What did you do on your layout today?

       
       

He uses Bragdon molds with the casting plastic and foam resin. The final casting is so light and easy to work with!
This is it for tonight. Been making molds all afternoon lol.

This morning I finished "Oxley's Golden Grain Elevator".  Rather than make like Nanook

of the North and mush out into a blizzard for two tiny bottles of Testor's, I sprayed rattle cans into their caps and brushed it on for final touch=ups.  Now for photos.

Changed a traction tire on our Acela today. Silly little job but very satisfying as I did not lose any bits.

 

Any one who has done this job on the Acela will know what's involved

Spent a hour running the Acela with our youngest (age 6) It is one of his favourite trains.

 

Nick

Well with it snowing today I got the wye switch and the 4 way all tied in. Two more uncoupling tracks to put in and run the sidings down to the end of the yard and I can go back and take up some of the old cork and re ballast the new track areas and plaster in the open areas and the yard is basically done. I can then move to finishing off the engine yard,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Paul

Thanks, Lance.

Installed 3 vintage crossing signals, two old lighted bumpers and one new lock on.  Also, crawled under layout to find out where 4 unconnected sets of wires came from, without success.  Will try again tomorrow.   Finally, I unpacked a sealed box containing a Conventional Classics Santa Fe F unit A-A set and put it on the layout.  I found the replacement body shells that Lionel sent me but I like the original color better.

     Pingman Eric's Train videos are on Youtube and he explains how to mix up this 2 part foam that is flexable and to put petroleum jelly on the rock molds so the foam wont stick. Choo Choo Kenny

I have a cantilevered extension off a trestle top on my elevated line, and wasn't happy with the oversized pad I ended up with. I was going to add a dwarf signal, catwalk, and trim it. But I took the extra AF 23750 bridge shack I had, and it was exactly the same size, so I made a small tower to set it on, and have a wee little switching tower now. A "two fur", I also have a set of red & green jeweled industrial indicator lenses small enough to fit the 2 holes in the shacks side, so I'll get my signals too once I wire it to the area. 

 

Tested out the Veranda Turbine GGG upgraded for me; works great!  Very clean work.  George is one of the good go-to guys here for Proto upgrades and fix work.  He has done both a turbine and a cab-forward for us, and they are both making the rounds on the CL&W in grand style.

Whilst testing some old RailKing throttles that have been in storage for some years, what used to be termed "An Unfortunate Incident" occurred:

 

I really should move that poor little church, as it seems to be the target of every errant locomotive on the system.  On the other hand, it DOES keep the wall from getting scuffed up...

 

No doubt, the congregation of Our Lady Of Unexpected Deceleration will be sending yet ANOTHER Stiff Note to railroad management... 

 

Mitch

 

MMM - That's the same way Old 97 wrecked: too fast on a left-hand curve!

 

After moving a transformer to a lower shelf I have room to run a road into a depot.  The first picture is "before".. The 2nd shows plywood attached to the train table, and the third is the first coat of drywall compound for the road.

 

I got most of the yard track in. Just a few more sections at the back of the yard to finish off the sidings. So in the pics the two tracks to the far right are my lower mainlines. Going to the left the next track is the makeup track. The Ross 11 degree wye switch brought it all together for me. And as I mentioned in a prior post the track on the left will go to the engine yard. The curving track going off to the left will be a  small short line with some industries for switching at the other end of the tunnel.......Paul

Indeed! I blame the cats...

 

 

I do like the additional plywood; your American Flyer track was skating way close to the edge there... 

 

Mitch

 

Having finished the last elevator structure, I turned to trains, and took a look at two

Lionel 0-8-0's.  One I had modified with a front coupler, and assorted appliances, and

a Vanderbilt tender (before discovering there waa a version with an operating front

coupler and a Vanderbilt tender).  I have this one in hand and have the Vanderbilt tender repainted to get my lettering, but was suprised that the boilers of the two are identical, but the chasses are quite different, with the second having more elaborate

valve gear, wide, flangeless center drivers, and a wired connection to the tender

front coupler.  It will also get an Elesco and another pump.  The loco has the front coupler and that is creating a problem, as it is in the way of my converting it into a Consolidation.  I have pounds of brass and bronze spoked O scale pilots picked up in

shows (if this was gold, I'd be somewhere warm) and am figuring out how to extend

and modify the pilot (replaced, but a variety to choose from) to accomodate the front truck.

Made a second tower to fill the other cantilevered trestle pad, all wood this time, except a tin roof. I'll weather, and maybe condemn it. 

Working on blending the rocks into the mountain. Still have a bunch to do yet but switched from spackle to silicon and ran out so I'm off to the store again. Don't mind the non set up pink spackle lol. Mountains looking better and better everyday!

The rock work on your mountain looks very good, Lance!!

Laid out and formed some curves on the main line for about 20 feet of Gargraves Flex track. Satisfied with the alignment so tomorrow will close up the joints a bit and fasten the track in place.

I didn't do anything TO the layout, but I did pick up a bunch of Gargraves for the new layout.

I finished off the sidings for the yard. Now back to the front of the yard to cut away old cork roadbed and lay down some plaster to fill in the areas and ballast where needed. I have a larger Korber switch tower that if I trim the base around the building it will fit in nice at the top of the yard ................Paul

Renewed my subscription for O Gauge Railroading Magazine

I got the old cork up and now I have filled in the areas with plaster. That's it for tonight. Tomorrow morning I'll color the plaster and ballast the track. Then figure out what I will tackle next...........Paul

i went to the allentown spring thaw train meet today ,and i bought a few things for the layout,whe i came home i tested my new o scale mth cal-train f40ph.it runs great,and i got a deal on it.

Extended the platform on my passenger station and added four street lights.

