Thanks Mike. It is great fun to finally see the pieces one has been working on slowly for months come together "all at once". Of course, and as the pictures attest, that just leads one on to the next project. Friends keep asking me "how much more do you have to do?" or say "you must have it almost done," never realizing just how much work goes into those 3 square feet to "get it right"!
Got the scenery around the Drive N Dine in place. Here's what it used to look like And here we are now Close up of the planter and the serving area
Cafe getting a facelift Activity was seen at the long closed cafe in Cherylton across from the depot. Looks like it is getting a facelift for an eventual reopening!
Thanks guys! Nick - been a while since you were here, it has really progressed in that time. How's the Niles layout going?
Looks groovy Rick. Your drive-in has got it all: you can park your hot rod, grab a double cheeseburger & a malted, and railfan (or at least watch some nice cabooses skate by ) I really dig the median that separate the drive-in from the road. Nice touch and well done!
Thanks MC. Funny, the planter strip was sort of an after thought just to not have another boring sidewalk! And, everyone loves it! I particularly wanted to do something different, since the drive in as at the edge of town, so that it felt less "built up" right there (an inch to the right, and you are out in the country). Building the road planter was easy. I used a length of 0.060" x 0.060" styrene, and with a heat gun, shaped it into an oval, cementing the ends together. I then spray painted it and glued it to the styrene base of my road and parking lot. I then filled the open space with a mix of WS coarse ballast (makes for great looking N-scale rocks of the 4 to 6 inch variety), and then sprinkled a little fine ballast on top to "smooth". Then added the trees and bushes.
I got to work this past weekend on a couple more projects around Cherylton. The first was to do the landscaping around the depot, which also required finally ballasting that track. Here's an overview shot of the job. Still more scenery work to do on the near side of the tracks, but that will be the big project - since there will be lake and woods. (That Tortoise, sitting there, goes with the second major activity - not needed for Unitrack, of course) Here's a close up view of the depot parking area, with landscaping and here we look out of town up into the foothills
Crossing Gates FINALLY! I got the crossing gates installed. These are fully hooked up, electrically, and the lights come on when a train enters the approach to the crossing. The gates themselves are manual (from underneath) - as I haven't gotten that Tortoise hooked up yet. I HATE the under bench work with a passion, can't spend more than an hour in total in any given day under there without feeling broken. Anyway - I took a lesson from Jaime's CSX Dixie Line, and went with the Tortoise and Remote Signal Actuator for these rather than my original plan of Tam Valley Depot's servo motors installed just under the styrene. I was having a devil of a time getting things working smoothly, and after seeing Jamie's video, changed directions. These are NJ International gates, and to extend the activation wires, a used a cut length of 3/64" tubing, CA'ing one end to the wire for the gate, and putting another small wire on the opposite end to attach to the Circuitron RSA. This was necessary because this area of the layout sits on a full 3 inches of foam on top of 1/2" plywood base! Once I get the gates running smoothly, sometime in the next day or so, I will glue down the "plates" which go up against the track (sitting on the ties), to be the road crossing. View from helicopter The rest of the front section of town is just "placed" for now. Lots of detail work to do here
Nice job on the crossing signals. Any chance you have the installation pictures? I will be doing the same thing and also face a 3" amount of foam before a 1/8" ply. I was planning on looking for a really long drill bit for my wires.
Jim - I didn't take any "in process" photos, but can easily mock up a couple, since I have the old broken gates from my aborted attempt to put them up in my mountain area (I managed to pull one wire off each, and still haven't fixed). When I first started, I bought a 1-foot long 1/8" drill bit (actually a couple, knowing I would probably break at least one - which I did). Also an 8" long 3/16" bit. These have served me well for all my wiring (particularly all the feeders). You just need an angle somewhere between 30 and 60 degrees (as close to 45 as possible). I just eyeballed these and they work fine. You drill two holes, one for the wires (straight down), and then one just in front and a bit to the left at the angle. For the wiring, I attached about a foot of 30AWG solid wire to the wires on the signals. The signal wires already have current limiting resistors installed from NJ-I. For these, I drill a 3/16" hole, and then, from the underside, I poked a drinking straw up through the plywood and foam. I drop the wires and heat-shrink-tubing wrapped resistors through the straw and gently pull them down. You also need to manage the actuator rod at this time, and it is somewhat of a balancing act (the other alternative is to take the gate off, and attach it once the signal base is in place -- if your experience is like mine, this will happen anyway). You will also note that I used a styrene base for my road/grade. This gives me something to glue to that at this point isn't 100% attached to the foam. That little bit of leeway comes in handy! I'll post the other pictures later today.
Here are a couple of shots showing how I "elongated" the actuator rod for the NJ International crossing gates Here's a stock signal. To work the smoothest, the arm needs to be near 45 degrees, with full play in the attachment hole. If vertical, you won't get full travel of the gate, as the attaching hole "swings" when the gate swings I've seen many people on the boards who have removed the stock rod, and replace with piano wire of appropriate length. Not having any immediately handy, I looked at what I did have. One of the items was some very fine tubing, for the LED signals and street lamps. The 1/16" tubing, which I used on the lamps, was a bit too big, the 3/64" tubing was just right. The stock rod fit perfectly. A little dab of CA and there was now a nice stiff rod extension At the other end, I trimmed off a short piece of the stock rod and used for connecting to the Circuitron Remote Signal Actuator Again, CAed into place. The bend is for illustration purposes, since you won't bend it until already installed on the layout and placing the RSA.
I mentioned taking the arm off the gate. Here you can see one removed Note the pivot points. The actuator plate goes on the front of the signal, and, as shown below, the front has two pins (left side of photo). The pivot pin is the lower one, the upper pin is a guide I found it easier to work with the gate off, and then thread the rod through the angled hole after wiring up the signal. With an optivisor and tweezers, reattaching the gate arm was relatively simple, compared with fighting the wires and stiff rod at competing angles.
Rick, excellent step by step, thank you! I just laid the road on Sunday so crossing signals will be following soon. Thanks for the excellent instructions!
