What did you do on your layout today?

Here are a few photos from Patsburg  Home of the Free State Junction RR

Replaced an errant Tortoise switch motor on one of the mainlines, which of course stuck mid way and we couldn't move it. Of course it was one of the more difficult to reach motors. Now that it's replaced, we can resume operation in the opposite direction. Real fun working under a layout in high humidity.

Ken, I know I've seen bascule bridges silver(or light grey at least), also light blue, rusty brown(anti-rust primer?), and the usual, black. Including streaks of "old colors" could be a great detail.  

See! http://www.michiganrailroads.c...1RougeDrawbridge.htm

Pat,

It sounds interesting; post some pics!

Kenny,

I have some of the same thoughts about a 282 crane that I picked up. It has rust and dirt. I am thinking that it will never be a collectable; so why get rid of the authentic rust only to add it back after its painted? I am leaning towards cleaning it without ruining the aged patina.

Strogey...... I hadn't thought of that thanks now to locate the set screws I have seen them locally somewhere!!

$oo

It was a good morning to run trains. The layout is performing flawlessly and it is just plain fun sitting back and letting all of the trains on the eight main lines do their thing.

All the work we put into the renovation project is paying off.

I relocated my rural train station and outbuildings four feet, freeing up space for the "rezoned" land I plan to "develop" into commercial area on my layout.  It proved to be one of those projects that goes exactly as planned, but I did not enjoy the work because it mean all three of my train loops had to be shut down while I was working so I could not run even one of them to keep my company.

By any chance is the planning commision headed up by your spouse? We are empty nesttors and decided to take over the apartment in our 2family for recreation. I have a train room, my wife has an art room; then there is a guest room and a kitchen. I was thinking outloud one day and mentioned tunneling into the unused kitchen or guestroom. There were comments like why don't you just take over the whole house.

After several years the owners of the restaurant decided it was time to put up a sign, saying, "Nobody goes there anymore, It's too crowded."

Soo Line...Your email is not in your profile. Email me and tell me what size screw hole you plan to drill & tap. I will send you a few in various lengths.

Ken

It's a bi-level layout. Wait 'til you see the double helixes!!!  LOL

just joking

There is light at the end of the tunnel, and it is NOT an oncoming train!  Today I got

final structural details in place and sceniced the foamboard base with Gypsolite colored by acrylics.  Was leery of scenicing but got surprised by good results on other projects.

This means this huge creosote plant Murphy has had so much fun with is almost done.

Ran tire tracks around in the wet scenery with a 1/43rd truck in the "gravel and dirt"

parking lot.  That will dry overnight and I will do a touch up wash of acrylics over the

scenery.  I wanted one, and, by cracky, I got one....some place for these backwoods

sawmills to ship their products.

Looked for a Dehumidifer !

My basement is horridly damp this year.

I arrived back in Michigan with the car ferry that Alex built me on Sunday night.  I was beat from the 10 hour drive so nothing got done that night.  1st two days back at work have been a killer so no layout work was done then.  This morning I finally got off my butt before work and painted the wall a nice blue where the car ferry will go.  Tonight I plan to pick up all the lumber I need and after work tomorrow there is not stopping work on the layout until noon Saturday when I am needed back at work.  

I have to get the benchwork built, track laid, and car ferry installed before my family gets home sat evening.  I have decided to hold back any photos until the work is done Saturday before work and it will be photo documented on my layout thread.  

Major blow

I was taking some measurements to buy wood and track and without doing some moving around of pipes for my sump pump and water backup sump pump I can not install my hidden staging yard like I planned.  

I will have to review my options tonight.  

Well, it wasn't 40 visitors Saturday. It was 4, one of whom was my daughter. I'm thinking it has been 8 years since she's seen it, so it had to look very different to her (and that's with 6 years of no progress). It looks so different from just a year ago. She actually said she wants to help with the scenery.

Patrick was over on Monday and he finished screwing down the decking we put up last week. Then we put up another 8' of backdrop and another 8' of decking. Then he glued and screwed down all 32' of sound board. While he was doing those things, I was poking at the layout lighting.

Last night I got serious about the lighting, and got the first 4 lights up. Two at the front end of the string and two at the back. I made a temporary plug so I could fire them up. The first two look great. I'm going to head down and get the middle 4 wired  up, pics to follow. Those LED bulbs are amazing. 9W for 60W equivalent, 5700K daylight, generate no real heat, and they're dimable. I'm putting them every 4'.

