New Layouts

Angled it is! I cut out the trough for the bridge and made a small lake/pond and I will have stuff going on in there. I marked where I want my depot and some land forms. I am planning on having a little neighborhood on the top and a little town down below.

Here is the wide overhead view.



The little black box is where I’m going to put an Osborn Models 3119 depot. I really like this depot, I have one on my Rte. 66 T-Trak module.



Here is the little neighborhood, I’m thinking 2 or 3 houses and a little church, or maybe the church at the bottom of the hill before the town.

 

That’s the only drawback of the angled track that I see, the curves are uncomfortably close to the edge at 2 points.

 

Same, but I will make the facia stick up slightly higher than the scenery to help keep the trains on the layout. Plus I have them speed limited as well.

 

Not a lot done in the last couple of days, been busy with stuff. But tonight I got the holes cut for the electrical fittings and painted the “dirt” on the layout. Last night I got some of the no-seeums mounted underneath and I will snap a pic of that tomorrow when I get under there to wire everything up.

Back side of the layout.



Here is where power is plugged in and the 2 switches are actually my DC/DCC switches that will serve as a 9v/12v control.

 

Looks real good.

 

So I got no work done on my projects yesterday, I was busy running trains at a friends house. See below!

But I did get a bit of work done on the Kiddie layout before lunch today. I’m taking a break to eat some chicken pita’s and then it’s back to it.

Here is the wiring for the multi voltage inputs to the throttles. The green and yellow wires are going to the throttles input, and there will be another terminal block to send the throttle output to the rails. That will be the next part of the project.




And here is a small pic from the layout that caused yesterday’s distraction. At about 1/2 throttle it would take this engine over 40 minutes to make one lap.

 

I got the trains running! The kids will be happy. I made a little demo video that shows how the layout works, I will post it later after I edit it and put it on YouTube. But for now, here is the full wiring (minus the tracks) and my work underneath is just about done!

Here is the heart of the new system.



A full view showing the wire routing to the other side. There will be a more secure mounting for the wires to the throttles once I put the facia on.



Trains Running!!


And here’s a look inside the throttles after making the changes for this layout.

 

That is really sharp.

 

I get to report success on the trial of the kiddie layout! It has been up and running since Thursday afternoon and the trains have performed perfectly. Well almost, the robot train I wanted on the inside loop, but it would derail around a corner, every time around. Not sure why, but the rear truck would just drop off. No gap, no misalignment, no outward reason why. That was the only issue. I moved the robot train to the outside track and bingo, not a single derailment since. The Santa Fe ran fine on the inside. Kids like it and the reduced power mode with the homemade throttles are great. Pics in the morning. Right now it’s bed time.

 

So after the success of the kiddie layout this weekend, I’m going to start really digging into the Restore the 4 layout. I kinda have to as he wants it for the upcoming show in 3 weeks!! Tonight I set the pink mountains and got them basically shaped, I added a small pond and waterfall and the last thing is I hooked up the electrical and ran a test train on it. The train that will be the main actor on this stage is going to be a Shay but I don’t have one, so it’s a F3 and a couple wooden reefers for me! I will paint everything dirt brown tonight and put some sculptamold on it tomorrow to simulate rock faces and give a bit more texture.

last look at the pink mountains

 

Is that the 9" radius on this layout?

 

These are 183mm radii so around 7” in imperial measurements. The F3 handled it just fine and since it’s just an oval there is no worry about switches or S curves here.


Here is the dirt mountains. Tomorrow sculptamold.

 

Got a bit of time for the RT4 layout. A bowl of sculptamold and I now have rock outcroppings that need some painting.

 

Been working on the RT4 layout. Only 2 weeks before I have to deliver it so I got to get busy. I applied some ink stains on the plaster to give the rocks a rock look, and since this is a logging railroad the tracks are not going to be ballasted with the typical ballast material, instead it will be with just some dirt. I’m really going to be using dirt out of my back yard for this. I can’t think of any commercial product that will work better. My stumps will be made from sticks and there will be matts made out of twigs. Oh, and I got the office painted up a bit.

The layout at the moment.



The shed/crew house.

 

Yup! It was my first time there. Beautiful layout.

 

So tonight’s update is a little small. Well big progress was made, but on a small item. I got the majority of the only building for this layout built. Last night was painting night, tonight was building. I had a minor, almost 2 hour search for one of the stair risers. I cut it free of the sheet then when I was trying to get it out of the hole it launched to my left… I looked… and looked… for almost 2 hours and nothing. I was just trying to figure out how to fake it, maybe stack some logs or something, and as I went to move on I found a riser on my work mat… but I just put the riser in a little box for later… and it’s still in there… the riser must have shot off to the left then back to my mat under a tool that I hadn’t touched since the “launch”. *happy dance* and I built some stairs. I did glue in the stringers in the roof and the roof on before calling it a night, but sorry no pics, they are upside down drying with weight on top as I write this.

The paint is purposely applied thin and uneven. I wanted it that way to resemble untreated wood, with whitewashed shutters and doors. I think I pulled it off pretty ok.

 

Love the building so far, looks like a fun little kit!

As for small parts, I feel your 2 hour pain! What is it about small parts warping physics and landing no where expected? Also, tweezers for me tend to launch any tiny screw I'm holding at hyper speed into a worm hole, never to be seen again.

 

I love the way it turned out, it really looks great. And oh yes, the joy of hunting tiny parts that launch themselves...