What did you do on your layout today?

It had to be done... finally! Painted the rest of the rails on the layout. Used up my stock of Floquil paint that I bought specifically for the track when we started building the layout.

 

The before and afters.... makes a little difference

 

 

Looks great. I really like how you blended the back drop into the layout.

Bryan another great job...................Paul

I performed a little more touches on the military load flatcars I am assembling for the Military train.

 

Jesse

Thanks Paul, 

 

Really working on the layout now because I have 3 events coming up.  Paul your more than welcome to come to 1 or all 3 but here they are.

 

Saturday Nov 7, I am open for the NMRA Division 5 Layout Tour  12 - 4

 

Since I will have the layout in good shape and new stuff added and areas finished I am also hosting the Tuesday night crew on Tuesday Nov 10 starting at 7pm. 

 

To finish up the week and before my wife kills me for since she is so nice and makes food for all the events I am having the Friday night OTTS group over on Friday Nov 13 at 7pm.

Got another "Under The Hood" article up!

 

https://ogrforum.com/t...dison-passenger-cars

 

Mitch

This being Tuesday and the train on RFD is on Mondays, I cleaned, swept out my train room and the sawdust from table work performed on Sunday (what I missed Sunday night). 

You should ask !!  Spent part of yesterday and today cutting 4 ft x1/2 inch strips of dark gray outdoor carpet. Laid them between the rails to simulate ballast. Have the 3 outermost loops almost finished. Only the part back by the wall, which is hard to see, needs finished. I will do the #4 loop and the shortest, #5  later. I think.  Still considering whether to put strips along the outside of the rails. Doesn't look bad, reduces the cluttered look and dampens the track noise although that is hard to measure.  Will try to post some pictures later-maybe tomorrow.

Did a little section of ballast but for the most part I ran trains and finish off my list of wants for York..........Paul

Last night on the way to bed I ran trains and took some layout photos for a future post.

 

This morning I ran trains for about 40 minutes.  Its fun to watch them run!!!

 

Tomorrow its off to York!!!!  Fun times !!!!

Before you get too far along, the little boulders at the base of the concrete retaining wall, where do they come from?

Been kind of a slow month so far suffering the effects of a lingering cold.

 

I was down in the train room last night, not exactly working on the layout, but doing some cool "research" for it. I installed a program called the ATCS monitor on my computer. It allows you to see train movements on the real railroads in real time on what looks like a dispatcher's panel. Now I can see the trains as they pass through the area that I'm modelling. I need to spend more time learning how to read the colors and symbols.

 

 

I think it goes red track is occupied, green track is assigned ahead of the train and white track is neither.

Elliot,

That's pretty cool!  Once you learn how to read it, you will know a lot more of the train traffic in your area.

Maybe my bigger problem is getting used to the schematic. I know all these places fairly well, but having it laid out in four lines takes some getting used to. Only three of the lines are visible, you have to scroll for the fourth. This represents about 40 miles of track in the real world and it's not to scale and has lots of compression throughout the diagram in order to cover the important bits. I'll have it down pat in a couple days.

They have this program on the PC at the Rochelle, IL RR park and it is fascinating to watch real train movements and arrivals.  Do you have to buy the program or is it a free app?  I should get it for home so I can improve my train watching.

 

Art

Art, it's free, but you have to join the Yahoo user group to access it. Being a private group you have to submit an application to join. It's pretty easy, they accepted me.

 

I've seen it at Rochelle, and the Jackson St roundhouse here in St Paul. I've even seen it running in some people's homes when out on layout tours.

Daniel, the little boulders at the base are from the same molds as the large walls of rock. I just break them up. The December issue of OGR has my story on making the canyon. It's out now. Don

Don, what I meant was that I would expect to see an accumulation of small boulders at the base of the rock face on the other side of the tracks but not at the base of the concrete retaining wall. But thanks for the explanation of how you made them. I generally just pick up an assortment of rock, it grows wild around these parts!

daniel, they had to cut into the mountain for the concrete retaining wall so that's why the rock face. the flat area will have a large mine building then another three ft. rock wall going to the floor. i have a picture of the milwaukee road that this area is modeled after. it looks very much like this. more detail to be added, scrub trees and brush.

i can't pick up rocks here unless i paint them. everything on maui is red.don

I was sorting through a stack of discontinued books and out of date magazines in a train store, and found a book on a Rock Island engine facility that developed some interesting gas electrics, including some short ones that had long lives on the railroad.  I now have other projects to contemplate for power chasses.

Made me wonder if there was a book on Rock Island cabooses out there as there is for the CB&Q (which I also am looking for).  Seems like these prairie

roads with branches, MoPac, Q, and maybe the Rock, had interesting cabooses as did assorted southern short lines.

 

Hey Don, you are all prepared if you need to model a train on Mars then with all that red rock!

Came up with a spiffy method for weathering! 

 

Note to self:  Primer BEFORE putting the paint on, next time... 

 

Fortunately. Lectric Shave takes paint off without damaging plastic, so I should have this project back on track this weekend...

 

Mitch

 

I'm slowly continuing with scenery and track ballast, starting to put trees back in various places. Having fun, and making progress, a couple of feet at a time.

John

John,

It looks great!  What are you using for ballast and to color the sides of the rails?

