What did you do on your layout today?

Just tore into benchwork with a SawzAll to make room for an Atlas Pratt bridge.

Unloaded turkeys from a Milwaukee refer. 

Happy Thanksgiving

Don

Completing a new siding. Not that big but it runs next to the wall racks of trains and can be isolated from the rest of the layout. Very handy as I can use it to make up/shake up  trains without having to reach very far. It forms an extension of one of my loops and can be used as a run-around track as well.

Interestingly, I used manual throw switches. I kinda like getting up and walking around to perform "brakeman" duties - throwing switches, coupling cars, etc. 

We made MAJOR progress today!!! My son is home for Thanksgiving. Chris and I finished building and installing the elevation piers and ramps for the top level of our layout and actually ran trains on all three levels using MTH DCS. Prior to this, the upper two levels wer conventionally controlled. We are using two transformeres put through one TIU. Our postwar ZW runs the two main loops on the bottm through the variable ports of the TIU. Our MTH Z-4000 runs the top two loops through the fixed ports of the same TIU. It seems to work well.

Purchases! 50"x100" Woodland scenic spring grass mat 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby, and pack o med. green, med. ground cover to top off the green foam I laid over the table layout, along with pack o lichen to hide a gap atop a stone tunnel entrance on the ceiling layout. Off to the Dollar Tree, found brick mat, garden walls, firemen, potted shrubs, and 2 trees off of the Christmas Village type end cap for a whopping $6 total. Then went and bought back an old Marx Commador Vanderbuilt full set I traded last year, then regretted it (thanks for holding on to it Rob, you were right!) and picked up a second chrome/red Rock Island & Peoria 4-4-0 "General"(American). My plan is to modify one pilot truck, and double head them. The few extra cars I want to add cause wheel slip with only one engine. So all in all a good train day.    

I finally got up the courage to disassemble my layout to incorporate a new track plan.  I have put this off for years, and couldn't bring myself to pull the plug and take the trains off, but my inspiration finally arrived today.  It was tough to remove those screws and cut the wires and start taking up the cork road bed, but I have been working on a track design for over a year, so I think I've given it alot of thought.  Of course, as soon as I start laying track, I know there will be last minute changes, but that's okay.  I will be anxious to get it back in shape so that I can enjoy my trains again.

Mike

I have been working on my layout's scenery a little at a time. I learned a tough lesson on my new layout. I built the table strong enough to support my weight, unfortunately it does not support my age, 56. Having had knee surgery this past April makes it difficult for me to climb up on my layout and crawl around. Kneeling on hard plywood and track is not a very pleasant feeling for my knee. Besides that the section I am working on is just over 6 feet deep. Lesson learned, nothing over arm's reach! I had no problem laying track 4 years ago, scenery is another matter. But, all in all, it still beats a good day at work!!!

Cobrabob.

Believe it or not, but I had my first accident on a 6x8 oval the other day. I fashioned a stand for the last passenger car to set my phone on to take a video. That part worked fine, but as the train was backing up taking the video, I went to open my makeshift tunnel entrance. I lifted up the white batting to make way for the phone and forgot the 1x3 hangs down right behind it. So, the phone hit, stopped the train dead in its tracks and the train pushed some cars off at the curve. They plowed over my little old time photographer's camera and I've been gluing the tripod legs back together. They had already been broken before I got it, but I sure felt stupid, again.  

Cobrabob: Working out track issues after replacing tubular track with Gargraves. Gargraves is not as forgiving as tubular track!  I feel for you having the same issue after had both knees replaced in 2012. I was told that I am not permitted to get on my knees making it even harder to work on the layout. Had a over the top creeper but it was an old style that did not fold up and could not move it around very well. Limited space thinking about the new one from Micro Mark as it folds up. My layout is 8 feet deep, Let me know how it works out for you maybe we can trade tips!

Ran trains: steam and diesel.   Cleaned a small section of track to see how dirty it is.  OK for now.

ChToday i put together a Railway Express train.... all RR Exp cars, box, reffers, and 60 foot reffers.  First it was pulled by a Reading Train Master ( Williams ) then an MTH Y6b ( Railking ) This was on my permanent home layout .... The Free State Junction Railway.

