What did you do on your layout today?

Really clever and creative. Plus, your technique allows anybody who uses your method to further grime and weather-up the walls as their personal creative spirit and experiences move them. You've made a nice contribution, here, Darlander.

That is creative, easy and a really cool way of making the inside of the tunnels more realistic..

 

Thanks everyone for all the positive comments on my tunnel wall method.   I also plan to use panels for flat face cuts outside of tunnels.  When rock cuts are blasted away with explosives, you generally see drill marks on the vertical face of the cut.  Using a square, you are able to produce nice straight drill marks.  The tool I am using came with a styrofoam shaping kit but I am sure a small round file or backsaw would work.   All you need to do is produce a series of well spaced straight scars on the panels.  

Happy tunneling & blasting, Dave

 

Hello guys. I haven't posted anything on hear since August 31, 15. With all the yard work , all the work I have done out in the breezeway which is now done, And with me rebuilding the 38 1/2" over hang on both sides of my house has kept me busy. Now with the weather starting to turn to winter I can see the end of the road on outside work. Except  for when it snows.  Then I will have to bring out the snow blower.

     Since its been a few months the last time I posted we wear on page 157 and now we are on page 169. So you can see I have a lot of pages to catch up with every one. So now you all know what I have been up to. And this Tuesday  my friend Mike will come by and pick up the HO train layout that I put into my garage at the beginning of the cleaning and painting of my Breezeway.

Since I am stuck in neutral with the MoPac gas electric, until I can get decals....it is

painted, with the red front and yellow stiping per photos, but I can't glue it together

and mount the body on the chassis until decals, then it can be dullcoated and windows

installed. Otherwise it is done.  So...I looked for something else to work on, and since

I had a Menards' pickle factory, I dug out a Wabash Valley cannery kit that I'd picked

up for a bank-braking $5.00.  Turns out there is a reason...some of the styrene siding

is missing, and some is cut to the wrong size, although small parts seem to be there.

Luckily, the shaped ends are right, and the rectangular panels are the ones that need to be replaced...so..that too, is on hold, until sheet styrene can be acquired. I figured

this corrugated cannery would go well with the pickle plant, since I would build it as

a well rusted and run down structure.  They did and do a lot of canning, of tomatoes,

in the part of Indiana the kit originated.  Just drove through the area yesterday,

northeast of Indianapolis.  Some REALLY large canneries in the area.

Well, I kept the basement dry buy installing a new water heater




Then I solved this DCS a problem

I had a mini op session overy the weekend. A pal of mine spent the night here before we both went to an event the next morning.
He always liked model trains but isn't into the hobby like we are. I showed him how to run a dcc throttle as he'd only ever used simple analog track power in the past. He had a blast, I think. An hour went by really fast. He never had a layout as a kid and is in his 30s now. He loved seeing what is possible.
The next day, in stumbled across a good 1/43 scale WW2 dodge 3/4 ton weapons carrier, perfect for my 1943 layout...

The kids from next door came over and rain trains this afternoon.  They really liked running the N&W 611 with TMCC!  One was even wearing the Fire Up 611 tea shirt I got him from the Virginia Transportation Museum in Roanoke.  Good times!!!

 

Ongoing saga of soldering a couple of hundred feeder drops through drilled out spike plates.

 

Should have gone battery R/C!! 

I ran my Williams New Haven PA A-B-A engines I got at York from Underground RR Shoppe. The power unit had problems with one of the armatures in the Can motors and a Mosfet transistor so it would only go in reverse for about inch and stop. I sent it to Undergrond RR Shoppe and they fixed it no problem and it works great. I have been running since I got it back.

Matt, I'm not familiar with that particular system, but being a Ham Radio operator as well as running trains I can guess that something is blocking you RF signal. I would try running a wire along your track and connect it to your ground. It's known as a ground plane and does help signal reach their destination. Ground planes are used on vertical antennas to help with receive and ohms issues. I just guessing, but it couldn't hurt.

Took some more of it down and placed an order for all my atlas 108 curves and 1/4 of my 40" straights. 

After burning leaves I finished cleaning track. Then brought out some of my pre-war steam and ran them. Came to the conclusion that I have enough(for now) of the  "newer" stuff, like 1950s and need more pre-war.

I understand Matt. Sometimes I run my post-war stuff just cause I like the sound of it and they work better with my PW 1940's ZW. I think this is a 1940's ZW.

