Welcome back everyone and welcome to March! Typically if I'm in my native land, I do not mind winter but here in Illinois, winter is the WORST time of the year. March is the beginning longer and warmer days and railfanning again is on the horizon. Let's see how we all did this weekend. Saturday: Well the Doc says I have high blood pressure, which explains the headaches I've had for a while and Friday was super stressful with lots of web issues. I was ready Saturday morning to unplug from the week. I met up with my buddy in Bloomington and we assessed the four corner modules first. Actually we only got past two. The first corner module was good but the second, ugh. The track had kinks in the middle of the curves. Fortunately the club had a large supply of Atlas flex so I soldered up track and added feeders. We were able to get all three mainlines down and improve the module. We still need to update the bus line to current NTrak standards but we got a good jump for our first show in May. Sunday: I started my day ready to work on the HO layout but wouldn't you know it? The wire I needed for both feeders and bus were not in my supply. While working with this dilemma, I found someone was selling an old Generator that needed work for only $50.00. It just so happened they were on the way to the hardware store so in the end, I picked up a generator for $45.00 and the wire I needed. Once home, I fired up the soldering iron and podcast and set to work. I found a new adhesive by Loctite that I learned about from a model railroad YouTube channel and it works great. I wish however it dried clear, but it doesn't really matter as I'll be painting the track latter. By 8:00pm, I had the "main line" down. It felt good getting this much done and adding all those feeders was easy with the foam deck. I just need to add the three spurs and a cassette and track work is done. So how about you? What did you accomplish this last weekend of February? Let us know. We'll assemble again on Friday, March 5th to start the process all over again. Until then, have a great week, be safe, stay healthy and as always... High Greens!
I actually got something done this weekend. I was able to paint the modules and start painting the rust on the rail. I should be able to start ballasting in a bout a week. I also got the crossing done so scenery can begin as a soon as the ballast is done.
Saturday and Sunday I did manage to get one thing done I wanted. Essentially, straightening up the "Angelo's Distributor" building and tightening it up between its 2 next door neighbors. I also spent quite a bit of time raising the back of the building up by 3/4" to align the bottom of the windows w/ the front portion of the building. Seems sometimes in modeling the simplest of tasks in detailing take the longest time. Did not get around to air brushing other things that I really wanted to do. "Household" to-do's and office work cut into my weekend. Have a great week all.
My weekend went as I thought. For once. Saturday: successfully changed the oil and filter on my wife's car. And - the brake pad change on my truck was also a success. No MRRing on Saturday. Sunday: Started putting back some dirt on my layout. That was it -- Hope Y'all had a grand weekend, Wolf
Saturday I spent the morning taking care of work related activities (off peak hours critical server maintenance tasks) and then spent the rest of the morning working in our garden getting some more seeds in the ground and some cleanup work where we had an old raised bed that we removed in January. Sunday was mostly a planning day for the week/month ahead. Not a lot of work on the trains but some small progress on various trains electronics projects (https://www.trainboard.com/highball...nter-layout-party.135226/page-16#post-1172364)
We are having the house appraised today for a re-fi, so I was busy all weekend with cleaning, decluttering and fixing. The layout got a bit of a gussey as it may appear in some photos . . . .
After getting the vaccine on Friday morning I felt OK until late afternoon then felt very tired and ached all over. By then I had gotten the finish coat of enamel on the fascia. Saturday was a complete bust with me only doing what had to be done around the house and I never even went out to the layout. Then Sunday was much better and I was able to get a coat tan paint on the hillside, cleanup the area and run a couple of trains. Sunday was the last day of the layout party so I made my closing post there. All the big stuff at Palisade Ranch is now done, but still have lots of little things to do with the scenery.
Hi Guys: I did manage to get some work done on the layout on saturday -- fixed the issue with the interchange / staging yard switch (replaced it) and got the lead track re-laid, then also laid down some of the roadbed for that yard Sunday, I was just looking at the layout for a minute while I was in my bedroom (I sleep under it) and realized that the interchange/staging yard is plenty long enough for me to put switches at the far end (west) and give myself an in/out on both ends as well as engine escape on both ends -- which is totally cool, so I'll be modeling that out in a little bit here, and hopefully betting some of the track laid -- i dont have sufficient switches to finish the project, but as I can pick them up, I'll add them in TIM
Started off the weekend Friday afternoon by catching the last portion and the part I wanted to see (n scale) of Jim's Facebook Live segment. Some cool announcements in there. Over the weekend, got a coat of paint on some GHQ models and on the grain silos I am working on. Also started a garbage truck kit. Despite the first nice weather weekend and for lack of a better way to put it, I was really in a blah mood so didn't get any more done. Hope you all have a safe and great week.
