What did you do on your layout today?

Today I went after this issue

"On the dark side I put the new BNSF Menards Hopper car on with one of my sets and it has issues with the trucks hitting the side ladders and derailing, also the auto coupler part that would be pulled down by an activation track section drags on the switches but just sparks and does not cause any derailing??? Not sure what to do about that. Everything is mounted to plastic?"

Took my Dremmel tool and ground just enough clearance off the back sides of the ladder so that the truck wheel supports would clear. Working good now!!

KRM posted:

Today I went after this issue

"On the dark side I put the new BNSF Menards Hopper car on with one of my sets and it has issues with the trucks hitting the side ladders and derailing, also the auto coupler part that would be pulled down by an activation track section drags on the switches but just sparks and does not cause any derailing??? Not sure what to do about that. Everything is mounted to plastic?"

Took my Dremmel tool and ground just enough clearance off the back sides of the ladder so that the truck wheel supports would clear. Working good now!!

Glad you got it fixed.  Cool youtube videos!  Never saw they come up when I search O guage train layouts??

Jim

Run Trains. Anchor pull a tourist train at Coastal Curve

Nothing exciting, just painted and weathered this Plasticville water tower. I liked it and wanted it to stay on layout, now an improvement though going to add pulldown and balance rope later.

Plasticville polishes up nicely. I like their signal bridges.

Pictures of some Lionel Union Pacific "Challenger" 21" passenger cars through the windows.

Great stuff.

Big_Boy_4005 posted:

Plasticville polishes up nicely. I like their signal bridges.

Elliot, how are you progressing on the GN baggage / dormitory?   Looking forward to a project update.   Nice signal bridge.  Did you ad the the signals lights? 

Dave

Dave - I'm stuck on the car. I went to drill out the windows and one of my filler plugs popped out.  I didn't have any support behind it. I should have known better. I still have to repair the damage, cut a support block, and finish drilling.

Yup, those are my homemade signals on that bridge.

Johan, nice looking tourist train.

CSX Al, impressive job done on the mill.

Mark, thanks for the compliments. I hope you are doing better.

Today has been a non work on the layout day so far. I had to go pick up the beer reefers our Tuesday night crew had made. It is even better then the first reefers. So when I got home I had a package from scenic express waiting for me on the door step. I ordered some pallets, barrels, steel drums and a package of dollies for the loading docks I just did. Maybe after dinner I can get down to the basement to do some work. Pics..............Paul

John Rowlen posted:

Pictures of some Lionel Union Pacific "Challenger" 21" passenger cars through the windows.

John, you do a great job filling those cars with detail and passengers.   To bad that you can't work your magic retroactively, in real life scale, back to the days when the RR's were crying for passengers.   We would still be able to enjoy the wonderful selection of trains crisscrossing this country.   Really like your detailing work!  Thanks for sharing! 

Dave

After a month of work, while being home on my winter break, I decided to film a video of the layout. I used to have a YouTube channel but deleted the videos because I was unhappy with them and the layout. Now I will go back to college and just keep gathering ideas from the forum.

For anybody who would like to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFd6RyuNoyI&t=5s

RJ

paul 2 posted:

Johan, nice looking tourist train.

CSX Al, impressive job done on the mill.

Mark, thanks for the compliments. I hope you are doing better.

Today has been a non work on the layout day so far. I had to go pick up the beer reefers our Tuesday night crew had made. It is even better then the first reefers. So when I got home I had a package from scenic express waiting for me on the door step. I ordered some pallets, barrels, steel drums and a package of dollies for the loading docks I just did. Maybe after dinner I can get down to the basement to do some work. Pics..............Paul

 

Paul, Thank you for asking.  The pain in my leg isn't as bad since I have been on physical therapy for 4 weeks and am up to 3 pain pills a day.  I am allowed to drive with these pills, but sitting very long does make the leg hurt.  The droopy toe is a little better too.  I am to get a steroid shot in the back on Tuesday, so I am hoping that will help a lot.  Thank you again!!

