What's The Most Ingenuitive Thing You Have Done?

Scratch-built spray booth at the club, complete with exhaust fan from stuff we had lying around. The only thing that was purchased was a lazy susan base so we could more easily rotate stuff being painted.

I don't know how much ingenuity is evidenced, Madison, but when asked to drop a snow-storm on a friend's layout, I used spackle to create drifts and mounds of shoveled snow and snowy streets and sidewalks, covered it spoon-by-spoonful with Woodland Scenics fine snow, let that set-up for a day; then, drip-glued the snow in place by using Scenic Express's Matte Medium, and sprinkled that with another layer of snowfall. Lastly, I sprinkled - teaspoon-by-teaspoon - a very light, sporadic layer of so-called "diamond dust," which I got at a craft store, throughout the landscape; drip-glued that final layer with eye-droppers of Matte Medium, and voila! a snow-bound village that will be digging out all year-long!

FrankM.

My water meter is located directly under the upper level of my layout. To read it you needed to be directly over it looking down. Unfortunately there isn't enough clearance between the top of the water meter and the bottom of the bench work to put ones head in to get a reading. The cost of moving the water meter was the equivalent of a nice new locomotive!!

Solution: two small (3" x 5") metal mirrors. Installed the first at a 45 degree angle over the top  of the meter, and the second facing out from under the benchwork at another 45 degree angle to the first. Now all the meter reader from the water company has to do is stand by the edge of the layout and shine his flashlight at the second mirror to read the numbers off the meter.

jackson

We were operating a public layout and one hopper car kept uncoupling. No time to fix it. No other cars available. The next time it uncoupled I turned it around. Problem solved.

Madison:

That is a very thought provoking question. I am indeed fortunate to have a wonderful train room with a great space with windows. The stairway leading up to the train room presented somewhat of a challenge. I wanted to maximize the layout space so I came up with the idea of two levels for the benchwork, with part of it going over the top of the stairwell (done in such a way so as not to present a hazard with tall people coming up the stairs. Four of my main lines tunnel under the higher portion of the benchwork to extend the length of their runs.

My idea really works well that has allowed me to make maximum use of the space.

Pillow ticking !!!

I could not hide the seams in my background.

Then I bought some O scale Sherman tanks on Oy Vay and the shipper used pillow ticking to pack the tanks.

Boing !

Wow ! Looks like a 3D cloud !

Now my seams are hidden.

Yessiree, Bob

Scrappy

I made my own crossings out of popcycle sticks, does that count?

Well, I like it - it sure counts w/ me. It has the look of those multiple boards between the rails we can sometimes see at such crossings in smaller towns, for example. And they're nice and dark and grubby looking, too, as I have definitely seen in real-life. Yup.

FrankM

For me I'd say my "Super 700E" project. I just kept hatching ideas on how to make Lionel's maligned 1997 "763E" look like 5344 in late-life, and it all came together perfectly.

For a number years I designed and helped build a large 20' x 44' public Christmas display. We only had a 4 week construction time frame to use and every year I designed display to be different. The display is open to the public for a little over a month. And as I stood back one night in 2001 and watched the crowd viewing the display.

All of a sudden I had a brainstorm, I was going to put a 6' walkway right through the middle of the display. I figured this would give the viewers some different views of the display. I also planned to put in small windows to also give the viewers to see some under display views. Well needless to say in 2002 we did it, and under the 4 week construction time.

Nick,

Wow! Your NYC Super 700E looks great!

Did you find enough Scullin wheels sets for your projects?

Bill

Hi Madison, a very interesting thread and postings.  I hope this counts.

I built a "Texas" theme layout after my interest in the MKT (Katy) Railroad and the Texas Special.  I live in Oregon so I am a long way from he state of Texas and I wanted something on my layout that gave some meaning to my theme.  My sister lives in Temple, TX where the Katy tracks used to run.  I sent her a letter with a map of the old Katy tracks near Temple and asked her to send me dirt from the old roadbed sites.  Being the super sister she is, I received a 10 lb. box of Katy dirt a couple of weeks later (flat rate of course).  I strained the dirt with wire mesh and baked it in the oven to get rid of any unwanted Texan hitch hikers (Armadillo poo).  The rest is history, I know that part of my layout is really Texas.

Steve, Lady and Tex

I think that they were used because they looked sleek and fast! A Dreyfus Hudson with Scullin drivers is a vision of speed and power brought to life.

 And I added some photos from the 2004 display which featured a North Pole section underground.

