Oh, that's how to add from the Media area? Might try to use it from now on? First time ever using the Railimages area really! I sure wish the Edit option was available for a longer time? If a mod wants to delete my sideways picture post, go ahead, it's a duplicate now IMG_2683 by in2tech posted Jan 25, 2023 at 1:26 PM IMG_2682 by in2tech posted Jan 25, 2023 at 1:23 PM
Alright new terminal strips ( small black terminal with 6 screws ) in from Amazon, and a test with one and it works. Man these N Scale turnout wires are tiny Curious to see how it goes with them? Whether they will help or be a pain? I'll find out! That kind of rats nest is what I am trying to avoid with all this, I hope so in the end?
Still marking time and trying to get to the point where I can make some progress. Got the drawings done for the router jig and converted them to screen captures so I can take the laptop out to the garage with me. Otherwise, I'm in a holding pattern. Doctor is telling me to take it easy. It's driving me up the wall, but I am payiong attention to her advice. Maybe it's time to dig into the unbuilt kits.
So those adhesive things that I can't find the rest of, don't work. That is a piece of 2'x4' corkboard as my first piece of base. It's what I had before I bought the foam, and stilled used them, cause it helps dampen the sound as does the extra cork roadbed. So look what I figured out to attach the tiny wires. A household stapler, and it works, or at least on the tiny DCC wires and should work great on the WS lights. Not sure about the AC wires, but should. I will not staple to the wood, so I will have to use tape for now! Of course I have to take off that adhesive piece, was just testing! I might order a $10.00 staple gun from Amazon? You can see the 2'x4' cork board piece under the foam in the last picture. I have to paint it Black! Those Red coffee stirring things are where my WS lights, street and traffic, drop down through. Who knew all of this was going to take so long The way I am going I'll only have the wiring done, by the time the party ends If that?
Time for an update: The fascia from Carlin has been extended east to meet the recently installed wrap around the upper helix and the whole thing has received a coat of primer. Eventually there will be a hillside and tunnel portals. The lower area in this photo is the western end of the WP line at Winnemucca. This shows both the east and west ends of the visible portions of the layout. Now I have started some work at the west end of Carlin where the scrap yard is going to be. This is a freelanced industry, so I need to come up with a name. Right now I am leaning toward calling it Silver State Salvage. So the area had already received a base coat of tile grout and I have penciled in the boundaries of the scrap yard property. I am trying to suggest that this industry extends beyond the front edge of the layout. This afternoon I applied some more scenery material to some of the areas outside the property and am looking over some of the fencing materials I have laying around that I could use. Also reviewing some of the models I have that I might be able to make use of here.
Nice work Brad. http://palisadecanyonrr.blogspot.com/ I think you need to come visit for a week or so and I'll take you out to see some great canyon country and mountain scenery for part of the day and then you can help me with scenery on the layout the rest of the day. Love your scenery. Sumner
Thanks Summer, I feel that desert scenery has been under appreciated and under modeled in model railroading. The area of the layout shown in that photo was one of my projects in the 2016-2017 winter layout party. https://www.trainboard.com/highball/index.php?threads/2016-2017-ninth-annual-international-winter-layout-party.101618/page-4#post-1008142
I use cup hooks and heavy duty staples to hold wires under my decks, but instead of straddling the wire with the stapler and then firing the staple into the L-girders, stringers, or OSB panels, I determine where I want the wire held, and tilt the stapler slightly off vertical to one side so one leg of the staple goes in much deeper than the other, and pull the shallow leg out to form a hook (so the staple functions like a small version of my 1/2" and 3/4" cup hooks). Then, I hang the wire on the staple hook. If you staple wires by straddling a wire and applying the stapler too vigorously, you may jam the crown of the staple onto the wire hard enough to break through the insulation. If one wire is nicked, the layout will survive without an issue, but if the staple breaks through the insulation of both wires, you will have a short that is impossible to find. (Yep, it happened to me.) Also, sometimes, you may not be perfectly straddling the wire, and you may drive the leg of the staple through the insulation AND the wire, and wonder why there's no power getting through. (Been there; Done that, too. It was crazy-making!) The only trouble I've had with the stapler hooks, is that sometimes the deeper leg was not in far enough and the staple fell out when I gently tugged on a wire. And once, when a staple hook on the underside of my upper deck fell out onto the lower deck track, there was NOT a short, but the staple did cause a derailment.
