What did you do on your layout today?

Did a little switching on a simpler track configuration on my 4x8.  Much easier on my nerves than the previous complication.  Simple plan for a simple guy.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the view of the whole layout in early stages.

 

 

Went to a small train and toy show at the Roxana Delaware Fire Department yesterday.  Only $4.00 admission and it supports the Fire Department.  The show is being put on by the Delaware Seaside Railroad Club.  Nice little drive and it's close to Fishers Popcorn.  I found two MTH Premier train cars.  One UP 50' single door boxcar and a SP 40' Reefer.  Also picked up a O-scale size Jeep Liberty and a close to O-scale Jaguar.  $40 for both train cars, $3 for the Jeep and $2 for the Jag.  Also found a n-scale building for $2.  You never know what you can find at these little shows.

I'm not gonna push myself this time. I got all four lines running, hooked up two street lamps, and said "that's enough". And you have no clue how hard it is for me to do that. Normally I like to complete things this close to done. I still need to run a constant power and 2-#90s to a culvert unloader, flagmans shack, railcar post office, and a semaphore.     

 

 

Here is tank car 600 now completed.

I only have an AMS coach left to turn into Linville River # 4, and then I'll be officially over with the rolling stock...

That is, until someone makes an ET&WNC hopper in O scale.

Thanks, Larry.  I like mountain music, and I think those figures are just a hoot.  The musicians are WD2743 "Jug Band".

 

The dancing couple are CG0032 "Kissing Girl" and CG0306 "Mr. McFlea Dancing a Jig".

 

The reclining chap with the jug is CG0305 "Cousin Clem with Corn Squeezin'".  The guy beside him is just one of the cheap eBay figures from Hong Kong.

Pulling wire, mounting toggles, should of gone battery/RC.   Pulling wire, mounting toggles, should of gone battery R/C.  Pulling wire...............

Repaired the cupola to Ivor's shed. It's cardstock and occasionally comes unglued. Shimmed a 027 curve that occasionally derails Ivor. We'll see if that works consistently...

Sometimes simple is the most fun. That is what model railroading should be, fun and relaxation, not work. You have a nice layout.

Thank you, Randy!  It's a start.  It gives me a place to run trains until our last daughter moves out.

Tonight, I'm going to make up some 'employee passes' for my layout for the first op session. I can only have 2-3 people running trains in there at the most anyway.

I'm also currently putting together a operator's guide that'll look like an employee timetable with info on running the layout as well as the origins of the concept and dates the work got done.

Just something I've always wanted to do if I had a layout...

Forgot to charge the controller, gotta wait now....forgot to charge the battery, gotta wait now. Didn't drain and recharge properly gotta by another battery pack. Had a short that toasted the battery and wires gotta buy a battery plus......

 

The grass in always greener, your problems always meaner

 Be glad its not a big boat

Both work great.

If your in the garden...well batteries are underrated there for sure.

 But eventually you almost always have to run wires for lighting, and accessories inside anyhow

 

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I ran my trains after sorting through some family photos that included some surprise snapshots of my Grandpa's PW layout with only one loop, The "track try outs"-Three or four brands to determine final purchase(GarGraves), The Christmas General, photos of the gunfighter car I gave back to him many years after it was given (It completed a General set[really Grandmas]) I did get it back when he passed, and pull it regularly but with double headed chrome RI&P Generals. I chose RI&P for the "R.I.P" and over the PW just to avoid squabbles. It didn't work Grandma got p!$$ed oƒƒ and sold the rest. But my sister still has that General set.... I think. Hard to say really, she tends to give everything to the church.  

Today was a short work session. I managed to close in one open spot behind the bridge. I kept the area on the small side because this table will have the town and a road from town will go by here to cross the lower mainlines. A couple of pics of the work so far........................Paul 

I started swapping out the window, getting rid of the mayhem for a more idyllic, pastoral display! Also I can get to run my new Canadian Pacific passenger cars.

 

I finished that last night and printed out the pages to make the copies of. I have it in PDF format but you can't post that here, so there's no way to show anyone what it look like... YET.

