What did you do on your layout today?

I also spent this Saturday dismantling a developmentally delayed mans layout so the contractor can renovate his flooded basement. The poor guy was heartbroken to see his baby being taken apart. He was incredibly helpful in the work, gave me a chance to be foreman but it really was a one man job. I wish I got half as excited about anything as that man got about his train set. He will have a long couple months while the work gets done and then I can get back there and put it back together.

Nice job, Matt. Or, did you pinch this from Elliot's basement?

More wiring.........still haven't caught up to where I was in late March (when I burnt out all my Atlas switch motors).

All are replaced with DZ1000s........just taking my tine wiring them up.....there are 22 of them........then I move on to the 5 O72 tinplate switches I have in my yard.

Peter

No Jon, I bought if form a forum member. Elliot has the eagle eye and I think he would notice the vaccuum forming from something missing form his basement

Installed a Mianne Lift-Gate.  No more crawling to get inside the layout, nor a troublesome lift out section.  On to the the turntable tomorrow.

I painted much of the homasote on the layout dirt brown,  Then I painted the cork roadbed a dark gray.  It will be a long time , if ever, that I put in real ballast.  Next I started laying track for the lower level.  One 12 foot stretch will be very hard to get to when the layout is finished so I spent a lot of time getting the track as perfect as possible and screwed down tight.  I put in electrical drops every 6 feet in the event power becomes a problem after several years.

Originally posted by Chris D

I use goldenrod combine and wrap with wire to create a nice tree.  easy to manipulate and cut to shape.  and its free!  weeds in the field.  Dry out and primer and then color fall and summer colors.  I did winter one year with snow in a can!  worked like a champ!  I love trees and lots of them.

Hi Chris,

I too would like to make some homemade trees.  How about a couple of pictures of your "goldenrod" trees and a brief tutorial.  Would be much appreciated.

Jim

Worked on my mountain a good bit and even got to the point of preliminary placement of buildings!  

Lee,

I understand the feeling.  I'm glad you are making good progress.

Looking good.  Are you going to have enough clearence on the bridge?  A curve leading into or out of the bridge will cause larger items to hit the bridge.

I believe you are talking to me, and that bridge isn't staying there!  It was only laying there due to the riverwork going on down the line.  But thanks for the heads up!  I learned that lesson the hard way already by having my articulated locomotives cab's hit the bridges on the way out and into a curve.  

Welcomed grandparents and grand kids to the layout and ran some trains for them. Usually this would be a fun event, but not this time. Rude comments from the adults about "how much money" and aren't you lucky I am  not into this" and grabby poorly mannered kids. Not fun. Session ended quickly.

I am tearing it down.  Removed all the track, it looks like the railroad pulled up the track and converted it all to Rail-Trails!

Should have it all down here soon and start on the new layout in a few short months.

That is very sad some people act so rudely in spite of your hospitality.  Don't let it stop you from inviting people who haven't visited before.

I was, I did the same thing and had to make adjustments to my layout so the Big Boy would clear the bridge. I also noticed a black line on one of the walls near a curve where the Big Boy was barely scraping. I had to adjust that section also. I hope to finish my bench work in a couple weeks so I can start to permanently attach the track.  I first built the bench work and installed the track to test fit it,  Then I removed the track after I finished adjusting all the grades and now I’m putting a skim coat of structolite on top of the foam base and will put a coat of paint on that.  I have about twenty feet left to cover. 

"That is very sad some people act so rudely in spite of your hospitality.  Don't let it stop you from inviting people who haven't visited before."

Not a chance. This was the first time that I can say something like this has happened to me. We love people to visit our layout and that will not change by one unpleasant experience. Thanks for your comments, Mark.

You mean the adults suggested they'd be stealing stuff if they had been into the hobby? If that happened to me, they'd have felt my size 11 boots in an uncomfortable way!

I know a guy who displays a large layout and long ago mounted a handrail down one side. All kids going through must hold the handrail at all times. He swears by it, saying he now realizes kids have to touch something and the rail fills that need. I won't be displaying my On30 layout to anyone not in the hobby that i already know well or anyone not related to my family, so this isn't an issue for me.

