Been a busy weekend and Monday. I am just getting around to here now. We had soccer game and a basketball practice and shopping to do. We just got back from a behind the scenes Open House at the Philadelphia Zoo. It was a very enjoyable experience and we got to see several animals up close but still at safe distances. Yesterday we visited St. Albans Railroad’s Open House. They had their modular layout set up and it was very nice. We had to drag the kids out when it was time to go. We then went looking for G-Scale stuff. We visit 4 LHS and came up empty. Finally at the fifth one a Hobbytown USA we found several G-scale building kits. My wife purchased a Piko Pleasant Town kit. It is the Leather Shop. So I have another project on the work bench! In HO I was able to begin decaling the LNE 0-8-0 switcher #135. I added numbers to the tender and to one side of the sand dome. I need to do the other. Since was also a day off I am extending my weekend and hoping to finishing decaling it.
While I was away on vacation I made 100 pine trees for the layout, on the weekend I installed them and was pleased with the results. It's amazing how bare the area looked before the trees were installed although it looked fine but now with trees the area is totally transformed.
Just more fun and work. click on link Mike http://www.trainboard.com/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/33/t/000575.html
I finished the Blair lasercut mine kit. Still working on both modules... painting track on the wiring... nothing glamorous Stay cool and run steam....
Started the first coat of paint (white) on the Trainmasters, and shot the black and Aspen Gold for the Geep 40.... Tomorrow, I'll mask and shoot green for the H24-66's, and mask and shoot more black on the geep.
I made a tender out of poster board, and painted it flat black. I made it to scale as possible from plans out of Steam Locomotives Projects and Ideas. If that counts. MJC
Added the permanent tracks to the shop module, and added a feul oil tank for the locos using the tank and piping from a HO Pola set. http://www.railimages.com/gallery/album135/ahp Also installed the bases for the water and feul oil columns, stairs on the rear loading docks, and a feul rack in the rear for loading tanks for delivery to the log camps and receiving oil. Added a drain pipe to the drain on the water column base and ran it to a small pond/drainage ditch between the two front tracks. http://www.railimages.com/gallery/album135/ahv Today I modified a Roundhouse 34 ft. baggage to be a storage unit to sit by the loading dock ramp, painted all the plaster groundwork either mud or dirt color, and added a scorio (red shale like material from burnt out coal veins out west) coating to the parking area in front of the shop loading dock at the end. And started adding more color to the drainage ditch area. Still a few weeks away from finishing with more lights to add, ground cover and shrubs, rocks, gravel in the tank dike area, water in the fire barrels, finish the rain gutters, and add the feul tank for the boiler house, along with a few other things. [ 18. January 2005, 00:08: Message edited by: John Moore ]
Nada, zip, zilch, bupkus. The whole weekend was shot to you-know-where, with one crisis after another. Nobody died, and the missus & I are still together. Oh well, I'm off Tuesday, so I'll head upstairs & finish up painting....... PS: ATSF90- that's one sweet-looking SD45-2B. Is that HO or N? I may have seen its prototype (if not the exact number) in a consist in a rock train down here in Sherman- for a while, we had a potload of SD45-2s running around, now it's back to SD40-2s. And while we're at it, welcome to Trainboard!!
I'm still working on things. I assembled a bunch of undecorated pulpwood cars that I painted. Made decals for them. I'm fixing to start decaling some of them.
Herman, The wood work is excellent and very solid which you need, How do you electrically supply the gate tracks ? Also are they automatically isolated if the gate is opened?
The permanant wiring will come up from under the lower level. There is a section of track about 12" on either side of each level which is isolated from the rest of the layout along with the bridge/door. In the future, I will devise some sort of fail safe that will incorporate the isolated sections and the bridge/door so that when it is opened trains cannot run past the isolated spots.
Well, in addition to building benchwork for the upper deck of the layout, I put together a web site, rather than just posting random photos. You can check it out at: http://webpages.charter.net/dmnolan/ The website still needs alot of work, since I don't really know what I am doing half the time. Over time, I will update and fill in the blanks with better information.
Friscobob - You are lucky it's been over year since I have seen any of those big 20 cylinders here. The SD45-2B is HO scale. It is built from a railpower shell and frame.
Mark, I visited your web site and really enjoyed the photos. Will you continue to post progress shots? I find it difficult to locate enough layout photos on the web and always enjoy finding more. Hope you will continue to update your pages because I will certainly stop in from time to time and check it out. The layout is looking great , is it in a basement, garage, where? Any additional info on your layout would be greatly appreciated by this model railroader. Great work thus far!
