What did you do on your layout today?

Got to thinking about how I could "jerry rig" my camera on a flat car or gondola and take some cab shot videos.  Going down to experiment a little.

Art

Caught a moment to sit at the workbench, and glue walls to floor of this last saloon

kit.  BRAAAAP!  Sound of the buzzer....after kitbash, walls are different and floor is

too short. Dummy found scrapwood to add about 1 1/2" depth to floor. Walls and floor were painted, so extended floor awaits painting after glue dries.

A few months ago the local switch crew came in dragging  a old SW8 calf unit that they "found" on a old weed covered spur track. One of the older shop employees remembered the old SW. He said it was purchased for parts many years ago. The SW8's engine and other parts were removed and installed on a later model of switcher that had a bad engine. 

The local switch crew ask the shop crew if the old frame could be built into a slug. The shop boss said that he would have to check with the main office. One of the shop hands said we should take the old wrecked tank car out back and made the slug look like a steam engine, another hand said we could burn all of the old used engine oil to make it smoke.

Well the main office said go ahead and build the slug, BUT do not make it look like a steam engine. And NO SMOKE. AND keep the cost very low.  The shop crew got to work and used the SW8's frame, rebuilt the trucks and traction motors. Found parts needed in the shop's junk box.

No steam engine but we can paint it black...........

Princess Daphne helped greet my new/old Liberty Liner today!  :-)

Mitch

Today I walked through a show, and picked up a beat up Marx #333, with the die cast

tender, for a good price, to use as my chassis for an inspection engine. (since I don't

like any of the examples from the major makers...oh, right, there are none).   I had

been looking for a broken plastic shell 1829 to rob, so was surprised to find a 333. I also saw there the K-Line version of the 333, new in a really beat up box, for $100.  I

passed, but was that a good price?  I have heard about this engine for some time but

first time I have seen one.

I tested two new PW engines I picked up today in pretty good deals. The first I traded a Lionel 671 turbine for a 622 NW2 switcher, which I have always liked, even steven. Then I made a deal with an antique store friend for a nice Lionel 681 steam turbine engine. This was for less than $100. I threw in 2 older AF engines I had fixed up and didn't want.  I have another 671, the first model with the smoke bulb so I could let one go.  Brought home an Am. Flyer Talking Station to fix up for the antique dealer so he can sell it. we barter.

Today, my son Chris and I, finished the snow cover on the top level engine storage facility and the mountain cut-away for the elevation from the second to the third level of the layout. The snow looks GREAT! Hopefully, photos will appear in a future post.

It snowed!!!!!

I took down 16 feet of lousy looking if functional shelf along part of my shelf area on which shelves I kept 'Streets cars and trucks.  I took apart the layout to get to various areas so I could install additional lighting.

I put up 100 feet of light rope for an even lighted effect.

I installed 48 feet of new oak shelfs, level and straight (shown) and 12 feet of oak facade on my upper shelves (not shown, off to the right) and some small trim and all to make the place look better.  

And I wore myself out.  Wow, this was work.  All in one day. 

I enjoy learning all I can about Photoshop & Photoshop Elements

If you enjoy railroad photography, this is a video i watched today, you may want to take a look. Cheers from Michigan

I installed some plants recently received from Scenic Express.

The small backyard between the Plasticville Colonial house and the railroad tracks is now populated with a pumpkin patch, sunflowers, scarecrow (complete with saucy crow) and staked tomatoes.

The front of the Marx Colonial house now sports petunias in planters that my wife picked up at a yard sale.

It is looking great Randy!!

I made some progress today towards setting up a Christmas train in our recently married daughter's old room.  We moved the rest of her things out except her harp.  I wanted to set the table up, but my wife wants to replace the single bed with a daybed her mother left behind when we bought the house from her.  I will have to make the switch, then the layout can begin.  Also bought the snow blanket and some more people to go with her Dept 56 and Lemax buildings.

A rare thing for me I ran trains  

Clem

Mark:

Thank you for the compliment. I used our own, Harrison Trains and Scenes, Blanket of Fresh Fallen Snow. My father said that it is a bad bootlegger that doesn't drink his own whiskey.

