thought my track plan had enough operating potential and I think I proved that yesterday.

It was a day I'd been looking forward to for about 30 years.

As for Charlie, that was the oddest thing I think he's done in a long time, but in a good way. At first, he kept walking up to my ankles and looking up like he always does (my wife was out of the house at the time). After a few minutes, I noticed he wasn't around and looked over in the doorway and saw him curled up there. So very odd, but again, in a good way.

He's 13 years old and his hearing is pretty bad these days, but he's still a great little pup and we spoil the heck out of him...

P51 Lee,

Nice to finally see you getting some satisfaction out of it, other than just the work.

The dogs can sense the joy and focus when we run at this house too.

  Two tend to chill like choo choo Charlie there, one grabs his own seat on the ottoman, and watches, but all stay out of my way

 On the other hand, if I work on it, they want to help real bad.

I just cant get them to understand the "no thumbs" bit is a problem 

Ken,

Have you added weight to get over the crossings better? The roller spring hop should vanish with weight. If you can, larger diameter rollers can help bridge gaps the small ones "fall" into deeply.

 Made sure your flanges don't bottom out?

Considered modifying/ tightening gaps?

I wonder if a Easy Street crossing was made that might work better? 

 And I wonder if adding 1/4-1/2 of a straight track to each side of the crossings would help. The lead wheels may be seeing side pressures, and an angle, from the rear wheels being still offset in the curves. 

finally had time to install the kober roundhouse I got from eloit scher it was much harder than I thought it would be.also I am waiting on the parts to convert my mill house

river turntable  I also received from eliot to the indexing system I am having second

thoughts if I want to use these the size was larger on my layout then they looked on his I will spend the week soul searching to see if do want to go ahead with the install of both pieces or will I just let them go not sure

What I thought would be a quick job is not, and not just this task but the entire project.   Trying to mount one of those Weaver #702 lobster claws on the front pilot of this kitbashed gas electric took hours....the front end is one of those Walthers castings

(is that some soft lead alloy?), and took a lot of careful grinding with a Dremel tool

and a cutting wheel to get to a point where I could break out the soft metal and clear

a path for the shaft of the coupler.  The problem is to make the coupler  fit this interurban/gas electric style pilot I have for it, AFTER I have opened up the front casting, and to make the pilot fit the Walthers front casting.  It is a tight fit through the pilot casting for the shaft.  Since the front end is mounted and painted, before problem was discovered, the job was slow and careful.  Next need to dril sides and

mount handrails...shoulda done that before painting, too.

Starting early this morning, I re-built the end of my new layout closest to the Trolley Yard.  Installed 022 and 042 switches and am about 80% complete on basic trackwork.

Waiting for the repair of a 5165 RH 072 switch to re-align the routing of the mainline Outer Loop closest to the Trolley Yard.

The following construction photos taken just this evening (June 15th) give you a rough idea of what I'm trying to do.  There will be a 4 x 8 second level closest to the fireplace.  There will be a 30-inch by 7-foot second level over the top of the Trolley Yard.  Both levels will be done in Fastrack.

The second level over the Trolley Yard will be for Interurbans and RDC's.

There will be a 15-inch by 40-inch extension running from the main tabletop to a bracket to the right side of the fireplace.  Will store my two GG1's and GN EP-5 units over there!

I'm thinking about using a Ross # 170 4-way Yard switch at entrance to Trolley Yard second level..  Power connections for Fastrack will be via their Terminal Sections.

For most of the Tubular track blocks, I'm already fed up with Lockons and will probably just solder the feeders to the web of the rails.

Regarding the 4 x 8 second level closest to fireplace ......

My wife Suzie wants to have mainly trolleys and smaller radius trains running around up there.  Besides this evenings construction photos, I'm including a 4 x 8 Fastrak layout idea I'm pondering...  Enjoy the photos/drawings !

KRK

Now that we have a month break in the show car schedule (won 1st Place in our class Sunday!) I can get back on setting up the fueling racks from Dave at Crescent Locomotive Works!

well let's see the winner!

Or an O scale facsimile thereof! 

Mitch

Hey Guys I know I have been on here before. Well the past few days I have been busy taking down a HO layout  & hopefully my friend will take it. I have over $450 in extra track & acc that I gave him already.   Now all we need to do is take this layout to his house. Now I need to clean the walls & below the layout, Then I need to start to relay the Track.

