The hole in the mountain will still be a 'cut-away' showing mine workers inside the mountain working. Just havent gotten that far yet.
The cold weather really slowed members showing up and it has been down to a steady 2 guys from the club working on it with me. Hopefully with warmer weather coming more will show up to help get it ready for the show April 10th. More to come later.
You started the thread in Nov, 2009. Five months later and still going. Some of the modules are really completely rebuilt. It sure is a big job. The layout really looks nice and I hope to see it someday. The operations is a good idea for the members, but I think the public just likes to see the trains run. Unless they are involved in the switching, of course. Nice thread and a good job, Jerry.
I hope you get a chance to see it too. Today I finished wiring the entire branch line, so all the lines are now wired and ready for the show. Going to work on scenery more, and thats going to be about it till April 9th when we take it apart and load it in the trailer and head for the show. Set it up and operate on the 10th, then bring it back here and fix any bugs/problems we find and finish the scenery and wiring.(Yards/sidings). Then we can start again on the yard and steel mill sections.
I should add we did operate all the lines today with everything from my little 2-6-2 to Bachmann mountains, Life-Like Berks, Brass 4-8-4, Kato and Atlas Diesels, and they all seemed to operate really good. The drops on all the moduals really keeps the power constant.
Great Thread!! Jerry, I am new to TrainBoard and I have been somewhat overwhelmed by the amount and quality of information available. I haven't had time to read your entire thread but have really enjoyed what I have read. Your thread is extremely interesting and helpful for us novice modellers. Your photos are great and the comments are very instructive. Thanks for all your sharing and efforts. Look forward to future installments.:thumbs_up:
Welcome Jim! Thanks for the comments. I love the Trainboard forum and everything you can learn here. We really do have it all here! Look forward to seeing your work too.
You guys have made some serious progress and looks like it's going to be a layout you all can be proud of. I like the idea of having the steel mill by the yard so you can switch and things instead of just running trains. I wish more clubs would actually operate off of one of the mains at shows instead of just running trains in circles. It would make things way more interesting at shows and also let the general public see what N scale is capable of. Good luck as you work towards the completion of your layout. Keep those pics comming!!
I know what you mean about just going round and round. The two mains on here have several sidings and passenger stations, plus cross overs to change to any line and get in and out of the main yard. The branch line will be able to switch the city scene on the one end, and on one side you can head up the other branch to the coal mine on the maountain, then on the other side, a lumber mill and several industries and grain elevators that can be worked. The plan was designed to by simple if there are few operators, yet can handle two mainline trains, a local, a yard job, a steel mill job, and two trains i9n long sidings ready to come out if there are several operators. Should be alot of fun!
Here's the latest I finished tonight after church. I added a few 'flat' buildings and Radical Flats background cut out buildings to a new backdrop.
Really like the way these backdrop cut-outs look and were very simple to do. Cut out, spray with adhesive, stick to backdrop....done!
Dewey was over Saturday and said he has 100 figures coming so the city will get some new population numbers for the Censes this year. Dave has all then vehicles from the layout at his place cleaning goo and hot glue gun goop off the cars and trucks. About half the city building have lights, so it should really be nice for the show. I'm hoping the 'new' layout will bring some new N Scale members to the club.
Working on a tight....and I mean very tight....budget has been one of the draw backs to this project. Alot of the city streets needed crossing lights, so I bought a cheap Bachmann blister pack of crossing signals and gates and thought hopefully I could make them look a little better. First, I cut the huge ends off the gates. That was a huge improvement! Then I painted the signals silver, and around the lights black. I then cut them carefully off the bases. Got them glued to the layout and here's the results.
