Okay, Sunday Night Update Time. Getting off to a late start (even with a two day grace period) left me a bit short. But I did manage to achieve the most important goal of the week. I completed the installation of the remaining spurs. So trackwork is essentially complete. Here are some shots of the spurs, click to enlarge them. First is the double spur serving what is planned to be my biggest industry. This will be a combination of juice (from fresh fruit) producer on one side, and food processing on the other. Next are the two spurs up on the plateau (I’d rather they be somewhere else, but when you’re trying to cram everything in on a door, sometimes you have to compromise). One of these will be for my fruit packer/distributor. The other will probably be a small mill processing corn products. Finally is a spur for an industry to be named at a future date. I just thought I needed one more spur for operational interest. Again, not the best location, but there it is. I was supposed to be installing the loose ties to fill in where I removed them to make all the flextrack joints, but that didn’t get started. I was also supposed to start foam hills next to the yard, but that didn’t happen either. I know it doesn’t seem like much progress. It doesn’t to me either. But it’s more than I’ve been doing prior to the party, so we’ll see if I can build a bit on this week’s start. Maybe I can get a little momentum going. So this week’s plan includes: 1. Install all loose ties under track joints. 2. Start foam hill contour work north of yard. 3. Start foam hill contour work in center of layout. 4. Start installing ground throw switch stands. Well that’s about it from down here. Let’s see where everyone else is. Regards
Here is my first progress report. I finished recoloring the abutment stones. If you would like to see how I did the recolroing please go to: Passenger Station Diorama Since I like the abutment I did the creek wall. I also started redoing the foliage around the abutment. Here is what I am doing while I am waiting for the glue to dry. I am decaling an Athearn/Bev-Bel unlettered boxcar into the Lehigh & New England billboard scheme. I have one side finished. It went from: to
I finished my "tunnel" so I met my goal du jour. Cutting foam is not easy or quick, though... But the pattern from XTrkCad is down on the plywood and the sides of the tunnel look OK as far as clearance. Spent about a half-hour doing cleanup. That's going to be it for about two weeks, though because I have two back-to-back road trips coming up Tuesday... I'll be able to post some pics tomorrow night.
Still on a dial-up connection...argh. Anyway, I've completed my first bullet item--the scenery "plate" that my buildings sit on: The oddest part of doing this was making grass-covered 40-mil styrene "tiles" to fit in amongst all the other styrene work. The more I work on scenery around these buildings, the shabbier the buildings look. I suspect that, once I've completed the scenery, they're going back into the shop for a makeover. Next step: parking lot and roads.
"Is anybody working?" UP Mike asked... the answer is, oh yeah baby! My task for this week was to paint the big hill, here's some befores and afters. The big white hill: Making progress. The painting was taking forever. Then my 9-year old son said "Dad, why don't you use a bigger brush" Out of the mouths of babes... And more progress: When painting under the light, it was hard to see these 'missed' spots. Have since gone back and gotten many of them. still some to go. Threw in a couple trees and voila! a photo opportunity! Hope you don't mind all the photos. Tasks for next 2 weeks: - Kill all the white spots with brown paint (about 1 night) - Build a Tunnel portal - Finish the white rocks In pix 1 and 5 you can see where the track goes into the hill, and to the right are some white plaster-molded rocks. Need to finish that whole stretch. Difficulties are: Little league has started, moto-cross race next Saturday, and getting a new dog on Sunday. Plus, there's a football game on I think... My plate is kinda full, but I will still party! [ 31. January 2005, 22:41: Message edited by: jimbeer ]
Well, just a small progress report. I haven't made it to Home Depot yet (at least with a vehicle that will haul 8-foot lumber) so I didn't make any progress on the benchwork yet. I did go by the HD near my office and found they had some pretty good 1x4's in stock so I plan to head by there early this week to make the purchase. I am also having trouble locating a table saw so that's been a bit of a problem. I thought I'd solved it when I remembered HD will cut wood for you for a reasonable price, but there's a big sign up....NO RIPPING. Crap! But, I did get some stuff done. I'm about half done with #3 on my list since I already had the 1x4's for the baseboards. (not good enough quality for benchwork) I have them all measured, marked off and ready to cut and I'm also about halfway done with the tape & mud. I also got my garage cleaned up which will greatly help my woodworking progress going forward. So I made quite a bit of progress this weekend, just not directly on my layout party items. Kudos to the rest of you guys that are making progress, I'm seeing some great things happening out there!
