What did you do on your layout today?

paul 2 posted:

The fence sections dried and I cut one panel off. With the panel that is left I think it will be wide enough for a truck entrance/exit. The rest of the time I worked on the opening to the crawl space under the bathroom. Found enough scrap lumber to box it in and make it look a bit better, still have to trim it out. Once I do that I can paint that wall and move on to the next section of the basement. While walking by where I have the corrugated fence laying I had a thought. I was wondering how I was going to secure the fence posts. I came up with this. The tubing I am using is 1/8" and cutting them to an 8' length. I am thinking of a finishing nail long enough to nail into the table top. Anyways a couple of pics.........Paul

Looking Great Paul, but one question, Where is your wall of Menards cars or Ladies shoes?

M. Mitchell Marmel posted:

I was testing out a 242 that I'm rehabbing for a future train show, when Shop Supervisor Norma Bates "Katjira" Kitteh decided to wreak havoc...

"Who, me?"

"Say, did you know that your train isn't running?"

"That gi-raffe looks mighty suspicious to me."

On the job, looking for clues!

"My verdict is that this accident occurred due to natural causes.   Around HERE, this is natural causes!"

Mitch

Mitch, She is just checking out your handy work, making sure its kids safe! You know how those shows can got. Just watching out for you!

M. Mitchell Marmel posted:

I was testing out a 242 that I'm rehabbing for a future train show, when Shop Supervisor Norma Bates "Katjira" Kitteh decided to wreak havoc...

"My verdict is that this accident occurred due to natural causes.   Around HERE, this is natural causes!"

Mitch

Just wait until the shop steward files a complaint with OSHA about the unsafe work conditions on your railroad   

Finished another Atlas O Amtrak car, "Silver Lariat", a Dome Coach car.  I added more people than normal to make the car look busier.  The seats took two coats of paint. The first coat had a lot of streaking show through. The second coat evened out the color. I still have five baggage cars to detail with Woodland Scenics baggage and crates.  The cars pass across my Double Pratt Bridge in front of my control table, making viewing of the inside easy to do.

Looks Good John!

The cars look great, John!!

Mitch - Norma Bates looks great !!

Mike g, I am going to lose my standing with the group. First I am a firm believer in trains from Menards. At this moment I have no Menards trains, I have buildings. So I have no wall of Menards cars and definately no shoes. I keep the wife bare foot so she cannot go out and spend money. That leaves more for me LOL.  But when they do make the right car. I will be buying a whole slew of them.......Paul

Putting bridges together today for the elevated loop. Good thing for glue. Some tabs were gone. No wonder they were cheap.

 Also made a double wound motor into a single wound motor and replaced the two position e-unit with a three position one. I ordered some more of those pigtails I used in the four motor set up so I can switch out the "dumb" powered A-unit (no e-unit) to either the ABA set or use it with this A-A set.

paul 2 posted:

Mike g, I am going to lose my standing with the group. First I am a firm believer in trains from Menards. At this moment I have no Menards trains, I have buildings. So I have no wall of Menards cars and definately no shoes. I keep the wife bare foot so she cannot go out and spend money. That leaves more for me LOL.  But when they do make the right car. I will be buying a whole slew of them.......Paul

Great plan Paul, I never thought of it that way, Humm makes me think! LOL

I played "Juniata Shops all day today. I really like the dark gray body on the Lionel Standard gauge 318 I bought yesterday at the train show but my pea green one ran better. Finally got the gray one on the better chassis.  The gray chassis had only one driver that had a gear so I decided to  change that and put another driven driver on. That didn't work out at all.  So I took the chassis with motor, wheels etc off an  #8  box cab and swapped them motor in to the old gray chassis. Good motor because it had been a spare that I had a guy repair. Has an AF 3 position reverse unit.So now I have two  good running  318s, one #8 shell and frame and two  Standard gauge motors. I think the motor I took out today will sacrifice its armature to get the other motor running.  If I get that motor fixed it will probably go in to the empty #8. If you understand all that I applaud you.

I finished off the wood around the opening to the crawl space so tomorrow I can paint that wall. I had some time left because the wife was still watching her Cavs game. So I took the back drop I had cut down and placed it by the Menards power plant. I think it came out pretty good the chimney worked out perfect on the corner. So now I will have two tracks for coal hoppers. What I have in mind is push full ones into the power plants have the tracks curve around behind buildings along the wall and I can pull them out from the other side and bring them back into a freight yard to start all over again. A few pics...............Paul

Nice treatment for the corner, Paul.

