Mark, nice job on your Christmas layout.
Today I spent the day at the TCA Parma Ohio show. Sold a cfouple of things but then decided to walk around and there went the profits LOL. Got a nice tank car and a couple of vehicles more in the time frame I want. Pics.....Paul
Mark, I think its a great looking Christmas layout! The curtains can be snow falling! LOL
Paul, nice buy's! You can look at it this way, You spent money you really never had!
Christmas gift to yourself!
Mike, Thank you! The curtains represent falling snow is a great observation! Thank you for the addition to my Christmas layout!!!!
Paul, Thank you! It was a quick turnaround on this layout!!
Mark, as I said before EXCELLENT! Hard to take apart a layout like this. I agree with Mike re curtains looking like snow.
Thank you, John and Matt!! Yes I quickly decided not to take Mount Brian apart for either oversight!
That sounds great when you were a kid, John! When I was in Cub Scouts in the mid ‘60s, we took a trip to Pittsburgh Northside to see the model railroad and village in the old Buhl Planetarium. The model railroad still going strong but now in the Carnegie Science Center.
Just driving a car around Shark Bay area and watching trains.
Today I went to the train show at The Ranch at Loveland (Colorado). Great show! And lots of people. I always come away thinking that maybe the hobby is coming back.
Spent time talking to the Azatrax people. Solid people, solid product. Will use their solution instead of an MTH TAD.
Hi guys, seems like forever since I have had anything to post here. Patrick was supposed to come over today, but cancelled, so I had the day all to myself. I have been slowly working on a project, just a few hours at a time. This one has been on my to do for a couple years.
I bought a K-line 21" baggage car and and matching combine as a pair. They were Pennsy, but I can fix that. I'm just working on the combine for now. I'm turning it into an ex GN baggage / dormitory. Here's the car in its short lived BN paint, which is what I'm going to do.
I'll turn the baggage car into this one, by removing the long middle skirts and moving the doors and repainting.
The car is first reduced to parts, leaving the aluminum extrusion.
I have this book of early Amtrak car plans, and much to my surprise, this one was in it. It's nice having some dimensions to work from. Unfortunately, the car is a couple feet too long, and there's no good way to shorten it. The body would be easy enough, but the chassis is a huge can of worms. For a couple feet, I'll pass.
I put masking tape over the sides of the car, but in hindsight, it wasn't worth trying to mark out the windows and doors.
It's not easy trying to draw on this thing when it has the rounded roof and skirts.
Time to lose the skirts. I clamped the body to a saw horse, then took my saber saw with a metal cutting blade, they came right off.
After some filing and grinding with my sander, the bottom edge is straight and smooth
Next up, filling the windows and doors.
Elliot, that car is going to look great! Such a great color scheme Great Northern had!!
Ran trains for 5 hours for the tri-state layout open house tour. Trains ran great, had a really good turnout for a rain soaked afternoon. Had almost 50 guest view the layout.
I have been open for this tour since it began and this is the best turnout I have ever had for it.
Had guest from 4 states. Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
For me this is the best part of the hobby, Sharing it with others.
I am now ready for my 14 Christmas open houses during the month of December. This will be the 32nd year for these.
Karl
Joe, I have some of there stuff, from my old 2 rail system and I love it! I plan on using it on my new layout! The Husband and wife team that run the show are the best! John Parsons is top notch!
Big_Boy_4005 posted:
Next up, filling the windows and doors.
Great project Elliot. I thought you told me once when I added All Weather Cab windows to my Missabe diesel units, that you didn't have the patients for that kind of work!!! Way to Go Bro! Anxious to see the finished product. Cheers, Dave
Big_Boy_4005 posted:Hi guys, seems like forever since I have had anything to post here. Patrick was supposed to come over today, but cancelled, so I had the day all to myself. I have been slowly working on a project, just a few hours at a time. This one has been on my to do for a couple years.
I bought a K-line 21" baggage car and and matching combine as a pair. They were Pennsy, but I can fix that. I'm just working on the combine for now. I'm turning it into an ex GN baggage / dormitory. Here's the car in its short lived BN paint, which is what I'm going to do.
I'll turn the baggage car into this one, by removing the long middle skirts and moving the doors and repainting.
The car is first reduced to parts, leaving the aluminum extrusion.
I have this book of early Amtrak car plans, and much to my surprise, this one was in it. It's nice having some dimensions to work from. Unfortunately, the car is a couple feet too long, and there's no good way to shorten it. The body would be easy enough, but the chassis is a huge can of worms. For a couple feet, I'll pass.
I put masking tape over the sides of the car, but in hindsight, it wasn't worth trying to mark out the windows and doors.
