What did you do on your layout today?

Nice inviting work area, Gary.  One can never have too many shelves.  Seems perfect for displaying your photography too.

Bruce

Chalk up another score for Glenn Snyder Display Systems. I received my second shipment of shelving on Thursday and installed the final 48 feet for a total of 96 feet of much needed storage space.

Everything that goes on the shelves will first get cataloged in another pet project of mine: version 1 of a simple inventory solution I whipped up for myself last week using Filemaker. After a couple of recent experiences involving finding things I didn't know I had in my collection, I figured something other than my memory was in order for keeping track of my purchases.

Everything you see in the foreground and many more boxes in the layout area and in the closet in the background will be recorded and shelved within another week or so. Then I can get back to the layout itself. Can't wait.

With two days lost chasing conductive epoxy...I am going to find that, but was not

going to wait through the weekend, so V-E-R-Y delicately tried, successfully, soldering

two wires back on their board.  Now, the gas electric just needs the sides glued on,

and it will be done.  Next project...maybe I should solder tegether a low profile

tender for the #60 loco I just kitbashed from a Lionel 0-8-0.

I moved a couple of buildings around to make room for the Menards Seed and Feed.   This is on my 4X8 Cisco RR.   The Seed and Feed is rather large, but look great. 

Then I added a dozen more trees.

And ran trains!

Installed a couple of Jack Pearce's lighted vehicles (one being a NYC bus, boy does this baby light up). Then moved on to the Miller engineering signs. More to go today after Church.

Did a bit of PM on a couple of my Marx 666es.  Couple of notes:

1) Don't throw out your worn Lionel brushes.  When filed down to 1/4" long, Marx locos love 'em! 

2) When reassembling, make sure the lower brush screw surface is clean: 

If there's gunk under that crosshead screw, the little bugger won't work, or it'll be erratic at best.

Remember, a clean loco is a happy loco!

Mitch

That's okay, John!  It is easy to get mixed up on who made a particular comment when we  quote as I did now to make sure the intended party knows it is addressed to him.  Yes, Lee has a good helper.  Last evening, Annie didn't know I was running trains until my wife turned off the television.  They she was indignant I got away with it.  ;-)

Took one look at Leavingtracks 6ft building then took a sledge hammer to my layout...... 

Been a little busy the last couple days, and didn't get a chance to post the Thursday work session with Matt. There are just a few Tortoises left to install, but we will have to wait to finish them. In the meantime, we have started on some manual throws, needed for yards and industries.

There is a bit of a learning curve on this project, so we started with some easy ones over at Hiawatha. Most of the switches have Caboose ground throws on them, but these 4 are going to be behind some huge grain elevators and out of reach.

The switch in the center of the picture has its crank installed. That part is very similar to the Tortoise installations, albeit with a little tweaking.

Here you can see 2 of the 4 finished units. Even though they take some time to install, they are very simple in their design. It is really just a modern take on the very old "choke cable" concept.

I'm still not exactly back up to speed after my vacation, but I was down there today and finished drilling the rest of the knobs for this project. I also sat down with paper and pencil and made a list of projects that I would like to complete this year. OH BOY!!

Matt and Jon are coming over Thursday.

Earth to Patrick - Earth to Patrick - come in Patrick!

I finished the gas electric, but saw that the passenger with the bottle in the paper bag

might stagger past the occupied toilet and right off the rear platform while crossing

the 88 foot trestle.  So, I actually have soldered together a brass wire safety gate

for the back, and will paint and install tomorrow as the last touch.

 Tinkered with the Marx El Capitan cars I picked up.

One I knew needed some attention to a bogie and had no wheels. So I searched for a roller truck I thought I had, to begin a Lionel lobster to Marx twist-couple transition car, but came up empty handed. Changing tactics till I get a roller, I found an SW dummy coupler and fabricated mount ok, found old truck frames; fast angle and old school, and then looked for wheel sets only came up empty handed again.

 Looks like I need a roller truck to even run them a little.

I guess it will let me look for a better matching side frame.

The again, I never liked that mpc orange rio grande caboose much

Its only temporary right. 

Not exactly O gauge related, but a Marx 666 was in the general vicinity, so it's all good:

I retrofitted a Rock Island Lines giveaway pen (from the good ol' days when giveaway pens were real live metal) with a modern ballpoint insert that actually WORKS!  Had to drill out the end of the pen to accommodate the modern insert, but that's showbiz...

Mitch

You ARE going to post pics, I hope?  I've been dying to see this critter. 

Mitch

The adapter kits arrived yesterday from Miller Engineering, so I was able to finish the wiring of two Shell signs at the refinery. They enhance the look of this area of the layout.

Yesterday, 06-22-'15, I hooked up permanent power to eight 022 switches and two 072 switches, using the "voltage plugs" .. Running about 15-16 volts, will up that to more like 18 volts, once I replace the bulbs with LED's.

Last night, I completed all trackwork for Level # 1 of my layout, except for about a three-foot gap on the outer loop near the control stand and except for trestle construction to reach the planned 2nd level.

Yesterday I also soldered my first ground return wire to the web of an outside rail near the control stand.  Nothing to it!  A 140-watt Weller gun, some rosin core solder, and a slight dab of No-Korode soldering paste and Voila--  works great !!

Better than my old friend at the EBMES layout in Oakland, CA many years ago where he was working on Overhead catenary using a 550-watt American Beauty iron!  (grin)

KRK

Did not really care for the paint job on my Lionel 138 water tower.  It originally had a red roof, an orange water tank, orange struts and light gray foundation.  I decided to repaint it with a black roof, brown water tank and struts and a stone paint color foundation.

here are the results:

P51 video #31 was great like a real operating session itself.

