What did you do on your layout today?

Yesterday was productive...day before was not, with just sandpaper lightly and randomely sprayed different colors to weather as asphalt roll roofing, and then cut up and applied to this saloon. Many small details, signs, corner trim, etc. added yesterday, so the light can be seen at the end of the tunnel.  I think just the chimneys,

hitchrack, and saloon doors remain to do.  Kit came with these doors, but I think I

will cut up and enlarge some plastic ones, just to be different.

I finally was able to move furniture in our recently married daughter's old room and setup a table that will be our Christmas layout.  It will be about 4x7 with two loops of track on a snow blanket and my wife's collection of Lemax and Dept 56 buildings she inherited from her grandmother.  Our living room is too small for a layout near the Christmas tree, so this will be the first we have been able to do this for a few years.  We are looking forward to it!  I will run the 2012 Lionel Polar Express, an MTH NYC Hudson pulling Madison passenger cars, and plan to have the MTH N&W Y6b make an appearance pulling freight.    Those two faces are Mark and Kim smiling about our Christmas layout!!  I will post some photos once there is something to see besides a table.

Not done yet, on this last saloon.  Decided to fabricate a door to fit the kit opening,

as the swinging ones are kinda underwhelming, and am touching up paint, with chimneys and hitchrack still to add.

Mark 

I am glad you will be able to set up a Christmas layout and looking forward to the pics. I can understand the lack of room. Two years ago I moved the tree where I have the layout from a different room that was smaller as we wanted a train running around the tree too. So now instead of setting up a layout around the tree. The tree is set up on the layout.

Doug 

I don't have need for a huge tree. I keep a Mini-tree, and an 0-27 loop layout screwed on a small "drawing" table I got at a Big Lot store (cheap & closeouts).

If the tree was just a little smaller I could claim it as a "to scale" old growth giant. 

I quit with getting my plastic tree out of the box. My dog & cat don't appreciate it anyhow. I have a wee little pine starting in the front yard so I will put an ornament or two on it. My RR is up and running all year, did all the other Xmas stuff some years ago. Switched out a transformer on my layout yesterday. Hooked up a big Z so I can use a variable post for accessories.

Yesterday was a nice day.  I went to my LHS for his big annual sale.  I picked up two items, one I have been looking for and the other thinking about.  I picked up the 2 add on cars for the Metro North M7 set - I had been wanting this for a while.  The second item - I am a Legacy guy and have about 8 Legacy engines and 3 TMCC engines.  When we got to the LHS I saw the LionCheif+ Hudson running around the track.  Looked good and I have read/seen many videos on this forum.  But when my son saw it, he said "Dad we need a NYC Hudson"  Well needless to say I pulled the trigger and bought it.  Got it home and fired it up.  All around it is a really nice engine and I am very happy with this purchase.  My son ran it for almost 2 hrs yesterday.  Then I did some wire cleanup under the layout and spent some time figuring out what my next scenery work will be. 

I did decided to do something to the undersized Lionel wind turbines. So i picked up a 3/4 PVC pipe from hd. Cut them to about two feet in length and replaced the original pipe. They came out pretty nice IMHO. Just have to spray paint the PVC pipe white. original pipe is next to the PVC pipe.

Here's a li'l sneak-peek of what I (well, actually, it was myself, a hands-on executive of Lionel, and a dear friend who helps me with Layout Refinements' out-of-town major projects) did on my (well, actually, it was Lionel's layout,) today (well, actually, it was last night, Saturday, from 6:30pm - 1:30am). The layout @ F.A.O. Schwarz (the entire store is soooooo very cool), on Fifth Avenue, NYC, needed re-groomed, Holiday-ized/Winter-ized and perked-up , quite a bit, from much use and eager model railroaders reaching up and over the see-through plexiglass-type perimeter.

I was happy to return to the layout, which I had re-interpreted for the 2012 Holiday season, to help it regain its status as deservedly on the What's-to-see-in-trains-for-Christmas-in-New York tour around town. To see if we helped Lionel continue its rightful place in the Holiday pantheon of things to see in NYC, you'll need to see the layout @ FAO in-person.

Here, I can only offer this modest smile at you via these two photos.

