Welcome back everyone. I hope you all had a great weekend and got all of what you set out to do. Let's get started. Friday: What was supposed to be lunch turned into a whole day affair but some downtime with family can be a good thing. I was able to relax a bit and enjoy some non-work time. Saturday: Work on the valance started. My first concept did not work so I started by constructing the corner piece that would make up the upper valance out of 1X3 lumbar instead of plywood. By dinner I was done, ready to build two more parts that measure 48-inches long by 16-inches wide. Sunday: After a lot of research and watching YouTube, I concluded that the metal twin rack system used for shelves was the best option. Off to the big box store. I picked up all that I needed, got home, made the Mrs. some breakfast and was off to the garage. A productive day as I was able to measure and cut the ceiling panel that will be installed later, finished the two 48-inch by 16-inch valance frames and install the metal track on my wall. A bit of fine tuning will be next but that will have to wait until after the NMRA National Train Show. So how about you? What did you get accomplished? Let us know. We'll assemble again on Friday the 12th to do it all over again. Until then, have a great week, be safe, stay healthy and as always... High Greens!
Our Cub Scout camping trip was canceled at the last minute due to heavy storms Saturday night, so I had two mornings or layout work this past weekend. I planned to do some backdrop work, but mostly worked on gluing down more cork roadbed and feeding my 40’ boxcar addiction. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
We got none of the supposed heavy rain for the weekend. To the south down around Wilmington, DE and just a couple miles to the north along the PRR's Main Line got rain. We did see some lightening and hear thunder. Since it was hot outdoor was very limited. We did the plants moved around in the window boxes and I got some weeding of the front gardens done. I had to fiddle with the water fountain in the front garden as it apparently was sending the water out of the basin. I also moved a plant from the backyard to the front patio. My son attended a back to school bookbag give away as a vendor so I helped him transport stuff to and from the site Saturday and then the wife and I ran some errands. I shampooed all the area rugs in the house. Sunday went to Delaware to get gas. Paid $4.09. I didn't have any grocery rewards this time. Price was about 25 cents lower than any Pennsylvania prices. We then hit the grocery store for the weekly restocking. I finished cleaning and lubing one locomotive. I then tested it and it now runs better than before. It also has more pulling power. I began working on the second loco. I pulled apart the rear truck and cleaned off the excess oil. This locomotive is not as bad as the first. There is oil all over the trucks and the frame near the trucks unlike the first one that had oil everywhere. I wanted to test a couple of new locos I got but I did not get the chance.
I spent most of my time this weekend developing the industries list for the Digital San Luis and Rio Grande. Spent some quality time with google maps and the open railway map figuring out the route etc and getting stations organized. I have a bit more work to do on this but we'll get there... eventually. They say that rome wasnt built in a day, neither is the (Digital) San Luis and Rio Grande
I finally got around to something I have put off for a long time. When I built my Richmond, Texas NTRAK modules years ago, I needed a Southern Pacific depot. For a quick stand in, I put together a Model Power "ERIE Station" and used that. I believe that is just the old Pola-N RICO Station. I left the gaudy bell tower off the roof over the telegraph office. I decided to give it a new roof with a more Southern Pacific profile. I still need to add the station signs. It is not perfect but much closer to the prototype than the stock depot that I was using. The dormer over the telegraph office is a little too big and the windows need some white trim work among other things.
Good morning. This weekend I pretty much did what I wanted to do. Wish I would have had more time, but isn't that always the case? Managed to get a base on the cabin. Get some steps cut into the landscape, etc. Need to go back now and finish the ground cover to blend it all in. The other task there is to get the control lines put down going out to the turnouts. Should be able to finish up with a solid hour or 2 of work. Also managed to hand paint another 84 windows of the hotel building flat I started a couple of weeks ago. So I've done 108 total now. Another 36 to go and that's done. Then I can permanently assemble the walls get that knocked out. Another thing I did was more research on-line regarding Highland County, VA. That is main location of my fictitious division of the C&O. Highland County tried twice in the late 19th and early 20th century to get a railroad company started that would connect w/ the C&O in Charlottesville. My layout muses one possibility of WHAT would have happened had that been successful. I am thinking seriously of renaming my main city from "Albemarle City" to Monterrey. Monterrey is the county seat of Highland and would have most certainly been the main beneficiary of any successful railroad connecting to Charlottesville. I would keep the "Albemarle Division" name because the RR would have started in Albemarle County at Charlottesville. I am having fun researching this stuff, because I am getting to the point where I want to permanently name places on the layout. I have actually joined a newspaper archive service and can pull up old Highland County/Monterrey, VA newspapers to get a feel for things as they were in that area. Enough of all that. Have a great week all!!
Friday: Our weekend started out hot. Not super hot, but low 90's with 70 percent humidity. We got out and did things, but even a little effort resulted in a lot of sweat. I got my run in early Friday morning while the temps were in the 70's, showered, had breakfast, cooled off and decided to knock out a pile of limbs, and twigs that had been piled up in the back yard. I was out for an hour or three with the electric chain saw and a pair of loppers and got everything cut and stacked on the woodpile for winter as well as moving our son's kayak from that corner of the yard to the roof of the shed. When I came in, I was more sweat soaked than I was from my run and I had to change clothes a second time. After that, even though it was only lunch time, I was just done and lacked the motivation to do anything else on my list. That evening, however, I drove my wife to her horseback riding lesson and waited for her at my parent's house ten miles or so away, once again matching N-scale rolling stock to their original crystal cases on Dad's layout empire. I started with three or four large boxes of cases and have worked my way down to almost one remaining box. I can usually manage to match around a dozen matches per hour and maintained something close to that. But now I've found several sets of passenger cars that don't have cases when I know Dad would have kept the original boxes for such beautiful sets. So, the search begins again. Saturday my wife and I walked the dogs and in the morning and attended her 40th high school reunion picnic in the afternoon and not much else got done. Sunday, I drove 20 minutes to Minerva, to meet with the worship committee at 8:00am, and consecrate the communion elements for a church without a pastor, then returned to our church, had worship, then went to lunch with my wife and two friends, one of whom is moving several hours away to Sandusky in a few weeks. From there I went to the Sebring Model Railroad Club for our monthly business meeting, then to the Cub Scout Pack annual planning meeting, followed by the Scouts BSA Troop annual planning meeting, which included a robust discussion of what we need to do with the new chartering agreements since the lawyers have finished arguing between the United Methodist Church and the Scouts BSA. Now that the lawyers are done, what used to be simple has now become a major headache.
