The smoke rolled in Saturday afternoon and is still here today. Saturday I found College Football on TV. A rather welcome event. College they will attempt to make plays the pro's won't. So, it's interesting to watch. Right now the former Oakland Raiders who are now Las Vegas Raiders, are playing Buffalo, at home in their brand spanking new Stadium. Nice Stadium!! Score as it stands is Buffalo 17, Raiders 16, close came and still anyone's game. What about the layout? Not much what with the smoke. Like I said earlier someone needs to knock on California's door and come to some agreement about how they care for their forest. Messing with my serenity and ability to breath. "Remember only you can prevent forest fires," we used to hear from Smokey The Bear. That's when they practiced fire prevention, maintained fire breaks and Foresters cared for and removed dead brush and trees. This should be a time for a reality check. By the way the World has been warming-up starting with the last ice age. I said gritting my teeth and holding back the horses/tigers (add your own) descriptive expletives, I'd like to unleash. All this comes from being a Native of California. I found this and thought of adding it to the Wobbly thread and then decided no. They are looking for better pictures then this. They'll get better. In time guys and gals, in time. Here's the biggest Wobbly around here. That'd be me back in Big Bear Country. A local or at least it started out that way. It became a Mail train headed out from San Jose, Stockton, Sacramento headed for Reno. Gamblers Special. What I miss about Big Bear. The amenities were awesome although we suffered from traffic congestion and it could be physically grueling at times. Today's Sunday paper declared "Winter is coming". I thought of this picture. That's it for now. I hope you don't mind a little of Ricks Big Bear and train history?? In the last picture: Look toward the back and you'll find the Train Shed. Incidentally the snow on the ground, well...most of it was off my neighbors roof to the left of the picture. It was fun while it lasted. He helped on several occasions to get the snow off my awning. Nothing like the good neighbors I had. In case you are wondering yes, I miss them. Score of the Game is now Buffalo 30 and Raiders still at 16. Fourth Quarter with over 8 minutes left. Have fun whatever you are doing this weekend.
Rick, I have been greatly enjoying hearing about and watching the resurrection of your empire! BTW, I lived in Big Bear for a number of years, on Eureka St. if you remember the Eagle Point area. I graduated from Big Bear High in '66 (go, Bears!).
Glad you are enjoying this layout resurrection process. Suddenly I'm thinking... no, I know, we've chatted before. Good to have you following along. As far as Big Bear Lake, Also remembering a Book Bear, book shop in the Village. You as a 1966 graduate Big Bear High. Well done. I followed along in 1967 a graduate of Monterey Bay Academy. I would have rather graduated from Hollister High school but that's a long story for another time and place. Big Bear High and the football teams have all done some rather amazing work on the ball field. A tradition of excellence continues. Stand by there's more to come.
Here's the news and I have the news. With the help of friends and family I moved the second section of the layout into the dining room, now train room. I need to get the leg's on it. This is another piece from the original layout I built and modified for my Dad. Of course it's been modified a lot to fit into the small train shed in Big Bear. Pictures tomorrow.
I was going to say "Pics or it's a lie" but then I read further and you promised pics... now I have to wait
Would I lie to you? Well, I might but just not here or in this thread. BNSF, Thanks for your comments. I can use encouragement these days. Diversionary thought. On my smarter then me phone are freights leaving and arriving in Barstow, Ca. Thanks to VRF I can check-in and check-out all the train action. Very busy this morning. Wish I were. This layout was designed to take apart in sections. I used an open grid approach on a box like structure. Then true to my given nick, "More Track Rick," I filled it in with track. On this section the trackwork is mostly for storage of trains. A six track run through hidden staging yard and a 4 track stub end yard for locals. Never enough! The four sections I designed and you'll see here. They turned out to be to large and tooo heavy. Must rethink this in the future. Now to those pictures I promised. The second layout section, of four. Above: You can see how I used drop cords to provide the household current for a maze of transformers for TV monitoring and power for lights and of course the trains. This as it stands is an Analog DC, Cab A & Cab B layout with a cut-off (DPDT electrical toggle switch) on Cab B to add-on DCC should I live long enough to afford such. The control panels you can see are meant to be temporary. Below: Pushing out on the curves to widen them required some additional add-ons. Then along came a very tall grain elevator and that required an add-on. You can see both on the left hand side of the picture. You can also see and it's obvious, how narrow the original layout was. So I used a technique I've seen done by other modelers to push those curves out. Wider curves are the best curves. Above: You can see where the legs were attached and then cut away to move the