Well it's happened again. That weekend went by faster than manifest freight. How did you do? Saturday was busy for me, starting out with me heading to Bloomington and my club's headquarters, somewhere I had not been since before Christmas. The yard modules we have been working on are nearer to completion so we set the modules up and prepared them for the first shake down run. Unfortunately, I could not stay as I had a commitment in Champaign later that afternoon. On the way home I stopped at my not so local hobby shop to see if they had thee Kato Unitrack I need for some T-Trak modules I'm working on. The bad news was they did not, but they did have some more colors of Tru-Color paint I needed so I stocked up and left the owners daughter with another order of paint. From there I went to Champaign to my first Steam Up. The locomotives are all G or #1 gauge within this "Club" and they had two modular tracks set up. I was really impressed some of the locomotives however, most are way to rich for my blood! I was not able to get my little Aristo Craft 040 going in time, but met with a gentleman who lives real close to me and is willing to help out. You never stop learning in this hobby. Sunday I relaxed with Angela and watched the Daytona 500 while skimming N scale detail parts on line for future projects. All in all, a good weekend for trains. So how about you? Did you have a busy weekend or a quiet weekend? Where you out and about with your club or at home with your layout? Decals, painting, track work or scenery, whatever you accomplished this weekend let us know, with pictures if you have them. We'll come back on Friday, March 1st and do it all over again. Until then, have a great week and... ​High Greens!
Finally, a productive weekend. The first thing was to attach the benchwork extension to the layout. It's just a piece of plywood, supported by a triangular brace below attached to the leg of the layout. Next, a step built with foam. The track from the layout sits on the upper step, while the carfloat apron sits on the lower level so the top of the apron is level with the track: As described, here's the track (a Walthers wye) and the apron: None of this is permanent yet. There will be a Tortoise to drive the Walthers wye in the back, and probably another beneath the apron to drive the second turnout on the right side there. (The points are not installed yet, either.) Just to see how it will look, I placed the superstructure and headhouse on the end of the apron for a final picture: In addition, I weathered (mostly) the carfloat itself, and finished up the kit construction of the first of the idler flatcars for carfloat operations. I painted and weathered the trucks for all three flatcars, along with another kit because it's just easier to do that in bunches. Still some weathering to go on the flatcar, and I'll be thinking about how to finish up the scenery. As soon as I put in the superstructure, I realized that the "should I or shouldn't I?" light tower in that white spot at the edge on the right is a definte yes.
I decided to have a quiet weekend. I do a lot of modeling during the week on my clubs two layouts and my towns museum layout. I didn't do anything. But today I have to work on a switch project for my club so I can install it on Wednesday evening. Tomorrow it's back to the museum for some scenicking.
Finally dug in to close couple my Superliners. Came up with a plan of attack on the first one, chopped up the trucks, reinstalled the Kato couplers on a styrene pad, checked height, and liked what I saw. Moved on to the second car, and repeated. Put them on a small piece of flex track to check them, liked what I saw....then flexed the track.....uh oh. Will these make it around a tight turn? No idea.....have to do some testing before I move onto the next seven of them. Gulp!
Painted, hopefully I'll get to actually laying track this weekend. Need to gather all my photos in one place one of these days too.
Seeing how my weekend is Monday tuesday and wednesday I will post today. I acctually got quite a bit done. I installed a sound decoder into an HO P42, downloaded the sound, and got the ditch lights to work. Last thing will be to change out the head light so it will match the ditch lights. Next I got a little artistic and decided to start painiting my back drop. I now have happy mountains, happy trees, and happy grass on one wall. Not bad for one who is inept at art. I only had one art class for one semester in Junior High and that was in the mid 80's. I was also able to lay down some more foam board. Once I get this corner painted I will be able to get the rest of the foam board down as well and then it will be time to start laying track. View attachment 52352 View attachment 52354 View attachment 52355 View attachment 52353
