What did you do on your layout today?

@Dave Ripp. posted:

Very nice boxcar and your weathering looks great.

Thanks Dave!

I just finished another new bridge type. It is a cable bridge. It is dual track and is 8' long and about 2' tall and lots of cables. I modeled this bridge after the William Natcher Bridge which near Owensboro, Ky on US231 Highway and it crosses the Ohio River.

idea-thinker

Idea-thinker, your bridges are great; all one of a kind!

After my winter chores, I got my backdrop panels installed and put some white “haze” on the horizons.  I will give it a day or two & then touch them up or leave as-is.  Also bought some lumber and painted the leg 2x4’s black. Kinda surprising to see how much the lumber twisted after bringing it home & indoors, oh well.  My windows will be covered with blue curtains, which just arrived - to be installed shortly.  
   Kind of a pain to work around all the trains but at least they’re on roll-around carts. This is getting interesting !

Rich in WV

Looks like a good start, Rich!

Haven't posted much here lately cause I haven't done anything on the layout lately.

Well with Christmas here, I'm working on changing that. I swapped out engines and rolling stock this afternoon. Small layouts don't allow for endless collections of cars and engines to just live on a siding.
I have been running some Penn Central equipment lately as has been documented on other threads. I have a New York Central engine on the way and figured NYC/ PC would go well together. Lot's of black diesels around the layout all the sudden.

Bob

@trestleking posted:

After my winter chores, I got my backdrop panels installed and put some white “haze” on the horizons.  I will give it a day or two & then touch them up or leave as-is.  Also bought some lumber and painted the leg 2x4’s black. Kinda surprising to see how much the lumber twisted after bringing it home & indoors, oh well.  My windows will be covered with blue curtains, which just arrived - to be installed shortly.  
   Kind of a pain to work around all the trains but at least they’re on roll-around carts. This is getting interesting !

Rich in WV

It's a marathon, not a sprint Rich. The backdrops look good.
Lumber ain't what it used to be.......

Bob

Its not so much what I did as what my grandson did - he ran trains on the layout!  Funny, the MTH Z4000 is so much better for running under transformer control as he was changing the throttle to get the engines to run together on different sized loops. rather fun to watch. Maybe I'll have to put homasote under the track. Not too noisy in person but noisy on the video.  Both engines are older Atlas engines obtained at an attractive price. One was "free" due to shipping damage : )   

Started on my junk yard today but not much progress.  Getting  the buildings  to fit the area is a challenge . So I posted some scens of my hydo **** from a different angle.trains are so much fun especially  when others enjoy them also.

@ScoutingDad, Wow, your grandson is really taking it in, watching those beautiful freight trains running so smoothly on your Twin Pines empire. Our grand kids add to the hobby very much. Today, I placed my recent purchase, Grandpas Workshop by Lionel, in a safe place so folks can listen to the sound trac. Merry Christmas Everyone

@leapinlarry posted:

@ScoutingDad, Wow, your grandson is really taking it in, watching those beautiful freight trains running so smoothly on your Twin Pines empire. Our grand kids add to the hobby very much. Today, I placed my recent purchase, Grandpas Workshop by Lionel, in a safe place so folks can listen to the sound trac. Merry Christmas Everyone q

Perfect spot for the building Larry. Looks great.

Bob

@RSJB18 , Bob, thank you for the kind words, I actually replaced an Atlas O station kit from that area, folks kept knocking the roof off when turning the corner, this little workshop sits lower which should solve the problem.  Merry Christmas Everyone

Ran the Black Bonnet and got rid of a black widow on the Atlas bridge

Merry Christmas everyone!

MTH Lift bridge video

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate. Enjoy time with family and friends.

Andy

Aubv, I really like the bridges. Looks great.

I rebuilt my passenger platform. It now is much closer to the height of the car doors. The step stool needed to enter the car is now about 3 feet instead of 12.

I also added scale light posts and a sidewalk leading up to the passenger platform.

@romiller49 posted:

Aubv, I really like the bridges. Looks great.

Thank you. What you may not realize, the lift section of both bridges includes part of a curved track…

the owner is very happy with the ease of use.