FrankM.

in-progress...

...and..

...nearing completion, at 1:00am

P.S. Shoppers were very interested and interactive with us as we approached our work (store closed at 9:00pm) with a half dozen train sets selling right away. It was delightful to see so much sincere and enthusiastic interest for Lionel trains in such a huge toy store in so large a cosmopolitan city as NY. The entire experience felt wonderful.

P.P.S. I must say, the entire late-night staff, many of whom came over, for a moment or two as they carried out their assignments, to note our progress, encourage us in our efforts, and to share their childhood experiences involving model/toy trains, were consistently pleasant, friendly, reserved, and professional in their demeanor. Their positive impact added to the pleasure of being at FAO for the work mission and adventure we undertook.

To me, re-crafting that layout in time for Thanksgiving was, indeed, a point of thanksgiving for me, as I felt it to be a significant responsibility, when one considers how many folks - especially the little ones - will see that layout as part of their Holiday experience. Also, re-crafting the layout felt like quite an honor to be asked by Lionel to help them present their name in FAO Schwarz.

The upper level of our layout is progressing. Today, my son Chris and I fashioned and installed stone retaining walls. Before and after pictures are below.

Not so much as what I did, but I told my father I was thinking of building a confederate memorial on my On30 layout once I'm at that point for scenery. I realized for the 1940s it couldn't be on an original carriage as none of them would be outside by then and nobody was making reproductions for battlefields yet at that point.

So I told him and Mom that I probably would put it on a pedestal, much like the real barrels mounted on a memorial in their hometown in TN state...

SO, I get this photo yesterday, he just scaled down a 12-pounder 'Napoleon' barrel in O scale for me!

This really wasn't that big a deal for Dad, he built a full-sized civil war M1841 6-pounder field gun in the 1960s and made a more accurate carriage for it in the 80s, spoked wheels and all, hand built...

Wow...that is a nice metal turning, P51.  Made me think to wonder if there is any

Civil War reenactment of the Great Locomotive Chase, etc.?  Today, I finished my

three saloons, photographed them, and some cabooses for another thread that is

running, and will post those in the near future.  Now searching for some photos of

defunct oil company storage tanks to finish these Korber tanks.

Doug, Adriatic, Jim, 

Thanks for the replies.  Well, the tree has to come first at our house.  

Two years ago we ended up buying another artificial tree, and my wife wanted another 7 foot tree.  We did get one that is narrower, since our living room is small.  Well, on the old one, I was able to bend the top and get the angel on.  Now the only way to make it fit would be to get out the hack saw.  We used a chintzy star.    Oh well.

i put the last of my train stuff on ebay today.  after about 15 years i decided that i was done.  not a big collector, just a few sets.  i went thru several versions of my layout but i believe that i'm done.  i've sold off all my train stuff but my harry potter train which my 13 year old daughter wants me to keep.  i'll be taking a ho set that i decided i'd never do to my great nephew on thanksgiving.  

after finally cutting in an access panel I got back to work with scenery it was just to hard to climb on the layout every time I needed to do something. here is todays work.

I recently upgraded my MTH Ps-1 Crescent Limited to TMCC using ERR boards.  During the conversion, I burned the CV Board up in the locomotive and lost my lights.  I was unable to find a board that would work, so I bought 18v lamps and didn't have class lights.  I saw a thread about light boards available at Henning's and bought some.  I am not proud of my wiring job, it looks nowhere neat as some of y'alls, but it works!  I changed them to green too.  I am waiting on the wiring harness to come for the smoke unit and I'll finally be done with the upgrade.  Thinking about giving it white walls - any thoughts on that?

Yesterday I helped the kids next door with their Christmas layout.  They are both excited about trains ...... really excited!!!!   

I also had them over to see my layout, the Free State Junction Railway, for it seems to inspire them.

Today I ran some trains, 32 car freight pulled by WbB Shark demonstrators, and later a Lionel J class took over the honors.

Also relocated the gentlemens club " Bada Bing" to the other side of the tracks.

Your scenery is shaping up extremely well. It looks GREAT!