Haven’t posted much lately, but wanted to let you all know I am still kicking.

Anyway for the last two months I have been relocating the “town” area on the Ironbound RR. It’s heart-breaking because it really looked fine where it was! You can find pictures of the town as it was, on my layout website:

http://trainutz.com/ironbound.shtml

But I made a serious mistake when I originally framed the town platform area years ago. And so I am posting this to see if I can save anyone else the headache of making the same mistake. This applies to almost anything on a layout.

I located the town area at my eye-level. That is, I located the STREET-level at eye-level. But by the time I added structures, autos, li'l folks, poles, signs, etc... everything looked juuussst a bit too high, so visitors are unable to see the interior scenes and the tons of other custom details I worked on. I can not simply lower the platform... there’s a freight car storage yard located below it. So I decided to bite the bullet and move the town. But there was nowhere to move it TO! The layout is filled to the brim. So I have been busy engineering a raised area over a corner which will be the new town area. This is looking good with many new structures, but still weeks from completion. I will definitely post the new stuff on the Ironbound website when it is complete.

Anyway... I am still kicking and I am still loving the layout. Even though it’s relatively small, the detailing and reworking never ends... which is exactly how I love it to be : )

Happy Model Railroading!

~Andy

Let there be light(s)...

Chris,

You are correct the track was just laid out on the floor so I knew exactly where to put the bench work.  Here is a current picture of what it looks like now.  I also got a roll out control bench made and a control panel.  Subway level wiring for power is done and happy to report after sitting in boxes for 5 years all subway sets fired right up and worked perfectly.  

Let there be more light...




It's a good thing these are dimmable.



Right now there are 15 bulbs working. By the time I'm done there will be close to 200. One section at a time, steady progress.

I spent all day with the car ferry expansion. 

I added a silo to the farm. Silo is a Harry Heike creation.

Is that silo a kit?  I really need for my small farm scene on my layout

Worked on the layout for the first time since early April, in fact I've only been in the train room a handful of times.  I started to paint the new station I purchased last fall.  I also spent some good quality time running trains with my 2 and 4 year old boys.  With the hot weather we've been having I should be able to find some more time to work on the layout.

Woke up  made coffee and ran my Berkshire,... pulling my new Chessie Special Madison cars around the ceiling, tested my new hi-rail service truck, smiled and headed outside to grade and soak the first soil layer in the front yard 6'x14' raised garden box for my Lionel G-scale Gold Rush (old one, porter). I got hot and headed to the shade to cut and paint some the wood for my "soon to be", 4-line, 56"x8'(actually 2-56"x48" sections), "upstairs" loopy layout, featuring one line each of Super-O[pregnant loop w/2-post war tunnels], O[loop], O-27 [4 switches to make a loop & fig.8], and an elevated O-27[1/4 dog bone]. A long hot, but good train day here. This post, a quick forum scan, and a couple more loops, then Im calling it a day...     

It is a solid cast finished structure that Harry was selling at York in April. I grabbed one as it seemed to be the right height for the MTH barn.

Scrubbed paint of the tops of the rails.

I'm trying to talk myself into doing some scenery.  Last week I finished installing the Wye and small (2x14) yard area and have a lot of plywood to cover.  Right now I'm taking a break from painting the corner molding I've applied to the edge of the layout to give it a finished look.

Other than adding a 2-track engine facility (need 2 054 left hand switches) I think I have all my track exactly where I want it and things are running well.

I stink at modeling scenery or any artwork that needs to be done, but like most things in this hobby, the 1st step is the hardest.  Once you get going it's not so bad.

Watched more paint dry.

Chris, those are LED bulbs even though they look like incandescent. They only draw 9W per bulb, but look like a 60W. That's how it will be possible to have 200 of them in the room on a single 20A circuit. They aren't cheap, about $13 each at Home Depot. I'm just going to keep buying them in batches of 20 until I have enough. Maybe the price will come down.

I'm actually thinking of replacing CFLs throughout the house with these.

I haven't had much work done on the layout in the last few days but have had a ton of fun just running trains with my son.  He loves to watch them being loaded and unloaded from the car ferry. 

