Working the layout - time to party

My first progress report.

Jan 13--Tuesday

Got out to the layout at 4:30. Cut and laid in rock walls and curbs in Brighton with heavy paper. Trimmed subroadbed for better, smoother fit. Ballasted the "hanging track" between subroadbed and wall. Played with dead decoder on FB2-#9611--must have blown decoder somehow. Fixed dinner and never got back out.

Jan 14--Wednesday

Light work day--got to layout at 3:30. Re-oriented office of HoJo's complex for better parking lot. Made ramp to lot. Used ballast for west and east HoJo's parking. Noticed the edge of second deck on west wall was an easy job, and laid WS turf between roadbed and edge for about 1/2 the length. Going back out now.

Jan 15--Thursday

Cut a few parking lots for HoJos and other buildings in Brighton. Back on the second level. More WS turf for variety, and tried to blend the boulders into the rock wall backdrop. Tried to print 8 feet of backdrop on the home printer last night, but it bombed 2/3rds of the way through--brought it to my digital printer friend this AM. Well, I've got five feet of backdrop for somewhere, I guess. Will change clothes and go out for a few minutes.

Jan 16—Friday

Got an idea to extend the second deck with foam core. Glued 3 x 3 triangles onto foam core fascia, let it set up, glued foam core to the top. 16 feet by 3 inch extension.

Jan 17--Saturday

Glued up the bottom of the triangle. Wife's out with camera. The 45 degree slant back to the fascia blocks no light. Started scenicking the stretch. Also got Jeanne started on J-Town, laying out the streets with matte board. She harvested and painted yarrow, sedum and oregano for trees.

Jan18—Sunday

Trimmed up the extension and finished base coat of WS blended turf. Added roads behind first level main yard. Trimmed the ramps for the bridge over the yard with Walthers old stone paper. Jeanne started building the flophouse for J-town. Watched Patriots win.

Pete

 

My progress report:

Week 1,
I bought a heat gun and paint scraper to remove paint from some legs that were once used as the thick corner pieces in staircase bannisters. I'm going to have the "best looking legs" in the province.

I successfully burned myself with the hot air gun - of course. And I only have about a third of the paint removed, it is a slow job. I thought in total it would take about two hours, now my estimate is around ten hours, and I have accomplished two hours so far.

Hoss,
Great photos of the layout, sorry I didn't respond sooner to them.

 

First week update.

Firstly, thank you to the Colonel for sorting last weeks Homer moment.

I've finalised the track plan and completed all the critical measurements. With Peco medium points it'll just fit on my 4 ft shelf.
Cork rail bed is laid.

Kadee couplings have arrived (yesterday) and I've started to replace the tension lock couplings with Kadees. I'm not happy with the under rail delayed uncoupling magnet it doesn't work every time. So following the advice from the SLD Yahoo group I've ordered some small rod magnets.

Went to a toy and train fair on Sunday, bought some more wagons, and a building kit.

Track laying is delayed until I get the magnet situation settled. There is so little free space available.

Week Two Tasks.
Resolve uncoupling magnet problem.
Build kits of sand house and huts.
Finishing conversion of rolling stock and loco to Kadee couplings.
Lay track.

Regards
Martin

 

Week 1 update

Greetings all

well, I got three shells built and found some wonderful bits in the Local Shop, including some replacement window graphics for one of my DPM kits. So here is the first block taking shape for my main Street.

The picture shows what is now Shilock's Loans and a corner building in the paint scheme of what will become my LCBO awaiting an interior in the downstairs shop area.



As is usual, while waiting for paint to dry, I started a new project I would appreciate comments on.

I happened to have an N-gauge LifeLike SW1200 lying around in PRR livery, so decided to start rebuilding it to CN livery... I thought it would just be a repaint.. anyway, after doing some research and slapping myself upside the head I started anyway.

Here is its current state.. DCC module added, basic repaint, transfers, exhaust stacks replaced with spark-arrestors, handrails replaced with Athabasca road rails. It still needs new number boards front and back and a rerailer frog added and then it needs dullcoating and weathering, but I think I am starting to get the look about right. Please, as I am new to CN modelling, if there is anything else I have missed or got wrong, please tell me



Yikes, enlarged pictures of N-gauge get vicious in showing up errors.. never mind it's good for the soul and some clean-ups will be done

Regards to all, theres some lovely work happening

Graham Evans
http://www.colony.co.uk

[ 20. January 2004, 12:02: Message edited by: Graham Evans ]

 

I'm a little late on this update due to being out of town this past weekend. Every other weekend or so is consumed by trips to dog shows. My wife and I raise and show Yorkshire Terriers. Dog show note - Baxter, our 15 month old, took Best in Breed on Sunday, earning his first two points (15 needed) toward his Championship.