Hi Everybody--  Well, I'll probably get Mark Boyce all excited because I'm finally getting some track on my plywood.  I am just throwing some sections on the tables to see what fits and what doesn't.  Looks like I can get in an 072 loop.  I want a second loop inside the first.  Will 072 fit ?  Don't think so.  Might have to use 054 curves and some half straights to parallel the outer loop.  What was going to be the Engine Terminal is now the Trolley Yard.  Suzie's idea.  Good idea too.

On the attached sketch (very quick and crude)), an 027 loop will run around in a half circle at the end of the module because the trolleys can negotiate the sharp radius.

Yard tracks for trolleys will be inside the turn-around loop.

Dotted line to the right side of the big island will start the climb to the 2nd level.

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Decisions, decisions...

 

The cork roadbed will be held down by a small bead of clear silicon.  Black roundhead screws:  # 4 x 3/4" will fasten track to cork.  Advantages:  No fumes from contact cement or other, including Super 77 Adhesive.  My buddy at Ace Hardware said to go the clear silicon route !  Anyway-- more tomorrow..  Bye!

 

KRK

Yay, Ken is getting some track on his plywood!!  

Your drawing is better than mine.  I don't have one.  Thanks for sharing.

 

I'm glad to read you are at that point!  I did the same thing with my 4x8.  I started with a plan, but it was too complicated for such a small space, and such a slow operator as myself, so I took it up and now have a simpler plan.  I didn't fasten any track down yet.  Kind of trying things out, track and buildings.

Hooray for trolleys! 

 

In related trolley news, one of mine is now off the Dlsabled List after several years: 

 

This particular car ran for ten hours a day, five days a week, for a month or so, for three consecutive years around the company Christmas tree, logging the equivalent of roughly 528 scale miles every day...so it's not surprising the can motor eventually grenaded!  Apart from that, it went through one pickup assembly, but that was about it.   Anyhoo, recently picked up a donor chassis on eBay (apparently, the green "Happy Holidays" shell is rather fragile; this is the second case I've heard of where it shattered when dropped) and now #209 is back in action! 

 

Mitch

Not me, but Elizabeth was busy on the layout yesterday and today. We decided to add an additional 200 elves, so she had paint brushes in hand adding her special touch.

 

This should be some sight when they are added to the other elves in our Center of the North Pole.

I finished the ‘timetables’ for the layout today, though they really have more operating instructions than anything else: 

The backs have a bunch of patriotic slogans as you’d find in any document from the mid-WW2 era.

Building a slide out control panel with Dallee and DCS power feeding multiple 50-1020 PDBs .

Sounds fabulous, Brian.  Can't wait to see the finished product.

 

Art

Horray for trolleys is right! I love 'em, esp. having grown-up in the Pittsburgh of the 40's and 50's. I'd have had more trolley lines on the layout but opted to spend the available space on ten individual, closed train loops instead.

The one I have in this part of the township is an excellent model of a trolley my grandfather motored around the McKeesport, PA area when I was a boy. I can still remember, being a passenger, touching the metal bars across the bottoms of the windows.

FrankM.

Moon Township

I received my TIU back from MTH warranty repair last evening.  Here is a little video showing it controlling my new to me Premier B&O Atlantic.  I am sorry the video isn't the best, I took it with my iPad.  I purchased the Atlantic a couple weeks ago from a local Forum member.  The TIU and the Atlantic run great!!  

Today I got the second bridge abutment closed in. This is the bigger table so I went longer and higher. Tomorrow, hopefully, I will plaster both. Some pics of the second .....Paul

Trolleys rock !! I remember them well in Pgh. Riding home from work the swaying would put me to sleep. Saving room for a trolley line on my layout.

 

 

I made a stack of these last night:

 

Yeah, I know in this internet era, model RR passes are, pardon the pun, passé, but it's something I always wanted to do once I had a real layout.

As small as my layout is, these will go to anyone who does an op session there. That number will be really low, so it'd be easy to keep up. Each one will be stamped with a 1930s number stamp, and the name will be typed on a 1938 Underwood typewriter.