Along with your work is .... .... that of Eugen Haenseler (shown above) and ( HERE ). I've driven from Utah through Arizona and California to the L.A. area quite a few times. I see your work or his and I feel like I'm somewhere between Needles and Barstow on I40 or what would of been Rt 66 even though your work is further north in Nevada (much the same and I've driven across there also a number of time.). Sumner
As usual I'm working on too many different layout projects at the same time. I haven't put anymore cork down yet as I had to come up with final track locations leaving the hidden staging on one side and coming out of a tunnel and across a small canyon on the other side so wanted to make sure of what I was going to do in those areas. On the one side (physical south side) there are three tracks that come out of the hidden staging area. Two are parallel and are the double track main in that area. The other comes off the main via a #6 turnout so enters the mountain and tunnel portal there at an angle to the other two tracks. The portals are a loose adaptation of the ones on UP's line to Salt Lake City north of where I live. I have the two portal and a one portal in concrete and will put the print files up later. Also doing something similar where the portal looks to be mixed sized stone. On the north side of the hidden staging two mainline tracks exit a tunnel and ... ... cross a small canyon. I also wanted to get this more or less mocked up before laying the cork there also so designed and printed a bridge. I could of stopped there and laid cork but wanted to give a first go at scenery so continued on and started work on the canyon. . and stopped when .... ... I got as far as above. . I made a second curved turnout that I'll use with the other one or maybe use some place else. Still need to figure this out so I can lay all the cork at the coal mine complex. . If clicking on the image above doesn't start the video use the link ( HERE ). I'll post a fair amount more about all of the above on my other layout threads here and on my site soon. Sumner
I don't think I've seen those tunnels. I'm familiar with the more modern rail tunnels bored at Thistle, UT after the huge rockslide that forced moving both the RR and the Hwy. Those portals are poured concrete tubes. They are visible in google maps satellite view, and from the highway.
Hooking up the turnouts is on hold for now. So I moved on to wiring the Woodland Scenics street lights and traffic lights. Does not look good in the photos, but looks awesome in real life And ended up using push pins to hold the wires along with stuff that came with the traffic lights and made my own for the street lights. Still have to fix the angle of lights and secure them down, probably with N Scale nails, and paint the white pieces so they don't stand out! Even though the wiring still looks bad, it is way better then it was before Oh yeah, and replaced the sectional 9 3/4 track on the right with a piece of flex track! Have to try and do the same on the left side 9 3/4 track!
Brad, We can get a lot of modeling in a very small space in N-scale! Speedway Auto Salvage and Scrap, along with 6 other rail-served industries, is modeled in a crowded industrial area that surrounds a 4-track rail yard and Engine Facilities. The total space is 8 feet long but only 18 inches deep, so all 7 industries are very thin (4"-6") and only industry buildings or details close to the tracks were modeled. Speedway Auto is just 55 N-scale feet from back fence to fascia and 5" deep from the fascia to including the track behind the fence. Scrap yard N-scale 55' deep and 200' wide by ppuinn posted Jan 30, 2023 at 9:47 AM Speedway Scrap Yard by ppuinn posted Jan 30, 2023 at 9:47 AM Fictitious Speedway Auto Salvage and Scrap, Indianapolis near P&E Yard by ppuinn posted Jan 30, 2023 at 9:47 AM Mervis Rail Salvage and Scrap is 5" x 12" fence to fence. Mervis Rail Salvage and Scrap by ppuinn posted Jan 30, 2023 at 2:47 PM Heller Tin Compress is 18" wide and 10" deep (13" deep when including track in front of the fence). Photo Feb 28, 7 25 07 PM by ppuinn posted Feb 28, 2021 at 9:57 PM Photo Feb 28, 1 44 05 PM by ppuinn posted Feb 28, 2021 at 9:57 PM Photo Feb 27, 11 40 49 PM by ppuinn posted Feb 27, 2021 at 11:50 PM
It has taken me MUCH longer to upgrade Knoxville Avenue than I had anticipated in my progress report last Tuesday. Plan A: In order to add lane striping to the road, I wanted to prepare the surface of the road (spackling compound shaped to a slight crown in the middle and painted gray several years before COVID), by sanding it smooth with an electric sander. Most of the road became smooth as glass, but the 3/4" on either side of the track stubbornly refused to smooth, mostly because it was too thin/brittle where it came in to rail height over the roadbed and ties and kept breaking. Plan B: When I cut the black card stock wider to hide the uneven road surface with the simulated black rubber guards outside and between the rails, it looked far too wide (scale 9 feet instead of the 2 to 3 feet width of most prototypes). Plan C: I cut gray card stock and glued it onto the surface of the spackling compound. I tried to get a continuous curve to the left that also gradually narrowed forcing the perspective farther toward the back of the shelf. I wasn't ecstatic about the unevenness of the curve, which was amplified by my inconsistent gradual narrowing, but I was prepared to learn to live with it...until I added grass along the edge of the card stock, and the water and glue wicked onto the road and stained the card stock before I even started adding the lane stripes.
