What did you do on your layout today?

Here are a few photos from Patsburg  Home of the Free State Junction RR

Replaced an errant Tortoise switch motor on one of the mainlines, which of course stuck mid way and we couldn't move it. Of course it was one of the more difficult to reach motors. Now that it's replaced, we can resume operation in the opposite direction. Real fun working under a layout in high humidity.

Ken, I know I've seen bascule bridges silver(or light grey at least), also light blue, rusty brown(anti-rust primer?), and the usual, black. Including streaks of "old colors" could be a great detail.  

See! http://www.michiganrailroads.c...1RougeDrawbridge.htm

Pat,

It sounds interesting; post some pics!

Kenny,

I have some of the same thoughts about a 282 crane that I picked up. It has rust and dirt. I am thinking that it will never be a collectable; so why get rid of the authentic rust only to add it back after its painted? I am leaning towards cleaning it without ruining the aged patina.

Strogey...... I hadn't thought of that thanks now to locate the set screws I have seen them locally somewhere!!

$oo

It was a good morning to run trains. The layout is performing flawlessly and it is just plain fun sitting back and letting all of the trains on the eight main lines do their thing.

All the work we put into the renovation project is paying off.

I relocated my rural train station and outbuildings four feet, freeing up space for the "rezoned" land I plan to "develop" into commercial area on my layout.  It proved to be one of those projects that goes exactly as planned, but I did not enjoy the work because it mean all three of my train loops had to be shut down while I was working so I could not run even one of them to keep my company.

By any chance is the planning commision headed up by your spouse? We are empty nesttors and decided to take over the apartment in our 2family for recreation. I have a train room, my wife has an art room; then there is a guest room and a kitchen. I was thinking outloud one day and mentioned tunneling into the unused kitchen or guestroom. There were comments like why don't you just take over the whole house.

After several years the owners of the restaurant decided it was time to put up a sign, saying, "Nobody goes there anymore, It's too crowded."

Soo Line...Your email is not in your profile. Email me and tell me what size screw hole you plan to drill & tap. I will send you a few in various lengths.

Ken

It's a bi-level layout. Wait 'til you see the double helixes!!!  LOL

just joking

There is light at the end of the tunnel, and it is NOT an oncoming train!  Today I got

final structural details in place and sceniced the foamboard base with Gypsolite colored by acrylics.  Was leery of scenicing but got surprised by good results on other projects.

This means this huge creosote plant Murphy has had so much fun with is almost done.

Ran tire tracks around in the wet scenery with a 1/43rd truck in the "gravel and dirt"

parking lot.  That will dry overnight and I will do a touch up wash of acrylics over the

scenery.  I wanted one, and, by cracky, I got one....some place for these backwoods

sawmills to ship their products.

Looked for a Dehumidifer !

My basement is horridly damp this year.

I arrived back in Michigan with the car ferry that Alex built me on Sunday night.  I was beat from the 10 hour drive so nothing got done that night.  1st two days back at work have been a killer so no layout work was done then.  This morning I finally got off my butt before work and painted the wall a nice blue where the car ferry will go.  Tonight I plan to pick up all the lumber I need and after work tomorrow there is not stopping work on the layout until noon Saturday when I am needed back at work.  

I have to get the benchwork built, track laid, and car ferry installed before my family gets home sat evening.  I have decided to hold back any photos until the work is done Saturday before work and it will be photo documented on my layout thread.  

Major blow

I was taking some measurements to buy wood and track and without doing some moving around of pipes for my sump pump and water backup sump pump I can not install my hidden staging yard like I planned.  

I will have to review my options tonight.  

Well, it wasn't 40 visitors Saturday. It was 4, one of whom was my daughter. I'm thinking it has been 8 years since she's seen it, so it had to look very different to her (and that's with 6 years of no progress). It looks so different from just a year ago. She actually said she wants to help with the scenery.

Patrick was over on Monday and he finished screwing down the decking we put up last week. Then we put up another 8' of backdrop and another 8' of decking. Then he glued and screwed down all 32' of sound board. While he was doing those things, I was poking at the layout lighting.

Last night I got serious about the lighting, and got the first 4 lights up. Two at the front end of the string and two at the back. I made a temporary plug so I could fire them up. The first two look great. I'm going to head down and get the middle 4 wired  up, pics to follow. Those LED bulbs are amazing. 9W for 60W equivalent, 5700K daylight, generate no real heat, and they're dimable. I'm putting them every 4'.

Haven’t posted much lately, but wanted to let you all know I am still kicking.

