What did you do on your layout today?

Hello everyone. Well today O did some more painting of the breezeway ceiling which has the 1st coat .  I also cleaned the garage up wear there is no more junk piled up on the tracks. Well its been just over a month since I started and I know it will take some more time . One thing I am wondering about is painting the floor in the breezeway. How many of you have used  Rust-Oleum  Epoxy Shield paint for this purpose ?

Moving 1936, Electrical cables.

     My house was built in 1936, moving the cables from the 1936 fuse box, in the kitchen to the Electrical Panel in the Train Room. Also removing wall paper.

Gary • Cheers from The Detroit & Mackinac Railway

  * Click on each photo to enlarge......

This triple track curve needs to be finished so that the next time Patrick comes over, we can put on the Roseville deck. I painted the track the other day.

Today is ballast day, the first of many!

My weapon of choice, a simple 4" paint brush. I've had this brush for 40 years. Not only is the bristle end good for spreading and placing the ballast, but the handle is perfect for shaping the "ditch" profile.

It seems that whenever the subject of ballasting comes up, Dewey Trogdon suggests the use of the squeeze bottle. He uses cheap ketchup and mustard sets. I happened to have a couple of clear ones in my never ending junk pile. I've tried spray bottles and even a turkey baster. I like the squeeze bottle method. The glue goes right where you want it. Thanks Dewey.

The 2' test section. I still have to spread a little more ballast, but I wanted to see how this was going to turn out.

I may have to thin the mix a little, I did about 1/3 glue, and it had the thickness of maple syrup, not milk.

Joe Wednesday, Matt next Sunday, still working on a day for Patrick, and Jon MIA. I'll just keep chuggin along.

Wow!  Eliot it is exciting to see ballast going down.  It looks great!

Art

Been tackling a bunch of minor jobs now that all electrical and insulating is finished, fingers crossed.  The final electrical check passed with flying colors. at least I haven't smelled anything burning yet.  I'm happy to report that temperatures upstairs during these past few sweltering days are now better than tolerable, although A/C will definitely be needed above 90F. 

Firing up this tube tuner/amp was a diversion from the mundane task of room construction.  It once powered one of those aircraft carrier sized '60's consoles, soon to be a built in trainroom feature. 

Electrohome no longer exists but this one still delivers crisp clean sound and deep bass when mated to decent speakers.  An example of what manufacturers did by pulling out all the stops on tube tech right before the move to solid state.  Also doubles as a space heater.

  Bruce

Bruce,

Its even older than mine!  Yes, it will make a nice heater for the winter!

Thanks Art, it is exciting. My mind keeps projecting the ballast around the upper deck. I just have to carve the profile along the mains first. <sigh> I've got too many irons in the fire.

Had visitors over yesterday afternoon, one of which was a big HO train guy.  Ran a few trains and talked about the layout.  Everything ran perfectly for a change.

Then went out to eat at the Bull Moose restaurant, my favorite train theme place to eat locally.  After a great meal, I jokingly complained to the server that we had not seen any real trains while we were here and before I had finished my sentence, the Amtrak Illinois Zephyr blasted by.  Then on the way back to my house we drove past a section of the BNSF mainline and didn't see any trains. 

So I went the back way and as we approached the last RR crossing before we got home, the crossing signals came on and we were first in line to watch a 100 plus car silica sand unit train pass us.  Their were two BNSF engines on the front and two more pushing on the rear.  after it passed, we hurried home and went the crossing in our subdivision and saw it pass again and everyone took videos of it going by.

A great train day!

Art

Elliot; the ballasted section looks good. I remember a previous photo you posted of bags of ballast. Couldn't find it. Where did you get the ballast?

I would like to know that too.  I have a lot of it coming up as well.  Not nearly as much as you do, but a lot for me.

Art

It is supposed to be very hot for the next two days, so I need to spend some time in the cool basement working on the layout.  And I must wash the car today so it's clean for layout tours tomorrow.

Plan to paint more already installed track and switches.  Must remember to cover the return air ducts from the basement into the air conditioner so I don't drive us out of the house this time. 

Art

Elliot, what size dump truck (1to1) hauled in your ballast material. Must be a huge pile in the driveway.   Photos please.

Technically, I'm not supposed to divulge my source for the ballast. My guy at the quarry swore me to secrecy.

This is a product known as head lap or roofing granules, and normally they don't sell it to the public, it goes directly to the shingle manufacturers. I was able to sweet talk my way into getting a good sized stash by contributing to their coffee fund.

What you are looking at is 17, 50 pound "sample" bags. The eighteenth is in a 5 gallon bucket that I'm working from. It took me 3 trips to get the nearly half ton.

This quarry also produces ballast for the railroads, so it is hard to get more prototypical than that.

Great find Elliot! Very smart solution for a HUGE NEED.

I took time out working on the station to actually run trains for a few minutes I hadn't been up there in about a month so it was time. here is the results of that session

I did a total of 7 or 8 small videos not going to post them all here.

Elliot - I have been secretly thinking that I wanted to get a pickup truck.  This could be another reason I need one. 

Great solution and thanks for sharing.

Art

This afternoon I applied plaster to the bare plywood between the tracks to the station.  Once that dries I can color it and then lay down ballast on the sidings to the station. I started  adding ground foam to the cliff I have near the bridge. Shortly I will be adding some trees and shrubs to that cliff...............Paul

Yeah Art, I've been driving a pick up as a second vehicle for over 20 years. They are very handy especially for those Menards runs to grab layout materials. However, the last couple years, my orders have been so large I've just had them deliver those.

The delivery guy has been working at my local store since I built the house 15 years ago, and remembers me from back then. Now that he has been bringing layout stuff, I always invite him in to check out the progress. He likes delivering here.