A couple trips back to the bench today for the RS27. One of the trucks bound up (debris in the idler gears), I guess I need to clean off my bench. Freshened up the grease on the worm drive too.
Then I realized that I hadn't put the traction tires on....
While I had it open I decided to add a conductor on the other side of the cab. The engineer was getting lonely. I used a Lionel figure from their old F3's. Looks better than the blank plastic shield over the motor.
Then I had to fiddle around with the wires to get it back together.

Bob

Bob, it’s always something!!

@RSJB18 posted:

A couple trips back to the bench today for the RS27. One of the trucks bound up (debris in the idler gears), I guess I need to clean off my bench. Freshened up the grease on the worm drive too.
Then I realized that I hadn't put the traction tires on....
While I had it open I decided to add a conductor on the other side of the cab. The engineer was getting lonely. I used a Lionel figure from their old F3's. Looks better than the blank plastic shield over the motor.
Then I had to fiddle around with the wires to get it back together.

Bob

A bit of a hassle, but it looks good. Just hope for many hours of uneventful run time.

Gene

Anyone else notice that we are on page 1224......

You have a well trained 👁️ Bob. I hadn’t noticed that we were that far into the Christmas season.

@RSJB18 posted:

Anyone else notice that we are on page 1224......

I thought of mentioning it on the 24th, wondering if we could post enough to make it to 1225 by the 25th.  I didn’t because we would be posting off topic stuff to do it!  

I mentioned this on my Blackwater Canyon Line topic yesterday.  My wife’s brother from Los Angeles was visiting right before Christmas.  I ran my passenger train on the layout.  He was impressed with the layout.  I will say I don’t believe he had ever seen any of my layouts before.  Qualifier; He is a man who makes a living talking, but doesn’t have any mechanical, electrical, carpentry, etc skills at all.  I think he would be impressed with the simplest of any of my or any forum members layouts.

@RSJB18 posted:

A couple trips back to the bench today for the RS27.

Gotta keep busy Bob.     The extra figure looks good.   Having someone in the cab for companionship would be good for those long stretches. .......

(  .........just as long as they aren't distracted by those cows on the track ....YIKES .... #@%#×   )

Not going to make it.  I promised myself I would get this layout done this year, but alas, it’s going to take longer.  Right now, I’m redoing all the cinders  in my service area.  Area keeps cracking and going goofy.  No other area does that.  Strange.  Also contemplating getting a 32” Millhouse River turntable to replace the Bowser.  Time will tell.

Last night culminated running my new trains I got for myself for Christmas.  I made some videos as well.  Over the past few days, I decided I was suffering from a bit of laziness and decided to pretty much take all the cars off the tracks that I had been running and replace them with cars that I had not been running.  So when I put 4 new engines on, I looked at my rolling stock and decided to run cars that had not been on the track in a while.  This was actually pretty fun.  

For some reason one of the new engines did not get found on the DCS wi-fi so it sat idle but the other three ran great

I took 11 videos, the first few are below and the rest are on my channel and will be uploaded today.

@RIRocket posted:

Right now, I’m redoing all the cinders  in my service area.  Area keeps cracking and going goofy.  No other area does that.  Strange.

Interesting -- I had much the same happen to the cinders I used to border some of the tar paper 'roads' on my layout:

[Please ignore the watchtower in the road -- I'd moved it to that location for a pic, but it's the only closeup I have at hand of the cinders on the road edge]

My current diagnosis is that the watered white glue I sprayed on did not have enough wetting agent (IPA, in this case) to allow the glue mix to fully penetrate the cinders, resulting in a relatively fragile crust forming that will crack and break into chunks on the least provocation. Haven't yet attempted a fix, but my current plan is to break up the clumps, and respray with more watered white glue, with a higher percentage of IPA and perhaps some detergent as well. The problem that's giving me pause is that this is directly over paper-backed grass matting, so too much moisture and the paper backing starts to corrugate! Let us all know if you find a better fix, please . . .