As for the theft comment, this isn't limited to model trains. I have a WW2 Jeep and display it at public events, with weapons and gear inside. I get that all the time. A teen once smugly asked what I'd do if he grabbed a .45 semi-auto pistol off my display table and ran off with it. I rotated so he could see the other one strapped to my hip, right next to an original WW1 knuckle fighting knife. Without missing a beat, I said, "If I missed you with all seven bullets from the other one here, I'd run you down and beat you to death with the hilt of this knife." You could have heard a pin drop. He turned white as a sheet and walked away quickly. A older fellow came up to look the display over and said he was a retired guard as a youth prison and said I'd said exactly the right thing and that in his opinion, the kid really was asking what would happen and might have made a grab for it.

finished another Ameri-Town building. I'm really enjoying building them. also have been trying to make a mold of a retaining wall master cast. on 4th layer so far and I still wouldn't pull it off looks too thin. just did the 4th layer with gauze going to do a few more layers to be safe

Hello Guys. Tomorrow I will get another 1,000 ft of 18-7 wire and I'll be pulling wire again. I cant beleave how much wire has become. it cost $300.00 just for this amount. I need to get back to work wear I used to scrap this stuff all the time. I also have coming in the mail

Put in the 2 sand towers

Laidoffsick,

YOur engine terminal is so nice!

The hundreds upon hundreds of hours you have doubtlessly invested in this has generated stunning results. It must be very satisfying to be at a stage with this incredible layout when you can enjoy adding detail. The roundhouse is outstanding. I can hardly wait for your next video update. It's been great fun to follow the progress of your project.

Well I can finally say I am done with my plastering today. I was almost done a day or so ago but when I was at the other end of the layout I looked back at the double track tunnel and I had left it too flat on top so over the entrance to the tunnel I added some more pink foam and covered it with plaster wrap and tonight everything is plaster covered. Now I am ready to add the colors to the plaster. But while I was doing that I added two more scale auto racks to my dream train and ran it while plastering. My dream train comes from a real photo I saw of a single CN diesel pulling a string of auto racks Sometimes dreams come true...................Paul

finally wired up the spur tracks for the transfer table and put eh table through its paces and it works fine. then made my first retaining wall from the new mold I created and that worked to so all in all a good day finished off with running my MTH 4-6-0 prr engine pulling 9 centerflow hoppers for the grand daughter to blow the whistle.

also hoping to pick up my first big steamer a lionel tmcc challenger

Started laying wire. Did some feeder wiring, put in the first curve, wider than I'd planned, which is always good...

THEN, I ran the first locomotive ever:

http://vidmg.photobucket.com/a...1034_zps52bbf3de.mp4

After first post got bored went up ran some more trains. Tested a conventional sd40t2 then made room for my aba's had to remove engine house and add some track to make it longer. Not sure i like it yet without the engine building.

Worked on a concept for an O27 trolley layout in RailModeller...

Based on a layout from Linn Westcott's 101 Track Plans. 

Mitch

What I did on my Layout Today...............

I cleaned up the work bench, organized tools and installed four Glen Snyder Display Shelfs.

All the B&W prints on the wall were taken by myself and processed in my home darkroom.

See two photos below, Click to enlarge

Gary,

Very nice looking room!!

Looks great Garry !!!

Worked on my steel mill today a lot more work to be done.

Worked on the interior lighting of my Korber background building.  I blacked out some windows but not others to attempt to get a realistic appearance.  Still needs some fine tuning.

Today, I worked on my Plasticville Church.  I finished painting it and will add lighting and a bell sound chip over the weekend

-Pete

Finally building a 16' long four track hidden staging area.  Too many train shows, too many cars!

what did you do/use to paint it and make it look like stone/brick?  that looks great.

Jrmertz, thank you for the compliment!  I used Rustoleum's stone gray spray paint. It comes in a few colors and gives a pretty realistic stone effect.

-Pete