What did you do on your layout today?

I soon will be posting a ton of Pictures from my recent railfanning adventures, so here is a sneak peak. I have been away so nothing has been done to the layout recently.

Mark Boyce posted:

Jim, I'm sorry you have to tear down and build smaller, but your photography business does come first.  Please share what you come up with for space and a plan.

 

Thanks Mark

I am actually not sad.  I tried to cram way too much into the room and there was very little space to actually work on the layout.  I had to crawl under it to access the other side.  This layout will be very simple and hold me over for a few years.  

Cut in half and moved it from New Jersey to new home in North Carolina.

Jim. sometimes we try to cram too much into an area. Your next layout will work better. Look forward to pics of the progress............

Bryan, thanks for the compliment. I'll host in the fall if you get your elevated line done by then without those other distractions LOL. If you are going to lunch I'll see you there...............Paul 2

I really need to get my butt in gear.. Im slacking on my layout!!! hahaha Bryan are you for hire?! hahha

Hey Paul,

I do like your flats and have been watching your progress. Maybe I missed it but where did you buy the original pics before mounting?

I have also been slacking on my lay-out. The V&NRR lacks funds because we had to pay our annual health insurance (about $1200 for the two of us, with no deductible) and I bought a new train, so the budget is busted for May and June.

But July is coming!

Stacey,

Amazing how much you can get done when work is not in the way.  Should have lots of updates over the next 2 months.  btw:  don't know if you meant it or not but way to say butt in gear when referring to the new club "The Rear End". 

Paul,

I swear I will have the elevated line up and running by the time I go back to work in August 12.  Actually I will probably have it done by July 7 since the wife will be in Europe for 2 weeks I will have no distractions or any reason to clean up my work area each day. 

btw:  great seeing you at lunch today.  now onto my new club.....CLUB XTC.

Bryan in Ohio posted:

Stacey,

Amazing how much you can get done when work is not in the way.  Should have lots of updates over the next 2 months.  btw:  don't know if you meant it or not but way to say butt in gear when referring to the new club "The Rear End". 

Paul,

I swear I will have the elevated line up and running by the time I go back to work in August 12.  Actually I will probably have it done by July 7 since the wife will be in Europe for 2 weeks I will have no distractions or any reason to clean up my work area each day. 

btw:  great seeing you at lunch today.  now onto my new club.....CLUB XTC.

Bry- 

Funny when i was writing that i was like.. Hmm. That totally makes sense right there in this topic!! ahahha Yes i liked the buildings as well. But the subway wow such great job! I really need to get myself to updating my layout and doing work. But its hard .. i dont have summers off like YOUuuuuu! hahaha

Started posting a few pics here. The photos at the bottom are from Altoona.

https://www.instagram.com/ns6770fan_productions/

"And the sign said long haired freaky people need not apply."  Planting signs today, and figuring out placement.  Messing with some different picture filters on the camera too.  Trying to get that Polaroid, low quality effect of the early 70's. 

The Five Man Electrical Band has been hard at work Greg!

Mark Boyce posted:

The Five Man Electrical Band has been hard at work Greg!

Right on Mark!  "I am a lineman for the county." =)

i need a small vacation, but it don’t look like rain.

The layout is now a pile of wood in the garage, and about 7 very large garbage bags on the side of the house.

Tomorrow I need to pack every single train car back in its box if I still have it.  Paint the office, and start building the large desk.  

Made some good progress in finally wiring track over my swing out bridge.  That's been my main bottleneck.  Running all conventional now but have had no problems other than some second hand switches that needed to be wired.  With the track over the swing bridge wired in it really opens up my yard, passenger station, engine service and outer O64 loop, basically 60% of my layout.

Jdevleerjr posted:

The layout is now a pile of wood in the garage, and about 7 very large garbage bags on the side of the house.

Tomorrow I need to pack every single train car back in its box if I still have it.  Paint the office, and start building the large desk.  

  Hmmm. If you're a clean desk type, a flip up top might cover track and one story buildings.   That would be one heck of a good reason to skip "top drawers" 😯. 

  Monitors can be screwed to the top and are light enough to not be an issue imo; and "stuff" can go in other drawers.

  I have to admit, when you first said it was for your photography I thought you'd be turning into a dark room for a second😁  I even thought of red headlights and red lighted passenger cars before I reeled myself in again.