Thanks Dave for the new photos of your lineside scrap industries. I have about the same type of space along the front edge of the layout as you describe and plan to suggest that the industry extends of the front edge. No structures planned except for maybe a small shack as an office. I am just at the point now where I am gathering material for scrap piles. I'll be studying these photos for sure.
Arrgh!!! Three times, I've spent 20 to 30 minutes editing Post #134 by adding pics and adding more text for Plans D, E, and F, but get almost ready to post my changes and I receive an alert that crashes my edit and I have to start over again. This is the picture that should go with Plan C, above. Water/glue stained Cardstock road 2 by ppuinn posted Jan 30, 2023 at 9:47 AM
Brad (and anyone interested in modeling scrap iron loads): Over the past two years now, I've been modeling scrap iron for scrap yard piles and making custom gondola loads (mostly for my N-scale layout, one load for my HO layout, some piles for a friend's HO layout. There are basically 6 types of scrap iron (5 of which I've modeled): 1. Heavy Melting Steel (HMS)--more than 1/8" thick (thick pipes, beams/girders, plates) 2. Light Melting Steel (LMS)--less than 1/8" thick (sheet metal/steel roofing or siding, automobile sheet metal, thin pipes, thin beams/girders) 3. Cast Iron--Cast in a mold 4. Furnace and Foundry Scrap (Slab/billet/sheet/rod crops, rod/wire tangles), 5. Railroad Scrap--RR HMS(rail crops, scrap rail, railcar beams/girders, thick pipes/plates); RR LMS (damaged rail car siding, thin pipes/sheet metal ); RR Cast/Forged (rail car frames, truck frames, wheels and axles, couplers, cast ground throw parts); Manganese Steel in turnout frogs and crossing diamonds) 6. Steel from Scrap Tires (which I don't model) For HMS and LMS pipes depending on whether it is for HO or N, I used large plastic straws, smaller cocktail straws, insulation stripped from wires 12AWG to 26AWG, and wires with insulation. Evergreen tubes and rods. For HMS and LMS beams/girders: various sizes of Evergreen angles, channels, I-beams, H-columns strips. HMS flat plate: plastic sheet, cardboard, broken phone screen protector LMS sheet metal: card stock and printer paper with Model Builder corrugated metal printed both sides cut in 4'x8' and 2'x4' plastic autos cut into fenders hoods, doors, Loose Borings and Turnings from Scotchbrite pads, Bundled Borings and Turnings from basswood cubes, LMS bundles: from cork roadbed cubes. Loose factory Clippings and Trimmings (LMS): from metallic painted card stock cut into confetti; Bundled Clippings and Trimmings (LMS) from aluminum foil pressed into cubes. LMS: scale appropriate (and usually cut up or mangled so it's barely recognizable) appliances, doll house furniture, vehicle parts HMS curved plate from scrap tanks and silos: cut up plastic aspirin bottles, plastic water/soda bottles. Cast iron: plastic bottle caps with patterns (cut up so not recognizable as a cap), "interesting" shapes (odd caps, pen caps, broken clips, spools, plastic spinners from used firecrackers (looked like a large propeller), auto engine blocks formed from modeling clay and from plastic rods. RR Scrap: (cut up broken rail cars, rails, broken turnouts, broken RR bridge, broken trucks/bolsters, couplers, wheels/wheel sets) Furnace and Foundry Scrap (modeled only in the steel mill where it is recycled into the OHF or EAF) billet scrap (from Evergreen strips), mill scale (MS black turf on foam), broken molds (from cast metal empty molds and cut up Evergreen square tubes).