Ran a passenger train for a short while. Later worked on preparations for car card/waybill scenarios and identifying businesses, products in and products out and destinations for empties and loads for through trains. It's complicated but fun creating a puzzle with so many variations.  Also contacted a local Lionel tech about installing ERR in a K-Line B6s switcher.  I've had this loco for some time and always wanted to enhance the start up movement for slower and smoother switching.  He did an install in a Lionel Consolidation for me a while back and it worked out so well I have been using that loco for switching as well.

I uploaded these videos:

John, I really like the work you are doing on the passenger cars. 

Paul, That backdrop looks real good going around the corner. 

John, excellent results with the obs coach; the posing of the passengers is very effective.

Paul, nice job with the corner backdrop; very imaginative.

Mark Boyce posted:

Nice treatment for the corner, Paul.

paul 2 posted:

I finished off the wood around the opening to the crawl space so tomorrow I can paint that wall. I had some time left because the wife was still watching her Cavs game. So I took the back drop I had cut down and placed it by the Menards power plant. I think it came out pretty good the chimney worked out perfect on the corner. So now I will have two tracks for coal hoppers. What I have in mind is push full ones into the power plants have the tracks curve around behind buildings along the wall and I can pull them out from the other side and bring them back into a freight yard to start all over again. A few pics...............Paul

I agree with Mark, I think it looks really nice there. I would think it will blend right in and look even better as time goes on, with the track and cars in place.

well spent the last two day instead of working on the layout cleaning the layout room . tired of stepping over the mess from building the tables and inclines. much nicer to be up there now I did work alittle last night redoing the upper yard had to reverse the switches change a left to a right and the rights to lefts. then rearranged the trains to start the clean up process. well here it is .

Finished 1 of 3 control panels. This one is for the industrial area and mounted on drawer slides so it can be tucked away when not in use.

Nice job Eric

Finally, after much procrastination, I decided to repaint my pea green  Lionel  Standard gauge #318  engine that I recently swapped motors and frames. Have disliked that color for a long time.  Took  most of the brass parts off it, washed it good, painted the roof dark brown using Rustoleum" espresso paint', then masked the railings and spray painted the body a light tan using  Rustoleum  "nutmeg". Came out pretty good.  Must touch up a few spots of the nutmeg but have a small can of that. I like the Rustoleum, it is water based and thick like original Lionel enamel and covers well, dries pretty fast.

The vog from the volcano is so heavy it looks like LA so I stayed in and worked on the canyon some more. Just dried brush first coat of color on about four ft. of rock wall. Hope the volcano slows down a bit. It's really pouring out the lava. The video was shot a couple weeks ago, all tourists are now not allowed to get this close.  Don

Think of it as a future source of ballast...  ;-)

Mitch

I tried my hand at my first attempt of block wiring.   I cheated !! LOL   Ran wire to an isolation track that I have in a mainline and soldered my bus wire to the jumper wires under the isolation track!     This was at the furthest point from the  track connection to the transformer.    WOW what a difference it made in running my old Wabash Cannonball!   I checked last night and was nearly 2 volts different from the point the transformer is hooked in to that furthest point!  Thanks for the videos on bus wiring Mike Reagan!

Did some newspaper and plaster cloth. I have not done this in years but still haven't lost my touch. The scenery work has started.

Tonight I patched the last of the area where the wall meets the floor. When I got done with that I got a coat of drylok on the wall. Along with that ordered some Menards cars snd some tanks thanks to Cabinet Bob and found and ordered another Weaver TOFC flat car....Paul

The cleanup continues. last night it was wiring. also got some new rolling stock from Menards.

Engine area cleaned back up and rewired  and working

new red and black wire ran completely around under the layout.

new Menards tank cars I had 2 tank cars one Menards one MTH I bought all the tank train cars. the PRR is the MTH I don't see a difference in any of them except the wheels are different color .

Jhainer those Menards cars sure do look nice!   Can't wait to get some and see for myself!  Wiring is fun isn't it ???

Jhainer posted:

well spent the last two day instead of working on the layout cleaning the layout room . tired of stepping over the mess from building the tables and inclines. much nicer to be up there now I did work alittle last night redoing the upper yard had to reverse the switches change a left to a right and the rights to lefts. then rearranged the trains to start the clean up process. well here it is .

