What did you do on your layout today?

Ameri-Towne structure, flat & "Yooper Bar"

  Click photo to enlarge

Heavy,man.

Be well. And happy.

Worked on my Lionel #97 coal loader trying to get the storage bin to function to work all the time. now convinced there is a bad connection so put it on the layout and got out the #3469 dump car and fixed it. works good now. then cut some indoor carpet in to strips to place under the new track I put down. Keeps me busy on a gray winter day.

Gary,

Never heard of a Yooper Bar, but it looks like a good thing to do while pondering a new project.  Ameritown; Good choice!!

Hello Mark • A Yooper Bar is sold only in Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Yes, you will see them in the lower peninsula or on line.

     A Yooper is a person who lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Every time I go fishing or hunting in "YOOPER LAND", I bring some home.

Yooper Land!  I love it!  I hear the Upper Peninsula is wonderful.  Alas, I have never been to Michigan.  Thank you for the explanation!

What is a Yooper bar? Can't tell from the wrapper photo...

Hello Lee • A Yooper Bar is sold only in Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Yes, you will see them in the lower peninsula or on line.

     A Yooper is a person who lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Every time I go fishing or hunting in "YOOPER LAND", I bring some home.

First off, Pere Marquette, SOO fans, buffs of any logging trains should look into Michigans U.P. rich history climbing out of the wilderness in the 1800s

 ..and Trolls live under the bridge!

(live south of the Mackinaw bridge)

Fudgies- are tourists who (only*)shop for fudge, rather than partake in REAL Mi.-U.P. fun. (*I buy the fudge, you will too. Diabetics, see Pasties below )

Rural localities of Mi. have unique foods, spread all over the state.

Pasties are a pastry wrapped meal. "A drier, handle-able, pot-pie. I think its Scottish.

And my favorite coffee supplement is "Trenary Toast". Holds together wet too.

First try out, was on a trip in Wisconsin, or Minnesota. A stop at a nowhere/nothing gas station, wielded not much of a selection. I knew the town in Mich., so bought it.

 Brown bagged cinnamon toast is all Hard as a rock? I thought I would hate it!

But add a gulp of your favorite snack beverage, and its flavor/texture is heaven. How they make bagged toast taste so good is beyond me. I see it 600+ miles from that town easy. Don't really care how they do it either, I'm just happy eating it .

Don't let this package fool you!

They want to see one unwrapped Gary. Are they both gone yet?

Wow Its a small world. Saw these a lot in Germany and were great with my morning gallon of Cappuccino.( Breakfast of Champions and life blood of the Military ) They also must survive the US Mail system as we had 4 boxes in arrive in Afghanistan from somebody's family . They didn't last an hour. But one thing was odd. The dog wouldn't touch it.

I eat White Castles too (that's in this thread too wasn't it?)

A lot of dogs wont eat those either.

More for me!

Going to go glue foam in....5,4,3,2,1..

I grew up in Chicago. White Castles. The reason they are called sliders. They slide  in and they slide out.

Doug

Carved 3 pieces of foam, figured rigging for rubber bands, glued 2 of them(uprights).

Ill check for drips and droops again in 5min.

Installed some Woodland Scenics HO wind turbines on top of Angles Summit (forced perspective). The IVSVS is always looking for alternative energy opportunities. Also got some turnout aspects sited and preliminary wiring done. These signals will indicate turnout position when all wired up, hopefully tomorrow night. 

Glacial progress on this grain elevator.  Now have three walls at full height on the

height-doubled elevator.  Didn't see Yooper Bars, but was underwhelmed with pasties.

There was some giant roll or something that also was a try once thing.

Do highly recommend exploring copper and iron mining upper Mich. with its railroad

history.  I got there in the fall when black flies have been frozen out, and the leaves

were absolutely fantastic. Almost as good as Colorado aspens or New England birches,

but a lot more of different color. UP is full of the sites of old mining towns and RR's.

Would like to have a good map of both, although I found some.

Donna, here is the base of my new layout which, as you will see, is work in process.  I started with 5/8 plywood on the frame, then 4'x8'x1" R-Tech foam insulation, very inexpensive at Lowe's and then 4'x8'x1" brown sound board, less than 1/2 the cost of Homasote and it doesn't dust up like Homasote when you cut it.

The 1 1/2" depth of the foam and sound board allows me to be able to sculpture out rivers and pounds and the like as the river you see that I am currently working on.  I am using cork road bed.  Between the cork, sound board and foam, if you carefully screw the track down with 1" screws, the screws hold well.

Some have told me this layout will be so quiet it will be unrealistic.  If you want to raise the level of noise replace about every 5th 1" track screw with a 2 1/2" screw that will penetrate into the plywood and you will get all the noise you want.

The layout, as I said, is early work in process and looks quite messy as I am one who works on it quite awhile before I get around to cleaning up my mess.

Incidentally, I find watching toy trains run very relaxing and stress relieving much like watching a sparkling fire in a fireplace or a tank full of tropical fish.

Good luck on your new layout!

Jim

i put up a new train table a couple days ago.  this morning i layed some track.  I cleaned the wheels on my Marx Streamliner and greased it up before I put it together to try it out the 1st time.  Made a video (check it out below).  I then made some quick videos of my metal and plastic windups.  Then I cleaned and greased my "new" Marx Canadian Pacific engine.  I took a video of that one too while I was at it.  It was train day at my house! 

Jim, Photos blanked out.

Switched to hot glue for the foam. Just curious. Only issue is the rubbery, hard texture for carving after being glued, the white glue "press out" and fills along uneven seams to show less. I'm not "stacking". I want a machine scraped, finished sandstone look, so I'm assembling hollow "boxes", grating with the teeth of a big tooth exacto saw. Near the ground level, I'm spinning a smaller, tighter blade for a rotary digger look.