Plan D: I used brown Kraft paper to make a template of a curved and gradually narrowing road, and use it to precisely locate where the grass would end and the road would start. I spent several 8 to 10 hour days carefully penciling in various combinations of evenly changing angle for the curve and uniformly reducing width of the 6 lanes: 2 northbound traffic lanes, 2 southbound traffic lanes, 2 emergency parking (shoulder) lanes (1 northbound and 1 southbound). I kept test fitting the various combinations, erased, recalculated, and redrew my lines until I had the curve and forced perspective I wanted. Kraft paper template of curved road lanes by ppuinn posted Jan 30, 2023 at 5:17 PM Then I transferred the pattern from Kraft paper template to the gray card stock by using a lead pencil to lightly draw the lines and dots of the 36" long template onto the four 8.5x11 inch card stock sheets. I had finished drawing all lines and dots on the first sheet of card stock (from the fascia to the track) and was half way through the 2nd section (from the track to the T-intersection) when I noticed that there were lead pencil smudges that I could easily erase, but there were also numerous smudges that I couldn't erase at all, because they were caused by the natural oils and moisture of my clean hands as I carefully braced my scale ruler to draw the lines and dots in the proper locations. Plan E: To protect the card stock from finger smudges, I rested each hand on a paper towel. As I finished drawing the lines and dots for a 2 or 3 inch wide band where the lane stripes would go, I covered it with a sheet of Press and Seal (a variation on cling wrap used to cover pie dishes or bowls). I proceeded in this manner (drawing guide lines and dots for a 2 or 3 inch band, covering it with Press and Seal, moving to the next 2-3 inch band) until all 4 sheets had proper guide lines and dots. [Earlier today, I was thinking of this next step as Plan F, but it's really the second step of Plan E.] E.2: This is the step where I actually do the upgrade of Knoxville Avenue by putting the lane stripes on the road. On previous roads, I've unsuccessfully tried to add lane stripes by: --brushing on yellow and white paint (too wide and sloppy/uneven), --using yellow markers and white crayons (way too wide), --decals (too wide for N-scale) bought decal paper to make my own, but have never pulled the trigger. --using yellow or white vinyl pin stripes that I'd cut in 1/16th inch wide strips (VERY uneven width and the adhesive didn't last 24 hours), and --paint pens (too wide, impossible to correct a mistake). Then I used colored pencils...not perfect (when looking closely, sometimes--but not always--you can see a waxy reflection of room lighting), but definitely the best way yet. I especially like how colored pencil mistakes are relatively easy to correct, and lane stripes look a little worn instead of still wet/recently painted. I upgraded Knoxville Avenue by using yellow and white colored pencils. I started at one end of the road and, working in 2 or 3 inch wide bands, removed the Press and Seal from that band only, mostly erased the lead pencil guide lines and dots so I could just barely see them, and using a ruler to guide a freshly sharpened white or yellow pencil, drew a colored line over the faint guide lines and dots. Since N-scale lane stripes are about 1/16th inch wide, maintaining a sharp point is imperative. Mistakes in width or intensity of the color (too faint or too bold) were relatively easy to erase or adjust. The picture shows the completed lane striping is covered with Press and Seal. Press and Seal covering the yellow and white lane stripes from finger smudges. by ppuinn posted Jan 30, 2023 at 5:17 PM E.3 Next step is to use the template to check the grass is up to outside edge of the emergency parking (shoulder) lane (or intersection or business parking lot) on both sides. Then drop in the upgraded Knoxville Avenue and secure it in place.
So this whole section of your layout is junk? Seriously, nice job on modeling the scrapyard operations.
In order to lay cork past the hidden staging on the north side I needed to figure out how long a bridge was going to be in this section of the double track mainline. I could of laid the cork and even the track and cut it out later but the situation gave me an excuse to dive into scenery a bit and see if I liked it or not. I didn't finish the small canyon completely but feel good enough about it to move back to the laying cork and hopefully rail also stage. . . . . . . . If you came into the build here you can find the main index for the build ( HERE ). Sumner