 

 

 

I got the Zebra car complete!

 

And yeah, I know, ZBRX, but the stock symbol is ZBRA and the company was founded in 1969, so that explains the reporting marks, OK?  OK. 

 

And the staple-end trucks are what I had handy when I assembled the new chassis from Train Tender. 

 

Mitch

Well, Suzie and I got the Lionel stuff in my Shop stored in a neater spot. All the Lionel boxes and new support table boxes (big) have all been nicely stacked up against the Living Room fireplace.  The 5 x 9 plywood top was removed from our dining room table and stood up on end against her china hutch.  NOW, we got room for the 'movers' to remove the Dining Room table and the big Sofa.  Once they're out of the way, the real FUN begins!

In the Living Room, the plywood tops for the Layout will be supported on top of a 2 x 6 grid, re-enforced by 2 x 4's.  The GRID will be supported by FOUR tables as shown in Photo 1...  Along one edge of the Top, it will also be supported by a 39-inch wide bookcase as shown in Photo 2 ...  My multi-shelf display rack that got taken down yesterday from the dining room wall will be anchored along another edge of the layout GRID ... Photo 3...

My new Lionel "Hell Gate" bridge will go in center-front of the living room "front windows" .. Photo 4.  Double-track will be used across said bridge!  Other items for the overall purpose of "support" for the layout TOP will be used or positioned as required!

**** I do NOT want to Nail or Screw anything into the Carpeted floor****

 

More later!

KRK

got some heat out in my railroad room (outside temp was 12 degrees, fired up kero and waited an hour and it was 70 degrees in my shop and railroad room)

fired up the new engine   and just watched it run, got a few rough spots on track but can iron that out.  mainline is only about 60' total,  played with a cheap camera and put it on a flatcar and rubber banded it down and went around and made a video.

now the completed run around is not worth showing but the camera on a flat car worked, got to finalize it some, make sure angle is good and it goes all way around and shoots,  camera slipped on first go around and i got great video of ceiling and some terrain.

but it was fun, been waiting long time to hear the thing go chuffing and not and yeah there are some  dollars spent, supposed to snow next week

but i remember the posting about the 300.00 plus camera and the one i had was 40 dollars at k mart and makes **** good videos.  I video'd a close friend shooting a rapid fire relay at camp perry ohio, and it came out great, i just sat the camera on a ammo crate and he shot.

so video of the Lizard Lick rail road coming soon

Last night I looked for my custom decals, since I was working on this Lionel 0-8-0 I want to add a front truck to....could not find them...wasted a couple of hours going

through boxes.  Took a break today, loaded some pictures on here, and then looked some more..could not find, in a box that should have had all the decals, including a lot of others...found others..could not find these.  Stopped for dinner and to watch the news, then searched boxes again...found them on top, in the "right" box, somehow overlooked, a lot of time wasted that should have been spent working on the loco.

Started mounting the blue points for my turnouts.
Got half of them done, just ended for now.
good grief, what a pain it was mounting some of them.
Broke a turnout points bar, no idea how I'm going to fix that without replacing the turnout itself...

Matt came over last Friday and did a bunch of wiring. By the end of the afternoon, we had the mainlines powered almost half way around the upper deck. When it came time to test run the newly completed section, all the engines that we tried, worked really well. However, I did discover a couple track defects. No big deal, they are easy to fix.

 

While Matt was doing that, I worked on prepping a bunch of uncoupler magnets.

 

First you have to get the center rail out.

 

I hope the black one isn't some rare variation. I wish they were all black, it would save me the step of painting them.

 

Hot gluing the magnet to the rail.

 

What's in the bucket is ready to be installed in Gargraves track. The pile on the floor will go in the recycle bin.

 

I spent much of Sunday unpacking my 86' box cars. Did anyone else have a hard time getting them out of their boxes without ripping the end flaps?

 

Elliot,

I agree, it seems odd to me that the uncoupling magnets normally come red.  I guess they think that makes it easier for the train operator to see them.  I can't think of another reason.

 

The 86 footers look impressive.  It wouldn't take many to completely encircle my 4x8 layout!  

Saturday, I purchased a LionChief Plus PRR Mikado from my fairly local hardware store who sells Lionel and MTH trains.  Excellent price.  I ran it Sunday on the 4x8 layout I am just prepping.  It only took a few minutes to lower the sound volume, understand the uncoupler/bell-whistle and chatter buttons, and have it rolling.  I took a video, and the only trouble was right as I was going to finish the video, the Mike picked the point of one of my new Fastrak switches which just knocked the pilot wheels off track.  May be an issue with the switch, they are all new.  I will either figure out how to edit the last couple seconds off or take another video and post in a few days.  It will be a busy week for me away from trains.

 

My initial take on the locomotive:

Very nice appearance, sound, control, and running for the price!  

Elliott/Big Boy:   To open box ends, I just bend about #14 (?) bare wire into  a double hook (helps hold one end) and slide it into the flap and pull. works every time. Better: use a flat piece of aluminum metal about an inch wide; it gives a broader hook. But the wire works fine.

 

 Cho Cho Wally

I knew that with the last delivery, you wouldn't be able to resist opening boxes and loading tracks. There's a simple trick getting into boxes without damaging them. I'll show you next time I'm over. Looks good, Elliot.

 

This is what I did today. I know it only looks like a Plasticville house but all the windows were individually poured in.

I used the hot glue on the ends farthest away from the magnet coil. Looking back at some of the ones I did a long time ago, I had super glued them. I can still go back and hit the edges, which would be a good idea from the sound of it. Belt and suspenders.

not sure i understand this,  hot?  they only get hot when power applied for long time arent these used as momentary on/off deal?  do you hold the button down and keep it down?