 

Stalled without decals for my RMT/Amer Std Car Co. gas electric kitbash, and needing

them for two other gas electric kitbashes planned, I am working on a Wabash Valley cannery kit to pack the pickles from the Menards sauerkraut/pickle station.  I have all the walls up, the boiler house on, but no roofs, windows are painted...about to start putting on the real metal corrugated siding. (I hope there is enough in the kit, and I don't have to fall back on Evergreen styrene siding).  Prototype photo shows a really

weathered and rusted structure, so I will try for that. 

Got my railing going up to the attic up. After I finished installing it I ran trains in celebration of getting back to work on the layout...............Paul

Ready Set Go....... Installed MTH / DCS 5.0 / No Chaos

      I had my IT Guy come over tonight for dinner and he brought his PC.

MY IT Guy is my son Tony, a Powertrain Engineer for a major automotive manufacture. His two year old son was our helper. We had a lot of fun, giving him jobs to do on the layout. Like passing us tools we did not need.

     I tested all 19 Locos, with the 5.0 DCS Remote Controller, MTH, Atlas and Lionel, they all worked just fine. I am a MacUser and MTH down load only works with Windows. 

     The upgrade only takes about 5 minutes, but with all the prompts to read and watching our little helper it took about 40 minutes.

Gary - Cheers from The Detroit and Mackinac Railway - "A Toy Train Layout"

   Click on photo to enlarge.....

Major progress on new Eola freight yard

 

Been working on finishing up the changes to my Eola freight transfer yard.  We now have all the Tortoise's installed, Atlas Non-Derail boards installed and wired, and all tracks inspected for electrical issues.  We ran an engine through all tracks and everything performed as advertised.  All switches have been connected to either my old control panel or have temporary Atlas switch controllers installed to permit yard operations until new control panels can be built.  Installed a Caboose Industries manual groundthrow on my siding leading to my Central Kansas Co-Op grain elevator complex.

 

We then started checking out the new switches in my industrial park and found problems that will be corrected on our next work session hopefully on Saturday.  Also we hope to completely redo the electrical to all my buildings in the towns of Ruthven and Spencer.

 

Ordered my car card system and am making final decisions on fascia and skirting to make the layout operator friendly.  Testing coupler tools to facilitate switching cars during operating sessions.

 

I am on a mission to get everything running properly so I can begin ballasting track and the big push on completing scenery especially my lakes and rivers in prep for magazine photo shoots and filming of videos.  I have not had enough scenery done to allow that, but thanks to key people pushing me to get it done, I hope to be able to share with you all in the near future.

 

I have been asked to not publish any pictures on any forum that could be used for publication so I may not be putting up as many photos as usual.

 

Art

I tried my hand at a little weathering today. An old MTH yard tower served as the guinea pig for today's experiment. I chose to go the chalk / pastels route for this attempt in case it turned into a disaster requiring me to wash everything off and start over. I purchased small packages of each and alternated between them throughout the process. Various-sized artist brushes and pieces of foam were my applicators of choice.

 

The results are okay - C+ or B- maybe. The tower still needs a little dusting and rubbing in places and a coat of Dullcoat before I call it done.

 

Next time I think I will stick with the pastels. While they are more expensive, they seem to go on a little smoother and adhere better, and the pigment provides a nice, rich coloring without using as much material.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trying to figure out how to disassemble the Menards Camaraderie Bar & Grill that I changed the name on so I can replace the beer sign that quit working?

 

I quickly painted a new wintry backdrop before getting all the other winter stuff out there.

 

Len - Looks fine to me!  Congratulations on taking the risk!  I agree, pastels seem to be very pliable.  I use them when weathering rolling stock.  Keep at it and show us more as your journey weathers on 

Ran some trains and took some pictures and videos for the Switcher Saturday and Weekend Photo Fun  threads on OGR forum.  

 

I finally had a derailment on the the Mountain Division inside of the tunnel under Mt. Randolph.  First derailment inside tunnel in 2 years.  Oh well it was bound to happen.

I can now use the access hatch I installed just for this occasion.  It plays to plan ahead

 

I paid a small amount for an MPC Chessie System/B&O GP20 from 1973 a while back with the idea of keeping it for children who may visit in the future.  It is in nice shape, but the reverse unit (do they call them E-units on MPC diesels ) was sticking.  Finally with most outdoor chores out of the way (except for shoveling snow ), I got a chance to dig into it.  I discovered I could move it manually, and some contact cleaner freed it up.  It runs pretty nice now.  