I see on the car POC stands for Pride of Cleveland.  What does TNTC mean?

John, seeing your UP passenger cars with hand-painted and posed figures is a real delight; massive improvement over "as delivered" cars.  Thanks for the fine photography of your work.

Al, You did a superb job on the BTS sawmill!  

Jim, I'm glad you got the wiring done so everything comes on with switches.  Two days to cleanup!  Wow!  That was some project!!

Brian, I'm glad the demo is going along well.  I remember my N-scale days.  It doesn't seem possible now that I could work in that small a scale.  I even did scratchbuilding of buildings back then too!

Tom, Nice video of purple, pink, and red!!

Nick, The mountain is looking great!

KRM, That's a good job of fixing the Menards hopper.

Johan, That is another wonderful scene.

Josef, The Plasticville tank doesn't look like Plasticville now that you weathered it!

John, The cars look great with passengers in them.

RJ, That is a nice video.  Lots of very good angles showing off your layout!

Mark, TNTC is our group. Tuesday Night Train Crew.........

. Paul

Paul, Ah yes!  Now I get it!!  Thank you!

Did some more body work on these A and B units--filling seams and sanding; repeat until satisfied.

I'm not good at this and procrastinate to avoid the task.  I'll eventually get it to a point that satisfies me enough that I'll hit it with primer to evaluate--not quite there yet.

Don't know if I got a bad can of Easy Off, but it did not work on PW LIONEL aluminum cars that were primed.  So I'm removing the dried on EO and paint using a wire brush and wet/dry 600 paper--no joy here.

Mark Boyce posted:

Al, You did a superb job on the BTS sawmill!  

I just want to clear up the mill work. As I stated on the scenery forum, I had a friend of mine build the mill structure for me, since I haven't had a lot of time to build a huge kit like this. I had started it and then asked my friend if he would like to finish building it. His passion is a huge logging / lumber layout in On3. He worked on it from Aug. to when I picked it up from him in Oct. after York. He ran out of time to finish the mill before I came to pick it up.  So I have been working on weathering, and installing lighting and building and painting all of the interior machinery. It still isn't a small task. On the mill he used board by board construction for the exterior siding in place of the laser cut stuff supplied in the kit. The main roof of the mill he did individual shingles cut from real redwood veneer. It took probably about a week just to install those. As you see in the photo of the whole mill the roof is much lighter before I weathered it.

Last week I installed an ERR AC Commander in this Santa Fe F3 ABBA freight set I've had since I was a kid. Tonight I set it in 100 speed step mode instead of 32 default speed steps. I got this twin Pullmor powered locomotive to run around at 25-30 scale mph. Pretty impressive for Pullmor motors. I think 😁.

I started to paint the Union Pacific Challenger Sound Stations Dining Car only to find the assembler glued the plug pins together so the plug cannot be disconnected.  I had to remove the light bar to protect the body shell far away from where I am painting and grinding figures. I tried to use an Exacto Knife to cut the plug apart, but it was the metal pins that were glued.

The amount of mis-assembled items cannot be neglect or stupidity.  Plugs are put "in-Line" so they may be disconnected, or why bother with the plug at all, just "hard-wire" it.  Lionel, get it together, or shut it down.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

Elliot, be sure to tell your wife they look wonderful!

Tom, Lola  & Charlotte sure have a great guy for a G-Pa!

Nick, looks good! It's going to be fun to run trains threw that area!

Trestleking, good luck on the water leak! You might think about moving the pipe out from over where the future layout will be!

KRM, sounds like an easy fix. Did you happen to take any pictures ?

JOSEF, nice job on the water tower!

Elliot, nice job! Just wondering how many do you have left to do?

Carl, I bet there going to look great when your done!

CSX AL, just fabulous !

Carl, The shells are looking good, as you say, not quite there.

Al, Now I understand.  Your friend did a great job on the construction.  Still painting, weathering, and detailing is quite a task!

