What did you do on your layout today?

Finished making the last of my realistic O27 track. Time for paint.

That's very attractive track, Jumijo. Congratulations on your success!

FrankM

Sat around wishing I had a truck to pick up foam board.

Jumijo are those chopsticks? You must be the local oriental restaurants best customers now!  Looks nice, like store bought production quality, and reminds me of yellow ties on flex track "rolls" I used to see when I was young, might have even been standard gauge...what brand was that, any one know? 

Thanks $oo.

Won't be going with rope lights. I just invested $60 at Menards, in standard light sockets and metal boxes. They'll be spaced every 4 feet, and connected by metal conduit, which can double as a TMCC ground.

I'm going to start out with cheap CFL's, probably the small ones, and see how that looks. At 13 Watts per, a 20 Amp circuit could almost do the whole layout. When I do the fascia for the upper deck, I'll make it extend down a couple inches, thus creating a bit of a valance so that most people won't look directly at the bulb.

If I want to get fancy later, I have a standard socket to work with. Could go LED or whatever the next great thing is.

Thanks, and thanks for starting this topic. It is my favorite long running topic on OGR. It's fun to see what everyone else is doing too.

Ran trains.  Fiddled with scenic items.

Repaired a 137 station today.

Dug out my stock pile of Woodland Scenics detail parts and figures that have been in unopened boxes for weeks and started placing them out. Also ran some trains. 

Added a lift-up "bridge" to my new layout.  Seems to work and lines up perfectly:

Now, what to do to cover up those hinges........

I installed the new pilot onto my 0-6-0 with the scale couplers.  I hope to get to the tender for the rear coupler by the end of the weekend and have everything put back together by the end of the week.  I will run it all nice and shiny for awhile and then either weather it myself or send it to someone to do it.  

I am generally working on:

(a) the "outdoor layout". Specifically, ballasting the R-O-W and adding landscape material (shrubs and the like) to blend my garden railroad with an outdoor room (I just started).

(b) Extended my Maerklin gauge 1 ceiling railroad into the living room. I bored a tunnel through the living room/dining room wall last night.

(c) Working on a display Super "O" layout as a peninsula to my basement layout. I am recreating D-223.

To achieve balance in my life, this week-end, I will (a) visit with one of my brother's family at a state park, where they rented a cabin; (b) visit my 86-year old mother; (c) go hiking and socializing in the Poconos at a resort club I belong to; (d) meet and greet my son and his girl-friend visiting from Pittsburgh; visited [yesterday] with my 97 year old, independent, ex-Father-in-law with whom I am friends; and (f) goof off, all of which (including the model railroads) annoys my ex-wife, especially the bit being friends with her father. 

Fell back and regrouped....decided not to live with the too-small-for-bulkhead-flatcars

retorts for my creosote plant (3" PVC) and built another retort (4" PVC).  This will require a larger enclosing corrugated metal buiding, but, so be it.  The office building and boiler house have been finished for at least a week.  Am going to devise a raising door to clear the track for cars to roll into the retort.  Also blackened  three dedicated, log loaded, bulkhead flatcars, and will scare up maybe three more flats with no bulkheads to serve the smaller retorts.

I did a bit of painting some scenery.  Did some electrical work. Organized the train room somewhat.  

Had some neighborhood kids and parents in to see the progress made on my Free State Junction Railroad.  Put some operating cars on the mainline train and let the kids have at it with the remote controller, dumping barrels, logs, and granite.  They like the cop and hobo car by K Line and the rotating searchlight car also by K line.  Everybody including me had big fun!

Happy Railroading

Patrick W

Cleaned up my workbench (the computer desk) this morning to get ready for my son's birthday party this afternoon.  Don't think I will get much done on the layout today but plan to run it for the kids this afternoon for the party.  

I load a new video.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE8ICv1JasE

I decided that it was time to fix a troublesome smoke fan on my DD-35A, so I spent a happy hour removing the shell and rebuilding the forward smoke unit. The DD-35A is a dream to work on, as there is so much space inside, and everything is beautifully laid out.

While I had the shell off, I decided to also replace the foam gaskets between the smoke units and their exhaust stacks in the shell. My DD-35A had one gasket missing from new, and the other one was not properly fitted. So I cut a couple of new ones, and fitted them in place for two perfect seals. (I use HO scale self-adhesive roadway for gasket material, as this is the perfect thickness, and is cheap and easy to find.)

After stripping the smoke unit, I quickly replaced the fan motor, and replaced the wadding while I had it apart. The old factory-fitted wadding was in poor shape, and I had to clean quite a bit of burnt wadding off of the element.

Once it was all re-assembled, I filled her up with fluid in both stacks, and sent her for a test run.