For a while, I’d been thinking of adding a scale Civil War memorial (not necessarily Confederate as East Tennessee had lot of pro-union sentiment back then) to the layout once the scenery is underway. It was great that Dad took it upon himself to make that barrel for me.

The original plan was to make a scale 'concrete' or stone pedestal for the gun, as an original field carriage wouldn't have survived to the 1940s when my layout will take place (and nobody was making reproduction carriages for parks at that point that I'm aware of). The finished result will be very similar to gun tube at the memorial in downtown Elizabethton, TN:

I'm still tempted to make it to where scale people are removing the tube from the mount for a wartime scrap drive, to illustrate all the historical items we lost in the name of WW2 scrap drives...

Got out Lynn Wescott's "Benchwork" book, and John Armstrong's book on "Realistic Operations" preparatory to figuring out what to build and how to build it.  These are great books that I hadn't looked at in 10+ years since taking a model railroad hiatus and relocating.

Neat wires in hidden locations are overrated Be proud it works!

 Paint plating?! I do like whitewalls, but love "chrome" chrome rims

Neat wires in hidden locations are overrated Be proud it works!

Oh my, thank you! Glad to see that finally posted.

Larry

Went over there to put some ground cover down, instead ended up testing out the new track cleaning cars, and running some engines around.  No work got done, but it was fun times.

Your facility has really turned out terrific Doug. Great photos!

Today I finished the Korber petroeum tank, converted into two.  Decided to paint one

dirty black and the other white, as most were white in the aerial photos I found of the

now HollyFrontier (formerly Frontier) refineries.  Got some Frontier Oil Co. signs printed and applied, and finished these.  These will go near a Walthers and another kit built walking beam oil pump.  Now trying to decide what to do or build next.

Doug,

I agree wholeheartedly with c.sam; your engine facility is tremendous.  It certainly compliments the wonderful locomotives you have!!

Cleaned wheels on engines.  Cleaned wheels on tenders. Cleaned Wheels on cars.  Cleaned Track.

Cleaned up a mountain of dirty Q-tips.

When all that was done I needed to clean me!

Yes, I'll bet you did need to clean up you!  

Put the ground cover in for the storage tracks finally. Didn't have time to glue it in so don't sneeze near by

I hooked up DCS over the weekend, in passive mode.  Very pleased with it. 

When it come to cleaning wheels, I got tired of all the piles of dirty Q-tips so now I use a soft buffing wheel on my Dremel.  I put a drop of WD-40 on it and use it to get the wheel spinning, then put my finger on the back side of the wheel to get the wheel spinning slower than the buffing wheel.   Does a great job.  Now the only thing I have to clean is the end of the finger I use to slow the wheel down.

Jim

Jim,

That's a good idea!  I would say one dirty finger to clean was well worth the time saved on what all of us would call a boring job.  

I've been working on modifying buildings to accept Miller Engineering signs. When I got to these MTH buildings, I thought the roofs looked rather blaa. So I printed some extra tar paper sheets on cardstock from one of my Clever Models downloads, cut the strips out, and glued them to the roof. I think this is a huge improvement. Below are a before/after shot, and one of the tools I used. BTW, I blackened the raw edges of the strips with a black Sharpie. Time to do the other one!

Chris

LVHR

I'm not entirely sure if this is really layout related, but I DID inflate the tires on my handtruck using a 12v car tire compressor, a bridge rectifier and my Atlas 80 watt transformer...

Oh, and I did get the new Gi-raffe Express caboose up and running, courtesy of parts from the Train Tender, as well as update a gi-raffe car with a newer type gi-raffe!  Will write up how I did that in a separate article shortly! 

Mitch

Oh, and I gave the old giraffe a lobotomy and a Mohawk (since his horns were broken off).  He, and the car behind him, are going to be receiving a zebra treatment in honor of my place of employment being acquired by Zebra Technologies, Inc...

No! Not Billy Idol.... Neil Young! ........(What's his name? Joey? Sid Not Very Vicious? You have to mosh me for GG A1lin) 

I have a PW car with a big spotted pony too. My grandfather modified it to rise only over un-coupler magnets. Done by using a heavy copper wire lug, and a screw. The trip levers hit his platforms, so he did this mod. often cutting off the lever ends. Would you like a photo of it before your done here?