Back to the railroad. The main line is now completely laid out on the board. In order to properly position the turnouts I printed out templates from Railway Engineering and positioned them as needed. Then I "connected the dots."

The next step is to lay out the sidings and passing tracks. Once that is complete I will begin gluing down cork roadbed.

I have decided to handlay the entire layout to see how I like doing it. Since construction funds are currently quite limited, I may hit a delay after the cork is down. I plan to use Micro Engineering code 83 track and ties, but I don't think any of the shops in town carry it. I know there are several places to mail order it.

Does anyone have a URL for Micro Engineering?

 

Graham,
Just to let you know, 1355 was retired last year. Out of many many SW1200s, there are now only 6 left in active service.

PeterZ,
Congratualations on your dog's award.

 

Last week.

 

That's okay. I think Rick will accept make-up work.

 

In lieu of an apology, I accept beer.

By the way, anyone else lurking but not participating, you are welcome to join in at any time, just give yourself goals that are suitable for the remaining time. This party is 5 weeks long and there is now 3 1/2 weeks left. Some goals look deceptively simple and other goals are quicker and easier than anticipated.

Bench work I have found goes up very quickly, backdrops very much slower than I anticipated. You can put up much of a basement layout in a weekend if you have a buddy or two to help. L girder and open grid go up very quickly.

 

J-Town Takes shape:

Here's a quick snapshot of J-Town. Most of the buildings are placeholders for now. This will be the "Redlight District" just off the port.



To the upper right is a dark pit. This will be a seepage pond for the engine facility further to the right, off the picture. It's aluminum foil, painted black. I'll gradiate the colors and add some rocks and debris before pouring.

Pete

 

Well, I got here at last. Just I missed the first week or two cos I was waiting at the wrong house .

I started my layout (basically an 8'x8' L) about 18 months ago, but due to heavy work commitments I did little beyond making the boards for about a year. I have been doing better recently, but not well enough (still busy at work and family demands as well). This is a recent picture of one leg of the L - the other leg is bare. There are three 4'x2' boards and one 2'x2'.



The intention was to build one board at time, with all track ballasted and buildings finished before starting the next. But I broke the rule when I found that the track on board 1 (nearest in pic) wasn't enough to have any fun with on it's own. So I have started the second one early to solve that problem.

The model is to be a steelworks - basically a switching layout - and is DCC powered. I have most of the track laid and working on boards 1 & 2 and the coke oven complex partially built. I also have a van-load of kits (structures and rolling stock) to build and some locos to work on too.

But that isn't all. Space is fairly tight (I don't have exclusive use of the room) and I have a new airbrush 'plant' to fit in, so I need to spend time reorganizing my workspace and installing a vent fan (which involves a hole in the brick outside wall, so doing that is weather dependent).

So one of my biggest problems is that on walking into the room I think "What should I do now?". Then the cat appears, I sit on a chair to give him a cuddle and I spend the next hour 'planning' instead of doing .

Targets for the next few weeks (in desirable order):
1. Sort out workspace,
2. Get rid of cat,
3. Install fan and airbrush equipment,
4. Build the fiddle yard (just a shelf and two tracks, but is intermingled with the two above),
5. Get rid of daughter,
6. Get most of the rest of the coke complex built and decorated,
7. Ballast and paint track on 'coke' baseboard (board 1),
8. Start to build BOS plant (goes on board 2),
9. Get rid of wife,
10. Build more rolling stock kits.

Actually I achieved 9 yesterday, but due to poor planning I haven't done 2 or 5 and that means I have to feed cat, kid and washing-machine single-handed. (She's back in 10 days thank heavens )

Realistically: I'd like to get 1, 3 & 4 done over the next two weeks. Then see if I can do some of the other stuff to finish the party.

(Note to self: Not typing humungous posts on TrainBoard would leave more time/energy for trainset )

 

I'll be interested to see how your goals of 2, 5, and 9 make out...lol.