  I was bored, so I took a plastic top hat that belongs on a wedding cake, and bored a hole in the top big enough to receive a bulb holder. I slipped it on the base, and glued it in place.

 Soldered some thin wire in place, and attached the base to a dowel rods end with a hex head screw, banding the wires to the pole with tiny zip-ties.

 Voila, instant floodlight.

Two more single floods, and 3-5 more street lamps and I think I'll reach my "bare minimum" for enough lights.

  I played with transformers too.

  The 1033's are a little strong for the El line.

Rollover speeds are definitely not what you want on an el.

   The Marx 50w was a tiny bit too slow, and didn't have the backbone to run a double headed General train. I'm in the future I'm going to have to watch for a type S(80w), 1032, 1042, 1063(at 75w) or smaller 1041, 1053(60w). 

The folding power shelf mock ups just haven't been satisfactory.

One last attempt before changing tactics. A door with a shelf sitting on the top. Once open, the shelf can be swung up and over backwards, then down resting the hanging transformers on the doors backside.

If that doesn't work nice. I will trim the old two sided shelf bases to size, give them a top & wheels.

  Then adding a metal channel, and slide pegs, to the shelves top and to the underside of the layout, they should move together when I roll the layout around (also on wheels).

  Stored under the layout when not used, I could roll just a shelf out a bit for transformer access on the end cap, or pull them both out all the way for display, and full access to the tops as tables.

 More excess wire, but less drama about a "finished look". A curtain will work.

..... The more I think about it, the more rolling shelves seems to kill many more issues with one toss. 

Any input? 

Been a while since I'd seen a post from you Scot, nice to see you're making progress again.

Wow! And I thought I had a few wires under my layout! That looks like an AT&T communications bundle!

Shot most of the day trying to re-engineer this Weaver #702 coupler so it would fit

through the cast hole in this gas electric pilot, AND work!  That involved shortening

the shaft, cutting off and moving the thumbtack so it would clear...and you can't glue

this slick Delrin? plastic...so I wound it in fine brass wire and epoxied THAT.  It appears that it will work.   While working that I did many little detail tasks such as

drill the walls for grab irons, cut and shape (bend wire) and paint the irons, etc. 

I recently finished an elevated track around my train room. I've had some EXTREMELY unfortunate derailments which prompted me to build a fence. This is the prototype, and it took me three tries to get this far but I think this will do it. I tried clear polycarbonate for the horizontal supports but there wasn't quite enough purchase for the cement and settled on wooden supports. I'll paint them brown too so they shouldn't be visually intrusive.

As a side note I purchased those early issue Erie Alcos (my first such set) just this last Sunday from a local connection. To my astonishment it pulls ~20 postwar boxcars (some real heavy and inefficient like from KMT) without a problem. The only other single motor loco I have that will do that is a 1950 issue 773.

SAL9000,

I like your solution for your overhead layout.  Mine is in languish half constructed, since two winters ago, I started having trouble using tools, and last winter I had both hands operated on.  I have yet to address the issue of locomotives and rolling stock taking a nosedive to the carpeted concrete floor below.  I may do something similar.  Thank you for the photos!

Scot,

I'm with Adriatic; nice to see your post!  Having worked in electronics, mostly power and telecom companies for 39 years, I agree that's a bundle of wire!

i didn't realize you had an HO layout to move out.  I moved a modular layout twice years back, until I decided it wasn't worth moving the next time.  It looks like it is nicely done. Looking forward to seeing progress on your latest layout!

I got a boost of energy so I got legs under 6 benches and finished getting them in place, between finishing the upper shelf and fine tuning the last 4 benches, I'm hoping that light at the end of tunnel is one of my locomotives and not a head on with Casey Jones.

