What did you do on your layout today?

he's happy to be home she has whiplash but other than that she is fine . resting in bed

 

After a few false starts, I have started over on my curved stone arch bridge project.  Only thing I saved was the plywood roadbed or bridge deck.

 

 

Ran my newly finished Hogwarts express train. All 10 coaches now have silhouettes.

James

cleaning day, lots of dust and cobwebs to take care of.

This morning it was run some trains. Last night I ran out of plaster wrap at midnight but I had ordered more and this afternoon Mr. Brown came bearing packages for me. More plaster wrap and the final order of wire.  This afternoon I was able to do more scenery work. I thought I was done with that but the more I looked at an old tunnel opening set in old plaster and screening I decided to rip out that area lay some pink board and make  a better entrance to the tunnel. Can't work on the layout tonight I have a train club meeting but with nothing going on tomorrow it will be full speed ahead........Paul 

I looked at some doors to put up for my trainroom.  Right now there is a double set of french doors leading into the room.  They open into the room.  I originally wanted to flip them so they swing out of the room but there is not enough room.  I think I will replace them with some bi-fold doors.  This will create a lot more usable room in the trainroom.  

Planning for the upper and lower staging...

It's disgraceful!  My Corgi CSL Birney is wandering about all LIT! 

 

Also rebuilt the poles using old Pittman pivots and fabricated new pole hooks from brass wire...

 

Mitch

Once again not anything big.

CBQ Sd9 ps1 to PS2 conversion

Added CBQ SD24 PS3 to my CBQ roster

Add two MTH Seaboard AAR box cars

Built an Atlas Seaboard kit route of the Robert E. Lee

Converted 4 All nations Kit from 2r to 3r Kaddees left on all cars but two. 

Added an Intermountain L&A AAR Box car left it 2r

Finally added the grab rails on my CBQ waycar project.

Added more trees to the layout

Last pic My autistic daughter rearrange the people in the park.

 

 

Got up this morning and after breakfast headed up to the layout. Finished off the last of plaster wrap. After finding out I could lay it on top of my old scenery I pulled out all the trees. Now I started applying the plaster. Had to break away after lunch. Some bulbs  I ordered came in so I had to plant them. That out of the way it is back to working on the layout. I think as I am doing that I let a train run.......Paul

Yesterday I dusted the layout (buildings and cars), scrubbed my Fastrack SPOTLESS CLEAN, then set up all of my Halloween items (mostly Lemax stuff) and three backlights (from Walmart).

 

I still need to run wiring to a few more buildings before I'm done, then I need to put all of the boxes back in the garage.

 

On the 072 and 084 Fastrack loops I'm running MTH PS2 steamers (PRR K4 and PRR L1) hauling all-Lionel Halloween rolling stock. I swapped out the non-Halloween boxcars for now through Nov. 1.

 

Looks and sounds amazing at night. 

Just got back from Home Depot after trying to match paint to look like limestone for my stone arch bridge project.  I think and hope that we have the base color close and can bring it to life with accent colors.  Now to paint a base coat on my foam samples and see if it is close enough.

 

Art

Art,

i was looking at your arch bridge photos on your website.  I like your method Of construction.  The Masonite makes a sturdy back for the carved blocks.  Your carving looks good.  It will be a big hit when assembled and painted!

Art

 

This looks good; just need to do it a few more times.

The layout has been a ghost town for the past two weeks. Been doing astronaut stuff, long story there. Just got back a couple of days ago. I need to allign the approach tracks to my turntables, then break out all the rolling stock in boxes so I can finally run some trains!

I made my own adapter to run my z-750 brick right into the tiu.  All was required was a female coaxial power fitting from the shack and a pair of wires i already had ends on.  This makes a much cleaner set up than what i had before.  (Although i did solder the leads backwards on the first try!)

 

lets see I ran a ground plane . rebuilt 2 engines still not happy with them might just order err cruise commanders and call it done. and rail sounds for both . planted 4 telephone poles reversed the wireing to my only conventional loop bell did horn norn did bell . finished the last ameri-towne building I had. then ran trains. I ran the Santa Fe red bonnet pulling 6 streamline passenger cars . ran the Santa Fe yellow Bonnet Pulling 9 Passenger cars, Ran the PRR 4-6-0 Broadway Express with 5 Cars and the Rio Grande Challenger with 5 passenger cars all at the same time and didn't kick a breaker while picking my daughter up at the bus station. yea she came back home again we seen this so I took the grand daughter to see them pulled along side of the tracks it turned out to be 3 different trains running 2 in one direction one itn the opposite. the 4 engine blew the horn for us you should have heard my granddaughter giggle . priceless.

 

 

makes me want a few Norfolk Southerns for the layout

Went to a fabulous 2 rail operating session on Thursday.  We ran with freight card cards and a fast clock and it was great.  My job was to run the transfer freight that moved cars between the three yards.  We all had to clear the mainline at 12:00 noon as the local passenger was scheduled through.  Only bad thing was I didn't get anything done on my bridge project.