layout. Won't this be fun to add on new legs? Below: While some areas of the layout were literally cut away to fit into well you should know by now. Other areas required add-ons. In the next picture you can see how I added on a connector piece. Look at all that wiring and I get to put it all back together again. Fortunately it is color coded some duplication of colors but each has a destination and location or "Block" it serves. No common wire here its all DPDT. Above: You can also see where the legs were attached and oh boy is this going to be fun or not to replace them. A word about the wiring. You'll see 14 gauge household wire that is used to send current from the train transformers/throttles to the various control panels. You'll see smaller 18 gauge color coded wire that runs from the control panels out to the assortment of "Blocks" aka Block Wiring. The telephone wire is to power up the Kato #6 switches on the main line. Four wires per bundle is all you need for two track switches. A reversing DC powered DPDT Momentary On will throw the Switch nicely. Mundane when it comes to wiring but the rewards are fascinating. Oh and there's another section that goes over the top of this one. Fun?!? We aren't done yet. Below: This is how the legs should look once I've reattached them. George, right about now I'll bet your appreciating your layout. That most likely will apply to most of you, I'd bet. Now if you don't mind I need to get to work. First it's nap time, then lunch, another nap time. I have to let the food settle can't jump in the pool to soon after eating. It's Friday!!
Yup. I remember the days of miles of wire. I also remember that I knew where and what each of those wires did. Seems impossible huh ? Life is so much simpler now with simple DCC wiring...which is a good thing at my age. LOL
Oh how I am happy I never got into railroading during the cab bus era. I wanted to but never did. I got into this in 2003 and bought a Digitrax DCC set and never looked back. I have made a couple analog layouts but they were short and didn't need a cab bus system to operate, it was just a single train running at any given time. Looks like a fun bowl of spaghetti!!
LOL good one and well played. You guys are quick on the response. You must not have much to do today. Nice isn't it? It's a "Folded over Pretzel-ed Dog Bone" My favorite description. It's to late to change all the spaghetti wiring and switch to the DCC feature, although I'm glad it is working for you, it isn't in my foreseeable future. I would need to go and pan handle out front of Denney's, or not. I think I need a better location. Maybe a wheel chair, a cane, a tin cup and dark glasses...old clothes torn in less then appropriate places... while I park my limo just around the corner. I said sarcastically. Don't kid yourself I saw that done. While I was driving a hearse on a return trip back to home base. Okay. Thanks again for the likes and responses. How true, how true.
Today at the hospital is what the Army calls a DONSA day. Day Of Non Significant Activity. So yea, not much going on, we are in thumb twiddle mode. OH there is one sort of emergency going on, the lead admins shut down part of our systems here (we are being decommissioned) but there are other hospitals that use some of the equipment located here and the system they shut down is vital to that communication link. So there is that, but not much I can do it's above my pay grade. Yea the homeless driving BMWs is a pretty normal thing around here. We had one guy that would be down the street from my store and around 4 pm would get picked up by a woman in a Cadillac. He would then sometimes show up a few hours later getting parts for a variety of different cars that he owned. He personally drove a 4th gen Camaro.
Massey, Homeless!?! I've heard tell these pan-handlers can make more in a year then most of us hard working stiff's. I must be careful when I use the word stiff. We morticians get rather excited and I've never really understood that. Why does the sound of an old fashion cash register go off in my head, cha-ching, cha-ching?? Same thing happened when I went to work for a hospital and I heard that E.R. was getting busy. Cha-ching, Cha-ching. Not so LOL but close maybe a chuckle COL. So it's a slow day and they are decommissioning your hospital? Did I hear right? One thing about the Army they will find another job for you. You might not like it but then consider your signature. That's how it is!
We are decommissioning the software I support. I used to manage the medical database that all military medical units used. It has been replaced by software that is more compatible with the database standards of civilian medical facilities. This helps when civilians are seen here and military service members are seen in civilian land. The database I supported was not compatible in any way to the rest of the systems out there. I still have a job as I support 2 sites that have not transitioned over yet but they found out shutting down the largest west coast military hospital when there are still a ton of sites using my systems is not a good idea. I dont know how much longer I have to work here but I am going to enjoy it while I can.
Now I have a better understanding. I like your attitude toward the whole thing. Well played. Spent the day looking for other options as to placement of the legs. I think I have it figured out. Going to sleep on it and see what nightmare's I can have.
