JPT Sub - my new layout project

Another busy Saturday working at the Chattanooga house. Can almost see the finish line there. As for the layout, Saturday took it's toll but still got a little done.

A second coat of paint on the scrapper, painted the wheels and stated glazing the windows. All that will be left is attach the wheels and as suggested, add a unit number decal to it. Sorry for the dark pic.



Did some work on the crossing for the parking lot at the chemical plant. Crossing installed and work started on the access road.


After that, I ran trains for a bit and watch some videos. I also cut the wire for one more interior light I need to run. Didn't feel up to breaking out the soldering iron and getting that installed. Maybe next weekend. Also fiddled with the scenic divide a little. Need to make a trip to Lowes and get some new dowel rod to use for mounting it better. It's one project I really need to finish so I can move forward on finishing up a couple of scenes.

 

Well just after wrapping up work for the day yesterday, had to make a rare weekday venture down the stairs to help my wife with something. Since I was down there, I spent some time in the train room.

First thing I did was attach the wheels to one side of the scrapper. I may have to redo the windows as they are still cloudy after 24 hours.


I cleaned up the access road work from Sunday and started to apply some ground cover. You may recall from way back in the thread, making a mess with ground foam is one of my fun vices, lol. You might also notice the lights are finally on in the chemical plant office. I wired them a week or so ago and finally attached the wires to power last night.

 

I also broke out the soldering iron and finished up the light wires for the grain elevator.



And then went so far as to complete running the wire and connecting to power.



And then there was one more little building that I added a light to but never connected to power. I connected it up as well. It is still a "floating" building but now that the light is done, I can mount it so no light comes out around the bottom edges.



So, I actually think I did more last night than I did on the weekend.

 

Well, the wife was working on stuff downstairs last night and since my knee was feeling relatively okay, I made the journey down to keep her company and do some work on the layout.

Put the last two tires on the scrapper and see that I definitely am going to have to redo the windows.


After that, I fiddled around with the scenic divide. I figured out my issue, or should I say issues. One was after I applied the backdrops to it, it bowed ever so slightly. Not really a big deal there as some ground cover will fix that. The other issue was when I re attached it, one end was out of alignment. I fixed that and it sits perfect now.


The down side to that re alignment is that the headhouse for the grain elevator does not for the space where it was. Of course and the MRR gods planned it, this was discovered the night after I did the light and wiring for the head house.

I reset the grain elevator but not sure I like it. Thinking either I need another section of silos or craft a more modern looking elevator to fit the space ...… or maybe both?

 

The crossing for the chemical plant is also coming fight along.

Cleaned up the ground foam mess


Added a few smaller clumps for brush, crossbucks, and stop signs.


Next, I poured about half the pad needed for the storage tanks.


Was cleaning up after that and had a couple of lumps of ground foam sitting there so they became bushes by the crossing for the plant.


Sort of feeling good about the progress so far.

 

Wonder how much you will get done when you aren't hurting . The crossing scene looked good but the added couple bushes really made it pop. You have a good eye for what you are doing with your scenery ,

Sumner

 

Thanks, I hope that day gets here. Last night, I thought I might make it 4 days straight but only made it down the 1st two steps and the knee said, stop and go to the recliner.

I appreciate the compliment on the crossing and scenery in general. I just try to do what I can and get lucky every now and then. Funny thing is if those two sections of clump foliage hadn't been there needing a home, who knows how long it might have been before I even thought about adding bushes there.

 

BNSF Fan, You can come and help me with my scenery. Some nice work there.

Just a suggestion for your roads. You might want to try some sand paper a color and grit of your choosing. I like a dark grey, fine grit for paved roads and a light tan for dirt roads. Glue it down with Tite Bond. Sometimes less scenery cover is better scenery cover. There again maybe not...to a point you are happy with it. The only glitch is sand paper likes to roll-up when it's wet.

Like what you are doing and your visits to my thread.

Wow!

 

Thank you Rick. Glad you like what you see. I've always enjoyed your layout and glad to see it coming back to life. Fun stuff going on there.