This week I have been building a a whimsical Christmas layout at the Damon Foreman Music Academy in Glenwood, Md.  I teach trumpet their one day a week and thought it would be cool to set up a 4x8 layout in the waiting room adjacent to the front window.

I invited one of my younger students ( who loves trains ) and his friend to help out.

It was all great fun!

I glued some musical instruments, from Christmas tree ornaments,  onto some old Lionel flatcars.  Please see the photos.  Two loops of tracks, one hosts a K Line GG1in Brunswick Green pulling the cop and hobo chase car plus a K line search rotating search light car and caboose.  The outer loop hosts a Williams J class 4-8-4 dressed in Blue for the Cincinnatian.  ( B&O used pacifics dressed in blue shrouding for this task prototypically ) This engine pulls the musical instrument flat cars and an MTH seasons greeting boxcar with a caboose.  I can also alternate freight with a 2 - 3 car passenger.

trains.  I still have some touch up to do when I go back in this Tuesday.  Big fun!!!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday!

Whoops forgot to attach the photos of the Christmas layout at the Music Academy.  Here they are.  Enjoy!

trumptrain, what did you use for the landscaping snow simulation? It looks good!

A few finishing touches and limestone quarry will be done.

Set up my son's N Gauge set around the tree to be used as a Train ride for kids in my layout world. Construction crews are finishing the work under the tree after laying the track, while the local Train club has been testing the train to insure safe operation. Ok I am losing it.

I got my 2002 Etrl Collectibles, Keebler Horse Drawn Cart for my old Western town theme park scene. Will weather it and dulcoat it to.

Finished project begun a couple of years ago by installing and testing the bridge on the 132' Ross turntable.  Load tested it with the NP Z-8 ... worked great.

Been a while since I posted here, which is not to say that I haven't been working on the layout. Now that I have a workbench, it is much easier to have tinkering time when Patrick isn't here.

When Patrick is here we get the heavier work done. He was over on Monday, and then again today.

We added this 061 curve coming off the helix. When complete, this will form a wye.

Then it was on to the final peninsula. We roughed in all of the lighting from the corner on the left almost all the way to the end.


We added the plywood decking and trimmed it to a nice smooth curve.


Then extended the decking another 24'.


Picking up where we left off Monday, Patrick ran wire through all the conduit, and made up sockets and more boxes, while I cut and bent pipe to extend the lighting down the opposite side of the peninsula. Then we added the section that goes down between the backdrops at the center of the photo.


The plan is to turn this area into a hump yard.


We came up just a little short on time today. There are just a couple more connections left to make before the first lights come on on the south half of the room.


I'll probably finish this off before Patrick comes back Monday.

I replaced some track with Gargraves flex to get a better curve going to the car ferry.  I also am cleaning out a ton of stuff under the layout and posting it for sale on the forum.  

Installed the new D56 Chrysler Building. This is a spectacular rendition of this NYC landmark and a quality addition to the layout.

Finished those connections and did some cleaning. The cleaning effort isn't so obvious, but the lights are.

MOSTLY JUST INFO reference ballast fastrack

I'm in my rebuild mode and even though I'm using fastrack and I'm more toy like I wanted to play with weathering the track and ballast. I picked up the roofing granules I ordered the other day from a local roofing company. Much less expensive than some of the other products  I have looked at. I purchased Slate, black and gray. So just for information to other members I'm posting some pictures of it. Also two samples of woodland coarse ballast. I can not see any difference at all in the two products with the exception that the roof granules weigh slightly more than woodland ballast when put in the same size container.

I spent a lot of time fighting with my DCS, on the Christmas layout, but ultimately, I came with a number of improvements for next year and I have all 4 trains on the track. 3 are moving now. Can't waste to post some pics. On the mishapen figure 8, I'm pulling 17 cars without enough room to add a scale car or a bobber caboose, without hitting itself. I want ore space for Christamas, for Christmas.

What did I do on my layout today (well, yesterday)...something really stupid

I decided to run a passenger train so I put my 3rd Rail E7 on the track and a couple of passenger cars behind it.  It didn't make it 3 feet before cars started uncoupling

So I removed all but 1 car, same thing.  I could see a dip in the track work, never noticed it before and of all places it's on my drop-down "bridge" section where I enter the room.  I figured either the piece is starting to warp or I bumped into it and cause a misalignment.

