Welcome back everyone, I hope you had a productive weekend. Now you can post all those things you accomplished over the weekend, with pictures if you have them. Saturday: Slow day at work but still more prosperous then the old dealership. Enjoyed the evening with Angela and some Chinese food. Sunday: The weather was warm again so I spent most of my time on yard work. Being gone last year really put me behind on clearing brush. I hope by the end of March to be done. I worked a little bit on the CTC panel but nothing worth posting. So how about you? Did you get more done then me? I bet you did. We'll assemble again on Friday the 13th to start the process all over again. Until then, be safe, have a good week and... High Greens!
Happy Monday. Didn't get as far as I wanted this weekend, but nonetheless, did advance some things. First shot is the road section I cut from chipboard last weekend. This weekend I primed it white and taped off lines. (First picture). After that, I painted it w/ latex, chalk, and some ink-wash along w/ "Sharpie" Pen tar lines. Also stained and finished several retaining wall castings that will flank this road. The brick tunnel portal is a Monroe Models B&O double portal that I cut down to height to use a road way portal. Also got double-track deck bridge painted a base black. Bridge still has some work to do. Wooden walk-ways and then the track of course. But, several things moved along this weekend. Now, obviously, the next step is to get this stuff on the layout!
Saturday: Had mixed results - The E8's have been fighting me all along the way -- well, the fight is over. I stripped them. Gonna start over. New decals have been ordered. My other project (Yet to be revealed) is coming along nicely. Sunday: Continued making progress on the new project. Hope Y'all had a great weekend!! Wolf
Haha! I did ballast one of my Lester WA modules, but have not taken pictures yet, then it was too warm to stay inside... Seasonal hobby shifts. 13 trees cut down and hauled off including eight 60-80 foot raining Poplars (nightmare yardwork trees) Five 40' pines, and a nasty cottonwood. Raked the front yard, pulled all the dead annuals from last year, and prep flowerbeds. Have at least 20 contractor bags worth of leaves to rake yet in the back yard. Ordered Chinese Diesel Heater to use as a tent heater to replace my Mr Buddy that burns through propane too fast. (New 2020 all in one design) Ordered new single propane burner, and 20" Discada (Cowboy Wok), and sorted camping gear for our annual family spring break at Mann Creek Reservoir in 2 weeks. Sledding, ATV's and Pontoon Fishing in the cold. Still have to re-string my poles, and am looking for a padded cot to replace my full size 18" thick air mattress, which is too hard to get out of. Last spring at Mann Creek, we had the whole reservoir to ourselves all week. I sleep in the red cabin tent, while everyone else sleeps in Trailers or their trucks. It was well below freezing at night, and I burned through a 16oz propane canister in 4 hours, and froze the rest of the night in my tent, then burned through 2 canisters a night every night afterwards. I can't pull a trailer because I bring the Pontoon. I don't actually do the sledding, I'm not a real fan of getting all wet and cold like the other guys, instead I stay just below the snow line, and let the kids go up the hill while I build the campfire.
Great weekend it was! Thursday I attempted to install decoders in my little N scale 4-4-0’s. Nope not gonna happen. After disassembling the tender on one I found it was quite difficult to get at the motor. There is a plate at the front of the tender that didn’t want to come off so to keep from destroying the tender I just stopped. Oh well, I tried. Saturday I went to the train show in Ogden, Ut. Helped out at the NMRA table for a bit then walked around and checked stuff out. Found a few items too. Had to pick up a new Apache case for all the new rolling stock I picked up in the last three weeks. Saturday afternoon I built a cap for the module. Finished it all on Sunday. Now it is ready for transport. Sunday after the cap was finished I pulled the second module out to work on and also did a little weathering on a structure. I also came up with an idea for a future module after I complete the wendover one. The bridge over the Green River at Green River, UT.
It was a beautiful weekend here in NE Missouri. Still sweater weather though. More cooking as usual. House keeping. Got a loco stripped and ready to paint. Paint is in the mail. Mechanism cleaned and lubed. Research on available parts without much success. May have to buy a whole model. Made more progress with CorelDraw. Slow but steady. And the best part of the weekend was that I got a job offer.