This past weekend I replaced all of my Atlas O 0-45 switches in my yard with Atlas O 0-54 switches. Before replacing switches, I had  5 tracks to store engines and freight cars on. Now I have 6 tracks to work with.............Rogerw

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  I'm on a business trip for four days and really missing being able to "de-compress" at the end of the day with my trains. 

Big Boy, Buying bulbs in bulk from a lighting supply house could save you $. You should check around your locality for one, you will likely even have a choice of different manufacturers to pick from. I used to only pay 1/3 the price for lots of 100.

Decided it was time to quit cutting bait and go fishing!

So unpacked the new airbrush and practiced with it by weathering rails and turnouts.

Turned out pretty well for a first-time attempt.

The Type H single-action airbrush worked great for the gang painting!

Now I can install the lead to the turntable!!

Pulled a passenger train into the just laid station tracks for the first time.  No where to go yet but is sure felt good.

Saturday the yard gets installed with a two boxes of track and ten  switches.  Next week the main line pushes West!

Thanks for the tip. I'll have to do some digging. I can't think of any place locally, but then I've never been in the market for bulk light bulbs before. It's times like this when I miss the old Yellow Pages. Google just isn't quite the same. You have to sift through a lot of unrelated garbage.

Update: It looks like the Cree 60W daylight bulb is fairly new and the only place that is stocking it (so far) is Home Depot. The $13 price is about half of what similar non-daylight bulbs were selling for just a couple years ago. As with just about every technology, prices should drop as more time goes by.

Installed a lighted sign for my truck stop/diner.  Since I've had it for about 15 years, it is time it had a place on the layout.  Doing a lot of little electrical things like that in the summer months.  Nothing major.

Having completed one structure and the laborious task of putting an operating coupler

on the front of a Lionel 0-8-0, I am mulling over what else to do to the 0-8-0..such

as add a pony truck, Elesco and other appliances, and modify the tender into a

Vanderbilt.  Rather than proceed with that I am researching fruit growing on the

western slope of the Colorado Rockies and the styles of fruit packing houses that

existed for this large industry I only recently became aware of.   Something to put other reefers than beer ones to work for.  Discovered there was a large Swift meat

packing plant in Denver that packed a lot of pork.  Illinois and Indiana raise a lot

of hogs...but Colorado?  I need to research that.

Today I ordered another kit to bash into a grain elevator, a structure I need another one

of like I need four flat tires.  I must be addicted to railside structures.  Still mulling over

the Lionel 0-8-0 kitbash, and other structures on the to-do list: fruit packer, mining

camp firehouse, another small sawmill (to supply the creosote plant)....just general armchairing...

Started ballasting track.

This morning I did drawings for a Colorado fruit packing house, tweaking pictures of one

on the Colorado Midland RR.  Also found photos of a Colorado cannery, so I can, after kitbashes or scratchbuilds, have a source and destination for assorted Atlas reefers.

You drive through that somewhat deseret terrain around Grand Junction and you'd never

imagine what a fruit and vegetable growing area that is, and has long been.

I was able to spend some time making two wooden supports and a notched out area for my last girder bridge. now I need to wire up the connectors for the wiring so I can stop wire nutting the connections whenever I set it in place it is in an aisle way.

then spent an hour chasing 2 wiring gremlins one the track rail spread apart where spade terminal slips into track so that was an easy fix. the other I still cannot explain why it stopped working as it involves a newer lionel lift bridge and trains had been running fine for past 8 years!!

but for some reason stopped today the lead tracks were dead with the bridge down found the nut where track power hooks up was loose figured okay am done ha ha ha.

still no power so retraced power for it and hooked up 2 power wires hanging in mid air and all was well again both screws were tight so they didn't just fall off so now I ask how was it working all this time with out those 2 wires attached??

short answer gremlins we all have them lurking about!!

after that I needed a soda and some good old steam engine smoke to clear my mind so had the shay running on upper loop to test the new girder bridges and track alignment also lower 2 loops had the S-3 and the sante fe 3751 and on lower level had the 765 berk running [I have nic named it rich] seems the older it gets the more crotchety it gets. pun intended as humor only oh webmaster.

so after a hour all was well house filled with smoke thank goodness for mega-steam smoke fluid and vanilla scent.

