What did you do on your layout today?

bmccarron- I thought the bushes were painted tufts of pink fiberglass insulation

          Thank you for revealing your techniques

 

On my layout today,-

I promoted the hobby! Teaching the Whyte, AAR, and some names. Answering questions about transformers, motors, brands, scale, traction tires, booster trucks, blind wheels, and of course magnatraction. I haven't run my trains at all in days. Ive just been watching my renters run my layouts for about 5 days straight. We're talking two normal adult guys, under 20, who are choosing trains over electronics for entertainment. Today, I found out one of them (the go-getter) went Craigslist shopping, and was seriously looking at a nice $2000 postwar collection, but wants me to go check it out with him first. He is a temporary roomie, has his own house, under construction till next summer. He's usually serious, and goal minded, and as I retired to my room, I think he began sketching his basement layout. All this in 7 days of exposure to trains (his first). Who says the younger generation has no interest in trains, they just need the exposure. I run conventional here. Wait till he finds out about digital controls. Yes, Ill make sure he gets full digital exposure before he buys anything, but he already prefers the old air whistles over the tmcc whistles.

 I replaced the incandescent headlamp bulbs and the amber flashing beacon with Evan Designs' LEDs.  I also painted the hand railings white and the fuel caps and gauges red, for a more prototypical look.   I also painted the body where it comes down below the frame a semigloss black.  I'd like to move the horns to between the first and second radiator fans and paint it black.   I haven't found an easy way to remove the metal clip that holds the horn in place.  This was a PS 1 engine that was upgraded to PS2 a couple of months ago by George Galyo. 

Larry  

More power!!!

It doesn't look like much, but those 4 outlets represent 3.5 hours for Patrick and me.



The light switch was another 1.5 hours.



What all this means is, the end of temporary wiring. The layout lights now have their own circuit and don't have to be turned on by plugging in an extension cord, just flip the switch.

 

Track power will have its own circuit. One is for relay, switch, structure lighting and computer control power. And the last is for the outlets located around the layout.

Installed custom foam risers.  I found a local company that cut styrofoam blocks 24" X 48" tapered from 6" to 4", 4" to 2" and 0".  I used these on the other end of the layout.  

 

i put together my train tables, hooked up wiring and pinned tracks down!

no more running on the floor for me!!!

No layout work yesterday or today.

 

Had to give it a rest.

 

Fixed the gas tank on the 1978 Triumph Bonneville ... today take it for a test ride before the winter rains arrive ...

 

Tomorrow the layout gets attention again with wiring up the controllers for all the new switches!

 

What does the chicken wire above the light fictures accomplish?

 

That is a ground plane for TMCC. I'm anxious to get some track power on the upper level so I can see how the engines perform.

 

Patrick and I will be working to bring house current over to the second power supply. Then Matt and I will start running the track wires back to the supply in a couple weeks.

Chris D,

You are so right. I wish I was close to MN  I would stop working on mine a beg him to let me drive nails, run wire or what ever to just see that lay out in progress.

Larry

Sometimes when you dream big, you lose sight of reality. I just hope whoever buys my house when I'm gone, likes trains.

Larry, no begging necessary.  It's simply a matter of making the trip. Visitors and helpers are always welcome.

I'm gonna have to start saving

That will take a lot of afternoons in trade.

We just finished the first 16' of our 9'x30' two level layout and are ready to put some Holiday activities on it.  We like a little whimsy, so included are skating bears and penguins. The snow cover is Fusion Fiber with white latex paint.  The track is weathered Fastrack.  Unlike many model train layouts, we decided on varied landscapes instead of cramming in lots of track.  The scene will connect via a tunnel to the cherry blossoms and flowers of spring.  There's even a vineyard planned for our Lionel Napa Valley Wine Train to run through. 
 

yo big boy...... when are you going to rework that one helix?  

 

to all forum members elliot and his wife are very gracious hosts to all whom come to see the train layout.

 

you have to see his layout in person to really get the full appreciation of his and patrick and now I believe another fellow has joined his name escapes right now this layout is really a massive undertaking and very impressive to see.

they seem to really have made a lot of progress just since my wife and I were there in may of this year. 