It's not easy trying to draw on this thing when it has the rounded roof and skirts.
Time to lose the skirts. I clamped the body to a saw horse, then took my saber saw with a metal cutting blade, they came right off.
After some filing and grinding with my sander, the bottom edge is straight and smooth
Next up, filling the windows and doors.
Elliot, that sure is some wonderful work you have going on there! I would have a hard time doing that, not because lack of skills, but what if I did Screw up, That's where the money comes into play! LOL I cant wait to see the out come!
Elliot, I hope you will start a thread and describe (with photos) how you are going about this project--it would be an excellent stand-along thread.
For myself, I finished the third streetlamp repair--the post had separated from the base. A tip posted on my thread led me to try some super glue gel by Locktite; AND IT WORKED. So, on this minor repair project I went 3 for 3 in success.
Also went to Wal-Mart this evening a bought some flat white paint to paint the 4' x 6' board the Christmas tree will sit on and have two loops of track around it.
Before the trip to WM, I test fit the Gargraves/Ross sectional track and GG flex track. I thought this wise because the inner loop of 032 GG will include two bridges (one LIONEL and one Plastruct O scale truss bridge) sitting on LIONEL piers which are fairly wide at the base which are by the lack of length (only 6') darn close to the exits of the outer loop curves.
Still need to test the LIONEL uncoupler/loader switches that I rewired for several PW accessories, as well as layout the LEDs for lighting some buildings--but, I'm having fun.
Our lives revolve around our puppy Sweet Pea right now, but I still managed some success today!
After drilling holes through the bottoms of each strcutre on the layout, just in case, I installed all the Woodland Scenics plug-and-play system for the lighting. All the controls are on the panel now. Next, it's just a matter of running the wires up to the structures. I'd had all the wiring stuff for a while now, and decided if waited long enough.
The flag stop at Hunter is almost directly above the master switch, so it only took just a few seconds to get the light into that structure. There's no interior inside, so I added enough fogginess to the windows so you couldn't really tell, with dull finish scotch tape from the inside.
Can't wait to get to the other flag stop at Winner, which has a full interior and an open door...
Doesn't look like much compared to what you folks have been up to this week, but this is the first step to getting around my furnace so I'm happy about it!
The original plan was to go behind the furnace, but that route is too close to the business end for comfort. As a positve I've realized I'll get a longer run this way! It actually looked a little like a layout before I put the boxes back up there. As usual please excuse the photo. I have an older phone and barely any lights down there at the moment.
Lee, nice shot. The lighting looks good through the window.
Johan, another great scene.......................Paul
BAR GP7 #63 posted:Just driving a car around Shark Bay area and watching trains.
Great shot Johan. Looks like you are driving the car.
decoynh posted:BAR GP7 #63 posted:Just driving a car around Shark Bay area and watching trains.
Great shot Johan. Looks like you are driving the car.
Matt: Thank you. 
Johan
paul 2 posted:Lee, nice shot. The lighting looks good through the window.
Johan, another great scene.......................Paul
Paul: Thanks.
Johan
Mark Boyce posted:Dr Joe, Thank you for the video of your layout! You have made some very nice additions. The room and shelves full of cars looks great too!
Johan, Nice scene of the coal car and area!
Colorado, You should be able to make a realistic scene from the photographs you have taken.
Mark: Thank you.
Johan
RSJB18 posted:I actually did somethings on my layout yesterday! Been a long time since I did more than look at it.
I while back I got the free Hummer from Menards. I only had a 5.5v wall wart which worked but was a bit too bright. I found a 4.8v from a cell phone recently and hooked it up yesterday. Much better now.
Before and after
I also added a power drop to one side of my elevated loop. Been putting it off for a while but I was inspired by Arnold's recent efforts. Had a bit of a brain fart though and forgot to run the wire to the switch for the block instead of the buss bar right off the KW. Didn't take me long to realize I'm and idiot and fix it.
I'm also swapping out rolling stock and locos for the Holidays. Been running the same stuff for so long that it's been getting boring. I'm really trying not to overload my small layout with trains so I can do some switching. I think I'm going with a PRR theme for now, we'll see. Put out my Yuengling cars for the first time. Thought they would be a good match for my new PRR ALCO's.
Now a bit of catching up
Mark- the Christmas layout is looking good
Dr. Joe- welcome back. The train room looks great.
Johan- another beautiful scene.
Mike- great to see some track work related progress in the train room.
Lee- another nice car project
Brian- If I was a west coast guy those BNSF locos would be on my layout for sure.
John- nice work on the bridges and gorge.