$oo

Making progress on my Fastrack layout.  I'm using ceiling tiles and foam rubber insulation for soundproofing.  This is my last weekend to work on the project before heading to the hospital on August 1 for another hip replacement surgery.  The layout will be good recovery therapy.

I was able to lengthen the straight section heading onto lift bridge Evo diesel is now happy had to move a brace for engine clearance and then anchored track and homasote now need to cut a length of plywood so 15" area of curved track is on solid ground once again.

$oo

Since my last post on this topic I've FINALLY made the push and started finishing the scenery on my layout, at least the ground cover.

I had to redo a few feet of existing surface and then the 2x14 foot extension I added a week or so ago.  I've gotten really use to True Scenes Modeling Fibre and had a 1/2 bag from my last purchase to do this extension and redo.  Only problem is I ran out with less than 10 sq ft to do so I have to buy one more bag.

I've found that once I lay the wet (and tinted with acrylic paint) fibre (or whatever Bill calls it now) I can then sprinkle ground foam on top of it and use a small roller to embed it into the fibre.  From there I go back and pat down the ground foam with a flat side of a flat paint brush dipped in diluted tacky glue.  Patting it down doesn't disturb the ground foam and seals the surface so nothing moves.

Once I get the rest of the fibre down I need to locate a backdrop that is 12" or so high.

i am rebuilding my layout.  had some electrical problems with it.  i have laid my track and am working on where i want to place some of the scenery so i know where to place the rest of the track.  

Finished painting and assembling the station that I started last week with my four year old son.  He was so excited to put the chimney on it.  Now I need to touch up some paint and add details before adding it to the layout.

Had a brew and took a video of the Great Lakes Car Ferry being unloaded.  Be sure to check out my thread on that!

I think I caught a uncurable case of lazyness this weekend. I played with the trains, no layout work.

I added a house.

Ran 3 trains.....B&LE, PRR, & Union RR.

I've been planning to increase the diameter of some curves on my layout for at least a year. I figured out I could also add a 3 track passenger car yard by utilizing space under the stairs.  I incorporated storage shelves to improve space utilization.

I'm working on my 77 Sunset Strip vignette - completely scratch built so it is taking forever . . . !

I installed the relays on my 2 7.5 switches to power the rails for my short steamers. Now my baby TMCC steamers and my Legacy 0-8-0 run through them at a crawl.

Ron 

Here is my latest video update highlighting my recent progress.

Trying to install my CS-2 Crossing Signal. but going on 7 weeks wating on my PIC to be replaced on my GCF-1 board from Custom Signals. 

Spent 20 min assembling a 56x96 table top frame and braces Ive been painting. The runners go in once Ive got all the plywood for the top.

Got my RK 20-800 poweed up and place some coal smoke fluid in it. 

Hello everyone. I noticed that I have nothing to show or complain about. It's been a long time since I've even posted anything. I've been busy with all the household things like installing a new overhead garage door and opener and tons of yard work.  Also remember that I have only one leg, and it takes me longer to do things. But I know that things get taken care of.  Now I just need to get back to the layout and let the trees that need to be cut down till the fall. So I think I'll be in the breezeway cleaning it up today and going to finish the first level of the layout. Then I need to run some #14 stranded wire through the garage and hopefully get some trains running.

Hello every one. Ok I cleaned up the mess from a 3 to 4 month layoff. Its not perfect but it is a start. It went ok but towards the end my leg started to hurt me. It is one of those things when you lose a leg, and I am going to build this even if it takes me time. One nice thing is that I have the time to build this layout when the weather  lets me

As my addiction to vintage Marx grows I need to replace my K-Line an Lionel switches with vintage metal Marx units. Today I began the hunt for some nice Marx turnouts.

I nearly electrocuted Patrick last Friday. He was putting in the chicken wire on the side by the bookshelves, and the layout lights were on. I had them plugged into a non-polarized extension cord. He touched the electric stapler to the chicken wire, and ZAPPPP. At first I thought it was just that polarity was flipped, but then I realized that the metal boxes weren't tied to the earth ground yet.

On Saturday I wired up a couple more lights and went to test them, popped the breaker. Took the two new boxes apart, and found that I had nicked the insulation on the black wire with the screw when I closed the box. That's when it hit me. I must have nicked a white wire the week before. Combine that with the flipped polarity, and Patrick touches the grounded stapler to the now hot wire, bingo!