This is a quick post before I go out to a friend's home to help build his layout, so I'll check out the rest of your thread latter (tomorrow) but the pic looks great.

 

Is it too late to join the party?

I just registered this evening so I'm a bit behind in the reporting, but not in getting in on the act.

Over the first weekend, I didn't get anywhere, because my other hobby got in the way; the wife and I traveled to Orlando to run the Disney marathon. We came back to the cold and snowy Northeast on Wednesday the 14th, so the following days offered the perfect opportunity to isolate myself in the basement.

Since I began the project three years ago I've been spending more time planning the layout and changing my mind than actually working on it. And I always seemed to find a diversion. Well , I put an end to that last month by putting in a suspended ceiling and lighting, to stop the lack of motivation to work in the "dirty old basement". The ceiling and lighting are about 90% done and it was the right decision, improving the layout environment definitely increases the motivation to work on the layout.

So about the layout. It is a probably and understatement to say it is an ambitious project. It started as a freelance 3' x 8' N scale layout and has turned into (on paper anyhow) a full basement walkaround prototype representation of the EL in the Southern Tier of NY and PA in the early/mid 60's. I presently have about 24 feet of benchwork in place with some various stages of completion on each. The grand plan will cover about 48 feet of bench work, plus another 6 feet of shelf based staging tracks in and adjacent room. This is all the real estate the spouse would deed to the layout (which I might add was very generous, although it was previously just an unfinished basement).

With a solo project this big, there's no lack of work to do. So here's what I've done in the days since:

January 17: Prepared the roadbed for the East Yard. Marked out the yard trackage and began laying track and turnouts. Constructed a 8 track double ladder with two main 'through tracks'. Prepared blocks, and soldered feeders in place. Spent about 6 hours working on the layout.

January 18: Family duties weren't about to allow me another 6 hours to myself and the layout, but I still found time to get something accomplished. I made a CAD control panel drawing for the yard, printed and laminated it with Lexan, and set the control panel.

January 19: Martin Luther King day and a 'bonus' day off . I was able to spend several hours on the layout. I replaced and refed some of the old control wiring and began running the new wiring for the yard section. The control is conventional block, with a walk around system using a Traintronics 1400 system. I picked up one of these systems used, and was told that the company was out of business, but only recently learned that another company had bought the remaining stock. So I bought a second matching system and am in the process of converting my second cab control from a standard power pack to this system. It uses standard phone jacks with memory, so I will be able to follow trains around the layout between panels. There will eventually be four panels. I replaced the old "B" side cab wiring with new 6 wire phone cable, installed the jacks, and started recircuiting the panel switches.

I don't often get to do much on the weeknights, but I was able to get a little more control wiring completed on the 21st and 22nd and I got enough complete to let me test run some trains. I was able to run along the main tracks across two blocks (about 15 linear feet of run) and through several turnouts including the main double crossover and several sidings. Isn't it great when it actually works like you planned?

With the lake effect snow piling up outside , it looks like I'll get plenty of opportunity to work on it the next two days.

Now that I've learned about this site, and have people to share my avocation with, I'll make it an effort to get some pictures posted. If I can learn how to do it, I'll also post a layout drawing. If anyone knows the best way to post an Autocad drawing , please let me know!

Thanks for the opportunity to join the fun.

 

Mr. Hedley,
Welcome to the party. People can still join, just choose three weeks of work and then report. I see you bike and run so you must be disgustingly healthy, except you get to inhale all those New York fumes, so you'll die earlier since when you bike and run you inhale those fumes deeper.... lol.

If you want advise on how to post pics and what to do, go to the rail image forum and ask advise. Paul from down under will help you out. Sometimes Paul is difficult to understand because his writing is upside down since he is posting from Australia. But if you stand on your head, you can read it. Also his Aussie accent can sometimes get in the way of solid interpretation but if you ply him with beer, he is more understandable after about 8 of them.

 

Very nice SW1200. I plan to give mine the same treatment. The only thing you could so is move the horn to the cab and add a sinclair antenna. Are those athabasca handrails hard to build / install ?

 

Click here for a pic of 1355. Mine is 1366. It looks like 1355 has a sunshield on the left side, but I think it has an all-weather window on the right side. As you can see the horns are on the top of the cab. I think your CN decal is somewhat small compared to the prototype.