Anyway for the last two months I have been relocating the “town” area on the Ironbound RR. It’s heart-breaking because it really looked fine where it was! You can find pictures of the town as it was, on my layout website:

http://trainutz.com/ironbound.shtml

But I made a serious mistake when I originally framed the town platform area years ago. And so I am posting this to see if I can save anyone else the headache of making the same mistake. This applies to almost anything on a layout.

I located the town area at my eye-level. That is, I located the STREET-level at eye-level. But by the time I added structures, autos, li'l folks, poles, signs, etc... everything looked juuussst a bit too high, so visitors are unable to see the interior scenes and the tons of other custom details I worked on. I can not simply lower the platform... there’s a freight car storage yard located below it. So I decided to bite the bullet and move the town. But there was nowhere to move it TO! The layout is filled to the brim. So I have been busy engineering a raised area over a corner which will be the new town area. This is looking good with many new structures, but still weeks from completion. I will definitely post the new stuff on the Ironbound website when it is complete.

Anyway... I am still kicking and I am still loving the layout. Even though it’s relatively small, the detailing and reworking never ends... which is exactly how I love it to be : )

Happy Model Railroading!

~Andy

Let there be light(s)...

Chris,

You are correct the track was just laid out on the floor so I knew exactly where to put the bench work.  Here is a current picture of what it looks like now.  I also got a roll out control bench made and a control panel.  Subway level wiring for power is done and happy to report after sitting in boxes for 5 years all subway sets fired right up and worked perfectly.  

Let there be more light...




It's a good thing these are dimmable.



Right now there are 15 bulbs working. By the time I'm done there will be close to 200. One section at a time, steady progress.

I spent all day with the car ferry expansion. 

I added a silo to the farm. Silo is a Harry Heike creation.

Is that silo a kit?  I really need for my small farm scene on my layout

Worked on the layout for the first time since early April, in fact I've only been in the train room a handful of times.  I started to paint the new station I purchased last fall.  I also spent some good quality time running trains with my 2 and 4 year old boys.  With the hot weather we've been having I should be able to find some more time to work on the layout.

Woke up  made coffee and ran my Berkshire,... pulling my new Chessie Special Madison cars around the ceiling, tested my new hi-rail service truck, smiled and headed outside to grade and soak the first soil layer in the front yard 6'x14' raised garden box for my Lionel G-scale Gold Rush (old one, porter). I got hot and headed to the shade to cut and paint some the wood for my "soon to be", 4-line, 56"x8'(actually 2-56"x48" sections), "upstairs" loopy layout, featuring one line each of Super-O[pregnant loop w/2-post war tunnels], O[loop], O-27 [4 switches to make a loop & fig.8], and an elevated O-27[1/4 dog bone]. A long hot, but good train day here. This post, a quick forum scan, and a couple more loops, then Im calling it a day...     

It is a solid cast finished structure that Harry was selling at York in April. I grabbed one as it seemed to be the right height for the MTH barn.

Scrubbed paint of the tops of the rails.

I'm trying to talk myself into doing some scenery.  Last week I finished installing the Wye and small (2x14) yard area and have a lot of plywood to cover.  Right now I'm taking a break from painting the corner molding I've applied to the edge of the layout to give it a finished look.

Other than adding a 2-track engine facility (need 2 054 left hand switches) I think I have all my track exactly where I want it and things are running well.

I stink at modeling scenery or any artwork that needs to be done, but like most things in this hobby, the 1st step is the hardest.  Once you get going it's not so bad.

Watched more paint dry.

Chris, those are LED bulbs even though they look like incandescent. They only draw 9W per bulb, but look like a 60W. That's how it will be possible to have 200 of them in the room on a single 20A circuit. They aren't cheap, about $13 each at Home Depot. I'm just going to keep buying them in batches of 20 until I have enough. Maybe the price will come down.

I'm actually thinking of replacing CFLs throughout the house with these.

I haven't had much work done on the layout in the last few days but have had a ton of fun just running trains with my son.  He loves to watch them being loaded and unloaded from the car ferry. 

This past weekend I replaced all of my Atlas O 0-45 switches in my yard with Atlas O 0-54 switches. Before replacing switches, I had  5 tracks to store engines and freight cars on. Now I have 6 tracks to work with.............Rogerw

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  I'm on a business trip for four days and really missing being able to "de-compress" at the end of the day with my trains. 

Big Boy, Buying bulbs in bulk from a lighting supply house could save you $. You should check around your locality for one, you will likely even have a choice of different manufacturers to pick from. I used to only pay 1/3 the price for lots of 100.