So, today when Patrick came over, finding the source of the neutral bridge became the first order of business. We got very lucky, because once we determined that it was in the lower string of lights, we opened up the box in the middle of the string, and there it was. A little electrical tape and some careful reassembly, problem solved. Won't let that happen again.

Patrick sanded the putty on the backdrops, and I sprayed primer over the putty to seal it. Then we installed 16' of backdrop and decking for the Ford plant, while the primer dried.

The afternoon was winding down, and both batteries for the screw gun were dead, so we got out the blue paint and went to town.

Patrick will be back Friday. Pics after that.

 Remover trains from the svelves, made up new trains and put the others on the shelves.

More track work ....

Thanks for the offer Sorry I haven't responded sooner. I had some 10-24 cap screws and so same as set screws already threaded for in sprocket so I flattened 2 areas on metal shaft and am happy to say that won't be an issue again.

$oo

In addition to purchasing a new MTH Santa Fe set, I did this:

I finished 77 Sunset Strip and Dino's Lodge (the restaurant next door with the carport where Kookie worked)and put figures and all on it, as always.    I went to take pictures of it. My #%$!!*&$% super-techno Sony digital camera died . . . something serious - some sort of mechanical jam inside.  My intuition tells me not to get it repaired, so I'll get another tomorrow. Until then, no pictures.

I test ran a new FP45 (Williams).  Next, I will wire the motors in series with a single thermistor.

I visited my layout today!  I currently live in an apartment while I stash some mullah for my own basement.  In the mean time my parent’s graciously allow me to share some of their basement with my dad’s American flyer layout. While I was there I was able to run some trains (dropped off a hopper of sand at the glass works) and I also masked off a building for painting that I’ve been working on for a while.  Next time I go over there I’m going to have a paint fest as there is no practical place here to spray.  I’ve got a few kits stashed away that I need to prime prior to painting and assembling here.  Tinkering around with things is my way of staying involved in the hobby at the moment.   I was planning on doing some scenery on the layout this summer, but with work, family, and not having much time with the layout it hasn’t materialized. I think instead I’m going to build a small diorama here at the apartment to practice some scenery and also to help visualize how the things I’m building will look when installed.  Well that’s about it folks.  Great work on here!  I posted long ago when this thread was started and then hit a slump.  It’s amazing to see all the progress and the thousands of replies.  What a cool idea for a thread!

Ran some trains and purchased some o scale life boats for my car ferry

Thank you

 I removed shaft and sproket from electric drill used to lift my mth hellgate bridge and grind 2 flat spots and secure the sproket with some cap screws lets see it loosen up now on the way up.  

this is how I gain access to my layout always a pain when I have to duck under it.

$oo

Took a break from my layout this morning and sat with my 3 year old son playing with his Thomas Wooden Railroad set.   We had a blast!

I got a little more painting done on Wednesday. So when Patrick came over today, we took the sky to its logical conclusion.



Nothing like a smooth, seamless, curved backdrop to set the stage.



We added another 8' of plywood, bringing the total to 32' on the upper deck. Then it was all covered with the fiberboard. This will probably be one of the last areas that will get track. Now that the construction is fairly complete, materials can be stored there.



We  roughed in all the electric for the upper level lights.



Below is what I have named "the missing link". It is about a 2' gap in the roadbed that connects the helix to the newly completed upper deck.



Let's see how many more lights I can get done before Wednesday when Patrick returns.

Removed one side of my round the room layout, and changed that side to a double dog bone shape layout, so I do not have to use aduck under anymore.

Absolutely nothing. For the last two days a crew has been working on the big mesquite trees next to the workshop, and I was not about to try to work in the shop with chain saws running every few minutes. Maybe tomorrow - it's Sunday and they have the day off. They'll be back Monday, they still have one tree to go. 

Didn't do anything on the layout, but I did run my two new K-Line and Lionel Legacy Shays (both West Side Lumber, but with different cab numbers).  Had a dickens of a time programming them to run with my DCS controller, but was finally successful after trying everything I could think of.  Love the running gear action on those locomotives, as well as the whistles.  The Legacy version is tops in the sounds department, of course, but the K-Line TMCC version sure isn't too shabby.

Right now I am working on beach work.The lay out is gonna be light so if I ever move again.I won,t have a hard time.Well gonna go back to work.My black and decker saw is calling me.

