Free-moN Staging Yard - 2'x10'

Alrighty: all Bullfrogs installed & wired, sooooooooo it's pretty much "done".





I wonder if I'm forgetting anything...


Don't worry: I cut them off.

Everything works fine, so away this module goes (I found some space under the Mt. Coffin & Columbia River layout), and on to the others!

Here's a rare, rare view of a nearly clear workbench:



Don't worry: I messed that up soon after the photo.

4 1/2 days to go to the show!
So which of the kabillion projects to do on the other two modules first?
Hmmm....

Stay tuned!
(And thanks for looking)

 

Before tackling Effett Staging Yard, I took a break from scenery work to finish a steamer project that's been sitting on my workbench for a year.
Back at X2011 in Sacramento I found a 2-6-0 someone had built off a Kato 2-6-0 chassis:





Notice the Japanese three-axle tender.
I wanted to turn this into the Effett Yard yardgoat, so I changed the tender to a slopeback, installed MT905 Z scale couplers front & back, steps, handgrabs and installed a DZ125 decoder (in the tender).

So here's what it looks now:



Not sure if it's an improvement, but at least I have my yardgoat!
[More important: given the loco "graveyard" that is my workbench, this is the first loco project that actually works after taking one apart and attempting to "improve" and put back together!]

Still need to add some cab curtains to help hide the motor.
And thinking about removing the pilot to make it a 0-6-0.
It's pretty heavy and runs pretty smooth (though a little faster going backwards on the same speed step), so we'll see how many cars it can shove this weekend.

Thanks for looking.

 

You can slow down the speed in reverse. With the Digitrax decoder, just enable the speed table and adjust CV95 (Reverse Trim) to something less than 128. This will slow the locomotive down in reverse.

 

Thanks for the tips: I'll try them out.

What happens when you don't screw the cap back on the NeoLube while it's sitting on your module while you're lubing up turnouts?



D'oh!
Big Stain.
Soaked it with alcohol and most wiped up.
That area's scenicked with static grass and tufts now, so hardly noticeable.
But a good reminder to keep a lid on it!

Spent the last couple days blowing out my eyes and back building a coaling tower for Effett Yard:







Not the most prototypically accurate (i.e. should have two chains & pullies on each chute, etc.) but it does the job.
(and remember: it's "Effett" Yard)
How do dudes get up to the door at the top?
Well, until I get my ladders from Traincat, I guess I'll have to put a rope in there.

Alrighty.
Almost time to schlup this stuff down to San Jose & set up for the Great Train Expo tomorrow.
Still have to put in a water spout, sand tower, diesel facilities, and a MOW shed.
Maybe some people too, but I can always do that at the show.

Thanks for looking and hope to see you in San Jose!
(Do you know the way?)

 

MC,
I'll be there Sunday with my two sons. It'll be nice to meet you there. Any other TB members going to the GTE show in San Jose?
-Ryan

 

Very cool: looking forward to seeing you & your kids!
By Sunday we should have figured out what we're doing

When you're done at GTE, don't forget that the Children's Museum is close by (groovy for younger kids), as is the Tech Museum.
Or, on the way back, you could stop at the Live Steam Trains in Tilden Park (Berkeley), or the Walnut Creek Model Railroad Society (right off of 680) is having a show this weekend.

Toot toot!

 

Thanks for all the additional ideas MC. The boys just packed up a tray of railcars this afternoon and a couple engines and are very excited. See you at the show tomorrow.

 

First day of the GTE show at the Santa Clara Fairgrounds went pretty well.
It's amazing how a totally unorganized group (that is us, Silicon Valley Free-moN) can get together and put up a large layout in a few hours!
Here's the one "set up" pict:



Murph and Eric are putting together our "Ring of Fire" that we ignite and have jump through every time someone says "Why are the trains going so slow?"
No, that's really the return loop / double wye Eric built in about three days for X2011.
Gotta say, it was nice to finally have TWO return loops, one on each end of the layout!

Here's the other one:



Having the extra two tracks on the new return loop was awesome: amazing how many more trains you can run when you have more than one place for them to pass!
It was also a good spot to set trains up so not everyone was crowded around the staging yard.

Our set up is basically a big "3", with the return loops on each end and Murph's new junction module in the center to lead off to a branchline.
Turned out to be a nice big fortress, though a little linear: a couple more curved modules will allow a bit more undulation.
Here's a shot down the long middle:



All the modules with passing sidings (Devil Mt. return loop, Effett Staging Yard, Steve Williams' Lockhart) are pretty evenly space out, so timing is pretty good for meets & passing.

Here's a look back to show the distance between the yard and the return loop, with my Shoofly & Dave Falkenburg's Alviso modules in between:



[cont.]

 

Here's Murph's junction:



He's got a couple modules that go from single to double track, which is groovy as another passing place.
He just laid some of the track and wired it up morning-of-show, so we'll work on it some more today.

Here's from the other end of the layout:



Steve's car boxes provide the scenery and viewblocks on the wye/return loop.
Ignore the big mess in the middle.

The staging yard quickly fills up:



I'll have to build a new insert that branches off to a proper storage yard to free up this space for through trains.
Rick Brodzinsky stopped by with his Cab Forward and some heavyweights to roll around the layout.
Quite the eyecatcher!

Since we don't have the cab bus hooked up everywhere yet (today's project), it's great that our iPhones work well as throttles!
Here's Scott checking the turnouts before heading out of Effett Yard:



I'll get better photos and some video today.
It's amazing how fast time flies when you're running trains and talking with a lot of people.
(note to self: bring cold drinks today!)

See you soon, and thanks for looking.

 

Great layout this weekend. It was a pleasure BS with you today. Effett & the shoefly look even better in person.