When you get your Christmas train up and running, be sure to post some photos of your layout.

Randy, your dad was right.

Yes, I am looking forward to posting photos and videos this Christmas.

I liked your snow blanket much better than what I bought, so I just ordered one.  Thanks.  

Put doors and windows in this last saloon kit, tedious and meticulous job putting glass

in windows.  Curtains and shades are yet to follow, before roof goes on.  Since building was extended for rooms upstairs, I am building an outside stair case to go up one

side....it is open, but I may put a canopy or something over it....glue should be dry

on that now....

I raised both my turntables, got the approach tracks completed, all the final wiring DONE and ran my first train over the complete line tonight. I turned the locomotive for the first time ever I noticed two kinks in the tracks that didn't cause a problem running one way but did the other, wouldn't have caught that without turning a loco. Gotta unspike the track there and get the curves more gentle there but that's not that big a deal.

Oh !  I like the engine and passenger car !!  Pretty cool.  Brass??  Who made it ??

Finally back to some fun on working on the layout. Spent the last three days running auxiliary wires to nothing but light blubs in the residential and city areas.

Nothing completed but, it's starting to LIGHT up around here.

Larry

Thanks, this is On30, no normal O 2-raill. The ten-wheeler is Bachmann (not brass but a lot of metal, they're pretty heavy, and they make them in the road name and right paint job for the RR and timeframe I model) and the coach is AMS/accucraft. I had several Bachmann coaches but they looked way too 'toy like' to me, so I sold them all but one when I got this coach, as I won't be running long passenger trains anyway. Might get another coach and paint/decal/weather it like that one, but they're a bear to take apart...

Larry:

Nice lighting effects.

A Tootsietoy Oldsmobile which was given to me around 1960 had poor red paint.  It has been stripped and repainted in the color scheme of the first car that the donor owned. 

Actually got a decent amount done this weekend. I've nearly completed the track wiring on my main level. I'm using Fastrack, so that included extending the remotes on 2 of the switches, as well as the controls for 2 uncoupling tracks. I tested out most of the track, but I need to shore up a bridge before I use one of the spurs, so I haven't tried to uncouple anything yet. The most exciting part was testing my Marx gateman. I got it at Allentown a while back, and it has never been used. Still has a tag on it. It was sluggish at first, but works pretty well now.

 Sunday was mostly saw, drill and driver day. I built a 7' x 40" platform for my upper level. That will hold a loop of HO E-Z Track, for an On30 set, and a loop of 0-27, for trolleys, my Marx set, or whatever else I feel like running. It will also be the location for all of my Dept. 56 buildings, so I figured out where they will go, and traced them out. I'm going to do most of the work on the floor, then raise it into position above the main platform, and drop the buildings into place.

Larry, what material did you use for your roads?

I ripped up my Fasttrack - soon to be replaced with some vintage Lionel Super O track that was in rough shape.  I put alot of elbow grease into cleaning and hope to get it laid this weekend. I do really like the look of the Super O. 

Walter

I used Masonite. I think it's about 1/8 inch thick. Purchased a 4 by 8 foot sheet and cut it up for streets , runways and helo pads ect.

Larry

I try to do something every day. Ran the new locos I picked up over the weekend(all run nice) and cured a voltage drop in my #1 outside loop that was bugging me. Then the post man(really a nice lady) comet with a large box from Chris Dunn from the forum. It was the very nice Lionel B unit I bought from him.  Looks good between my F units. Chris was very easy to deal with and shipped quick.  thanks

Thanks Larry!!

Last night I pulled out my tiny, 0-27 circle, green felt, table layout I had put away for a bit. Ran the Harlequin painted R.Isl. dockside cab forward with plow in honor of the snowfall. Then the rail rocket "X-3" with the Marvin the Martian/Bugs Bunny Earth Disintegrator car, and the like. Assembled some strings of lights for another smoke/strobe effect I'm playing with. Then started cleaning off the big table layout. Got semi covered with junk from me working on side projects, then others stacked "whatever/wherever" during a carpet removal, till I could only see the new elevated line (and the stuff balanced on it). 1/2 done, placed an orphaned AF talking station turned into a factory by adding a rubber roof & stacks. Then started & finished today (except the painting) turning a Marx U.P. M-10000 car, and a soup can, into a diner(tin not altered). Cleaned more, then stopped to look at tools belonging to Grandpa just long enough to discover disrespectful idiots had used part of a set of "off limits" inherited 1930s tools I don't even use and failed to return them to their place...so here I am doing the OGF thing trying to "cool off". But still wondering where my tools are, & debating a mass eviction. (they already have access to 2 full sets & breakers & air tools of the same size 1/2" drive).   