Yes, I have always heard that fine grit sand paper can make nice roads. I kind of am following my brain here and building the layout and then once I get it looking complete, I will then work on redoing some of the roads and increasing the detail level. Of course, that same minds set applies to everything on the layout in one way or another. It's almost like I'm building in a way to keep the work going

 

After another long Saturday packing up totes of breakables, I was still feeling pretty beat down by the time I rolled out of bed Sunday. Didn't even venture down to the train room until after lunch. Once I made it down stairs, I followed my normal routine of turning on all the lights, putting a railroad DVD on to play, setting up the Belen rail cam on my PC, made a cup of coffee, and sat down at the work bench. An hour later, still just sitting there nursing my cup of coffee, I was thinking I would just throw in the towel for the day and go for a nap. So, I managed to pry myself out of the chair and stood there for a minute. I thought, I need to do at least one little thing so the trip down would not be a complete loss. I picked up a bottle of white glue and some clump foilage and started filling in the gap behind the church cemetery.



I'm glad I did this as it jump started what was left of the afternoon. I was like okay, with this little section done, I might as well add some trees here and call this little area complete.



Then I decided I should at least fill in the rest of the gap created by reseating the scenic divide last week,

 

After filling in that gap, I added some additional trees at each end of the phantom rail line that runs behind the main street. This helps hide the track ends and give the impression of continuing on unseen or at least that's the idea.




With this as done as it is going to be for the time being (of course it really isn't done), I moved over to the other side of the layout and did some more work on access roads for the chemical plant. Also think I defined the spot for the electrical sub station as well.



Then here is a shot with the possible placement of some transmission towers to feed the sub station. You can also see to the left that the area behind the chemical plant office is coming along. Still need to do a little more work on the far side of the siding before tanks and piping start to go in.



I really liked the rail loading platform that @Joe Lovett built for his layout so thinking something similar but with an under the platform loading for tank trucks as well.

So after the early on sob story for the weekend, it all ended up turning out to be fairly productive. Now, where did I leave my K cups …

 

Thank you sir

The hedges did turn out pretty good. I almost went with yellow. In case you or anyone is interested in them, they are an HO scale item. The section you see is the top half of the hedge. The bottom half was all green so I just cut that off. I then cut them in half top to bottom so they are only half as wide. Made them go a lot farther. The N scale version was out of stock at the places I checked. Funny thing is that ended up working out a lot better. Was about the same price as the N but if I had gotten the N version, I would have had to get 2 packs to cover the same are.

 

Well now, after two weeks, there has not been much progress. Just kind of been feeling tired. Yesterday, I did a little but mainly just leaned back in my chair and watched some trains run.

So on to what I did accomplish.

Put a sign with the layout name. This is good for now but when I get a 3d printer, I have something different in mind.



I started on some gravel and scenery work around the power sub station but not much more than a mess at this point.



Then I added a little extension of road into the chemical plant area.



And lastly, a look at the inner part of the solar system.



May try some evening work this week if the knees are up to it. It's not much but thanks for stopping by and checking it out.

 

Looks good. I like the solar system cars!

I have not had rails to view my planets since Venus. Earth, Mars and NEOWISE have not seen my rails yet. I am working tho on my T-Trak modules so hopefully soon I will have those done enough to run trains and then see my solar system collection.

 

Well last thing I had done on the layout was make a mess with gravel around the electrical sub station. So I picked up from there, cleaned that mess and made a ground foam mess



After letting it dry, I ended up with this.



I finished out the gravel drive to the paved road but somehow missed getting a picture.

Also toying with the idea of a guard shack and some gates for the chemical plant. Still a lot of work to go on that idea.



It never ceases to amaze me at how much time I can spend to only have a few square inches done. However, it does bring a lot of relaxation so no complaints

 

I know you are correct sir. I'll need to add some tall grass and maybe some gophers to my project list.

 

Well, after nothing last weekend, I did do some work this weekend.

Starting with making a mess with some scenery material.

Here to the left and right of the power substation, I started filling in a little more ground cover.
(right) - The spot on the far right of this pic is now one of only two spots that don't have any type of scenery material on it.


(left)