Winter Weather Layout Workout Party 2006

Balou: Doing what ever you are doing with your five year old daughter is the most important thing that is going on here. Just keep it up. BTW, nice work on the layout, too. Too bad you couldn't save the top part you cut off, but I presume all the structures were okay.

Geeky: I started this layout in 1989 after about 18 months of planning and drawing on Cadrail.

For this weekend, I have pretty much settled on the structures along the back street. It doesn't include a mission (church) structure and I may change that. It is a bunch of kitbashed DPM structures; now comes the painting. Thanks to docdata for the structures that are painted.


[ January 15, 2006, 09:21 AM: Message edited by: sapacif ]

 

Well, I was able to get the track tacked down and started on getting the wiring taken care of. I had hoped to get the wiring finished, but all I have left to do is run the track drops. The Circuit board and the Transformer have been taken care of. I also replaced the cord on the hand held throttle with a coiled phone cord and mounted a wall type plate on the face of the benchwork. This way I will be able to unplug the throttle, and pack in in the underside of the layout for transprotation.

My goal for this next week is to finish the wiring, get ties placed back under the rails where I had to remove them for rail joiners, and start on the enclosed spaces on the underneath side of the layout for storage of the Throttle, Power cord, and Locomotive and cars.


Kit

 

Grey and Grandure Update:
Put away all cars and engines. Left "Track Test Train", in a separate box on top.
Will address the kato #4 turnouts next. When all is running smoothly I will start the wiring.

 

So far I have not progressed as much as I have wanted. I got three out of the four 2 foot by 8 foot pink foam boards glued down. Then I found two half section and one full board that did not adhere. I had to take them up. So far I have the two half sections glued back down. I still have the full board to redo and one more full board. Once this is done the bottom layer of pink foam is complete.









In the next week I would like to finish gluing the bottom layer of pink foam boards. I then want to rough out the track plan. This way I can tell where the dioramas will go and how I need to cut the top layer.

 

Update from Camp P: My projects all involve rolling stock and some details.

Managed to finish renumbering and weathering 5 DI cement hoppers.
Started in on weathering a half dozen ATSF boxcars.
Completed reconstruction of the crushed GP20 cab, numberboards are next.
Added a few more details to the junkyard.

Will post pix and links at the end of the party. Here's the ugly duckling patch job I did on one hopper:

 

I had planned to lay the mainline trackage on my door panel layout. Since then I have gotten side tracked by the basement cleanup and arrangement. Tonight I laid a switch and a piece of flex track. Mild progress,but it is progress.

I also started setting up my storage bins for storing all my off layout train cars and engines.

Pictures must wait till I have actual progress to show off.

 

Geeky, what are you going to use for your storage bins?

 

Grey, I keep the cars in their jewel boxes. All the jewel boxes will go into a couple of card file cabinets I have. They are old metal office supply stuff from the 50's.

I used to use stackable clear plastic tubs, but I am moving things into the drawers now.

It's sort of a re-shuffle as I need the plastic tubs for other rail related items like structure kits. I still like the clear plastic tubs because you can see through and see whats in the box.

 

Progress!!! Great I love to see it.

Flash,
None of my buildings were attached so the will all be used again. Looks like Coconino Auto Body is going back to Red Rock Canyon for now.

I've used a product called Quik-Fix for patching plaster and leveling floors to make my road. It has a short working time so speed is an issue. This is different than the product I've used before as this does not sand down easily at all. I have found it works best to lay it in thin coats and the road gets smoother as you go.

This time I've made the road wider than what I really want it to be. It's over 2 inches. I can alwasy make it narrower with ground foam but if it starts to narrow, it's tough to make it look wider.

 

We got a bit more done today.
Here is the first coat of asphault in. THe road follows the same course it did before, but now it goes down hill not up.

... and here's the scenery crew helping with the first couple of coats of base color. She' really good at spotting those little white specks

 

Balou, thats a cute kid. I wish I could've gotten my girl interested in trains, but she's all about Anime. (japanese comic books and cartoons)

My progress this week is tiny once again. I laid a piece of flex track and one switch. Maybe later this week I'll lay the final segment. For now I'm just too busy.

 

Well, just to keep the ball rolling. I came home from schoolaround 10:30 pm last night and headed to the train room. In keeping with tradition, I laid one more switch and one more section of flex track.

I am closing in on completing my work party objectives.

 

I got all the bottom layer of foam glued down.









Next comes fiddling with laying out the track to see how the dioramas are going to fit into the track scheme. Then I will start cutting and gluing the top layer of foam.

 

Geeky - Maybe she can do up a Anime bilboard or something?

 

I'm back on the wagon again (is that three weeks off it? sorry, rule of threes thread), having actually got some more work done, and in the time frame too.
Using the opportunity provided by a long weekend to spend some time in the very rather warm garage with paint. It's uninsulated, so it varies from slow roasting hot in summer to freezing in winter.

No pics yet, but I've taken all of the "scenic'd" modules out and coated them with paint with help from a friend. Shades of green, brown and gray: just an undercoat to stop any Blue or White being visible through the mythical Scenery To Come.

I understand all about white specs, but I have only my eyes to rely on. Definately a cute little assistant. Keep her on the staff

In terms of my grand over-arching goal, I think I'm about as far as I expected to get; and it looks like work is going to get worse heading into February and March, so this is possibly as far as I will get

But I'm that much closer to being able to run trains, thanks to everyone here.

 

Tonight I laid the last little piece of Flex and joined the oval. My original goal was simply to lay the outer mains and get trains rolling. I got out the alligator clip leads and the power packand I have run an engine tonight and everything seemed to work. I will keep tweaking this oval and adding groundthrows.

Along the way to laying the mainline I seem to have gotten a nice little layout room out of the deal, so I am pretty happy overall.

More plans:
Build a workbench in the train room.
Build a platform for HO sectional track oval and some switches for running all my vintage LIMA models.
Hang out in train room and run trains alot.

I can't believe it was so hard/easy to get to this point, but I made it. THANK YOU TRAINBOARD LAYOUT PARTY!

 

You are doing what I did. spending more time making the train room nice, than working on the layout. I easily spent about ten times more time just cleaning up and sprucing up the layout area. I think thats excellent progress.

 

Update from Camp P:

Completed weathering of six ATSF boxcars.
Two more engines decodered.
Built computer desk and relocated computer OUT of train room. Much better, roomwise.
Removed the one small structure from the layout that I did not like. Back to dirt and ground cover there. Cue birds tweeting.
Ran first DCC MU'd ATSF train. Ahhhhh....That's better.....
Still no forward progress on the GP20, too busy running trains!

I'll have some pictures ready by end of party.

 

I rebalasted my main line. Boy, what a chore. After allowing time to dry, I came back with my clean paint brush and a vaccum cleaner to get the loose stuff. Suddenly WHOOOSH!!! ... an entire section gone. I must have not glued that spot down.

After another hour or so the balast was reapplied and propperly secured.

Gee, this angle shows just how bad my trackwork really is!