Good morning all. Well I did get at least a bit of everything I planned done this past weekend, and a few things I hadn't planned on. Got a start on ballasting the tracks in the areas connecting the two recently installed sections. The Back track, the WP/UP line did get done and is shown in this image. Now need to start to finish the scenery in this area. The LED light panel that goes under the shorter of the sections got done and installed so now the full staging yard and loco display case is lighted. Got a start on finishing the scenery along the front edge of the hillside. Added a steel brace to the east end of the larger Carlin section as there was nothing to anchor it to and it needs to be solid for the helix to connect to it. And after working with some cardboard templates, I made the transition piece to connect the Carlin section to the future upper helix. This will be useful as a tail track off the east end of Carlin yard while I am building the helix.
Boy, am I impressed! (FYI, the "grammarator" said "Boy" needed a comma and then said removing it would make the sentence clearer. ) Anyway, lots of progress. And I can relate to "my first concept not working". Regarding humidity, it is best to leave the house with a bar of soap under your hat. That way when you get home you will not need a bath. Boxcar addiction, I understand completely. On the OSR, the two-house diagrams are complete. Modeling clay is being tried for making a mold master. Talk about a concept not working. The learning curve is starting to look vertical. So, a new idea is going to be tried. All have a great and fun week.
Well, over the weekend managed to get two sides on a 50' boxcar decaled, one side on a 40' boxcar, and one side on a 40' Trailer. Also constructed a piggyback flat from a boxcar kit, and two Front Range 40' Boxcars, along with modifying an old AHM/Robbins Rails/Concor Covered Hopper kit. This modification consisted of removing the bookshelf ladders at each end and all the grabs and replacing them with ladder stock or wire grabs, also installed all the piping for the brake gear and an air line under one side of the car. Here is a picture of the old car and the modified one: Rick Jesionowski
Ah, yes. I remember now that someone had given me an old unopened HO kit that I had stashed away. Found it.
I was able to get some color on the roads and sidewalks in the New Milford section of my N scale Housatonic RR layout. I still need to spray dullcoat to seal everything and add some more weathering to dull down the road stripes and markings.
I was able to complete the WS Sicken Tire pre fab kit. The walls of the kit are mostly assembled right out of the box and that makes for a fast build of the main structure. The kit comes with a lot of detail parts which took most of my time. I enjoyed the build and like the results except for the factory size. Scale size of this building is only 50' x 40' and looks small for a factory when place next to other structures.
I redid the whole concept of my railroad. I just don't have enough room for continuous running. So it's now a point to point interchange along three walls of the room. This is the left, (RR west), end. Main, W.P. , goes to the inside, wye and shop/service,(yellow box), are Siwini Railway.(fictional, kinda' inspired by Feather River Railway). View attachment 256276 Also I installed the KD #450's on my Stewart A-B-A's.
Good afternoon to Y'all, i had a very good weekend. Friday: My friends shakedown session went as predicted. Found a few bugs for him to sort out. Sat. and Sun. Made progress on the beet train. Managed to decal approx 95% each of 10 cars (Out of 15). All they need are the end numbers -- Hope Y'all have a great week, Wolf
Inspiring to read about all the stuff everybody is getting done. Keeps me going when I don't have the time myself. The weather was beautiful in our part of the Pacific Northwest this weekend. Warmer than normal. Soccer game results were notably less warm for our favorite teams. That's how it goes sometimes. Did a little yard work after things cooled off on Saturday. Managed to navigate Seattle traffic on Sunday without any negative consequences. I did get the measurements I need for the T-Trak modules. Each single has a space behind the ballast 12 1/8" wide and 9 3/16" deep. Any T-Trak folks out there see a mistake, please let me know. My next chore will be developing some building footprints and see how those fit on the modules. I might be able to do that while away from the workspace this week. Stay safe,
Did a couple things this weekend... I finished designing the nose details for my n scale CF-7 and installed them on my test mule. I painted the grabs with a toothpick so it's a little globby and while I had the paint out I did the step edges as well. Not too concerned with the crummy paint-job since it is just a test shell but I know everybody loves pictures: 2nd thing I did was I tried out some concepts for a container for my shells to keep them more secure in the shipping boxes. Having fun with my laser: Cheers -Mike
It’s Tuesday out here in Japan already so I’m a little late posting. This last weekend I did a whole bunch of modeling things as I my wife was recovering from jet lag from her last trip to the US so she didn’t want go out much. I posted some additional details and pictures in my WC Waukesha Sub thread. I weathered a couple of FVM GEVOs, touched up weathering on a MTL factory weathered tank car and an Atlas hopper (one of my first attempts at weathering from a couple of years ago and renumbered/rettered a reefer for WC. I also finished my model of METX 100 (sky blue RTA heritage scheme) which started life as a one of those plain deep blue Metra F40s Kato makes. For this last item, I took photos throughout the repainting and weathering as I’ve gotten a couple requests on my process. I won’t monopolize this thread-they will be posted in WC Waukesha Sub thread later tonight. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