I like how you did the pushing out of the curves. You are right that bigger curves are better if you have the room. Will be interested to see what you come up with for the legs.
So will I !! I haven't been happy with some of the construction and am correcting some weaknesses from when it went up in Big Bear Country. No, I know what I want. The legs will be an L girder construction made up of two 1x4's and a 2x2 post to add support. They will be tied in under the layout attached to 1x4's that make up the box like structure. See last picture above and this next one. We retired morticians like working with box like structures. Did I say that! Did I say that? We've been known for being the last guy to let you down. Enough of that.
LOL As you know all to well. It's the funny, quirky, dry, puns and corny jokes that get us through. Especially if you work in a hospital, with pathologist's (who are real cut ups) and or morticians. A Vet from WWII once said. He would see a good friend mortally wounded and laugh thinking he was glad it wasn't him. I know, that's a bit morbid but true. Whether I was in ER (when I wore my dept. head hat) or the back room of a mortuary. We laughed off the obvious to keep focused on the immediate needs and task-s at hand. I'll save those stories for a later time and place. You know to much already. It wasn't my intent to turn this into a Model Railroad How To. BarstowRick.com was supposed to be for said purpose. However, we had security problems with Word Press and it all but got shut down. I had collected How To Videos from what I felt was some of our best hobbyist and modelers. Lots of good information but hardly useful when the website is down. Oh well, just another in a list of disappointments. Sigh! Moving on. Here's another example of anchoring the legs to the layout. Here you can see what's left of the original leg. We had to cut it off to get the layout out the door, I originally anchored the leg from the outside so I couldn't get in to remove the screws. I still can't. Where's my chisel? Above: And the rope you can see in the bottom right coroner, darn funeral business... uhh err corner! That was used to hang it on the inside wall of the U-haul truck. Grrrrrr!!!! Below, one more shot. This is the other end of this section of the layout. Having pushed out the curves it created more weight, a tipsy and sag problem. The legs here proved to be to close together. This end was tipsy. A problem I'm looking to solve as I write. I was able to anchor to the floor of the train shed in Big Bear. That won't work here. This has to be stand alone in this Train Room. Therefore, I'm not sure where the legs should go. I will reinforce this end and the narrow part of the layout with L girders. That should eliminate the sag but also make it heavier. And because of the track configuration I can't cut it in half. I want to add two more legs in the middle. Also L girder style construction. Seems like there are times you just can't win. More later. Have a good weekend.
Massey, and everyone else tuned in here. I may have chased you guys off. Allow me to explain. The only reason I mention the vet and his story is because the only way to deal with the things he saw on the battle field and I saw in other ways was to laugh it off. You need to know that when he told me the story he was shaking and crying because of the loss of his good friend. They say you can grief your way out and then your okay. Truth is: The horror never leaves you. Your sense of humor may be the only momentary escape. There was never anything funny about the kind of work either the vet or I did. I made every effort to treat the person who passed and under my care, with as much respect and dignity as I can. Yes, I have memories that haunt me to this day. One of the reasons I have a Model Railroad. An escape. I voted, absentee. How I voted? That would be none of your business. One thing is for sure I don't believe the lies the media has been posturing and I'm not interested in being a Green - Socialistic...well...I think you get the picture. With that said, back to the now leaning railroad and the issues only enhanced by the way it was moved. I said gnashing my teeth and almost biting my tongue off. Last night: I tried an L girder to strengthen the end to the left in the pictures. You can see where I pushed out the curves. Yes, it helped. Now I'm looking at placing the leg by attaching to the layout above and the L Girder. It might work. There again it might not. in the pictures below. Yes there's pictures. Your going to get bored with this part as am I. Hast to be done. You can see here where the original layout was built. Note the box construction. Then it expanded as I pushed out the curves. I tried to strengthen it and that helped but it still needs some help. I added a piece of 1x3 hardwood to the side of a 1x4 and that firmed things up considerably. I need to get out my chop saw and cut it down to size. The leg will go in to the left of it where the angled wood is. That should keep it from being tipsy. I hate it when my layout is inebriated. Once this is on it's feet I will be calling in the heavies: Gandy Dancers, Work Trains, Bulldozers, Cranes and Track Gangs to restore the mainlines. Fun ahead.
No offense from anything here Mr. Rick. Been known to offer some bad puns myself. The idea of using an extension cord and splicing in outlets is really neat.