I took a break from working on the factory district and finally took the plunge and started building the N scale Bergen National Laser craftsman kit of the actual station that is a subject of my layout, the DLW station in Binghamton, NY. It will replace this kinda crude scratch build I had been using. I found out about it a few years ago, and bought it with the intent of starting it after I retired. This sucker has over 1000 parts, some are not more than 1/4"! I estimated that it would take about 100 hours to build, with all the cutting and filing. Being a wood kit, prepping it to prevent warpage takes a lot of effort. Despite priming and painting both sides, then weighting each piece down with a machinist square and books, there are still parts that bowed ever so slightly as you can probably see near the top of the tower. Anyhow, this is the progress after about 20 hours. I'm thinking the roof build is going to be the biggest challenge of all. There are a lot of offsets and angles so any warpage there will be very evident in the joints not meshing. I'm hoping for the best!
For reference, here's a post card image of the protoype the model is based on. And a more recent photo. The station was bought by a local architect and fully renovated back in the 80's in the green color scheme. Prior to that, the wood trim and windows were a faded mustard yellow, which I'm trying to match. But I can't find anything that gives me the roof color. I'll probably keep it green and then weather it carefully with chalks.
Super cool station mrhedley! Greatly looking forward to watching your careful progress with it. I have only one photo of the DL&W station at Binghamton, taken 05/28/1983. It sure looks much better today.
Thanks for this! That was just prior to the start of the renovation, which is the scheme I'm trying to match. I guess I'm on the right track for the roof then, but I won't try to match the wear and tear on the roof of the tower. I also don't want it to look so "gritty". It's a beautiful structure and I prefer to represent it better than in your picture. Ron
As of a little while ago, I finished making eighty holes in retainer/shoe plates. I am glad a accidentally discovered a way to do it faster. I am going to work on the flat car next an then rotate some more cars into the "shop". All have a good weekend.
Even though I spent a good bit of time in the little train room, I didn't get much done. I lost a close friend this past week and had a hard time focusing on the layout. I did manage to get the layout and workbench cleaned off. I sorted through and trashed more old model paints, looked through old magazine articles I've saved, and sharpened my scalpels.
Friday I blasted this shell with white, then painted the short hood red and cab purple. I was compelled to try the red stripe next so I masked it and laid down more red. Late Friday I painted the railing and walkway white. Saturday I started designing decals then got them printed and prepped. Sunday I applied the decals and painted the trucks and fuel tank purple, then late Sunday installed the exhaust stack and horns. I guess sometimes I get on a roll, most time I have trouble being motivated so I consider it a win. N Scale U18B Auto-Train (foobie): Cheers -Mike
Spent all of last week applying static grass to my layout (finally, after working on it for the past 14 years!). Still not done but it's starting to look the way it's intended to. The bare spots you see are intentional; I plan to put a mixture of green and golden grass to simulate lower-lying gullies and upper-elevation areas (which get "watered" by the seasonal fog).
Saturday was a successful trip the buy a mountain bike. Learnt our lesson from last week and phoned ahead to make sure they had the one I wanted in stock (ended up buying a different one anyway! that's another story). The evening was spent getting my Adafruit Trellis to work with a Nano and then communicate to JMRI via a second CMRI connection. Tried to go directly to JMRI using the R-pi but it was beyond my programming skills. Sunday was a great day, built a small control panel to give me an idea of what the layout is doing. Used the Trellis as a turnout controller when I am running the R-pi headless and don't want to connect an iPad or computer to JMRI. Added some dual Volt/Amp gauges so I can monitor the PC power supply and some plugs so I can tap into either the 12/5 or 3.3 volt lines for testing LED's, running the Static Grass applicator etc. Also added a programming track and an LCD for the DCC++ system. Decided that I would also fit some sort of information panel about the R-pi and JMRI. 3D printed a little display area that houses 3 LED's, one for R-pi power on, Another to indicate JMRI is running and a third for Automation scripts running. Added two buttons, one to safely power the Pi down and the other will (eventually) trigger the automated scripts to run.