Snowed in, so progress on the saloon was made.  Finished the outside stair case, scratch built except for Plastruct steps and railings, to include the landing.  Decided to just use "shades" and no curtains for the "girls" rooms upstairs.  Painted the enlarged roof but have not decided what to cover it with...shingles, or corrugated tin.  Or maybe tar paper.  I am modifying the porch roof to keep it from looking like that on the first

of this series of three. (second had a walk-out balcony) Dunno if I should call this one the Hotel California or think up something from world of mining.  Roof, chimneys,

porch, details..lots to do.

While watching the paint dry on the above saloon last night, I put the time to good use by assembling a Korber steel petroleum tank kit.  This builds one tank with eight

cast rings, BUT comes with two tops, so can build two tanks, mine with five and

three rings, which make shorter tanks seen in petroeum fields and storage facilities.

Obviously, you can build 4 and 4, and maybe three tanks if there is a low tank

application you are modeling (then fabricating another top)

I will letter with my favorite regional oil companies, Skelly and Frontier, but will

try to find how they painted theirs in the field...silver?, black?, white?....?? 

Got myself in a corner so to speak. I finally got up the will to disconnect the wires from the control panel to move it out of the way to redo the last small section of scenery I couldn't reach. I was going to get to the control panel eventually to redo the wiring to it and under it. Now I am committed because I can't run trains until I do that. But the plus will be I will get rid of all the jury rigged wire that should of been done many years ago. Hopefully by the end of the week I will have the wiring done. I am already starting to feel train withdrawl and it has only been a little over an hour.............Paul

Inspired by a recent post from a member in England, I slapped together this display next to the Plasticville gas station.  I don't know why it never occurred to me to gather all my trailers together like this, but I like it.

Don't worry about the close proximity of the RR track:  It services the auto junkyard, which just has one empty flatcar a week going in and one out.

I got my Lionel 1666 loco fixed thanks to some forum members-thanks guys.  Started last night, took out the old contact part which was in pretty bad shape. Not worth using with new shoes-which I didn't have. then I remembered I had bought a clunker 1666 at the last TCA show. Dirty but complete and after I cleaned it a little, it ran. I scavenged the center flangeless drivers from it for my good one so I stole the contact plate from the clunker.  Used a small C clamp backwards as a spreader and the point of a good pen knife to worry the piece in. I am gradually learning how to repair my trains and I love it.

I did a quick mock-up of the next background building to get a feel for how it would look. It's going to be a business named after my dad, so I need to get it right. 

Trees, Trees, and more trees. Put up the rock fence that I received from AMC Dave, Weathered my sons N Gauge track with snow.

Today for me was a major upgrade of the Christmas layout under the tree.

All Post War era and so we set up two 153 signals wired to the O-22 turnouts  which now alternate the loops. Lots of added wiring and some more terminal blocks so the O-22s did not look sloppy.

Tomorrow the accessories, lighted cross buck, bubble water tower, station, control tower and one more for a surprise, (read as not decided) will be added and more wiring updates.

I do love setting the train up under the tree a family tradition for 55 years.

what started out to be a simple time of running trains a couple days ago, has turned into moving half the trackage of the three mainlines, complete replacement of the buildings and some accessories. Throw in a couple electrical gremlins that pop up at the weirdset imes, it's been interesting.

Was in the process of wiring in some "things" but this morning about 5 AM I decided my layout was too cluttered so today I took some of the operating items off. It looks better and less wiring.  Still have several big operating pieces to hook up like a barrel loader, two coal loaders,and two operating track. Keep it simple.