The past few years has not allowed me to check up on TB as much as I would like. Back a few years ago, we would post a this thread and people would post (usually with pictures) what they planed to do railroad wise over the weekend. It could be painting up a locomotive, track work or even railfaning. So with my apologies to the original modeler who did this in the past, I'll go first. I found a new hobby shop just south of Bloomington IL called McLean Depot, a hobby shop in an old GM&O depot. They have books and plenty of H.O. and N scale. Looks like they carry BLMA parts so it sounds like my kind of place! Also there is an active main line near by, NS I think, plus I'll follow a portion of the old CE&I on my way there. So I get a tripple play today: Rail archeology, hobby shop and railfaning. Awesome! Sunday, I'll be working on the B&M layout, doing some track work and hopefully loading pictures. So what about you? This is not my thread! Post what your wanting to accomplish (pictures highly encouraged!) and tell us all about it. I find I get motivated when I see others working on their projects. We can come back Monday morning and see if we got done what we wanted to. Jim
Jim, its usually who starts it first. Nobody owns it, but this weekend your it. I need to get to the bottom of why my 2 Atlas SD35's have a mean clicking sound and whine in one direction, yet run smooth in the other. I hope it is a simple cleaning fix, but we will see. Also I have been thinking of extending the length of the passing sidings and maybe adding one more track to staging for a total of four. This would be more than one weekend of work though as there is a basic shell of scenery to deal with. Extending the sidings should not be to tough but the staging is under the mountain area of the layout. In the attachment the double track in the foreground will be extended a little and pushed closer together. The top track in the background is my Summit passing siding that needs to be lengthened considerably. The staging is under the scenery between that top track and the middle track and I have already removed a large section of scenery to start. It will be quite involved but I think the improvements will be desirable. Visually the tracks will be more prototypically closer at the passing sidings and I will gain more through staging. My era is the 70's to the 90's but like to have my Kato Daylight train in staging if I want some eye candy for visitors. So I would have a through track and two long freights ready to go.
How about I plan to take some pictures? I've been putting off the final push for "station plaza" along Beaver Street. Before I put the buildings down and finish the sidewalks, I have to add turf and ground cover between the tracks behind the station, and then ballast all the tracks. It's a big job, and this weekend is when I hope to get most of it done. I spread the Gypsolite scenery base today, and it looks like it will be ready for ground cover in the morning. I've got an experiment going, too. I used a few of the Walthers "manhole" covers they provide with their Cornerstone street lamps to make a latex mold, and I poured some Hydrocal castings. After some paint and weathering, I've got a bunch of manholes which I've mounted in the layout's foam base, elevated just a bit so they'll come out even with the road surface when I pour that.
I've been attacking the RIP track this weekend. I got an old Athearn Covered Hopper fixed up with new couplers, fixed up an MDC shorty SF covered Hopper, though it is missing it's roofwalk. Next up is a Walthers Classic Kit insulated box car in DRGW.
OK, time for our progress reports. How did everyone do? I managed to get all the ground cover between the tracks and all the ballasting done behind the station area. It was slow work. The work area is on a bench that's a little too deep, and there's a 45-degree roofline coming in over it, so it's a bit awkward to reach in. All I've got left to do behind the station and adjacent buildings is to put in a fence between the second and third tracks, which will have to wait until Thursday (hopefully) when the order arrives at my LHS. In the meantime, I still have the roadway to "pave," so there's something to keep me out of trouble.
I built a circle of ME On30 track on a four by four of plywood, to go under the Christmas tree. Unfortunately, my Bachmann Shay may have lost a motor. But the little side rod diesel ran like a champ. Boxcab E50
My SD35's have new trucks on the way as one of the axles was sliding to far and causing the gears to not mesh. Two were out of gage to, easy to fix, but I figure I would order extras. The layout is in shambles currently as I left the glue for the roadbed and track at the club shop. I was able to move a turnout in the summit siding to allow for 2 locos a caboose and 10 car trains to easily fit. I need another length of cork to anyway. In looking at adding a track to staging I have elected not to do that modification as it would require way to much demolition and back ache. I will just have to remove the Daylight train for any op sessions that rarely come my way.
In general I don't plan for weekends. This one was way too busy. For the week before 12/24/10 I intend to clean up the board and start cleaning the track.
Saturday was great. Found this new hobby shop about an hour northwest of me. The shop is in a station that was built in 1853! The owner is also real interested in T-Trak so I'll be helping him with that along with the local club. He also told me of some neat railroad items to see. Found a CN crane and a local GP7 painted up like the old CB&Q in black and gray. No present day railfaning, most of the lines were quiet. Sunday I worked on the layout, tore up the main, branch and industrial and started to lay roadbed last night. I'll probably work on it some more today. I have pictures, just can't get them to upload on Railimages, hopefully that will be resolved soon. Jim
Well, I didn't get done with the re-wiring the sound decoder in the Cab-Forward project, but I think I did something even better. I got my daughter Lucy (age 7) running a train at our club's open house. She monitored it carefully and kept the speed reasonable, and now considers SP 1313, a little NW2 I have in my collection, to be her train, and she wants to come up to the club again to run more stuff. So, yeah, I don't have sound in my Cab-Forward, yet, but I think I have something even better - a potential lifelong model RR buddy.
Sweet. My cat snuck out yesterday and finding him consumed literally the entire day. So know DRGW Boxcar and no trip up to Alpenrose.