I'm down in the train room right now. Got the baseball game on, and am steadily poking away at cleaning up and adding more lights. I also cleaned some old track that I picked up a couple months ago. Now that I have good light, I have temporarily turned one section of the layout into my workbench. I wish I had a bar stool.

The 1st photo is yesterday before I started.  And the rest are photos of my paint work.

Went to a local hobby shop looking for some paints and ended up picking up an Atlas SW1000 in NP livery that didn't have much wear at all, not run a lot.

The box even had the TMCC controller overlay!

And all for less than 1/2 the retail price on the box.

Runs great.  A good day for our railroad.

This is me working on the layout today.

I had bought a cake decorating form for bricks at the local Wallmart for a couple dollars. When to the basement for plaster, spackling, or something of the sort. No more plaster and all the old spackle dried in its containers. But what I did find was wood filler putty. Worth a try, "it might be fun"(Hey Lee).

I spread it out thin(with a small masons trowel ), on a piece of old paneling and plopped the WD40 covered form down three times to create a wall for loco shop built into a hillside.. Or is it a tunnel?, Or both?, ...then it rinsed quickly and lightly to remove the excess oils and dried the surface with a hair drier, then waited for a full cure.  Any how it doesn't look too bad so far. I like the imperfections. If doesn't crack badly while I sleep, I'll paint grey tomorrow, reds, browns and yellows in a day or so.

I'll post some pics after I add a little color and test fit it again.(It is removable for access to the tunnel/shop, it also has parallel track directly overhead on top of the hill...you'll see soon.)

Today early, I reshot photos of the Lionel kitbashed #561 to post, and then mulled over doing an early MTH 4-6-0 or 2-60 with same treatment...could not quickly find the 2-6-0, so decided to take a break from the hassle of painting the #561, and build a structure on my to-do list, a firehouse based on those with hose drying towers in Georgetown, Colorado. With a couple of Matchbox period fire engines to house, a 1924 Stutz and a 1935 Mack, I decided to freelance one.  So am building a main structure

with the tower, and an add-on lean-to for the older engine, as though the local

volunteers decided to keep it in service.

Now that I decided WHAT to do, things went fast today....the firehouse is painted and will soon get windows and doors installed...but I haven't figured out how (with what....no interesting shingles handy, and I've used a lot of "tin" roofing, so would like a variety) to roof the main  builiding nor attached shed, nor have I begun the hose tower or the bell cupola.  I also spent time on the net studying photos of frontier firehouses with hose towers (cramming for my firehouse exam...when I finally throw a

picture up on here, you can tell me if I passed)

Place LED's in locos and some passenger cars!

I finished the fascia around the outside of my layout. Only took 4 years from start to finish. After 4 years Walmart stopped carrying the spray paint that I used on the fascia 4 years ago.

Still have to add a shirt around the layout.

The fire house, itself, went really quickly, but details, not so fast.  Even got it roofed

with Clever Models shingles that I found.  However, I don't care for these and to get

a three dimensional effect, I cut out strip by strip and over laid them, then oversprayed lightly another color to change the effect.  Not bad.  I have the bell cupola done, painted, bell installed, and now the rope is hung.  This took as long as the building.  Cupola should get installed tomorrow.  I have begun the hose drying tower, and am installing windows in the sides.  The platform on the top looks like a slow detail job like the bell cupola.

My Stepdad came by the other day and saw my table frame waiting on me to cover it with wood. He said he had a few 4x8 sheets of plywood. "what size are you looking for?", he asked...."enough to cover 8'x56" at 3/8"-1/2" thick"..."Ill check the thickness and if its thick enough Ill bring it soon" Today he shows up with a perfect hand laminated/homemade sheet of plywood to the exact dimensions. It was to thin so he hand glued pieces, offset, to produce one solid oversized piece, from scraps. What a guy.   Oh the shelf... I painted the cake form pressed onto latex wood putty spread onto Masonite, brick wall. Greys for mortar, three reds for bricks, and an orange repaired section, smearing, sponging, and dry brushing. one green wash, one black, one brown, dark black runny wash from the top bricks down some mortar grooves. Some dull coat to come, some will stay gloss for sealed look. Then gloss dips for wetness again. More impressionist than proto, but that's what I like. Not a bad start.  

Well I don't have a layout, but I ran some trains.