What did you do on your layout today?

suzukovich posted:

mike g. posted:

suzukovich posted:

As usual a lot of great work.

Elliot love seeing the progress on your layout. Only issue when you show all the details of the wiring I get a headache and my eyes become sore just looking at it.   Made another video with my 3rd Rail CB&Q/C&S SD9s.

 

 

I agree with you about the wiring! LOL. Another great video and music, but your killing me! Being from the west Washington I need some green! LOL

But there is green in the beginning, Burlington Northern Green.   Or do you mean this kind of green

 

Of course I wouldn't want you seeing red either.

 

But after all you do have a new Mercedes Benz to drive.

 

Now your talking! Green with envy. The two videos some how sum up me and my wife. The more Green I get, The redder she gets. But I do love all the colors.

Plus who could complain about such a nice lush plow to drive!

Pulled up my station spur track to remove the Atlas uncoupler section and to level the spur. Kadee's like level track.

Clem

Boy don't they Clem!

I have done a lot in 2 days rearranged 2 tables for the layout and then designed a new layout to match the new configuration of tables then today laid the track out in that configuration still need to do the incline to the upper level but had to redesign alittle I ran out of 048 curves so substituted the o48 curve for o36 should work just fine. I was very shocked everything lined up just where it was suppose to I'm very happy about that . here's some photos don't mind the mess I have stuff laying everywhere.

Finished all the assembly on one side of my roundhouse and wrapped up the landscaping as well. Once the building is completed I'll give it some weathering. 

 Christmas layout  is set up for this year 

 More progress on my signal system 

 Zone one grounds are cut and run down underneath the track 

This weekend I got the Christmas lights on the model of the house I used to live in at Merced, Ca.

I rented the  rear second floor of the house. When I was coming south on Canal street, I could see my Christmas tree in the upstairs window.

Goodnight, everyone!!!

Wonderful, Mr. Rogers.

FrankM.

Alan, It's great that you are able to model something that was in your real life! It puts a whole new side of a story to a layout. I would have to think long and hard of something to model from my life!

Alan Rogers posted:

 

This weekend I got the Christmas lights on the model of the house I used to live in at Merced, Ca.

 

I rented the  rear second floor of the house. When I was coming south on Canal street, I could see my Christmas tree in the upstairs window.

 

Goodnight, everyone!!!

Cool!!!!!!

That's great Alan!

Adriatic posted:

I fell asleep mid post waiting on the attachment tool to show up yesterday.

I had played the shell game with scenery, trying for an "uplifting" scene.

Ended up wanting to sing "One of these things is not like the others" to Mitch.

 Can you guess which of these.5 things is not like the others?, lol.

Six , six ,six , six, let's sing the song of six! How many is six?

Six lifting devices.

(It could have been seven if I had only thought of the helicopter too..darn)

Ah hah, I made you count!

(Too old?  Too "soft"?   https://youtu.be/Qn_Lu6hcLqw    link is broken and won't respond to edits. See next post.

 

Its all your fault.  Ever since this post Those songs from Sesame Street keep playing in my head.

Of course this song would fit here well.

We started work on the harbor area with two different cranes for intermodal activities. Harold is constructing a plateau on the future mountain for the castle and assorted log/timber structures. His older son Josh built a real 'castle' for his home some years ago complete with a turret and a moat! Our host, Buffalo Creek vacations has 4 or 5 log cabins of various sizes for rent which will be duplicated on the layout.

We ran a Lionel 0-8-0 this evening sending it around the outer loop to find weak areas or ones that needed further cleaning. As she warmed up and Jerry cleaned the track in several places we clocked the little steamer at 1:24 around with 22v to the track. Not all leads are in place and we have some tuning yet to do but it's coming along nicely. Jerry and I used a tape measure and tried to measure the linear footage - best we can estimate it is about 253 feet around one loop.

Thanks for all your kind comments, Mike, Frank and everyone else.

I truly enjoy the creativity of this hobby, but enjoy bringing delight to others even more.

Mike, maybe there is a structure you can connect with and model? My buildings have to "speak" to me before I can reduce them to scale.

Today I installed two lighted lamp posts to each side of Our Lady of Locomotion Church.  This meant I had to remove all the shrubs, trees, and flowers from either side of the church not to mention removing all the people figures.

Aside from the church now having lamp lights to both sides, I was able to give the scene a fresh new look by re - placing all the fine town folk.... same folk just in some different places.  Doing this along with re - placing some of the shrubs gives the scene a whole new fresh look!!  Pretty cool!!  

I want to and will be doing this more often to other scenes on my layout.

Alan Rogers posted:

This weekend I got the Christmas lights on the model of the house I used to live in at Merced, Ca.

WOW, I'm very impressed. Great work!

Even my wife, who is tired of seeing model railroad anything, thought it looked good.

Yesterday, I took some photos for a planned magazine article. These were among the ones I couldn't use due to forgetting to close the blinds, but it'll give you an idea what the good shots will look like...

FYI, the exhaust is not photoshopped in. I used the old technique of something blurred over the stack. I think it looks way better than photoshopping in real steam exhaust, as the matching lighting and shadows are in my shots this way.

This weekend I worked on the Christmas village and North Pole areas of the layout.   Decided on final elevations and Dept 56/Lemax type building placements.    I've done 25 buildings so far with about 60 more to go for light strands and placement.   Obviously will have to work on final scenery to make it look better but the rough installation is shaping up nicely.  

Even have a "vice" part of town with a casino, tattoo parlor, bar, and pawnshop....all located under a bridge!   My wife loves it already.

