What did you do on your layout today?

I finally got out to my train room and did something!  Painted all my fascia boards. 

Installed the Lionel Legacy 1.5.1 Update on my Cab-2 and Legacy Base.

Another fun day but nasty cutting.

WENT NUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cleaning all my rusted Super O gauge and finally trying it out.

 

 

Tin 

I am still wiring my layout. I am living under layou for about the last two weeks. I feel like the troll under the bridge from the story books. Part of my problem is obtaining sufficient supplies at my local stores. Radio shack only stocks a few of any itm I need, and ordering direct from their warehouse in Dallas takes forever. Because of where I live in extreme Northern New York, I am not close to the larger suppliers. But, I am making progress every day.

EL Bob

Completed writing up my switches to acc power. Filled a bunch of track gaps. Built a small hill and covered it in plaster cloth. Ballasted about ten feet of track. Ran trains for an hour.

I almost chucked my CAB2 at the wall today!   Again the screen went out and now it is "forgetting" my locomotives cab numbers!   I purchased a Legacy Expansion 993 set off of a forum member so I have a working CAB2 while I send mine it for repairs to Lionel.   I hope they dont make me send my legacy base also.  

Took some photos for the "For Sale"
 thread.

Hooked up my radar tower. Don't exactly fit in my hirail theme but I have always liked it. Pretty cool.

I spent 45 minutes running trains with my 22 month old son while his brother was at swimming lessons.  My two boys giving me the energy to work on my layout, after they go to bed of course. Now I'm off to wire in the smoking switch tower the wife got me for Christmas. 

nothing, waiting for first frost at ag hall to get me inspired. want to do a complete make over of my 4x8.

I stayed up late last night to work on a section of track that typically gives me derailments with my scale Legacy berk.  I found that the track wasn't 100% level and it caused it to go out of gauge when the heavy berk went though it.  

 

So I was using my Legacy ten wheeler pulling 3 MTH scale passenger cars though that section to test if it would stay level.   The very last passenger car split the frogs on a switch not even near that section and the wheels came in contact with the center rail.  The Legacy ten wheeler then went crazy and a bunch of static came from the tender for about 3 seconds before my MRC breaker tripped.  

 

I think I fried the RS system.  The loco runs normal but no sound except static!  I tried a factory reset with no joy.

 

Guess it will have to go to Lionel for an out of warranty repair, since I am a 2nd owner of this locomotive.  Frustrating since I only have had this locomotive for a week.  I typically have good luck with electronics, train and non train stuff.  Frist my CAB 2 goes nuts now this.  

 

Yesterday was the official dismantling of my Christmas Layout.    The good news is only 292 days til I get to put it up again!

I used the platform as a surface to repair the landing gear mount of my Mini-Pulse XT electric powered RC plane.  When it was done I ran some trains.  Conventionally.

 

Don't understand why brushless motors, LiPo batteries and spread spectrum radios aren't used to power and control toy trains.

 

Pete

Pete

I don't understand it either but then again maybe an upstart from the G gauge world will enter the O market. Then again, maybe like the manufacturers I simply have too much already invested in what I have.. to begin considering reinventing my little O world if it were available unless I had bottomless pockets of disposable cash. Then again, I thought weather proofed outdoor O gauge trains were a great alternative to G and that was a decade ago. Of course I still haven't figured out how to keep critters from messing up my outdoor layout. I could see my lab walking away with an O gauge engine in it's mouth. I guess be careful what you wish for is still true.

The wide open floor look of the Plasticville Frosty Bar always kind of bugged me, so I made a few additions:

-Ice cream freezer and ice machine formed out of sheet aluminum (no painting) salvaged from a microwave.

-Table out of scrap plastic.

-Mop bucket sawn from a plastic Venetian blind cord end.  With a thin wooden dowel stuck in it with white glue (which turned brown).

-Tile floor made from sheet plastic and painted in black and white squares.

Pictures Please!

I'd sure like to oblige but we had to replace our computer recently, and failed to notice that the new one has no slot for a flash card.