I've known about using roofing granules for ballast since the late 80's. The Twin Cities Model Railroad Museum (2 rail club) used them. My problem was I didn't have access to their source. It was actually one of the many ballast topics here on the forum a couple years ago, when someone used the magic word "quarry", that I put 2 and 2 together.

JACKPOT!!!

Elliot; thank you for your response.

Check with your local quarry.  Not every plant makes roofing granules, but you may get lucky and have the plant close by.

Eliot great progress. It really looks good. 900 pounds of ballast.. Wow!

If anyone needs a source of free sand, we are at Hatteras and found plenty this AM while clamming (got two 5 gallon buckets of clams). The sand comes with clam, oyster, and scallop, shells and traces of mud that can be washed out if desired.

Now we are getting ready to restart construction on the yacht sales office and will use the sand as basic material for the road in Wanchese/Manteo where the sales office will be located. The shells will be crushed as a base and the mud will remain so that the look is authentic.

About half of the interior is complete and as soon as that is done, we will attach the roof, etc. Weathering will be minimal (have to do the roof... you can't hide from the seagulls) because this part of town is an historic area and is well maintained.

Here's my station as it sits right now on the table. Hope you like it. the compound angles in the corners are proving to be tough but I think once shingles are on you won't notice it.

Why doesn't someone offer to clean a roofers truck bed for them.

Please take a camera, I want to see their face as you ask.

Kept working on my baseball field....got light towers installed and wired, chain link fence made and installed, grass beyond outfield fence put in.  Starting planning next few steps...scoreboard, dugouts, backstop.  Will start on those in next couple of days.

I finally just "TOOK" time to finish trimming and leveling 3 walls of shelves, now I need to shave the edge of one and then paint it all, after that, tomorrow or the next time I get on it, I can screw it off and start tackling the bridge section, it feels good to finally get close on part of it, I even test curved some track on the outside corner, looks like it will be 054 and 048 if my samples are correct.

Bryan, the baseball field is looking real good. The pics make it look like the real thing. I can smell the hotdogs...............Paul

This morning I got the yard work out of the way before it got humid. With the plaster down from yesterday I applied the first coat of earth color. Later today I will put on the second coat. Pics of the progress working my way to the back of the station area...........Paul

Got the scoreboard and foul poles put in

that is way cool

Visited another very cool layout in the area this morning with friends and family.  Great day!

Art

Bryan this looks really good. Don't see any Dodger blue but Ohio is a long way from LA.

Please keep posting.

I am both a baseball fan and train fan. Your field looks GREAT!!!!

Covering up all that pink stuff is now in full swing.  With the hip walls all paneled and almost completely primed, the job at hand is installing the thin 4' X 8' sheets of hardboard. 

Down at this end you pretty much get the full effect of curving the hardboard in corners.  This will help keep the layout background somewhat seamless.  Adjoining sheets overlap each other for added support.

The cedar lumber that overlaps and supports the hardboard edges is a failed experiment.  Some other form of finishing treatment will be needed here.  The shelf top in back and off to the right will be future staging yard area, with as much of it left open as possible ( maybe half ) for easy access.  

And finally the view from the other end.  The overlapped seams are plainly visible now.  I plan to snug the sheets together using structural adhesive.  If you look close you'll see no nails or screws fastening sheets to the rafters.  Basically, the curvature holds them tight against the studs and with enough rigidity that bulging insulation only bows them slightly at the upper edges.  Hence those longitudinal boards take care of the slight deformation

At this rate I suspect layout commencement will begin on schedule in September.

Bruce

A new commuter station opened in Patsburg on Monday July 27.  Heres a pic of the folks gathering and waiting to catch the first train out.

I spent yesterday doing a bunch of stuff getting ready for Patrick, including more ballasting and some painting. As I had just finished painting the bottom of the Roseville deck black, and was going to put the lid back on the can. Unfortunately, the can was right under the duck under.

THWACK... OWWWW!!!

I walked into that thing so hard, I bounced off it, and landed on my butt. No serious damage, but it was kind of scary. There's no actual bump, but there is a sore spot. Imagine that.

A great afternoon with Patrick today. It started off with Patrick finishing off the Bondo on that pesky section of backdrop, while I continued to work on the ballast. Yesterday, I hung a couple sections of fascia, but today we went crazy and put up another 8. That's a total of 80'!

All of this is just tacked in place. Jon will be here on Friday and finish securing it. It runs from Shoreham on the left, around the curve through University on the right...

past what I have nicknamed the "narrows" (the tightest spot of the aisle)...

around Northtown curve...

past the bowl tracks and all the way down to the hump.

When we finished that, Patrick sanded and primed the backdrop.

While he was doing that, I was cleaning the glue off the rails, so we could install the Roseville deck.

We had to add scraps of 1/4" Masonite to get the necessary clearance.

Tight but adequate.

In the clear!

Finally, there's this thing. This retaining wall is another "mall remnant". Over the last 22 years I came so close to throwing it in the trash so many times, but yet I hung onto it.

It's just a bunch of old GarGraves ties glued onto a Masonite superstructure. But ever since I put it up there on the layout, people have said they really liked it, even though I'm not overly fond of it. With a little modification and some freshening up, I'll make it work, and maybe even like it again. There is going to be an oil loading facility up there, with 2 tracks and plenty of tank cars.

Joe tomorrow, Jon Friday and Matt Sunday. Thursday I'll probably get back to that ladder I was working on, and Saturday I have to get all that fascia filled and painted for Matt to do more manual switch throws. Busy, busy, busy!

Hi Elliot - You always do an excellent job with the photography on your post.

   The captions bring it all together. The layout looks great.

Gary

• Cheers from The Detroit & Mackinac Railway

The station looks GREAT!! You have hit another scenery home run!

Elliot; It seems like you guys are making some real progress.