I repaired a boxcar that was missing a brake wheel. Started re-weathering the Sharknose A unit. I also began weathering some wheels and trucks for a couple of Atlas ACF covered hoppers. However, the biggest news was unexpected. I was downstairs trying to organize a few things and was joined by my son. He decided to clear and clean the worst corner of the layout. He then reconnect the track and cleaned the rest of the track. Before I knew it we were running trains. I truly thought it would be months before a train would again run on the layout.
Put a big post in my n scale JPT Sub thread about the layout work from the weekend. Did a lot but after posting it all, I'm not feeling like I accomplished as much as I thought I did. Also broke out my GHQ Low Boy trailer kit I bought a few months back and have it on the work bench ready start. And here's a shot of the layout with the scenic divide temporarily removed for work.
I cleaned track, did honey does, and cussed out the Chrysler engineers that designed my 200 as I changed the headlight bulb...who the expletive designs a car that you have to remove the fender apron to reach the headlights?
I got some work done on the passenger depot. Saturday was unfortunately mostly void of train stuff as I went to a Spring Fling in Attalla, Alabama. Mostly antiques. A few live goats in bandanas. I missed the miniature cow. It went home early. I did grab a pic of the truss bridge south of town. Much hidden by trees even in winter. Also got a deck level shot of the old swing bridge in downtown Gadsden as well as building pics and a couple of goat pics. This week should see the internal bracing for walls and second floor installation. Have a good week.
Still have 14 trees, including cherries, apples, nectarines, a couple pines, a white birch, and several low maintenance evergreen and dicidous trees. When I bought it in 2016, it was an overgrown jungle as seen in the aerial view: And the Street View: Here is a picture I took a couple minutes ago. Notice the missing treeline on the right side of the house, as well as all the thinned out front yard. Like I said, they had a jungle growing here, and it was a nightmare to keep up. Branches and leaves on the roof all the time, just way too much yardwork. It's hard to belive there was actually a quite nice home burried in the mess. The HOA said I need to have 1 tree with a trunk greater than 3" diameter in the front yard. Done! And, since I am taking pictures, here is a shot of my module progress. I got the ballast down on the Lester TT Roundhouse module. This module still needs the Depot (built), and Large Water Tower (unbuilt). I also have a $200 order N Scale details to outfit the machine shop portion inside my roundhouse. I even bought several Aurduino Nano clones (the $3.50 ones) so I can make the 3 color arc welder effect with fading afterglow, and other effects on this module.
Here is a quick video showing a test run of my LC&NC IHC 2-6-0 Camelback. No trains have run on the layout for close to ten years until this weekend. I had to order a DC controller since the DC locos didn't like the DCC Controller. (I will figure out the issue later.) The video isn't the greatest and was shot with my Pixel phone. The stuttering was something I did with the phone as the loco ran smoothly through this section. There are sections of the layout where running is still a little rough as there is track just placed for the purpose of getting the layout running again
Wow. Jungle seems as though not a strong enough description! Probably half the price you paid was for value of all that standing timber! Ha ha.
As far as modeling goes, last weekend turned out to be a lost weekend. After chores and family visiting, only got to spend about an hour on the layout, which produced nothing noticeable. Here, however, is a shot of the scene being developed. Now if I can figure out how to frame it to take out the background clutter from the room and other sections of the layout that distort the scene itself. And I need to add plexiglass to stop crushing the end of the chain link fence that appears bent in this picture.
mrhedly, wow, amazing stuff. good share. rray, yeah, it used to look like a jungle. Lost in suburbia... Round house is especially realistic.
These photos are of the ex-Hobby Shop layout that the original builder and I are rebuilding as an exhibit for the Mississippi Coast Model Railroad Museum (MCMRM). These photos show the portion of the layout that faced the front window. We've added the right end and the back side and now have three continuous running loops. The original had two point-to-point tracks that were activated by a motion sensor when someone walked up to the window. We've been at this since November, and finally got the loops running a few weeks ago. We're now putting in the scenery base on the back side and right end. The left end is against the wall. Then we'll put in the tiny details all around, and repair the ones you see in front. We were amazed how well the layout survived being moved. It was cut into "modules" with a saws-all.