Well, FREMO meeting in Unna is over, pictures from the FREMO - meeting I've sold my plywood loading module and now, there's a gap in the layout: I must fill this gap! Until next picture. Wolfgang
Wow Good to see that everybody is still working!!!!! Great pictures Guys Myself I will be posting New pic's I just planted trees and getting ready to do some ballast work
Added 5 double bulb florecent lights and fixtures above layout. Really does improve lighting. and shows up the "oops" better. Cleaned track after ballasting main line and ran an engine dragging a tack cleaning car for an hour. Still need to ballast the yard. Might do that tonight or at least start.
Oh boy, Mr MKT Mike just reminded me I need to add lighting to my to-do list, before my layout makes the rafters above the layout inaccessible. I'm taking a leave of absence for a week (or maybe two) for an out-of-town trip, but when I get back I think I need to take care of the lighting before I continue... Which brings up the question: which is better, fluorescent or incandescent?
About lighting. I prefer using fluorescent fixtures. I used 40 watt daylight bulbs. This gives a whiter light. One of these days I will build a valance in front of the bulbs. This will direct more light down to the layout. My layout lower level is 62" from the floor while the upper level is 68". My lighting is 26" above the lower level, centered on the layout. Besides fluorescent are cooler and cheaper to run. Mike
I was looking at your pictures. Is that a mixture of track brands. I see unitrack and then tings with darker roadbed.
I was a little layout getting to the party, but I already started partying before I got here. There's been a lot of work on the Susquehanna Valley System in the last two months, but most of it won't show up in pictures. First, I started the layout with the basement unfinished. Last year I got ambitious and installed a drop ceiling and with that done I decided I could no longer stand the unfinished walls, so up went dry wall right after Christmas. And that was a treat, having to split the 4'x8' sheets length wise just to get them into the basement. Then I had to disassemble parts of the layout to get the drywall in behind it. I added more furring strips and I got it in place, filled, sanded and painted in two days. Then it was time to put the layout back together and get to work. But with the drywall up, I decided I didn't like the River crossing section of the layout, so I tore it all up, redid the benchwork, and set a two layer foam base, which was six inches wider and allowed me to soften the curves for the bridge approach. This also meant redoing the bridges, so back to the work bench for that task. Soon, I was bored with that and went back to the East Yard section of the layout and completed the wiring and control panel. The layout is two mainline cab DC, with walkaround throttles and local priority cabs for yard switching. I was able to complete the wiring for both cabs, which meant I was able to run some locomotives. I spent two days working all the switch combinations with all cabs, fixing the glitches, but at least now I can run trains on the east branchh of the DLW and the Erie mainlines, and I can work switching in the East Yard. After all the wiring glitches were worked out, I began ballasting the yard and the other sections of the DLW mainline. That took a good portion of this weekend. Plus adding a few scenery elements here and there, and tinkering with the River section. Next up, ballasting of the Erie mainline and interchange yard and the DLW branch line. Nothing will be happening this weekend though, since we're off to warm FLA for a work conference (life's a B**ch, ain't it?). Sorry there's no updated pics to show the effort. I'll try to shoot some new ones and put them up in my Railimages album before we head out of town, but I think the wife will have other ideas... And if anyone has any suggestions on how to post an Autocad drawing on RailImages, please let me know. I've tried converting my layout drawing to a DWF (web enabled format) but that won't work on RailImages since it requires a special viewer. Converting to DXF doesn't work real well either becuase I've used solid hatching for scenery elements and they don't convert well to other CAD file types. The album: web page
Some great pics here of work done. I have cleaned up my room to get the work done I have to do. I will be posting pics soon. BEGINNING OF WEEK TWO
Sounds Good Rick!! I thought you skip town on us I still have pic's coming on the ballast work and trees that I did the last two days
I'm getting ready to lay track. My grade / superelevation are where I want them, so I started putting down plaster cloth in hopes of getting the gade to stay put. My ME C55 track has arrived along with the roadbed, and the bridge kit is here too. Now I just have to get to work!
Okay, we have a little progress to report on my front also. Got started on the foam work for the hills. Right now it's just cut pieces glued in place, but I think I may start carving this afternoon. It's taking a bit of time because while I had a general idea of the look I was going for, and a very general idea of where the hills would go, there was no detailed plan worked out. So everything is trial, fit, evaulate, remove, replace, etc. Here are a couple of early shots: Okay, so it's really going slow because I'm lazy and keep getting distracted. At least it's moving forward. I think I have the party to thank for that. Regards