Anyone that hasn't seen JD's photography,  should.  One of his shots was my digital wallpaper for years until Google updated and reset me to sync, causing deletion of stuff after moving it to a cloud for what I thought would safe keeping. (deleted from MS too.... stupid personalization crap and zen organization vs logic sucks👹... I'm ok now, I blew off the excess😄

(Red headlights!; Who'd be that silly? 🤔)

Oh wait, that would me.. 😆

Works for cab forward anyhow 😎

Brain, the Western Pacific Looks Great! Just wondering, any update on your new layout?

Joe, Now that is one way to save your layout and at the same time save some good old cash for the rebuild!

Greg, Looking good. But it looks like your stop sign is about to fall over! Might want to talk to the crew about fixing that so it doesn't hit a passing car!

Kirk, Quit the tight layout. Sure looks like its going to be a blast to run when you have it all up and running! Nice Work!

Butch, there is nothing wrong with Red headlights! Better then an idea then a computer or cloud that fails!

So the wife's surprise for me arrived yesterday. I didn't get anything done besides unpacking it. Maybe today if I feel better and my mouth doesn't hurt so bad! Here are a couple pictures of my surprise.                                          Everyone have a great Wednesday and if anything else have FUN!

briansilvermustang posted:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                  

 

 

         

 

 

I see how you are Brian, sneaking in new photos while I am trying to respond to your last set! LOL Yellow and Blue really looks great! Have a great Day

Nice haul of track and switches Mike. How's the mouth doing?

Bob

Continue work on Proses engine house, painted and assembled office faceplate of motor mechanism overhead doors.

Bob, Yep quite the load! I don't know where she got her information for what I needed, but she did well! I am only short 6 072 curves, 1 30" straight section and 2 custom  "Y"'s  then all the track will be down till we decide to take it out the window into the garden. As for the mouth its killing me, but good pain pills help a little. The one good thing about getting all the teeth taken out is it's one step closer to beating everything this darn cancer gave me!

Patrick, the engine house is coming right along! I wish I had the detail skills you have. I find myself just building what I can and make it look good to me! LOL

So today after a morning shake I went out to the train room and got started on the track the wife bought me. It went really easy and fast. I still have to connect some power drops under the table but I can now run 3 different runs around the room. I have one siding that still has no power. I even had enough time to get the track painted and building put back. Here are a few pictures!                                          Tomorrow I might try and tackle the crane rails and home made drive motor!

Everyone have a great Wednesday Night ! and remember have FUN!

Great work everyone....here is my daily contribution.

Red light district added another club today.  lol 

Bought this little wooden building at York but totally stripped everything off of it today.  Painted the windows and doors, added dancer silhouettes in all the windows, wrapped the entire building in a brick paper I found on a great website that has thousand of images of textures and photo shopped it together, added some advertising and signs to the building (using photo shop was able to age some of them and make them look like they are painted onto the brick), added club name to back of building using some sparkle raised stickers that I got on sale at Michael's ($2 for about 4x each letter in alphabet), and finally the lighted club sign in the front.  This is a piece of clear plastic that is used to protect drywall corners.  After making the club sign I printed it on transparent sticker paper and back lit it using LED strips.  This then became a problem because it was too bright  and couldn't read the name or see the dancer figure.  So I then drilled holes in the building and put the strips inside the building.  Better but still too bright.  Then I put a piece of paper inside the clear plastic and as you can see from the pictures that did the trick. (see pictures for before and after paper)

Next project is my illegal casino.

What great work Bryan! I just love how you come up with this stuff! Maybe one day I can give it a try! LOL

Mike, great pics. Your layout is coming together great.

Bryan, building came out nice. You got the sign to light up perfect.

I got nothing done today. But weveryone else is making very good contributions to this topic. With rain coming tomorrow I hope to accomplish something  (layout wise). ....Paul 2

Now that my swing out gate has an energized track over it I went back to look at some switches to confirm they operated properly.  One switch is a curved RH O72-O54.  See below.

I got it second hand with other Ross switches but is it really a Ross?  No markings and doesn't look exactly like a Ross curved RH O31-O54 I recently purchased (sure... designs do improve).  Can anyone confirm this?  Also which of the two sets of outer rails would be the ones wired for anti-derail.  Where the green pencil points or where the white pen points?  What are your feelings on even installing the anti-derail here since the points can be pushed away pretty easily.

Would appreciate any thoughts on the switch and anti-derail installation.

Kirk R.

Mike, great track work! It’s really coming along. Nice job on the new building Bryan.

Andy

Testing command engines on the redesign with tubular.