I think my biggest challenge this year was to develop the corners for the All Aboard Fastrackers club modules. Before that it was just creating the All Aboard Fastracker modules themselves. I was able to do it and now we have almost 100 20"x20" modules built between our members and have been doing larger layouts at public shows and at our meets.

INTERNAL:

-Frank Timko DC can motor w/ custom mount

-Frank Timko MTH fan smoke unit w/ custom mount

-ERR Cruise Commander w/ wireless tether compatibility modifications

-ERR Puff N' Chuff w/ custom mount

-Reed switch on trailing truck w/ 4 chuffs per revolution

EXTERNAL:

-Vandy tender replaced with PT tender

-Scale pilot truck installed

-All plated accents bead blasted and painted black

-Steam chest bead blasted, casting lines removed, and repainted

-Marker lights removed

-Lubricator linkage corrected (reversed)

-Original whistle piece replaced with Vision Hudson whistle piece

LEFT TO DO:

-Acquire Vision Hudson bell piece

-Acquire Century Club Hudson cab figures

-Acquire roller bearing rods

Thank you! I still need two sets of the American made ones and one set of the Chinese made ones. Will post about those projects once I get those materials.

As for their real-world purpose, I believe it had to do with easier counterbalancing and yes eliminating the risk of broken spokes.

I built this wooden gondola primarily from Starbucks coffee stirrers and matchsticks just to see if I could.  I recently got a set of archbar trucks for it I haven't installed yet.

I can't take credit for the idea, (Ed Reutling was the brains behind this one), but I did make this Whalebelly Hopper from a Weaver 50' tank car:

A couple of simple cuts and presto (well, not quite that simple but Ed knows what he's doing).

Here's a Vanderbilt tender I made from a piece of PVC pipe:

Here's a MTH Railking 2-8-0 boiler I hacked up to use on a Weaver 4-6-0 chassis:

The round part of the boiler the smokebox front is mounted to is a plastic pill bottle.

Here's what it looks like now:

Today, it was knowing that ingenuitive is not a word in the American English language.

The American Heritage Dictionary

That being said, I built lightweight removable wall panels to hide storage shelves and create a train room in the basement, while retaining access. I did all of that acquiring used old wall paneling and furring strips for framing for around $30 including paint for a 14' wall.

That's a whole lot of selfless giving to others, right there, sir. You must really enjoy life and seeing others happy - kind of like corporal works of joy. You have my sincere respect.

FrankM.

PLEASE note, Madison, that it was Moonman who wrote that, NOT Moonson.

Aarr, there be nitpickers among us, matey.

Ingenuitive is a great invented word!  Obviously it means intuitively ingenious.

Pete

Way-to-go, Mr. Positive Pete!!! The right interpretation and reply , of course. Cool, too.

At our club we ran out of space for more layout, so I built a kids layout under our regular one.  It's about 18" off the ground and features a kid-operated pushbutton that sends Thomas around the loop then stops.

(At our Halloween Open House...)

Looking at some kids looking at the layout!

The brains behind the operation

Ed

ps. lots of great ideas in this thread!

Well of course it depends on the dictionary you use...

ingenuitive

(adjective) : possessing ingenuity : ingenious

Mark

Great shots Ed. On my home layout, I built (not an original idea) a four track swing out gate to access my work shop/furnace room.

The current kit bash from nine suppliers that's nearly complete of a interurban freight motor. Ingenuity required. Basic retooled white metal car body at an earlier stage:

Parts are from

Precision Brass (?), ( pantagraph)

Lionel ( air horns, pantagraph insulators)

RMT,( modified power trucks)

MTH,( trolley poles)

Q Car Co ( headlight,retrievers, roof mat) ,

old white metal LVT car sides + wood roof ( Pennsylvania Models(?)

Walthers ( North Shore car ends) ,

Radio Shack ( electronics)  

Plastistruct ( car frame window materials)...

Final wiring of trucks and final fitting of body to be completed. 

I wanted a tin plate version of the MPC Lifesavers car, so last year I took two candy filled tins from Wal-Mart and added pre-war tinplate trucks and details:

I design things for a living so I wouldn't consider these my best creations but as they accomplish the task using a simple design I offer these:

This adapter allows switching between close and far coupling without permanently altering the original item.

I was able to animate a gantry crane using a piece of hardware store threaded rod and two tapped aluminum blocks with the result almost invisible to the viewer.

Pete

Found on the same page in the Merriam-Webster New Works and Slang section

injurize (verb) : to verb to injure

She injurized her elbow playing softball.

Injurize?  Really????