$oo

 

 

Elliot's basement is messy and the floor squeaks on the layout and the train sparks when it runs and Elliot's kinda scary with all his tattoos but his wife makes some wicked good chili

Hooked up the push button to control Mark whistling station. Sorry no big.time high tech stuff going on here!  

Well, its been awhile but now finally starting on my layout again. I decided to switch out my atlas curves and go bigger. I originally had curves O72 and O63 but felt this would limit me in terms of engine I could have on my tracks. I want to be able to put whatever train no matter size i want. So i decided to get rid of the O63 and go O81. So now I have O72 7 O81. Nothing smaller than O72 including switches. So the track has been placed. Just doing the finally electrical testing before adding ballast. Also doing some minor scenery. I started to put up a mountain using blocks of foam as noted on this forum. I will have a wind turbine on it. On one side of my layout I will have a coal area while the other I will have a parking lot leading to a diesel facility I am having done. The parking lot came from an idea of fellow member Donald. I will be using 1/4" mdf. I will paint it asphalt black and add the lane lines later. Maybe even a handicap space. Here are some pics to show some progress. Still have a long ways to go. 

Installing switch controllers for the engine terminal on the "temporary" control panel.  Four down, ten to go.  Then flip the panel up and wire up.  Then debug.

Thanks $oo. Fixing the old helix is pretty low on my priority list since it only effects the Big Boy, Challenger, Lionel 89' autoracks and Atlas 86' flats. The layout was designed and half built before I even thought about owning the large steamers, and the long cars didn't even exist back then.

 

When everything is up and running, we can look at retrofitting.

I'm putting the floor in for the roundhouse. Once I pulled all the trains off I noticed some errors on my tracks so those needed to be fixed first. Hoping to have the floor in by the end of the night or at least a good portion of it.

Here is the parking area I am currently working on. Still need to clean up the ends. 

 

Installed a couple of block signals.

More work on the 2012 Atlas Coca-Cola Christmas (they call it a Holiday) truck. Hope to finish it this week. After all, Christmas is less than nine weeks away.

Building shelves, testing power, trying not to burn the train room down. Still having fun??? Long way to go , BUT winter is close and I will have plenty of time to play. It don't really look as bad as the photo. It's just one of three control stations. It will look better...trust me.

Weekend update: Painted my custom wooden risers (made from scrap, painted with leftover spray paint).  Made a trip to Choo Choo Barn to pick up one of Dad's Christmas Gifts, some road, and the g/f just had to get a deer, some dogs, some squirrels and two groundhogs for the layout.

 

This past week I drew up the schematic for my blocking scheme (thanks, Scheme It by DigiKey). Got some A/C relays.  Picked up some old transformers on eBay.

 

OH! And officially launched www.SCARMHiRailers.com with my Dad...

 

Should have some pictures worth posting by the end of the week.

 

What did YOU do this weekend?!

Nothing on the trains today. Started tearing down my old barn, my equipment needs a new home. 

i realized that i was buying more and more stuff to make my layout bigger and bigger but was running out of room to turn around....what wouldn't fit/or won't fit, i've been putting on ebay.  so, this weekend i tore off my newest expansion and used that room to organize the stuff i had sitting in boxes on the floor that i was going to keep.  i decided that i was going to do smaller better.  i changed my track plans around and more or less starting over. 

Starting Friday PM, I ballasted my entire 4x8 layout of Atlas Track. 2 loops and sidings. By Saturday PM, all ballast was glued and drying and touch-ups done. I also ran over to Engine House Hobbies to pick up some road building supplies. Also cleaned the track and cleaned up the layout overall in between leaf blowing, leaf blowing, and a little more leaf blowing!

 

Sunday AM, laying out lines/masking for the road/"parking lot". Sunday AM/PM - paving the road/parking lot with Smooth-it. Currently waiting for it to fully dry before painting WS Top Coat. . Nice family get-together for a birthday and I did NOT leaf blow (next weekend...gotta let the trees catch up!) Also made a few lame Sculptamold hills. Some greenery should be overtaking the pink foam before the end of next week. 

I replaced the missing front safety chain on an MTH GP30 and recemented the walkways on an MTH SD70ACe.
I also cut several 4 ft. lengths of 1/4" dowling into 11.5" sections to use as treated poles for a load in flat car with bulkheads.