I need paint so I can see what I have so far.

Being a builder of custom dioramas and layouts for clients, we find limited time to work on our own layout. Today was one of those times when my son Chris and I were able to put up part of the backdrop behind our industrial area. We cut and hung the fabric for the night sky. Tomorrow, we will try to make time to install the randomly twinkling LED's behind the dark blue fabric and install the illuminated moon. Photos will follow.

Chinatrain, that smoke unit & motor, "new age"?

Randy look forward to seeing it. Please include a little "how to."

Interested in stealing a few ideas.

Thanks

the plastic engine that this came in was broken down poc when i got it.  it's a really good smoker but i don't know what to do with it.  I don't want a smoker and i think you have to disconnect the wire (i don't see a switch).  it will probably go back on the bay.  when i sell, i like to at show that it runs.  while i was making videos, i took one of it too.

Never saw a plastic units motor/smoke set up, so thank you. I'm used to looking at them in older builds, with the unpainted motor frame. I had a forced smoke unit in my CV that disintegrated to rust dust. I think I've seen a few modified with this setup. Its the smokestack trim that looks familiar. Can the unit be dirrectly swapped to an older motor? will the old rods work?

Spent $200 to buy tools to do $20.00 in repairs.... Hobby math.

Took a few measurements and working on ideas for a low-relief bridge.
I have a highly tempting 7" wide foundation shelf that runs almost all
the way around my basement at 53" high, with the good possibility of running
between rooms. Any bridge scene would need to be low relief, but the trackbed
will of course be full width.
The pics show the raw shelf. I plan to have the bridge at about 36",
maybe longer, beginning where you see the barrel gondola in the photo.
The 0-27 Polar Express pic is taken in the opposite direction, showing
the same type tunnel portal for reference.

Got a handful of Lionel dwarf signals wired in to show what way the turnouts are aligned. These are being fired by DZ switch machines and associated DZ relays. Spent two hours fighting a KeilLine dwarf signal. I knew the  original relay was toast. Pulled the signal and one of the G-O-W bulbs was dead. Easy fix, just needed to fire up the soldering iron. Go to re install it and can't seem to get the new relay to play nicely. Turnout functions correctly so one would thing the relay would be cooperative Nooooo.... So.... I get smart and go to check the bulbs in place, meebee I jostled them when re installing the dwarf. Happened before... Nooo... So I fried the new relay messing up power inputs (dead short and heard something pop) before I bit the bullet and routed the bulb wiring to a different power source and digging out my last new relay from my magic box.
Good sea stories usually don't come without a fight, and the IVSVS seems like she doesn't want to wake up fully from her slumber.

The rest of the Fastrack I ordered arrived from one of my sort of LHSs.  I finished trial fitting track for Phase 1 of my 4x8 temporary layout.  I wanted to get that done before my first hand surgery Monday.  As easy as Fastrack is to snap together, it was a bear for me getting it done.  I guess surgery is in order.    I hope to get temporary wiring done tomorrow so I can run a couple of trains while I recover.    Photos to follow later next week.

Really have not done a lot over the past few days. A few more trees planted . I added some grass among the trees. That was a challenge. I should of done grass first then the trees. Today I applied ballast to my track that goes from the bottom level to the top............Paul

I had 3 AF passenger cars on one loop of track and decided to have some fun so I dragged out about 6 Lionel Pre war steamers and about 5 Lionel box cabs and had them pulling the cars. Then out came some Ives steamers, thy ar smooth and quiet runners-more so than Lionels. the grand final as hooking up my 1915 cast iron engine to the consist and watch it flying around the track. Incompatibility with some couplers kept me from using all of my oldies but it was fun.

     I ordered the rivet press, advancing table and the chopper lll from NWSL to start on the legs for the 2 trestles that I scratch built. One is curved double track that is 5 1/2 ft. long and the other is single track that is 6 1/2 ft. long. They are made out of fine chip chip board with the sides covered with box beam from Scene Express and I spray painted them flat black. I also started gluing the embossed brick paper to the tunnel walls to get them done and the tunnel ceiling put on so I can finish the upper level on that end of the layout. I am making parts of the inside tunnel walls removable so I can get in to clean the track and remove derailments if they happen.

Taking apart a DDA40X and a Veranda Turbine to remove some bad boards for repair and clean up some very messy wiring in the DDA40X from the conversion a couple of years ago by a tech who thankfully is now retired from the business.

     Donna D-H if you are asking me Choo Choo Kenny about pictures I have 2 problems. #1 I don't know how to down load pictures on the computer! #2 My mother is disabled and I live with my parents. My mom has aids that come help her. I got my camera out the other day to photograph my Westinghouse trains. I took the camera to the basement and started getting stuff out got tired and called it A night. I got up in the morning to finish up taking pictures but the camera was gone. Was it the girl from the night before or was it the girl from in the morning that took it? I reported it to the co. that sends the aids in and they said "if I did not see anyone take the camera it did not get stolen". Now that the camera is gone I do not have any pictures of the start of the layout. I am on limited income and it is going to be A while until I can get money to buy A new camera. So I am sorry I cant show you any pictures of past progress. Take care Choo Choo Kenny

We completed our night sky over the industrial area behind Schwartz Yard. The stars twinkle and the moon is full.

Ran My "NEW" Lionel Legacy Daylight "CAB FORWARD" that I just received!!!  WOW what an Engine. I'm pulling 7 "DAYLIGHT" cars made by Williams many years ago. Quite a sight!!!

FREDSTRAINS