     I have not worked on the layout lately but I made A engine/car cradle for working on the engines/cars out of an old piece of foam I had laying around this past weekend. After I made it I looked around on the internet and saw that I saved myself about $20.00 making it on my own. I think my next project is going to be making A foam board cutter table. After that I am going to try making A static grass flocking tool out of the battery powered fly zapper and screen strainer from H.F. I figure I can save myself about $170.00 by making it VS buying it from W.S. Choo Choo Kenny 

My time on the Forum has been limited as of late so just getting cought up.

p51, Congradulations on your Operating Session, I know you have been working towards that. You and I have alot in common. Of course we are both into trains, both a love of a war study; you WWII myself the Revolution (tried to get into a Re-enactment group but was not accepted because I can't fire a gun because of my ears. Friends tried to get me in as a minister or teamster that didn't work either), one of my sons is in a re-enactive Civil War company (SC dismounted Calvary - too bad he fights for the wrong side - next weekend he will be out at Gettysburg for a special Re-enactment, the regular Gettysbury Re-enactment the following weekend which they have [his group]opted out of for the special, his wife and two kids will be with the camp followers. My wife and I are camping at Drummer Boy Camp ground to see the Re-enactment). Back to trains; I am right with you on Operating Sessions, I guess I've seen too many HO club lay-outs and admired there sceanery and operation. I liked the 70's when we started the High Rail rage. Have been in the founding of several Moduler groups the last one when we started we talked about operation as something we didn't see moduler groups doing but as long as the group lasted we near got there. When I build my final permanent lay-out I hope to incorperate that into it. The animation at Roadside America I also kept me in trains.

jhainer, nice mountains I'm getting into the train running mood hopefully will have a temp lay-out in the basement, maybe I can get my grandaughter to help.

sp2207 glad to see you on the Forum, I always like your posts. When I first saw your pics, I said what a mass of wires, how does he ever trace an eletrical problem?  

Made up a "must do" list of all those nagging loose ends:

+ Figure out how to change traction tires on MTH Cab Forward

+ Put together a control panel for the engine terminal tracks

+ Wrap up break-in of latest Sunset Models engines

+ Install new fuel racks

+ Play with trains!

Well, if making a 'to do' list qualifies as what you've done recently, then mine is relatively short but each item will take a bit of work. I need to make:

• Terrain forms for the undulating ground (probably from insulation foam and cloth impregnated with caulk, from a recent MR magazine article)
• Background shapes of mountains from Masonite sheets, covered in ground foam to represent far off hills
• A 'flat' of a large wood industrial structure alone the tracks
• Install trees and get down static grass and ground foam
• A section of Marsten matting which will represent a Army RR operating Battalion's HQ
• O scale cornfield (I have a couple of hundred scale corn stalks made, just need to make the furrows to plant them on)
• I even have real dirt from the exact place the layout takes place in, which will be used in the scenery construction

In a fit of optimism I bought several cards of figures from RMT.  The optimism is that I will get far enough along on the layout that I will actually need figures.  Since I live only three miles from Walter I got the figures direct and had a nice chat with a very knowledgeable guy.

Al

Although this post probably belongs elsewhere, I purchased from my LHS 2 more packs of Model Power No.6061 Park Scenes.  My LHS took of an additional 10% of the already discounted price.  Included in each pack are, 4 park benches, six hand painted figures, a phone booth, and three fire hydrants, three litter cans, and three mailboxes.  I now have 3 packs.  I figure this should be enough for my rural small town. 

I just posted #31 in my series of short YouTube videos about my layout, LCJ&I Lines. It involves Western Pacific steel-sided boxcars.

https://youtu.be/Q2plM47zOxU

Productive day. Started with placing metal figures on the layout purchased at the last two York Meets. Then it was on to getting the Lionel Daylight Cab Forward ready for active service. This engine is sure a real beauty in every respect. The colors are spectacular. First run was with 11 K-Line 21" passenger cars and this train really stretched out. It has to be one of the most colorful passenger trains known to mankind.

Today it is on to wiring new accessories.

Brian,

Im looking forward to some photos of the Daylight when you get to it.  When I was a boy, I didn't have much interest in passenger trains.  Later, I had to have one.  Now I can see how a person, you for instance, can focus just on passenger trains.  I still like freights, but passenger trains have a certain elegance a freight just can't have.

Really good video, loved the angles.

Great logo at the start of it, did you do that yourself?

P51 - Thanks for your comment. My son and daughter-in-law in Boulder CO have a digital design studio. She designed the logo, using vaguely Union Pacific and southwest colors. I love it (and them!)