Larry

Patrick was over last Wednesday, but I wasn't feeling very well, so he ended up doing 90% of the work. More work on high voltage electrical. A couple of new outlets were added along with new cords for the outlet and track power circuits. It may not sound very exciting in terms of train layout construction, but it really is a major step forward.

Next Wednesday, we're going to get new outlets over to the second bank of power supplies.

Today Matt came over. He finished the last few sections of track on the upper level, then climbed up into the back corner to install a couple sections that would be hard to reach later.

 

Those two sections of track mean that Patrick and I can continue with the backdrop.

 

Then it was on to track power wiring. We ran the power feeds for the upper deck.

 

It looks like rainbow spaghetti now, but it should clean up nicely.

I laid sheets of white polyester under my 6x8 RealTrax oval and got the 34 ceramic structures from the Bedford Falls collection out of the closet for my Christmas layout. We're having new tile and carpet laid next month, so I moved the layout to the garage early and decided to get a head start this year. I fashioned a 2nd level for some of the structures and set it over one of the corners of the oval to create a tunnel. I laid all the structures in place and will cut holes for the light cords tomorrow. Last year I laid all the cords on the table and covered them with more poly, but this year they're all going under and out of the way. The poly is old, so I might just make a run tomorrow to see if I can find some new stuff and redo it since I have the time. I might also look for some inexpensive skirting material, maybe red, white and blue. Believe it or not, but I still get a kick out of just starting my 2012 4-6-0 Christmas train real slow and listening to it puff out some cool smoke rings.

My son's little league season just ended so I ran some trains today for the first time in a long time!  I also removed spider webs from some areas and activated all my switches and accessories to make sure they still functioned.  Really looking forward to completing some more scenery between now and next March when baseball starts again.

 

--Greg

Hung up a Goodyear Blimp over the layout.   I had added some dummy motors & propellers first as it seemed a shame that these were lacking.   The blimp is the 33 inch long version and this is near enough to S scale.  My layout is 0 gauge but I do often run Marx and Lionel 027, plus other undersized makes, so  the blimp size is near enough for a toy train layout.

Now, all that is an example of a whole loooootttttttttaaaaaaaaaa work being done to run some trains! WOW!

Live long and prosper!

FrankM

This weekend I finely 90% finished my floor layout. I know this is no where near what most of you out there have built. Since I don't have a basement I used my bonus room (21 ft long, 15 Ft wide). The whole point was to keep it simple and create a winter theme. I used 1inch boards as my base, put the bathroom mats down Rewired power leads to the track, replaced most of the O72 curves with O84.

The yard was built with a cork board base with five sidings with carpet padding to transition from the 1 inch boards used on the main line. This allowed the yard to sit about 1 inch below the main line. 

The tracks and buildings received a coat of Santa snow. this allowed the tracks to blend in and look like it had been snowing. 

 

Materials used:

compressed 1 in wood

other 1 in boards

Artic white bathroom mates from Walmart

Fast Track

Santa Snow

Cork Board

 

Things left to do. Hang flat screen TV on the wall with shelf for the cable, DVD Player, and sound system. Then I can remove the stand and open up for viewing purposes the side where my station is and add a back ground at track level. find a couch that allows better view of the layout. add some dept 56 buildings and more trees and shrubbery. Finish the river crossing.  Tell me what you think.

 

 

I like what you've done so far.  The mats look like real snow.  How many power hook ups did you use?

Continued work on the Coca-Cola truck. It was a real bear getting the LED wires to stay flat enough to glue them to the trailer sides. Made progress and got about half way done.

That's why I bought the mats 25 were used and Its part of keeping it simple. I started the station side last Dec and had been slowly expanding from there. This weekend was the big push as I realigned the yard and laid the rest of the mats, redid the wiring. Most of the wiring is under the mats and laying the rest of the wood. The Santa snow works real good but you need to wipe it off right away from the rails. After it dries wipe the rails again with a scotch pad to remove the remaining residue. 

 

I running 16 gauge wire as a loop from my junction box.  From the loop I have

17 power leads into the track. Might be over kill but I am running mixed of conventional and command(DCS and TMCC)
2 power leads in the crossings

5 power leads to the sidings running through light switches

Separate loop for from the 12v on the Z4000 to power the signals( by Z stuff for trains), Train station ( Kit Bash), and current buildings. 

 

 Doug