Installed 6 Tortoise switch machines

Nothing, again. I have been fighting a cold for the past week and have not felt like doing much on the layout. Last week I did cut some masonite to finish around the shelf I have my transformer, TIU, TMCC base, etc on. I need to now screw it in and give it the first coat of paint. Maybe I will be able to work on it later in the week.

 

I have 25 switches on my layout, and while I'd love to use torsoise machines and get rid of my DZ ones, I sweat when thinking about the pain involved in installing them.   I'll bet after the first 6, the rest are easy!

This morning, my Christmas layout looked like this, Greg:

 

 

After 2 hours and 40 minutes, it now looks like this:

 

 

Guess what tomorrow will bring???

 

Forum member Raildog came by today to check out the layout and loan me his Legacy setup so I can ship mine back to Lionel to get the screen fixed.  

I finished cutting all the lumber for my helix foundation. Some assembly required! Pics on Thursday.

Frank....don't tear that layout down!!!  I think I am going to gather up a few hundred OGR forumites and we will hire an attorney to serve an injunction on you....got to stop you somehow!!  Don't make us come down there and whop you!!

 

Alan

More wiring... and more wiring. My Dad has been working on another acces hatch over at the engine facility and filling in the rest of the opneing on that end of the layout.

 

 

I got around to putting some stone siding on my coal building but it needs some weathering and accent work to move it closer to completion.

 

I finished my roadbed for the first two loops of track on my new layout.  I also just got down about 75ft of track.  I am about 40% done with the track for my first loop.  Hope to have the first loop done in a week or so.

 

Too messy for pictures!  Hopefully soon I will post some.

I did something really stupid today.

 

While cutting some foam with my big razor kniff i put a nice large slice in the top of my left index finger.  Nothing that a few stitches won't fix but pretty stupid on my part.  

Laid rail on my wooden trestle

This six is part of the expansion. It is pretty easy went you do all the prep work right, only under the table 15 min. per motor. The hard part was finding the right size phillips head screw driver bit for the #4 mounting screws. 

More wiring, installed more Tortoise switch machines, oh yeah, and ran more wires.

Ran trains!

 

Encountered my first real DCS problem. Spent hour and half trying to solve. Ended up resetting TIU and remote. Removed TIU from layout and set up single test track from fixed output one. Powered TIU seperately with 18 volt AC transformer. Followed Barry's steps. still could not add any engines. Put project to bed and ran Legacy only for another  hour. Nice to have separate systems when one goes down. 

Continued a BCR and BCR2 battery replacement process for older MTH steam.  Only problem encountered so far was a first generation Rail King Berkshire that appears to be locked into neutral.  A battery set in a Rail King E-6 started to leak at the top but was replaced in time with a BCR2 before it could do any damage.  More battery replacement lies ahead.  Replaced some O72 Real Trax with O82 Real Trax.  The Lionmaster Challengers and Rail King Alleghenies already looked good on O72 with minimal overhang and now look even better on O82.  Long heavy freights are less likely to derail due to less tension on the broader curvature.  Will continue to replace as many O72 with O82 as I can given space limitations but each new O82 installation helps the layout a lot.  The CN Turbo will also look nicer on O82.

Ok I just got home from Menards  And I picked up 4 sheets of plywood,5 sheets of quietbrace,some wood glue,and some nails.So tomorrow when my son gets home we will unload the 9 sheets and I will get back to building this layout.I would love to show all of you how I unload all this but I'll wait till I have help in the morning.Since I only have 1 leg  

Ran trains for a bit with the kids, might do some plaster cloth in the morning on the hills along the backside.  I also hooked up my Legacy #993 expansion set and updated the CAB 2 to 1.4.   I plan to upgrade to 1.51 later this week when a forum member stops by.  I also will pack up my legacy set and ship it off to Lionel for repairs.  Hopefully it will not take to long to get back.  

I finally got started on building the tunnel on one corner of my layout. I am building the tunnel first, followed by the mountain over it. I really don't like the look of "hollow" mountains seen through a tunnel portal. The supports are almost all in to be followed by the walls, tunnel portals, roof and ballast. Sorry the photo is of poor quality, my cell phone is old and shot.

Cobrabob.