Pass #s 1 and 2 will go to my parents as the layout is really to honor them and all they did for me as a train fan growing up. The layout takes place in the valley they both grew up in, in a timeframe when they would have been 6 or 7...

Here is the embedded video of my repaired DCS controlling my new to me Premier B&O Atlantic from yesterday's post.  Corry (Goshawk) showed me how easy it is to embed on another topic.  Yes, I realize the drive rods need lubed.  I just got the engine and the TIU and wanted to try them out.  I'll not run it again until it gets a pub job?

 

 

That's pretty cool Lee.

 

Larry

Thanks!

I know that swapping of passes used to be a big thing within the hobby. I read about it all the time in MR and the Walther's catalogs used to mention it as well if memory serves. That would have been in the 80s at the latest, I think.

I'm not sure when it stopped being a thing, because pass swapping seems to have stopped being a thing long before the internet.

I look at it this way, my layout is pretty small and if you get invited to run on it, I'll have already known you as I'm not big on random strangers coming over (my layout will never be on a tour for a local NMRA convention), so I can focus on stuff like this with minimal effort. I have made 40 of these passes (half of them are totally b/w on grey card) and it'll probably take a long time to go through them.

Heck, I haven't had my first op session yet. I was going to have it on this Sunday, but the two guys I invited kept changing the times they were available that day, so much so I got tired of changing the times and said to just forget it. What I'm going to do is announce to them the date and time and if they can't make it, I'll invite one of the guys who's already invited me to op sessions on their layouts already.

Day worked out well. Got the plaster wrap on. Tomorrow I'll get some plaster on. Couple of pics. Two with the overhead light on and two with the light off..............Paul

here's a short video of trains runnin

 

 

 

 

 

Very nice, jhainer!  The proof of the pudding.  I like your ballast and scenery in some photos.  Great job, and thanks for posting!

slowly working on it theres another video that I can't seem to post for some reason but can play it on you tube but can't embed it. its 2 up's running around the main level. here's the link to it I even make a small appearance in it . thank you I am still learning

 

 

https://youtu.be/8_HR-1VsfKA 

Visited Grandpa's Wine Cellar Trains for the first time in nearly 18 months.  This is my dad's layout.  He wanted me to make a video of his giraffe train for Mitch.

I did a little again tonight getting over a cold so I have been a little slow. but wired up a signal. video is in another post about signals. and then I painted my first flatcar. picked up a 1/43rd scale car for 2.00 at dollar general car looks a little off but size is about right probably would work as a filler car in a parking lot they had some others but just picked up one just in case it looked real stupid. also painted a linex tank. white plan is to put some ladders on it and try my hand at making a Sunoco decal on decal paper. Also picked up a new bridge should be here in a week or so.

 

Ah, yes, as P51 has put it mentioning his tank cars, "representational".   I have several

publications on the Great Western RR, whose #60 I am kitbashing out of a Lionel  0-8-0, but none of the photos of #60 in any of them, operating or in storage between

"beet campaigns", show good shots of certain details, such as the long round tank that

is horizontally mounted across the top of the pilot plate under the overhanging smokebox.  I wonder where the real #60 is now...I think it survives...I have made

a tank, but the ends and piping are not clear in any photo I have.

guess I wasn't finished for the night the meds they have me on for this cold is keeping me awake. so I printed out the decals and glued up a ladder and mounted them to the side of a linex tank that I painted white. here's the results.

 

The speaker in the Giraffe-G-1 developed laryngitis last weekend, so I installed a fresh replacement from Radio Shack: 

 

Note also the resonator I added, cut from the base of a disposable drinking cup.  Makes the "G" that much throatier... 

 

If you have a Lionel 71 lamppost or the like where the ground wire on the base has come off, simply run a ground wire to the spring, thusly:

 

I'll add a shade for this to my next order from Jeff Kane, and it'll be ready for service again!

 

Remember, SCROUNGE! 

 

Mitch

Hum!  I've got one of those P-51s knocking about my desk doing nothing, a stack of stripwood and a surfeit of Lionel flats also doing nothing!   I think I've found a new project! 

 

Mitch