Here's a follow-up shot of the lumber mill after the new sand added and glue dried. Not sure if the darker areas will stay or if it just hadn't completely dried. I rather like the look tho. M
When you're on vacation, you prep for decaling; it's what you do....you can also save 15% on car insurance. Oh wait, never mind.
Solid night's work in the RGW last evening. Wain continued to tweak the tracks in the lumber mill, while Scott reset the buildings and added supports for the outfeed building. We had taken most of the buildings off the table to work on the tracks. Doug and I added switch machines to the Maple Valley tracks; including one particularly troublesome one that required yours truly to spend most of the evening upside down and inside the space between the lower staging yard and the upper shelf. Sorry, there'll be no pictures of that. You're welcome. Rey continued his mastery of car building, completing several auto racks and then weathering them. He also brought this beauty he recently purchased at a swap meet: Doug continued his tree project in the SW corner. I'm considering a thinning, too many for my liking, so expect this to change a bit. I really appreciate his work though. One last thing, Wain extended the track in front of one of our warehouses to accommodate a full size boxcar in the Renton warehouse district. I'm headed to the medicine cabinet for ibuprofen. Thanks for checking in.
Short staffed last night, but good progress. Doug and I worked on turnout controls. The first step of which is to drill holes in the fascia for actuator switches. Between Maple Valley and Palmer Jct, there are 10 turnouts. Scott continued his efforts on the lumber mill buildings, here using a combination of weights and clamps to aid in the placement of the roof supports. Rey worked on several cars; including this CNW boxcar. That was about it, but very pleased with the results. Thanks for checking in.
Hey guys and gals, just uploaded another video to YouTube. This one discusses a scenery clinic we held at the RGW last year featuring Mike O'Brien from Moose Creek Trees. It's not a "how to" per se, but we hope you find some things you can use in the video content. Enjoy. M
Want to wish all my railroading friends a Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We'll look forward to more train adventures in 2017. All my Best, Michael.
Last night's work session was about turnouts and routing. Our next big project is to get routing set up in Franklin. There are only 8 turnouts and seeing as though this is our first attempt at it, this seemed the logical place to start. Wain and Scott made an inventory of our Lenz stationary decoders, perused the internet for videos and started the planning. We have LS110's and LS150's so we can easily control the turnouts independently, but we want routing. So we'll hook it all up and test it on a piece of 1x6 and if it debugs properly, we'll install it. Ed and I worked on other tortoise installs; including a pesky one that routes traffic to South Seattle. It's a hard to reach spot, but we got it running correctly by evening's end. Doug continued adding trees just west of Maple Valley. I took the opportunity to use my new Photoshop elements 15 to try focus stacking. I used only 6 shots, in hindsight I should have used 8. One more shot in the middle and one at the front end of the track. But given my first try, I'm not unhappy with the results. Here's how that went: That's pretty much it for now, more next week. Thanks for checking in.
Once again this week was dedicated to turnout installation. Our process includes using micro dpdt switches to activate the tortoise. Each tortoise throws a linkage under the subroadbed to position the turnout points to mainline or diverging. It all starts with preparing the tortoise. As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, we use scrap 1/4 inch plywood (from our helix build) as a base for the tortoise. We use double stick tape to poison the tortoise on the base, then screw it in place. We then drill two holes in the base for mounting on the subroadbed. Here is how that looks: After drilling holes in the fascia for the activation switches, we mount 1/8 inch aluminum plate on the back side to mount the dpdt switch. Unfortunately, there are times that isn't the easiest thing to do. As you can see here, Scott drew the short straw. We have just about completed Maple Valley, so the next big task is the main staging yard. Fun times! One other cool addition to the rolling stock, Reynold found this exquisitely detailed flat and load at a recent swap meet. It's really cool. That's it for this week. More to follow.
Michael, I like that crane load a lot. I think I might do something similar in N scale with a walthers or wheels of time flat. Nice inspiration.
Last night was once again all about turnouts and tortoises. Wain tried in vain to outsmart Lenz turnout controls and have them route, no go. I hear Lenz is coming out with a new controller that has routing, so we'll see if that improves things (probably too expensive for the little benefit). Ed kept up with the tortoise wiring project in Maple Valley and I spent the evening putting tortoises on their mounting base and adding the throw rod. In this pic, Ed is contemplating his next move. I place each completed tortoise over the turnout so I can keep track of when I have them all prepared. Scott was also busy installing more din plugs for the controllers. A while back I bought a guy's entire pre-wired stock, so our install should go pretty smooth. Rey was busy building more woodchip hoppers for our lumber mill. They look great. That's it for this week, thanks for checking in. M
I haven't posted this in a while, but offer it up for any new followers to this thread. Here is the outline for a clinic I have delivered many times at NMRA events. It is called SuperElevation Made Easy. Here is where you find that document: www.rgwrail.com/SuperElev.pdf Let me know if you have questions. If you're looking for the tape we use, you'll find it here: https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-3049/Masking-Tapes/Uline-Industrial-Masking-Tape-1-4-x-60-yds Let me know if you have questions. M
Enjoyed our work session last evening. The full crew kept the night lively and we got much done. This weekend I attended the World's Greatest Hobby show in Puyallup, while there I picked up around 200 more Grand Central Gems pine trees. Doug continued his fine work putting them and our horde of Moose Creek deciduous trees around the layout. I'll add some shots of his work in a subsequent post. Another item I purchased at the show was this cool flatcar and it's load of tires and truck beds: Reynold gave it his seal of approval, noting he did not add screws to the couplers, which he may do at a later date. Later in the evening he finished these two woodchip hoppers. Ed continued wiring up switch actuators and is nearing the final install in Maple Valley. As we get closer to putting those switches into service, Wain and I turned our attention to the main yards. We are researching turnout routing and still determining what electronics to use to do that. That said, it all starts with determining routes, which he and I did for most of the evening. We used different color highlighters to mark the routes and used a numerical reference system to map a graphic of the routes as we determined them. We got all 4 main yards complete by evening's end. The next step is to create the routing template which we'll need before determining the best electronics to get the job done. That's it for today, more next week. Thanks for checking in.
Just wanted to post a couple of shots of the trees Doug is so diligently placing around the layout. There have never really been any concentration of trees along the first and second levels of the north west wall. He has spent the last two sessions putting them in on those two levels. First level: Second level: We plan to add a lot of vegetation in these areas as well. I'm looking forward to the finished product.