Worked on a new addition to the layout, a Harry Heike water tower. This baby is a really big one, very impressive. 

Have slowly been installing the cap blocks on the top of my bridge project.  Each day I go down and remove the clamps, make a new section, glue it down.  I have to fill holes with plaster and paint several coats and then I will be done.

Art

I tore out a curve and replaced with with a turnout on Harry's layout.

Art, It looks great.

jackson

I got the last two bracket sections finished and painted, once I mount them I will be waiting on the metal brackets being made to cross the open area with a series of arch bridges and girder bridges.

After starting this past January, we finally put the finishing touches on our new PE layout with the installation of a replacement set of LED string wires for the tree pedestal. Nice when a plan comes together. Now we get to enjoy it with our guests.

This afternoon, we continued work on our main layout. Our new Harry Heike GCT base is near complete so we have to make modifications to the existing base that extends out over our lower level to accommodate a much larger footprint. We are thrilled to have this masterpiece soon to be installed on our layout. In order to do this work, we had to clear all of the trains off the sidings that are present in this area of the layout. This sure drove the point home that we have a lot of passenger cars on the layout. Now many of them are on the floor until we get the new GCT base unit installed. 

We have train friends that will be our guests in July, so we are anxious to get all of this work done before they arrive. They should be the first to see Harry's latest addition.

Sure looks very good, Art. Can't wait to see it in person.

Matt and Jon came over today.

Matt picked up right where he left off last week, installing more manual throws. He's getting pretty good at it too. He finished 6 more today, including two that control a Ross 3 way.

That 3 way is pretty nifty, when both knobs are pushed in the route is straight. Pull the top knob and the route is to the right, the bottom and it's to the left. And if you want to go from either curved route to the other, just pull the knob and it will just drag the other set of points and the other knob will follow.

Here they are from the underside.

Straight.

Right.

Left.

Matt got the near end done and half of the far end of the Ford Plant overflow yard. Next time he'll finish those two and start the plant tracks.

I made a mistake having Patrick use Bondo to fill in the screw holes and seams on the fascia. Then I made the situation worse by butchering the surface with the sander. I had given it a coat of flat black, and it looked horrible.

Jon to the rescue. He made it look much better using his theater skills. He tinted some lightweight Spackle to a dark gray and sanded it smooth, then gave it all another coat of flat black. The final coat will be a semi-gloss black.

While they were working on all that, I was trying to clean up the workbench and get my head back in the game by making a to do list and a schedule to complete various projects. The goal is to have the whole thing looking sort of finished and fully operational by the National Narrow Gauge Convention in 2018.

We had one minor problem today, which was, Matt and Jon were getting in each others way working in the same aisle. Next Thursday, Jon and I will hang more fascia in the second aisle while Matt keeps working on the switches in the first. Problem solved.

Just now in the pencil n' template stage of designing my "next one" as the new building for same awaits the finishing contractor. 

Designing this one has been a struggle. Not really ginning for me just yet.  However, I shall prevail.

Showed off my "SCROUNGE" P-51 Mustang flatcars to the Sugar Creek MRR society.  Full marks for ecological correctness ("Mitch?  Do you EVER throw anything away?"  Me:  "What is this 'throw away' of which you speak?"), and the name McGuyver was invoked at least once...    The VP of the club mentioned that she liked the way my brain works... 

Mitch

Thank you, Trumptrain, for that exceptional and very, very kind posting. When a fellow hobbyist takes the time and has the inclination to speak so deliberately about the work of my hands and imagination, it means a lot to me because we have a common interest and understand the efforts and enjoyment involved in creating a layout. Thank you, again, for your generous, kind remarks.

FrankM.

Elliot, really nice work going on here.

Frank, your layout is a classic.

Thank you very much, sir!

FrankM

Got done removing another 4x4 section of scenery and getting it stored properly to use on my new layout.   Progress is at a glacial pace but it's getting there.

--Greg

Thanks Brian.

This whole recovering from vacation thing kind of reminds me of going back to school after the summer. I finally got up the gumption to start laying track again. I put in 3 sections then had to stop to clean the ballast off an old Curtis #8 switch. It is all coming back to me slowly.

Nothing, because my delivery was delayed. Grumble grumble grumble. 

Had to do a little track realignmnt around a curve to get another length of tubular track through for my trolley line. Have a half loop of track and finally got the  everything running O. Neat to watch. Tomorrow  will put in a regular power supply plus run my new gang car on the track, too. Starting tonight we are supposed to have a good 24 hours of rain so that kills any outside activities like running my G gauge or taking train pictures

Well, I decided to empty a few boxes, clean up the layout table and make some test runs of SP Cab-Forward 4294,  my CSX SD-70ACe, my PRR MP54 MU cars and my Santa Fe # 623 switcher.  A-OK..  But man, lots of wiring for a small layout. Not done yet. Also still have Accessories to install including Lumber Mill, Greyhound Depot, signals, gates, water tank, lots of neat stuff. Suzie has a large Plasticville collection.  This will be followed by a second level of more trackage.  More to come!  Enjoy these photos I just took this evening !

Cheers.

KRK

Ken,

Thats some nice equipment you have!  As I noted before, you have quite a lot of nice trolleys.  I like the Cab forward.  I also like the snow plough.  You could run trains outside in the snow, if it snows where you live.  Are you coming to put some track support for the track in mid air above your wiring terminals?  Yes I dislike wiring myself.  Probably because I chose electronics for a career.  ;-)