So I spend the next 3 hours raising the roadbed, adding shims, drilling holes for cable ties, etc. nothing seemed to be working.

THEN it hit me, it wasn't so much the "quality" track work I had put in, but just about each car has a coupler (all Kadees) that was not at the correct height.  The Kadee on the E7 is also suspect.

So I had to undo all the "fixes" and put the track back where it originally was (I did add screws to the ends of the track on the drop-down so they would stay in place).  Now I have to work on getting the Kadees at the correct height, I'll probably buy some of the offset shank couplers to keep the shims as thin as possible.

None of my freight cars are giving me problems, but most of them are 40 footers too.

Lesson learned, check the obvious first!

I'll be replacing the down-down section with a bridge in the upcoming year, hopefully I can make it so it doesn't warp.

took the Train Board to the TCS show

in Solvey, NY on sunday. spent a good

amount of time fixing track as I have done

for the past 4 shows.

because of transporting and the board is

over 20yrs old. I think it has seen its last show.

Im spending the winter making a new board

and upgrading things.

Very early stages of subway station 3.  This will be the biggest of the 3 stops.

Always use a height gauge with installing Kadees!  I have also learned the hard way!

Ran trains for two days. Four scale size trains, nine diesel locomotives, 72 pcs.of rolling  stock, on 1 track about 3 scale miles long and a 2.3% grade. Then combined it to two trains on sunday evening. The RS11 with twelve box cars, all old Atlas (Pola). The rest a mixture of all brands with Kadee and claw couplers, with 8 power units, five leading and three pushing. 

Clem

The mountain is getting there. I know it's rather small. So is my layout at 8'6" x13'10".

Bob.

been trying to get the road name off a weaver passenger car all day.  Been using ELO easy off but it has barely faded the lettering.  I am desperately trying to avoid a full repaint.  I just want to remove just the road name and add my own custom decal and herald too it.   Might have to get some very fine sand paper and very carefully work it to avoid removing the rivet details.  

Building my benchwork. Finished installing all the girders today. Still need to install all the center peninsula joists and decking. It's coming along.

Added a new building to the layout.  The very nicely built bar from Menards.   I then moved a few other buildings around.  

I also purchased my 1st building kit.  It is a western scenics cobbler building.  I already have the built up version of this building.  I plan to have them side by side. I will make this one a bicycle shop.   Hope to do it over Christmas vacation. 

Three days of painting mountains with a brush inside the train room due to it being so cold to spray out side. Finally today was able to spray outside the larger section. What a PITA, But still having fun. On to more mountain building.

Yikes! That looks like clay or plaster or foam slabs! Maybe you should look into “hard-shell” mountain making like most have been using for the last fifty years... quicker, less expensive, much lighter weight than plaster or clay, more adaptable and much easy to modify later on ; ) Either way, kudos for your neat effort in getting your empire built!

~Andy

My wife bought me a GoPro camera, so of course the first place it had to go was on a ride around the layout. I grabbed an old flat car and a railroad spike, duct taped the spike to the car for added weight, and stuck the camera on.

Now before you look at the new video, take a look at one that was taken a year and a half ago. I apologize in advance for the poor quality, but try to take note of what the layout looks like.



The route of the train has not changed! It is still doing the exact same 500' loop, only now the layout looks a lot different. It doesn't hurt that the picture quality is far superior.



Patrick has been coming over to help almost every week for almost a year now, and it shows!

Wow. I feel dizzy! LOL!

That was fun : )

~Andy

Not on it, but over it.  I put in 16 feet of track for lighting.  Will do more tomorrow.  

George

Cleaned the track.

Fixed an electrical problem on my outer loop.

Peter

I have finalized the design of the second layout.  It is 9 x 34.  I am sure I will need to make adjustments when I actually lay track but I really like the track plan.  I still have two concerns.  If this were a toy train layout it would be easy to build but as a hi-rail it is a bit daunting and I wonder if it is too big.  The other concern is that the room will be crowded.  If I were smart I would take down my tinplate layout and build in that space.  But no one ever accused me of being smart and I love the Prewar stuff. Since I am down in Florida for the winter I can't get started until May building in NJ.  I gave my wife a list of Ameritowne buildings to get me for Christmas.  I can build them down here and have them ready when I go North.