What did you do on your layout today?

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.

I'm still waiting to see this?

Wowak:  They're in the camera....for some reason all the first loco photos including those did not print, on a roll full of otherwise great photos of an art exhibit. So...

done over, but won't get on until other another project joins it.

Ran the Polor Express Loco with some Pere Marquette passenger cars from the early 90's at rocket speeds around the layout for the kids.  

People still use film cameras?!  j/k, but suddenly I don't feel so old.  

Digital is a compromise, analog rules.

Film, a "reflection" of life.

I know some guys shooting raw format that would disagree with you.

There are things you can do with film you just cant do with digital especially in the dark room

That may be true, but the list of things you can do with digital that you CANNOT do with film is.. extensive.

But you can very easily take a photograph on film and digitize it. I did almost a thousand photos last week. Most of them black and white. There si a certain "soul" to a photograph taken on film that digital just doens't have

Sure.  But for posting updates of work on trains and locomotives on the internet, digital has a DECIDED advantage.  

Absolutely, for your everyday photos its digital all the way. There are countless advantages to digital that film just doesn't have, instant sharing and the cost being two huge ones. I shoot mostly digital but I have a very strong understanding of film photography and I if I were going to go and shoot a specific subject matter such as night shoots of a steam loco, I would most certainly bring my medium format film camera and shoot with that as well as with digital. Almost everything I shoot now is digital but there are definitely occasions where film would be my first choice because film captures a certain life, or as I stated earlier "soul" of an image that digital misses

The same was said of digital music. So why does everyone want my vinyl now?

Digital is a bunch of little pieces. Analog not so. Digital is a useful compromise.

Table layout got its plywood top screwed on today. I plan on foam or maybe homesote too. But first Im going to attach shelves at each end and test lay some track. Just so Im not staring at plain wood..Paint! And to prime/seal it. Anyway, I broke out about 8 spray cans of different colors and gave it some temporary color

Digital cameras are a new learning mode, while I have had a long learning experience

with 35mm, and I just don't want to spend the time...I'd rather build models, and

shoot with something I USUALLY get great, effortless, results with.

My other hobby is photography.  I have been digital since I purchased my frist DSLR about 6 years ago.  The ease of use and instant gratification are great, plus it doesn't cost you anything every time you hit that shutter button.  

About 3 years ago I decided to give film a chance.  I purchased a used N90s off of the bay.  I took it out on it's 1st shoot and used it like a digital camera, spray and pray method.  Take a ton of shots and pray a few came out good.  I quickly decided that with film that method wont work.  I started being way more selective in my shots.  I did what photographers did for years.  Spent a whole day and would shoot only a handful off good shots.  I waited for the shot to appear before I pulled the trigger because it cost me money every shot I took.

I have since decided to go back to digital only.  Now instead of going to shoots and having several hundred shots to sort though and throw away 99% of them, I only take a handful of really good composed shots.  I get it right in the camera and only have minor post processing done to them.  I have learned a great deal while using film.

Today I finished the model of my  scratchbuilt firehall.  There are a couple of kits of

these boomtown firehalls in HO, but nothing in O scale, so, again, I have mine, in spite of that.  I did not model those in Georgetown, Colo., but I certainly took details from them.  I needed a two truck firehouse, and did not want a false front, as is the well known Georgetown single engine structure.  Photos have been taken....hopefully

posted, with my kitbash of Lionel's #561, in a day or two.  It has seemed like both

of these projects went really fast, this in spite of paint problems with #561.  With

that done, I tried to find a shell of an AMT RDC, that is here somewhere,  to see if it was compatible with this "Beep" RDC, to lengthen into an RDC-3, but got tired of rooting through boxes.

I converted one passenger car to kadees today.  It was an MTH baggage car and it was pretty straight forward.  I am only did one end and do not plan to do every passenger car since I do not plan to do a lot of switching with them.  I will work on a coach next so I have kadees at both ends of the train.  

Patrick was over on Friday, and he finished off the lights on the upper deck. I'm just going to wait to power up that string, because I really don't need more light up there right now, since it's only being used for storage. We also got the missing section of roadbed that connects the upper level to the helix. That was a major undertaking, and consumed much of the afternoon. Now that it's done, I think I want to change part of it. The piece that will be part of the mainline is perfect, but the track that leads to the Ford plant needs to be realigned.

Saturday I kept picking away at cleaning up and organizing. Years worth of accumulation of long forgotten projects and broken bits and pieces, and just plain junk, now mixed with sawdust, beg for my attention. Time to get serious, with my trusty trash can by my side. Use it or lose it!!!

Today was spent moving boxes full of trains from one aisle to the next. Now that the decking is complete, I have a good long term resting place for them. This has been a constant battle during construction about where to put things. Now that the one peninsula is done, the shift is on to clear the next one so work can continue.

My brother-in-law stopped by. He hasn't seen the train room since before the helix was finished, that puts it around late March. I ran the train around the loop for the first time in about a month. I had almost made it around the 500' loop, when I heard a thud and a derailment in the hidden yard. A small boulder of the putty we've been using on the backdrops was lodged in the ties, and the engine was hung up on it. Oops.

After he left, I had had enough of cleaning and moving. It was time to think about laying some track on the upper deck. I got out the chalk line and measured out and snapped off the first 3 lines, 2 mains and one track for the intermodal facility.

well today i was finally able to run a train on my newly laid tubular/super snap layout.

track is laid on cork roadbed and needless to say trains run great and gone is all that noise from my previous fastrack layout.

terry........

I moved my train station yet again.  I had to make room for my small yard that will service the car ferry.

I moved it back to it's previous location on a curve just outside of the town.  I think it is in its permanent home now.