 

Art

Went to Home Depot last night and tried to color match the base coat for my limestone arch bridge project.  The young lady and I spent quite a long time and I even brought samples of limestone looking tile over.  Finally made a decision, she mixed a quart, and I went home and applied one coat to my two test pieces. 

 

This morning I went to Hobby Lobby for more Strathmore board for under the arches and paints for the accent colors.  HL had 30% off on everything I needed!  Got home and my wife (my in-house Pittsburgh peacock) thought I was color blind.  After a marathon session with her bringing out all of her paint sample charts, it is back to the drawing board on the colors.  And I did try to get her to go with me yesterday.

 

Art

I ran trains for the first time after finishing my control panels. Here is a ride-along video

video I set to private

 

Thanks. Fixed.

Hello guys. Well I just walked in from spending 4.5 hours waiting for some trains. I kept telling myself that if I leave the trains will come. I should of worn some warmer clothing  Because its 48 degrees right now. So hear are some of the many trains I saw today. 3 Amtrak  & 1 BNSF.  Normally it would have had a lot from BNSF but not today But it was a good day anyway.   1st 2 photos  East bound to Chicago

West bound out of Chicago

East heading to Chicago

Does lugging the orange boxes I picked up at York down to the train room count?  By the way those auto rack boxes didn't seem nearly as big in the orange hall.

Today I ran wire and soldered for two more uncoupling magnets in my main yard.  I have one more to go there and two more in business sidings elsewhere.  My attention was mostly on the Michigan State vs. Indiana football game today or I could have done more.

.....

Dennis

Did some lightbulb repairs on the caboose fleet, and repainted an MPC CNW caboose for the Gi-raffe Express...

 

 

Will be ordering new end platforms from Train Tender!

 

Mitch

Running trains at 0300

Mitch What did you use to power your Birney? she sure looks good James 

Nice to see that I am not the only one that runs late night ops.

That's the chassis from a K-Line handcar (originally a K-Line speeder, but the E-unit developed a short circuit and melted one of the pickups).  Bill Ondekko of Springfield did the conversion;  I plan to do a similar conversion on my Corgi PTC Birney at some point and will document it.  It definitely has advantages over the Bowser conversion chassis, as the motor is entirely under the floor... 

 

Mitch

Saturday, I changed the bottom front headlights on my Williams FP45 from white to red.  Wired the red lights to the rear lights so when the engine change directions the front top headlight goes out and the bottom headlight turns red.

 

Video from today...

 

 

This morning I went as far as he plaster took me. Thought I had ordered enough but no such luck. So Monday morning I'll have to put another order in. I had enough dried plaster to start coloring. Called it a break for supper and afterwards  I'll mix up more coloring. I don't think I can say it enough I really like doing the scenery with the leopard spotting technique. I have never had the colors come out so good before. .....Paul

Having been concerned about how close a grade crossing signal was to the track was apparently well-founded. The flasher got clipped by a Big Boy yesterday at open house. Well, when life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Here's a new vignette.

 

 Just getting started, really. Installed my Homasote this morning, then laid out my track (FasTrack) for the main level. Haven't locked it all together yet, as I'm still deciding where the specialty tracks (activator, uncoupler, grade crossings, etc) will go. Also set most of my buildings up there, trying to figure out where I want everything.

 I picked up some intercom wire to extend the remotes for my switches, but I wasn't in the mood to climb around under the layout running wires just yet. Maybe Tuesday night.

 Finally, I sat there staring at everything, daydreaming about how the upper level should be done. Think I came up with a decent plan. We'll see.

Scrambler, I just finished wiring my FasTrack Layout.  I first finished the track plan and tweaked the setup to make sure my largest locomotive cleared everything.  I used the crimp on connectors on 14 gauge wire.  I made up several pairs and pushed them onto the track sections.  Make sure you use a pair of needle nose pliers to avoid bending the tab.  I drilled a hole and dropped the wires thru from the top and used butt connectors to lengthen the wire that connects to the terminal blocks.  Another post under my name shows what I used for terminal blocks.

yesterday I worked on the layout a little. also I worked on the train room on Saturday. added a few more shelves to house the growing fleet of trains.  and cleaned up the room in general. then yesterday I decided to work on the hoover dam as my son calls it and the surrounding area's. Here's the results of that scenery session. also after I ran a few trains and for some reason the mth 4-6-0 was smoking pretty good. here's a shot or two of that. what I did was added a few trees, some ground cover, water, painted the gorge, added seam sealers to the retaining wall.

 

 

Wife went to Home Depot with me this morning and she helped pick out new and much better I hope colors to paint the bridge.  Have a base coat on and drying.  After I get done mowing the yard and getting my daughter home from the hospital, I hope to add accent colors. 

 

Art

Base coat too light!  Back to the drawing board yet again.  How can picking out paint colors be so hard?  Won't get to work on it today either.

 

Art

I painted some more cork roadbed.  Painting looks good enough that I will be in no hurry to put down ballast, a job I am not fond of.  I also positioned the new bridge I bought at York and I added some more sub roadbed.

 

Al

Film crew here from TM Video Productions. Fascinating to watch and ne part of the process.