 

Noting the GP20 was new in 1973 reminded me I was a senior in high school then.  I was running my HO F7 in the basement, listening to an AM top 40 station out of Pittsburgh 42 years ago.  The music in 2015?  The little dog heard the GP20, and came running in barking as she does when I run trains.  

The last few days I have been bringing out pre war Lionel steamers - 258, 261, 262 and 259. just pulling two passenger cars. Amazing how smooth they run for as old as they are.  Now I have decided to look for a few more-a 773 won't happen-for sure.

Went to Just trains of Delaware and picked up four pieces of track so I could install another siding.  I the recent past I have gotten rid of several pieces of track and it turns out that the four pieces I picked up today were not any I had disposed of.  I have to work tomorrow, so maybe Sunday I can remove the 30" straight and install the O72 turnout.

Ran Zeppo (the Schylling Zeppelin Train car) for my fellow chapter members of the Arkansas-Boston Mountains NRHS chapter on Thursday night.  They were duly charmed. 

 

Am also working on planning a permanent three-rail layout for the JRM Railroad Museum here in Springdale.  Here's the first concept draft of a 6 x 10 FasTrack layout I sketched out in RailModeler on my trusty Mac Mini a few days back: 

 

Took delivery of a box of parts from Train Tender when I got home this evening, so I'll be working on various locos and things over the next few days...

 

Mitch

 

Electronic horn installation in the 617 switcher completed! 

 

https://ogrforum.com/t...99#45918750027492299

 

While testing the switcher, we had a casualty with the repainted Red Rocket RPO, as a body mounted coupler boss broke off.  Not uncommon with the breed, alas, and I suspect all the painting and repainting did the bosses little good. 

 

Scrounge to the rescue, as I found a couple of suitably sized stainless steel aircraft bolts and locknuts  left over from my father's estate and my misspent youth as an aircraft mechanic: 

 

Now that RPO is ready for inspection by either the FRA OR the FAA! 

 

Mitch

Spent all morning installing one brass switch lantern in the most inaccessible place on the layout

 

Clem k 

Took all my Scenery Express order up and placed it on the floor. Turned on the transformers and ran trains for awhile..............Paul

It snowed this morning!

 

Mitch:

 

This is a good start. With two more switches you can link the great switching system in the middle to the main track.

Since labor day I have been in the train room 2 times and today being one of them. first time just ran trains for about a half hr. today I tried to run trains and blew a fuse in the tiu replaced that. then got to run trains. figured if I'm up there might as well do something other than run trains so I wired up 4 lights in my station . and ran trains

Sounds like, from another post, I should have ordered more than one Menards

sauerkraut plant. if they are being scalped on the Bay.  But for mine, I continue

with work on the Wabash Valley canning building kit.  It has unusual, very thin real metal corrugated siding for the exterior.  I would like a source of that for other projects.

I am gluing that on the styrene with Testor's plastic glue, with some trepidation, as

I don't know how well this will hold over time.

Jhainer,

I was thinking I hadn't read any posts from you for a while.  Nothing to post.  It happens to all of us at times.

 

However, the photos of the station today look great!

 

I acquired several months(or more) ago  a Lionel post war motor with 6 drivers, e-unit and Magnetraction. got it for free. Realized it would fit one of my engines that I picked up cheap at a TCA show that ran but not as well as I liked. It took me about 7 minutes this morning to swap motors and now have a good pulling engine. One reason I like these Lionels. Not perfect but they make the hobby more enjoyable. Now to clean up the swapped out engine and get it running better !!

Looks great Daniel!!

Wired  up  some new buildings. Also added some rock climbers on the mountain.

I hope this counts...

 

I was granted a small 8x12 room in the basement, I begged to pop out a closet and snatch an extra 2 feet. Then the oh godess on high surprised me with the main room of the basement all for trains 12X20 woohoo.

 

The catch... 100 year old farmhouse with unchecked farmhouse center sag. Out came the jacks and lumber. The room needs everything. Oh well, it's all mine and Lionels.

 

Ted

 

Yea I haven't been playing trains too much. work, granddaughter, new granddaughter, and the boat have been taking up all of my time. on the boat I rebuilt the motor, new carpet, new headliner, new lights, fixed all the wiring, have I mentioned I hate wiring LOL  designed and ordered some aluminum parts (dash and vents) so I have been busy on that then my son wanted to finish up the Iroc too so we got that back together with a 3000 stall different heads and headers. so trains got pushed aside LOL here's the motor, dash, vents, and Iroc,