Arnold- glad you got the signals fixed. One of my winter projects is to start adding some signals to my layout.
Enjoy- Bob
Bob: Thank you.
Johan
p51 posted:
Can't wait to get to the other flag stop at Winner, which has a full interior and an open door...
I couldn't wait after all and wired the next station a couple hours later.
I still need to full the light gap through the removeable roof, though.
Looks good Lee.
Last night making a double reverse, single mainline connector carpet central dumbell layout, I used up every curve I own along with two new to me Marx switches I got from Pingman the other day. After adding some pins to help bridge the point gaps better, doing some track cleaning of those dregs of the bottom of the track box,, and isolating a few rails for anti derail triggers, I got Grandmas fat wheel Commodoore Vanderbilt running flawlessly in turnouts for the first time ever... So I tore it down and rebuilt in favor of an offset dogbone loop and a very long siding. Today I'm going to look at my relays and see if I can't do two staged trains, maybe in opposite directions.
So far I have cut up several heavy corrugated board boxes from which I plan to build temporary structures for my Valley Steel Lines 0-31 layout.
Rick
Built a 5x6 floor layout for under the tree. It has 2 Atlas O ovals and an O72 switch with siding for my GP30. Test ran the new Lionel NS 911 wide vision caboose my brother got me. 
Ran my new engine , added the csx to the remote and took these pics to make cool Edits. Lots of new stuff on my YouTube channel
Lee, Great scene in daylight or night!
Rick, that is a good idea to make mockups out of cardboard.
NS6770FAN, Looks like you are well on your way! That is a great looking diesel and caboose!
Andy, Great photographs!
Started work today on "Dept 56 Mountain," which will be more like a mesa-flat-top upon which I will place my Dept 56 structure collection. Eventually, there will be tunnels. Stay tuned to see how it unfolds.
Also, some general shots around the layout.
Dr Joe
Dr Joe, that will be a nice diversion from a mostly flat town scene! Looks great!
On the 4' x 6' board I painted flat white last night, I laid out the track and bridges so that I would know where to run the RGB LEDs; removed the track; laid the LEDs (3 reels worth); and, tested them--everything checked out.
Following this, the table and LEDs were covered with white snow/batting and the LEDs tested again, this time for the visual effect. These LEDs were the ones mistakenly shipped to a number of OGRers a couple of years ago when the Chinese distributor ran out of warm white 3528 reels. A neat feature is the remote control that gets the LEDs to light in various colors and patterns.
I'll post pics or a brief video tonight or in the a.m. after I get the track, trestles, piers, and bridges on the table.
Carl, That sounds like it will be bright and colorful under the 'snow'!
Lee, the building lighting is looking great! I hope you keep posting as you get them lit up!
Dr. Joe, your Dept. 56 layout is looking wonderful! I am with Mark, is sure going to be the old flat layout around Christmas time!
I didn't get much don't this week or weekend as we had the kids and grandkids, plus had to work yesterday and today! I did manage to add 4" to my side yard, cause I had to widen it out to fit my new train station from a forum member! I will try and get some pictures tomorrow!
Isn't this hilarious!
One of my locomotives barely grazed this pipe passing through so I gerry-rigged this. Now let's hope the pipe doesn't burst! LOL, Arnold
Arnold D. Cribari posted:Isn't this hilarious!
One of my locomotives barely grazed this pipe passing through so I gerry-rigged this. Now let's hope the pipe doesn't burst! LOL, Arnold
I’m glad to see you’ve got your priorities straight, Arnold!!!
Finished disassembly of my two-color printing press to make room for a new layout. Movers wanted a moving fee plus a monthly storage fee as they look for a customer for the press. I decided the open ended monthly storage fee could get costly, and it provided no incentive for the movers to sell the press.
I hated to cut the press up, but progress sometimes takes sacrifice. It took eight days to strip it down to parts. Now I have a 15 x 18 room I can use for a HO or O-Gauge layout.
Sincerely, John Rowlen
Sounds like a plan came together, John!
mike g. posted:Lee, the building lighting is looking great! I hope you keep posting as you get them lit up!
Thanks, you know ill keep everyone posted.
As much time as our new puppy occupies these days, I'm surprised I even found time to just step into the room!
Since I've got one of my cases of 0300 insomnia, I decided to fabricate a couple of FastTrack actuators for the JRM Museum layout.
The Marx crossing ringer uses a short section of insulated rail to light the light and ring the bell.
This actuator, a former gi-raffe ramp track...
...will be used to operate one of these:
Naturally, Norma Bates Kitteh had to assist:
And here's a demonstration!
Mitch
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