Last weekend was my train club's 32nd Holiday Open House. It was a great weekend. We had a very large turnout. I estimate over 2000 people visited the club over the three days. We had a line waiting to get in from 11 AM when we opened to 5 PM when we closed. I was running trains nonstop all weekend. Good time for both members and visitors. The local TV news showed up unexpectedly on Sunday. A five minute interview resulted in my 30 seconds of fame. Unfortunately we were so busy I wasn't able to take any pictures. Overall it was a big success.

Pat,

I can certainly forgive you for not having photos of the weekend open house as you were so busy running trains for the guests!  That is great that the local news came over to cover your event!  Many thanks for the exciting report!

Pat Kn, That's very good news, on many levels. Good for you! Good for them! Good for the hobby! May I ask what community enjoyed this event and news?

FrankM.

I started dropping all the feeders and wiring them up then was able to get 2 trains to run alittle on what was wired ran both dcs and tmcc making sure everything worked fine. I sure did miss hearing the little berkshire jr with the err upgrade that engine I love the sound on it . here is a video I did right after the upgrade.

I agree, I would be anxious to get the Berkshire running too!  Did you do the ERR upgrade yourself or have someone else do it?

Pat Kn posted:

Last weekend was my train club's 32nd Holiday Open House. It was a great weekend. We had a very large turnout. I estimate over 2000 people visited the club over the three days. We had a line waiting to get in from 11 AM when we opened to 5 PM when we closed. I was running trains nonstop all weekend. Good time for both members and visitors. The local TV news showed up unexpectedly on Sunday. A five minute interview resulted in my 30 seconds of fame. Unfortunately we were so busy I wasn't able to take any pictures. Overall it was a big success.

Me and my 6 year old son were there Friday night and enjoyed it. We did a boys night out seeing your club's layout first, then some dinner and then NLOE's club's layout. Love this time of year when all the clubs open there layouts to the public

Moonson posted:

Pat Kn, That's very good news, on many levels. Good for you! Good for them! Good for the hobby! May I ask what community enjoyed this event and news?

FrankM.

Thanks Frank. The club is in St. James, Long Island, New York. We were written up in Newsday the Long Island Paper and News 12 Long Island ran a short story on us.

Me and my 6 year old son were there Friday night and enjoyed it. We did a boys night out seeing your club's layout first, then some dinner and then NLOE's club's layout. Love this time of year when all the clubs open there layouts to the public

LIKevin, Glad you and your son enjoyed yourselves. That is what make the work all worthwhile.

Mark Boyce posted:

I agree, I would be anxious to get the Berkshire running too!  Did you do the ERR upgrade yourself or have someone else do it?

I did it myself it was a challenge to come up with some sort of tether between the tender and engine computer parts worked good for this then the shell for the tender is metal so I had t get the antenna out of the shell another challenge. then I weathered it my first weathering Job,

It certainly looks dandy!  So where did you end up mounting the antenna ?

Mark Boyce posted:

It certainly looks dandy!  So where did you end up mounting the antenna ?

Drilled a small hole for the antenna to pass thru it pokes out between the tender and engine so that it doesn't hinder removal of the shell but yet still functions .

I thought about drilling a hole and glueing it down then putting coal load over it but I ruled against that idea.

in the video I had upgraded a conventional union pacific sd40t2 and the up 2314 both with err and rail sounds than I replaced a bad speaker in the up 8048 and replaced or fixed the ditch lights on a up 8049 and smoke unit .

They all sound and work nice

To cold to do much else today on The North Bluff.

I have had a Lionel Standard gauge #515 tank car for some time, can't remember when or where I bought it but was always a "project" car. I disassembled it completely a week or so ago and yesterday  I stripped the crappy paint job off the tank.  The paint was thick and tough so tonight i polished it up and will put it back together - I hope !!  Found a nice dark yellow can of paint which I will use on it. Not a full restoration because I am leaving the flat car and trucks as-is.  I have a acquired a pretty respectable Standard gauge collection now and concentrating on getting everything running, The bedroom layout is starting to look crowded with 027 and Standard gauge track.

Did another 6 feet of dreaded bench-work while being grilled by wife on why her locomotive upgrade is taking so long ....

LOL got to love them!

Got my station spur operational, with new Kadee magnets and  a track power off switch, so I can leave a power unit parked there. 

clem

Painted my 28th box of Preiser 65602 Unpainted 24 Seated People for the Lionel 21" passenger cars arriving in 2017.  Finished 672 people so far, with 3 more boxes to do. The 744 seated people hopefully will be enough for the cars. The 24 different Preiser poses allow for conversational groupings inside the cars. The people look like they are interacting, not Zombies looking straight forward.  The details make the difference.  I did 720 people last year for my NYC Empire State, C&O, Wabash and Atlas O Cal Zephyr and Amtrak cars.  The Atlas Dome cars look great with the people visible.

The passengers look great, John!!

Updated my redo post on scenery thread on rebuilding base with Styrofoam for new scenic elements. 

Mudding and taping continued today...

Of course that can only go so far, then it has to dry. Back to my manual switch throws. I worked on numbers 7 thru 10. The rods for 7 and 8 are now in place. Numbers 9 and 10 will be over 6' long!

They only sell push rods in 3 and 4 foot lengths, so that white tube is what I use to splice the red sleeves together. This photo is very busy looking, but for those of you who are not into wiring, neither am I. The white wire is the ground, and black wires from the rails tie to that. The gray wire is the hot and red wires from the center rails tie to that.

If you look carefully, you can see the lower crank arm for number 7 near the exposed yellow rod in the center of the photo. All of the small wires are for Tortoise control, and there is a local panel on the right.

The upper part of the number 10 crank is done. I still have to bend the lower part of the wire sticking down. The only way to do that in this confined space is to bend the clevis loop while it is sticking down, then bend the lower arm up to finish the crank.