   Bob A.

Bob; beautiful scenery on your layout.

worked alittle on the Mountain added some ground cover. then I bought some scouring pads and chop sticks to try my hand at making trees. I have 2 kits from about a year ago I picked up and the contents of the tree kits were scouring pads and chop sticks. so for 30 bucks I bought 50 scouring pads and 67 pairs of chop sticks should make a few trees once I figure it out. I tried one so far and it turned out to look nothing like a tree any instructions with tips or tricks would be helpful.

I thought I was being original!

  Your pads look heavier but, last year I had a few small tufts of red Scotchbrite get stuck to a twig. The next thing I know I had a small "Horton hears a Who" looking tree on my layout. A Japanese red maple "Bonsai" .

 How to get that Japanese maple look with green pads & chopsticks is ironically beyond me  

Installed an MTH CAT water tower. Elizabeth picked this out at the recent York Meet to go with our CAT dealership. We also added a tractor with depressed load flat bed with an excavator to go with it. Really has a big impact on the layout.

Then it was on to two Miller Engineering Shell signs for the refinery.

Accessories do make a difference.

I chased 2 bad ground wires to internal breaks today.

That roll must have been made on a Monday

 Replaced a cracking four wire feed for an 0-27 ucs track, using 4-wire scrap from wiring a boar trailer years ago. 

 Vibration broke another wire, and I fought to solder a culvert loaders coated single strand winding wire and the spring terminal without removal from the layout . I won..then the connection tabs center broke when I inserted the feed wire .....yep, had to run the train for 5 minutes after that one.

After I cooled, the iron was still hot, so I just soldered it on

I also ripped apart the extra set of trailer brake/chase lights missing a lens for the 8 small bulbs.

I'll spare all of you more pictures of insulation and vapor barrier.  Suffice it to say I've run out of materials and need to hit HD yet again tomorrow.  I built the first vestiges of layout table top...a lower shelf that I plan on using as a staging yard.  Below it is much needed storage area that I already have stuffed with junk.  Half the work up here involves shuffling junk to access a section needing work.

Bruce

Retraced some wiring under the layout ( btw - model railroading would be all fun if it were not for the wiring driving me crazy  and found a broken splice.  Fixed it.  Ran a long freight trains.  Also powered up some pro to 2 locos so they could get a batteries charged up.  

Finished installing Glenn Snyder Display Systems

Green arrows show the locations, over and next to the Man Cave Work Bench.

All the B&W Wall Photography was photographed by myself, developed and printed in my home darkroom.

   Gary • Click on photo to enlarge.........

New BLOG Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylIaY0dvdn8

Monongahela Unit 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng9kZXjw-I0

Resentlly I sold off my HO train collection and got a whole bunch of new trains. This link has my new BLOG video which explains everthing about those new trains. 

This other link has my new NS 8025, Monongahela Heritage unit, ES44AC running on my layout. It's my first MTH PS3 engine. 

Today, Saturday, June 20th, I installed my transformer distribution panel.  Then I did some pre-wiring as shown in the photos..  There are THREE (3) distinct 12-gauge bundles.  In the photo, the bundle on the LEFT will connect to posts of ZW # 1 using ring connectors which I crimped on late last night.  The bundle in the center will connect to ZW # 2 and the bundle on the RIGHT will connect to my KW transformer.

Each bundle consists of four 12-ga RED wires (posts A, B, C, D) and one 12-ga BLACK wire which goes to the "U" post.   There are short 12-ga BLACK wires on the distribution strip which tie all the "U"-common posts together!

If you look closely, the 14-ga YELLOW wires are used to extend the leads of my "TVS" protective diodes, which are connected between EACH of the RED leads and the BLACK common.  I still have to wrap some insulation around the bare part of those leads and the diodes so as not to short to each other !  Total wattage available will be on the order of 740 watts--  should be enough to operate a Trolley !  (grin)

Individual power feeders to the various track BLOCKS will be soldered to the web of the rails.  Another TVS diode will be inserted between the spring connectors of the Lockons of each insulated section.  Can't have too many TVS diodes, right ??  I bought sixty of these puppies from Mouser--can't get enough of them !  (hehe)

Well, on to the next project.  Cheers.

KRK