@Steve Tyler posted:

Interesting -- I had much the same happen to the cinders I used to border some of the tar paper 'roads' on my layout:

[Please ignore the watchtower in the road -- I'd moved it to that location for a pic, but it's the only closeup I have at hand of the cinders on the road edge]

My current diagnosis is that the watered white glue I sprayed on did not have enough wetting agent (IPA, in this case) to allow the glue mix to fully penetrate the cinders, resulting in a relatively fragile crust forming that will crack and break into chunks on the least provocation. Haven't yet attempted a fix, but my current plan is to break up the clumps, and respray with more watered white glue, with a higher percentage of IPA and perhaps some detergent as well. The problem that's giving me pause is that this is directly over paper-backed grass matting, so too much moisture and the paper backing starts to corrugate! Let us all know if you find a better fix, please . . .

That’s what I thought; also that I made them too thick.  Then, in one area, I think I may have used too much wetting agent!  I’m going to keep trying—eventually, I’ll get it right!

Lesson learned today:  A freshly matted train board attracts two things: 

1) Junk. 

2) Kitteh.

Correlation vs. causation is left as an exercise for the viewer. 

Nonetheless, it is my intent to see in the New Year with at least ONE train running, even if it's temporary trackage... 

Mitch 

@RIRocket posted:

That’s what I thought; also that I made them too thick.  Then, in one area, I think I may have used too much wetting agent!  I’m going to keep trying—eventually, I’ll get it right!

@Steve Tyler posted:

Interesting -- I had much the same happen to the cinders I used to border some of the tar paper 'roads' on my layout:

[Please ignore the watchtower in the road -- I'd moved it to that location for a pic, but it's the only closeup I have at hand of the cinders on the road edge]

My current diagnosis is that the watered white glue I sprayed on did not have enough wetting agent (IPA, in this case) to allow the glue mix to fully penetrate the cinders, resulting in a relatively fragile crust forming that will crack and break into chunks on the least provocation. Haven't yet attempted a fix, but my current plan is to break up the clumps, and respray with more watered white glue, with a higher percentage of IPA and perhaps some detergent as well. The problem that's giving me pause is that this is directly over paper-backed grass matting, so too much moisture and the paper backing starts to corrugate! Let us all know if you find a better fix, please . . .

I've found its best to do two applications of glue mix instead of one heavy one. I use dish detergent in mine. Works fine.

Bob

@RSJB18 posted:

I've found its best to do two applications of glue mix instead of one heavy one. I use dish detergent in mine. Works fine.

The irony was that I'd had very good results ballasting with the same technique, but the DIY material I used  around the track was coarser than the commercial 'cinders' I used at the edges of the 'roads'. When I get around to it, I'll add detergent and up the IPA, and see if that binds it better.

Assembled an initial 4 x 8 section of benchwork and test-fitted the lower level turnaround loop.

Wow everyone’s been busy! I’ve been busy with the holidays so haven’t had much train time. I did get a MTH Mike Wolf Big Boy only to find out it hits the wall on the new track plan. So back to the drawing board and testing out fitting in an elevated loop of 072. Liking how it’s fitting. Gonna 3D print custom piers for it.

@trestleking posted:

Assembled an initial 4 x 8 section of benchwork and test-fitted the lower level turnaround loop.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single sheet of plywood.

Congrats on the first step - it's the hardest.

@trestleking posted:

Assembled an initial 4 x 8 section of benchwork and test-fitted the lower level turnaround loop.

Love your step stool.

Here's the preliminary track layout for the Razorback Railroad, Traction and Scrapple Company! 

As I mentioned at the outset, this was planned as a test track with delusions of grandeur: 

From the outside in: 

1. O-42 oval

2. 40" American Flyer

3: O-31 oval (for prewar testing)

4: Inside O-27 whatchamacallit for bump and go trolley testing. 

As I say, I plan to have the outside oval semi-operational by New Year's.   

Onwards and upwards! 

Mitch

Have this spot that for some reason an Atlas caboose catches on the bump between straight and O72. Found a bump on the center rail of  the O72, and a dip in the 36" straight. Replaced the straight, hammered down the bump, and the stupid thing still shorts. Tried to find the short on the caboose. Took caboose apart to see if I could flip the trucks. Not easily done. Solved by just flipping the caboose around, but not the red light blinks in the front.