Last week was the last week of the semester. so Not much progress yet at this point. Made a run up north on tuesday to retrieve a dresser I intend to use for train storage by building cassetes to fit into the drawers. I'll elaboate more on that later. Got the bandsaw wired up and hopefully, over the weekend, I'll get the belt tightener done. Then, I should be ready to get started.
The wiring and manual turnout controls for the west end of Carlin Yard is done and tested. I am now building the remaining 5 turnouts that will be needed for this area of the layout, shown here in various stages of completion. Four of these additional turnouts will be for spur tracks that come off the siding. Placement of controls for these will need to leave a space along the front edge for this control / display panel that I have already built the housing for shown in the photo below. Once those last turnouts and controls are installed I will get this mounted. As all but one turnout are manually controlled, this panel will mostly have indicator LED's to show turnout position.
Not much progress on specific Layout Party goals: Earlier this week, I cleaned up track flangeways where I had re-ballasted some reconfigured tracks near my OHF during the first few days of the Party...probably less than 20 minutes of work on my own layout in the past 10 days. On Friday Dec 17, I spent the day helping a friend on his layout. We: 1. finished installing Loconet cables connecting his 9 UP5 panels, and tracked down a short caused by switching the A Rail and B Rail connections on the last UP5 panel, 2. installed the final flex track and turnouts for a dozen industries in three towns on his layout and soldered all feeders, and 3. put in ground throws and manual switch machines for all turnouts on the layout except the two which will be electrically driven, because they are too hard to reach manually. And last Monday, I put together a couple dozen trees made of wire and lichen to put on his layout the next time I see him (probably in January). Since last Monday, I've split my waking hours between Christmas activities (preparations, traveling, celebrating) and writing my article about modeling hot and cold ingot molds. (Christmas was wonderful for me and my family...and I hope all of you have a happy and healthy New Year.) I've made significant progress on my article and will send a rough draft of the final text for a preliminary review this week, just to see if I'm in the ball park. I know the pics and diagrams still need a little work...I expect the Pics to be covered by finishing my Layout Party goals. The 2 diagrams make sense to me, but I'm going to get some feedback from local modelers before I include them in the rough draft to the editor.
Still working on scenery in the one corner that is deep. Better off getting the scenery against the backdrop in before putting the second level benchwork in overhead. As of this morning, the rock cut is mostly done, ballast is drying and I’m going to start on ground cover surrounding the rock cut in the morning. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Been about 11 days since an update so guess it is time. Like a lot of you it isn't easy to only work on the railroad. I'd had the camper in the shop for about a month working on installing a furnace in it so we could do more spring/fall camping. It can be a nice 70-80 during the day here but at 6,000 feet the nights can still get in the 40's-50's which has become to cold for us to enjoy so the reason for the furnace install. During the time of getting the furnace install done and getting it outside I hurt a leg bad enough that I lost physical work time so I moved on to designing and printing some rerailers to use with .... .... the lift/elevator tracks that I hope will work. I figured that a rerailer on both sides of the joint where the lift track aligns with the fixed layout might not hurt and they will be out of view. Time will tell about that decision but now I can also use them as road crossings at other places on the layout. Here is..... .... a video of them in action but I really need to get the rerailer installed with tracks on either side of it so I can try it with a real loco with derailed cars behind it. I printed 6 of them to use with the lift/elevator section of track. They are all for ME code 70 as that was what I had to settle on for hidden areas as code 55 is hard to find. I think I have enough code 55 for visible areas so designed and printed some for the code 55 also. You can find more info on them here ..... http://1fatgmc.com/RailRoad/Trackwork/page-37.html .... and I'll soon put the print files up on my thingiverse.com account ( HERE ). Next up is probably trying to finally get the race car move out. Don't look forward to that. Sumner
Those rerailers look cool and functional Sumner! Hopefully the hurt leg is something that will heal up fairly quickly.
Thank You! I applied some ground cover and painted the backdrop this morning before we left town for a couple days. Ready for trees this weekend! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Decided that the first pass at using the square styrene just wasn't the way to go and moved on to using some balsa. Think this is going to work much better and while it may not really have detail, once painted and in place, should have the desired look. Just used a file to make the tops look slightly rounded. Here was most of the first batch. Did another batch yesterday while I was out trackside waiting for trains that decided not to run while I was out. Also found some craft paint so next up will be starting the painting process. That's about it for the past week and a half.
The needed turnouts have been completed and I am currently working on installing the track and turnouts along the right of way for the siding. Did make one change in the direction of one of the turnouts shown on the drawing. Did this to allow for a space for the display panel without interference from the turnout control knobs.
There are so many Bad jokes going through my head right now, as I assume others, that we just can't post them This one I think I can, It's a dirty job but someone has to do it... and it's not even close to what I wanted to post Remember family Friendly forum...repeat that before you post!
I took the last two weeks off from work over the holidays and spent it at home with the wife and kids. Very glad to have done that and I’m feeling refreshed for the new year. I was also able to make a good amount of progress on the layout and I can see some benchmark accomplishments now in reach. The latest progress includes planting more trees in the deep corner, painting the backdrop and installing more switches at the south end of the classification yard. Should be installing the last few pieces of upper level benchwork and installing lower level lighting this month. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Typical me as I am late with getting my posting starting aka I forgot about it. My goals for the Layout Party is to work around the Union Station area and town/city and get as much as I can get done. This includes: * Ballasting the track in the area of the Passenger Platforms * Mounting the foundations for the platforms *Figuring out the street layout around the station area. *Making the foundations for the Union Station and mounting them. *Adding the streets and sidewalks. I am going to be posted several update posts in the next few days so that I can catch up to where I should be with the posts. Here the best before pictures I have that show the work just before the Party began This shows the platform foundation which are made from foam board cut out to match the footprint of the platform. I needed to glue two together to obtain the needed height. Since there are four platforms I needed 8 pieces. I had to make the cut outs for the stairs. I tested how the foundations and platforms looked and worked with a passenger car Removed a portion of the roadbed where the platforms will go. A final test of the platform and its location For the first week I want to ballast the tracks, glue the foundations together and paint them. I also want to place the foundations in their final locations.