Lou, Looks like you had success on the ERR upgrade.  The F3s run and sound great, not to mention they look good too!

John, Wow, that is a bummer they glued the plug together!

Brian, So it is CSX day!  Nice photographs!

New "Under The Hood" up! 

https://ogrforum.com/...he-hood-mpc-era-geep

Meanwhile, Thomas has just caught on as to what sort of operation the Razorback Traction Co.  is:

Mitch 

M. Mitchell Marmel posted:

New "Under The Hood" up! 

https://ogrforum.com/...he-hood-mpc-era-geep

Meanwhile, Thomas has just caught on as to what sort of operation the Razorback Traction Co.  is:

Mitch 

Do you mean the Razorback Traction Co is all monkey business??? 

Mark Boyce posted:

Do you mean the Razorback Traction Co is all monkey business??? 

Plus gi-raffes, flamingos, triceratopses... 

Mitch 

Mark Boyce posted:

Lou, Looks like you had success on the ERR upgrade.  The F3s run and sound great, not to mention they look good too!

The original Railsounds 2.5 board is still in the B unit. It was conventional from the factory but I added a LCRX and it works under command control perfectly. The board/chip was programmed for TMCC, but needed the LCRX added to other F3 B units of the same vintage to make it work. The sound set even had brake squeal and coupler release sounds programmed into it, so the unit now functions exactly like the F3B in the 6-18130 Santa Fe F3 AB set from 1996 I also have.

I repainted the truck sideframes on my Bachmann NS 1072 SD70ACe. The sideframes were an off color of gray paint that stood out from the silver underbody. I painted them silver that will match the rest of the loco. I will post updates later as the paint dries.

This afternoon I worked another area of the layout and started replacing the drywall screws there. Ran out of screws. I know I bought another bag of them but have to look for them. Rather then call it quits I got out a box of Heki trees I bought from scenic express last year. Sort of a mix of two different colored trees. The package was HK 0308 Tall Hardwood Mini-Forest 4" to 7" / 12 pieces. I added some to the area close to the Brewery. Pics.....Paul

paul 2 posted:

This afternoon I worked another area of the layout and started replacing the drywall screws there. Ran out of screws. I know I bought another bag of them but have to look for them. Rather then call it quits I got out a box of Heki trees I bought from scenic express last year. Sort of a mix of two different colored trees. The package was HK 0308 Tall Hardwood Mini-Forest 4" to 7" / 12 pieces. I added some to the area close to the Brewery. Pics.....Paul

Looks good!  Now sooner or later you are going to have to back away from things and shoot some overall pictures of that layout!  I need to stea…  I mean learn some things from all that great work! 

Jim 

Paul, I agree these are great cars.  My favorite cars we have done to date.  The writing on the top is so unique.

Bryan in Ohio posted:

Paul, I agree these are great cars.  My favorite cars we have done to date.  The writing on the top is so unique.

Those are cool!  Is/was that a real beer maker?  And are the graphics and writing put on the cars?   

Jim 

Jim, that was a brewery in Cleveland many years ago........Paul

Mark Boyce posted:

Josef, The Plasticville tank doesn't look like Plasticville now that you weathered it!

 

Thanks for kind words. Looks better now then it did before and looks at home.

The trucks now match the body on the loco.

Jim all the writing is stamped on the car from mth.  As Paul said real brewery many years ago from what the old timers in our group said.

My dad was busy building shelves today... 

Had an expected train meet on Corner Field Model Railroad Museum. All I was suppose to get were the 2 Conrail ES44AC's. But I noticed just before I started recording, that the B&O was crossing the bridge and so luckily I had the legacy controller with me and was a perfect timed train meet with B&O Columbian Passenger with E7's meeting a Crude Oil train lead by 2 NS Conrail Heritage ES44AC's.

I am old enough to remember the advertising for POC, Pride of Cleveland, Pilsner of Cleveland, but not legally old enough to have tasted it.  Yummy.  On tap in my DeMolay brother's basement.  Oh to be young again.

Sincerely, John Rowlen