JDFonz, the two upper city flats were from Scenic Express. The rest of them were from a friend of mine in our Tuesday night group. He has files of buildings in HO. I was going to use them for distance but decided to have them blown up. In my area it took a while to find a place that could make them that big. I believe they were at least 35 inches long when blown up and they were slightly expensive at 30.00 dollars a sheet. But to me it was worth the price. Paul 2

Decided to enlarge my layout. The original was a 4x8 "L" and I'm going to change the shape with a 69"x8' rectangle. 

Almost all my stuff is now boxed up.   I have also started to rework my layout design to fit in another area of the office.  The 5x5 I originally designed will take up too much room

Hey Mike, try a BK Whopper in a blender. Surprisingly, they still pretty much taste like a Whopper and decently satisfy a craving for meat & carry out, without all the jaw work. I had some of my buddy's Dad's lunchlu few times. (good enough I accepted a coffee mug full more than once to taste it )

More progress on my (late to finiish) "community barn build".

About a half a bottle of white glue & some odd 250 craft, popsicle, & tounge depressers later..... I'm still short two sliding doors and some shutters&window frames 😣 

  The upper level seems a tad to tall. I may add foundation blocks/beams to raise the bottom 3/8"-1/2", and or raise the lower roofs nearest the 2cnd level, adding more slope to them and changing visual proportions a little. It still comes apart into four sections that I hope will be able to serve as seperate buildings/ roadside stands if I chose to. A "Wheelless Transformer"

Kirk R posted:

Now that my swing out gate has an energized track over it I went back to look at some switches to confirm they operated properly.  One switch is a curved RH O72-O54.  See below.

I got it second hand with other Ross switches but is it really a Ross?  No markings and doesn't look exactly like a Ross curved RH O31-O54 I recently purchased (sure... designs do improve).  Can anyone confirm this?  Also which of the two sets of outer rails would be the ones wired for anti-derail.  Where the green pencil points or where the white pen points?  What are your feelings on even installing the anti-derail here since the points can be pushed away pretty easily.

Would appreciate any thoughts on the switch and anti-derail installation.

Kirk R.

It could be a Right-O-Way turnout which are very similar to modern day Ross products.   Check out:  https://right-o-way.us/index.php.

I would gap and isolate the two rails next to the pencil at the rail joints.   Anti-derail requires the use of a snap switch machine.    When you say pushed away, do you mean by a moving train passing through the switch against the proper point alignment?   Most engines would probably work through the switch but lighter cars may cause unwanted derailments.   Have you tested various engines and cars running through and moving the switch points as they passes?   If it works fine, that might be the way to go.  

Cheers, Dave

Jim, having to go even smaller did you consider running one or two loops around the ceiling. 

Some nice purchases made recently. 

So today after a bit of a late start, I got lazy even though it is raining I finally started working on the flats. I managed to find enough clear plastic to cover all the windows on the inside. Now I'm giving the glue time to set up and then I'll be painting the backsides of the windows the same color I use on the brewery flats but also painting some windows black like the rooms are not being used. Once I get that done I can start to glue the walls together. Pics......Paul 2

paul 2 posted:

Jim, having to go even smaller did you consider running one or two loops around the ceiling. 

 

Actually the same amount of square feet, just narrower and longer.   

Maybe oneday I will do a ceiling layout but it wouldn't work in this room.  

Got the windows painted. When they dry I can start putting the building together. Pics......Paul 2

Its gone.  100% all gone now.  

I will be taking the weekend off of any work.  Monday I will start building the desk that will not occupy where the layout was. 

I will also start building the train table.  I hope to build most of it in the garage.  Put in all the grades using extruded foam.  Lay all the track and plaster cloth it all.  Carry it downstairs and put it in place.  

After taking a break from working on the layout to just run trains for a few weeks, I got inspired tonight and built a park.

Planted some trees, put in a pond, placed a foot path so passengers can get from the parking lot to the platforms. Life is good!

Butch, thanks for the idea about the hopper! A friend suggested a pizza in the blender also. I am just not sure about either one. LOL The Barn is really coming along, Your doing a wonderful job with popsicle sticks!

Paul 2, your moving right along with the windows, you will be done in no time. Do you back light the windows, and that's why some are tan color? cant wait to see it on the layout!

Kevin, very nice job on the park! Now all you need is some people enjoying the sun. I know they are there cause I see there cars in the parking lot!

So Yesterday I spent the day putting in extra power drops, toggles so I could control the power to the sidings, and cleaned up the joint. So as of yesterday every piece of track has power and works, all the TSM's are in and work like they should. Today after a fallow up to the oral surgery doc and a trip to the dump. I plan on putting another train on the layout just to see how it looks and have some fun! I will take pictures later!

Everyone have a great Friday and weekend! Remember Have FUN!