       
       

Thank you Mark!
Originally I used a Rustoleum spray primer on the Gargraves track. Not the perfect color, but it works. I then discovered that if you spray the track before curving it, the painted rail does not slide well on the wooden ties when you curve it.  So, I stopped pre spray painting track. Then, later I bought a can of the same paint and applied it to the installed track with a brush.
I had some large size grey O scale ballest I had bought, and some mixed ballast with white and grey, and I started with that. Then I couldn't find the grey at my LHS, so I bought what they had, some white. I don't want white, so I sort of mixed some of it in with my previous mix. On OGR, I read about roofing granules at Lowe's. So I bought a 6 pound container. They have four colors available. The only one that might work for me was the white. It is a good ballast, except not the color for my preference, so I took some of it and put it in a container. I then took some water, a small amount of india ink and mixed it. Then I poured a small amount in with the granules. I shook it around, added a little more until it looked like the grey, commercial ballast. When dry, I mixed some of it with some of the white ballast, and I was satisfied.
Last week, I ordered another container of the granules and picked it up yesterday and took some of it and dyed it grey. Should be dry today, so I'm on my way to get back to work again.
Later.

John

John,

You made some good effort to use inexpensive material and colored to suit your taste.  I like it.  The rail sides look good too.  I can see where painting before laying track would be easier, but with flex track, it would be a hindrance.  It is hard enough to bend the way you want it without paint. 

Came home from York tonight with lots of goodies!   Big purchases were a custom cabin from The Railroad Crossing and a brand new Williams AA set of scale PAs in Pennsylvania livery from Nicolas Smith Trains .... great price at $125!

 

I set the cabin on the layout and it works perfectly!  Yes!!!   

 

Next I opened the new PA locos.  Lubed the power unit as per instructions and set her on the track. powered up the transformer and off she went as smooth as can be!  Next I put the dummy A unit on the track only to find that it shorts out.  Frustrating!!! I've had problems with the last 4 out of 5 Williams locos I've purchased.  Bad luck? I don't know.

I've got to leave for NC on business in the morning so I won't be taking the loco back to York.  I'll just have to contact Williams and ask for an exchange.  

 

I also made purchases from Miller Engineering and Harrison Trains and Scenes in the Orange Hall.  I got some Whitison Ballast from Harrison Trains and Scenes and it looks terrific and the price was right too!!!  

 

I did run trains tonight as well.  Always  a fun thing to do!!!

Picked up some more cars for the Crimson Comet: 

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/331682700314

 

 The poor things, of course, are embarrassed at being painted in Phillies colors, so I've assured them they will be safely repainted in Razorback Red tout suite! 

 

Mitch

 

(Phillies fan, but even so there ARE limits.)

 

what's up with that railing?

Repurposed Polar Express tooling.  The loco that goes with the set is a repainted PE Berkshire. 

Mitch

While everyone else apparently is recovering from York, I got more done on the Crimson Comet RPO!

 

https://ogrforum.com/t...31#44651687689100331

 

Mitch

 

 

I put these three oil tanks up with the my aunt and uncles former fmaily buisness logo on them

 

 

Spent a boat load of time relaydidng out these switches so they had better flow

 

I have been looking fro a good place to put my legacy base where its above the layout and out of site and it hit me last night at about 1am

 

 

Under the little big top

Matt

That certainly looks like it's going to be very nice circus area!  With lots of fancy attractions.

 

Larry

Its pretty nice, its nicer when I turn off the sound. I forgot to mention I spent a huge amount of time wiring 120v circuits under the layout for layout power and figuring out how I was going to set up my DCS programming track. Then I moved on to why I have DCS signal issues, aside for having filthy track after a thorough cleaning I came back and still have the same signal issues and when I wired the layout I had solid 9 to 10 signal everywhere

Went to York so I haven't done much on the layout. The last two days I had to get ahead of the fallen leaves. But today I decided to treat myself to relaxing running some trains and gluing down clump foliage. Later today I will do the same thing. Feels good to be back working on the layout..........Paul

Well, things did not go as planned today.  In the process of securing Army Caterpillar dozers to a flatcar, a chain broke, one blade actuator cylinder was broken, and a truck assembly was broken off!!  I am to appear before the Provost in the morning and explain, possibly be charged with sabotage of a military load.  Do not know which is worst; this, or filling out all the paper work for damage to consignee property, and damage to railroad property!  I hope not too many days are like this one.....

"Di-a-bo-lick-al sab-oh-tay-gee?"

 

 

Mitch

Back from York...I am going to miss those Amish buffets, but my bathroom scales won't...I started on the rework of the Hallmark '36 GMC pickup, by removing its Christmas tree and package load, and separating body and fenders.  These trucks are in metal, almost like a Rextoy effort, while the '37 Ford pickup in the series is all plastic. So drilling out the post for the package and filling that hole in the bed took some effort. Will go to black fenders but will leave truck white unless I can find a '36

color brochure to look at on the net.  I am guessing white would not have been common.

hopefully they won't sentence you to 20 years of paperwork....

  After some minor rearranging, I finalized the staging yard design.  At the throat, 3, 022's split to form the 3 track freight yard.  The straight path leads through 072's into a 4 track passenger yard.  The dark plywood is the beginning of the incline out of the staging area, which needed the early start to keep the grade at a minimum....roughly 3% 

 

 

 

 

 The reshuffling gained me an extra passenger track.  Once finished, all tracks will end 3' beyond the existing bumpers.  I was also able to button down the track on top of foam roadbed.  It's the type of foam used in expansion joints for concrete.  After I wire and test everything here, I can proceed with benchwork.

 

Bruce