 

GTE was a blast.
With a second return loop and four new members' modules, including a junction, we had over 120 feet of continuous running!
(double that, if you count going both ways one circuit!)

Not only that, but we were able to break down, pack up & leave in 40 minutes!
(Even more amazing: everything fit in all our cars!)

It was great to run long trains over long distances.
It was also great to meet so many people from the forums as well.
Trainboard vet Ryan Wilkerson even brought his two young sons from Sacramento (two hours away) for a day of running trains:



[Ryan's the dapper dude on the right, whle the scruffy Santa-in-training in the center is our own beloved Dave Falkenburg]
The kids Cade & Cort were awesome: they brought their own smart phones to use as throttles and turned out to be better engineers than most of us adults!
They ran scale speeds, even yard speed, actually listened to the dispatcher, and made sure to line the turnouts and watch of traffic.
We'll need them back at the next show to teach us how to run trains!

So we went from 3-4 operators yesterday to over 8 today, and man the layout got crowded quickly!
Luckily the new return loop can stack about 6 long trains around it, and Murph's Junction has a long passing track, so there are plenty of places to pass: quite a change back in April when we had only one passing siding on one module!

In between running trains we had other projects to work on.
After a couple of hours, Scott & Steve finally got my Kato NW2 consisted with Scott's Arnold S-2, and that pair could out-pull almost anything on the layout:



Here they are waiting in front of Devil Mountain on the return loop.

The layout was so busy the wreck train never got a chance to run (even though there were plenty of wrecks), but looked nice parked in Sonoma by the Shoofly:



And Steve demonstrates why it's not a good idea to wear open-toed sandals when dropping metal objects on your feet:




But he didn't admit "da feet" and soldiered & soldered on.

[cont.]

 

We're definitely going to have to come up with some kind of operating plan now that we have more trains and operators on the layout.
All of Effett Yard's tracks were occupied pretty much all of the time:



In addition to a few trains parked on the passing sidings of the Devil Mountain return loop:



But through both days, trains were running and people were having fun!



And, of course, a short (5 minute) video:

[video=youtube_share;8hQdzJVDn4g]http://youtu.be/8hQdzJVDn4g[/video]

Thanks for looking & hope to see you at the next show!

 

MC,
After seeing your groups latest setup, reminds me of the fun we had when we first started designing our Bend Track system and doing shows!

Half of them had scenery, there was no skirting, no stanchions and not enough yard space to accommodate our members trains.
Ours started out with about 8 modules and slowly grew to over 30 including the yard.
Our first setup filled an area about 18' long x 12' wide. Our biggest set up filled a 40' x 40' area.

Every show we did we seemed to have the biggest crowd. At one show, we heard two guys talking about a huge coal train that he seen running and then the other guy said "Yeah, I just seen that go by here, you mean this is the same layout"?

That was the best thing about our set up, it sprawled out with three or four legs and twisted around so much that it was hard to follow the trains from one point to another. At one point the modules would wrap around the spectators on three sides that formed a cove.

This is a shot of an earlier set up that we did in a vacated store in the local mall in 1995.




We could keep 6 trains running at one time, 3 per main and have the yard full so that we could just swap them out. The yard was great to make and break trains and not have to stop the action on the mains.

This is from the same set up as above, before we doubled the size.



This is after we doubled the size. I'm now using this on the home layout.



You can see more here:http://www.bendtrack.com/pyard.htm
Halfway down you will see the last version of it. It wound up being 16' long x 28" wide in the middle. It has two sub yards made up of 8 tracks each and two by-pass tracks, one of which doubled for a reverse loop. It would break down into four separate modules.

That's the nice thing about Free-Mo, Bend Track and oNe Track is the ability to snake and bend around the area or even objects. One show that we did in Manhattan, KS the only space they had left for us had several big planter boxes with bench seats and about 8 large columns to contend with.
We played around with scale cutouts until we found a way to clear about four of them. The next year we had them set up in a different position around the same columns!

For every junction module you build, you will need to build another balloon module [or return loops]. Then you can have more staging tracks. Now with the DCC and the ease of reverse loop wiring, that should make it a breeze!

You guys are in for a lot of fun, wish there were fewer miles between us!

Keep up the awesome work and keep the pictures coming.

Allen...

 

Looks like some great fun for all.

 

It was a lot of fun!
And thanks, Robert, for the kind words on our Free-moN modules: your BAZ BoyZ modules have definitely set the bar high, and we hope some day to have such a detailed, entertaining, and operationally fun layout such as yours!

Always kind of a let down after a show, going from frantic building / scenicking to coming home and taking a breather.
Good time to clean up the workspace, take stock of projects, and just focus on some smaller detailing easily accomplished in a couple hours or so.

On Effett Staging Yard, I added a hoist crane to the MOW shed:



A water spout for the steam service:



[made from metal sprues from a Stewart Diesel Service kit, wire, and tender weight as a base]

Speaking of diesel service: got most of it in, and behind a fence, too.



Still waiting for some Traincat walkways and railings for the service platform.
Also still need to put in some bumpers!

Got some trees in, too, so the loo isn't out stark naked as a full moon in a... well, fertilizer field.



Need to get a lot of scraps, trash, bushes, etc., as well as an office for the tanks in, but the trees do bring in a lot of "world."

[cont.]

 

A few short trees around the steam service:



A long view of the trees & tanks:



Not sure: I kinda liked it without trees.
Made it seem older & more industrial.
But does tie it in with the other modules more.
And, realistically, most of those trees are going to be victims of 0-5-0 accidents after the next couple shows, so I'll have time to decide if I like them or not.
(And rebuild them with wire & solder if I do)

Wide view of the diesel service & machine shop:



And steam service end:



Looking more & more busy & real.
Fun to put all the little details in.
Any suggestions for more details appreciated!

Thanks for looking.