Happy New Year, Everyone! 1. Continued to make progress on the Ballasting goal: the Lead to the Brick Shed, Mold Preparation Shed, Mold Shed Run-around, and 2 OHF Teeming Floor Tracks and Cooling Track were ballasted a week or two ago and cleaned up around Christmas. The 2 Stripper Room tracks in the Blooming Mill were re-ballasted, detailed, and cleaned up a few days ago. 2. This year's Layout Party goals also include ballasting 2 tracks in the Materials Yard: the Drop Curve (where one of my Layout Party goals is to animate a crane dropping a Wrecking Ball onto the damaged molds to break them into pieces small enough to load into the OHF Charging Boxes and EAF Scrap Pot), and the Pretzel Curve (nickname for one of the tracks in the prototype's Materials Yard that curves back on itself). This weekend, I added some more broken and unbroken molds to the Drop Curve pile and started testing ways to mechanically slowly raise and quickly drop a weight...hopefully with an Arduino programmed to lift the weight with an electromagnet and drop it 3 to 5 times and then stop. Added some more broken and unbroken molds to the pile of molds on the Drop Curve in the Materials Yard by ppuinn posted Jan 3, 2022 at 1:18 AM 3. Put together and painted a Stewart kit cast metal hoist for the Mold Preparation Shed Track, and fashioned J-hooks for the hoist, which remove damaged ingot molds from the mold buggies after the molds have been stripped from the ingots, so that the used molds may be readied to make another ingot. Damaged Molds on the ground; Modified a Stewart kit /hoist so it can lift damaged ingots by ppuinn posted Jan 2, 2022 at 11:29 PM 4. Weathered and added grass and bushes around 3 retired boxcars that were repurposed as storage sheds. The shells have been sitting between the OHF and the Stripper Room of the Blooming Mill for several years, but this is the first that I've done ballasting and scenery to the tracks in that area. Weathered and put grass and shrubbery around the 3 boxcars used as storage sheds near the Cooling Track by ppuinn posted Jan 2, 2022 at 11:29 PM
In my effort to catch up my posting here is the Week 1 update. Since so much got done I am going to split it into two posts. First is ballasting. Here is the ballasting of the inside track. The wood is being used to keep the ballast out of the area where the station platforms will go. After a couple of days of drying. Now ballasting the outside track After drying
Here is the second part of the Week 1 update. The platform foundations. While the ballast was drying I painted the foundations black. Next glue them down to the layout. Temporarily place the platforms on the foundations to see how they look. For week 2 I planned to work on the streets around Union Station and the foundation for Union Station.
Catch up post for Week 2. Things did not turn out as planned with Week 2. I looked over where I was placing the Union Station building and some of the streets around it. After awhile I got to thinking about how the station would operate such as how people would get to the platforms and how baggage would be handled. I looked at the rear doors on the station building and thought they did not seem right for passenger use. This would mean the passengers would use an underground concourse to access the platforms. Since there are not elevators to the platforms (aka I have not found any I can add) baggage would need to be trucked over to the platforms. I then realized I should have a third track. This one between the station and the platform. After some more contemplation I decided to abandon the Engine Terminal for now. I would return back to original track plan since I now how thee tracks going through the station. This would allow me to place some rail served industries on the edge of the city just like the original plan. Week 3 is finishing the third track and beginning the industrial sidings.
Still working on trying to get to work on my goals for this year. In retrospect I probably should of made what I've been working on as the goals and then it would of looked like I was possibly accomplishing them. We get lots of sunshine in SE Utah (normally) but the past 3 weeks we get a little sun most days but not enough for the greenhouse to really heat the shop. Most days it has been in the low 50's in the shop. I started a fire a few days but I'm getting lazy. Since the 70's living in Wyoming and then Utah I've heated the shop and house only with wood stoves and solar. So no set the thermostat and sit back. This year we have used a gas stove that I had installed when I built the house but hadn't used. I figure it was finally time for me to get something that could heat the shop that was also connect to a thermostat. I ordered the natural gas furnace above and then made the brackets to hang it on shown next. Then when I was ready to move on to actually installing it I hurt my leg and have been pretty much out of being able to work in the shop for the past 2-3 weeks so put my efforts into another project that had been on hold for some time. Back to the coal mine complex. I spent a lot of hours refining the design with windows, doors, trim and other changes to the design as I had last left it. Altogether probably over a hundred new design files for the project with many changes in each one. By the time I'm done I probably could of scratch built the project in far less time but I really enjoy the CAD work and I think I'm close to start printing parts. Still lots to do in the design end as there is another building to be designed to go where the empty roof line is in the first and second image above. Then I also still need to design all of the structure that will hold the complex up above the tracks. In case you haven't seen it the mine is being built so hopefully I can have an empty train enter it and a loaded one leave it. That is explained here .... http://1fatgmc.com/RailRoad/Coal Mine/Coal Mine-Index.html As soon as I finish this post it is out to the shop and back to the furnace install as I've got a fire going out there and it is up to about 60. Sumner