What company made those nice bridges?

carsntrains posted:

Jhainer those Menards cars sure do look nice!   Can't wait to get some and see for myself!  Wiring is fun isn't it ???

I hate Wiring I need glasses for up close work so doing wiring is like working in the dark for me . yes the Menards cars are very nice and the price makes them better I got the 5 mystery prizes with them so that made it even better.

Kerrigan posted:

Jhainer posted:

well spent the last two day instead of working on the layout cleaning the layout room . tired of stepping over the mess from building the tables and inclines. much nicer to be up there now I did work alittle last night redoing the upper yard had to reverse the switches change a left to a right and the rights to lefts. then rearranged the trains to start the clean up process. well here it is .

What company made those nice bridges?

the one in the back is 60 inch's long its aluminum and I picked it up on an auction site for $300 I think the other two are lionel pieces there truss bridge with the flashing light on top and the 2 lower bridges I scratch built there made from sliding glass door pvc trim and then the ribs are don't laugh cigarette pack cut into strips and then old credit cards glued on the upper edges for the caps on the sides . don't laugh all free stuff except the door trim but that was in my shed from my father he does house restorations so it was an extra piece LOL .

what's funny about wiring since I started the hobby again I have been using speaker wire for my main runs and for the feeders and it works fine always has but since the reconfigure of the layout just out of the blue the breaker kicks couldn't find the issue reset it worked fine for hrs or days then kick again so after a few times of this and a few weeks I decided to rewire this time with red and black wire but I always used the gold colored wire for + and the silver for - well since the reconfigure some are silver and some are gold for the + so time to rewire all of it that way there's no mistakes  this time I ran a wire (red and Black) completely around the layout so now just drop the feeders down and use the suitcase style connectors to connect them. makes for neater wiring and less confusion.

Its good to be back in to building for my layout.  I got a lot done today in just the 2 hours the baby napped.  Tonight after all the kids go to bed I plan to cut the plywood bench top for the right side of the layout and install the shelf for the transformer.  The left side will have to wait a bit as I need to hit Lowes for more wood.  I also will pick up 3/4 foam sheets to cover the layout.  Hope to throw down some track next week and start looking at my trackplan more.  

Snap shot of the new rock put in yesterday. Dry brush painting is almost finished and a temp. track for positioning. I have the upper level to fit rock in and a larger lower area that goes to the floor. That will just about finish this huge canyon that is about 18 or 20ft long. All made of molded rock and two large trestles. It includes three mines. This will be the main line and it's about eye level with a mining line below. Both will have overhead wire. I made more molded rock this morning. They should be dry in about two days. Fog is still bad outside. Don

JD good work and thanks for reminding me that I need to get some stuff to build a shelf for my controller! 

Eric, that's a great idea. I have a couple of sets of pullouts from our kitchen remodel. Now I can put them to good use. Thanks Don

Don, great work on the rock face! looks wonderful!

Do you ever have one of those moments when you feel like you just can't believe you have a layout?

Had a moment like that last night. I walked into the 'toy room' like I do almost every evening (sometimes, just to walk in, glance around and leave). I'd bought some small trees made by Grand Central Scenics at a show recently, and I placed several of them (I still have two boxes unopened right now) where they seemed to look right.

I grabbed a bright boy and cleaned off some rails that were getting little oxidized. I have to be careful at the turnouts as I never got the connecting wires for the blue points cut to the exact length and a few stick up just over the level of the tops of the rails. I really need to fix that as someone swiping down the tracks and going over one, it could probably snap the throw bar in half.

Then, I clicked on the DCC and ran a passenger run to the opposite end of the layout, turned the train and returned to set it up as I'd found it. My layout concept is largely self-resetting in op sessions, so I could have an op session any time I wanted with very little setup needed.

My layout is only about 2 1/2 years old and the scenery very recently got to a place where I now consider it, "largely completed."

Every time I walk in there and look at the layout, I still can't believe it's there. I'd been planning this for most of my adult life and put a great deal of time and effort into the build as I did over 90% of it totally alone. Goodness knows it's far from perfect and I'd do many things different if I had to do it over, but I just stood there and felt like a lifetime of yearning for the layout I'd always wanted was finally fulfilled.

I guess some of you have those moments, too?

Someday I hope Lee.