Woooo! does this locomotive lay down a smoke screen now. Even on medium smoke level it puts out enough smoke to rival Russia's finest.

The new gaskets performed beautifully too. Now all of the smoke exits the stacks, instead of filling the shell with smoke and oil residue.

So all in all, a very rewarding hours work. And it was fun too. 

Finally chose spots for some accessories and started roughing in some foam for scenery. The area where the Fastrack is will be for the scrapyard accessory and a small scrapyard itself. Also gave my AF bridge a purpose for being there by cutting a big hole in the ground to create some sort of dry gulch.

Worked on roadbed a bit....for a module and for the home layout.

Peter

Just finished roughing in our junction.

Ran layout for a half hor before work.  Then boat, beers, dinner and home. Normally pita at night but just can't do it. Summer changes my layout time greatly. 

Finished my basic track plan, ordered cork roadbed, and calculated remaining bench work order. Doesn't sound like much, but it a major step in the right direction.

I started laying track on the outer loop yesterday. It's Gargraves 37" flextrack. I made a simple fixture to bend and the results are okay. I've never done it before but wanted to give it a try. This is my first official o-gauge layout. Like many projects that involve repetitive steps to complete, by the time I get to the last piece I'm sure I'll know what I'm doing and it will look great.

Andrew

Filled, sanded and painted six new modules for the club modular layout. Gotta clean up the trainroom tonight. It's a real mess!

Gilly

I got up early this morning to test out my newly repainted, re-lettered and kadee installed Atlas O switcher

I have been working on this project on and off for a week or two.  Here it is all put back together and running.  The Michigan and Great Lakes took delivery of her this morning and here they are testing her out near the M&GL Car Ferry docks.  She was purchased to load and unload their future car ferry.

I finished building a mansion building front and started on a complete "big church" using Pegasus 1/64 war-gaming gothic building system, which works out very well in 1:48.

Good lookin' ! Real good looking.
FrankM

I thought the same thing when I saw that pic - just enough weathering to make the details pop - very nicely done.

Got the upper bridge in and wired up finally.

Started building the "corrugated" building to enclose the creosote retorts, now up to 3 in number...it will be 24" deep by 13" wide.  It is going to eat a lot of expensive Plastruct and Evergreen, as well as real estate, and LHS's are ALWAYS out of that...and MicroMark doesn't stock Plastruct or Evergreen.  Have the side and back walls done and am working on the doored front...Roofing this space should be fun.....!

Kids took a nap so I ran trains and cleaned some of the track.  I need to do the whole layout as there was a lot of black gunk on the center rail.   Maybe simple green will work well?   lol

Got two more ROSS turnouts and the joining tracks for the engine service terminal cut and placed, waiting weathering before screwing it all down.

This is the first part of the layout we are doing scenic work on so it's a very time consuming learning process as we go along.

Still have to figure out how to weather the bridge for the ROSS turntable so it doesn't end up looking like a piece of crap.  Want it to look about a year in service to match the nice new turntable pit weathering, which looks pretty much like new concrete with a slightly rusty pit rail.

Well today is the last day in this god forsaken apartment, tomorrow we close and move into our brand new house with large basement. The basement was meant to be all mine but the wife and daughter have staked out a portion for their work bench( yeah right like they will ever use it) So after the honey do's list is done I get to build the long awaited South Philly and Western. It comes out to be 40x 30. Big enough at my age. the walls will be lined with the collection of trains of my lifetime. She the wife says it is to big, I say not as big as your big mouth! It will also house my gun collection in a vault, small refrigerator to keep the beer cold and a microwave to heat up the hot chocolate in the winter. all the comforts of home. maybe I can find a smoke sent the wife will hate and stay out.

Install a waterless urinal in the room. The wife and daughter won't come within 20 feet of the train room, even if you don't use it.

Install a waterless urinal in the room. The wife and daughter won't come within 20 feet of the train room, even if you don't use it.

Good idea, a very good idea! and no walls around it!

Spent the morning putting some finishing touches on our retina wall that separates the upper loop from the main line an dyad.  This involved moving some medium boulders and a lot of dirt.  still have 8 more 10 gallon buckets of dirt to add...

Also, installed a separate grounding rod for the power shed.  Now everything inside can be grounded right to earth ground.  The G and O transformers are now connected directly to this gourd, through commons and case jumpers.

O scale outdoors definitely has some interesting challenges.  and I like a good challenge...

Her are a couple photos of the layout, main focus on the upper loop.

Just show her your complete post and that should pretty much seal the deal...one way or another.  

Ran the newest addition to my layout!!......Oh, I laid some ground cover, too