Below is the invite I posted for my last layout party. This will be explained as your read further. I will be advertising in a number of forums, so apologises to those who bounce between many. You will see a thread I have included at the bottom of the invite to our last party so you can peruse at your own pleasure as you make up your mind whether to join in. I can say, that everyone in all the parties have had a good time. This one will be called: Beach Blanket Layout Party. Okay, I know you're out there. Yeah you, and you, and you with the potato chip hanging off your lip and the half drunk coke sitting beside you...lol. I know you're not working on your layout as much as you hoped to. Well what I am proposing is a layout party for a 6 week period - a layout design self help group. The purpose of the group is to encourage others to get out of their armchair and do some more work on the layout. And also to motivate you (and me) to do more work on our layout. I am hoping we can get a small group (but no one will be rejected) of people who will be committed to posting their work on the layout from the following week. This means for 6 weeks you are committed to posting once a week (or more – several did). We will of course congratulate those who work on their layout, and encourage those who haven't. Rules: 1. Brief description of your layout to present, with what you want to accomplish in the next 6 weeks (don't make it grandiose is my recommendation). 2. Brief description of what you hope to accomplish in the next week. 3. A commitment to posting once a week describing what you have or have not done. It is important to report if you have "fallen off the wagon (not worked on the layout" so that we can see all are human here, and that we can encourage you). You can include pictures, problems you have encountered, get bragging rights around the cooler, etc. I’m looking for you to walk the walk, as well as talk the talk. 4. A commitment to not fudging your reply so that you look better than you are really doing. By joining this group, you are acknowledging already that you haven't worked on the layout as much as you know you should have. The idea here is for us to have some fun and act as an electronic round robin self help group. When I have others coming over to my home to help me build, I am more efficient because I have to plan and prepare, then work when they arrive. Well, this is the the internet round robin group, we may not be able to physically help you out, but we can support you and your efforts. Many had a good time with this format. It was not uncommon to hear people say they had accomplished more work on their layout in the short time we ran the thread than they had in long time. Many posted pictures, asked questions, helped others, moaned about their problems, and encouraged others. I am including a threads to the last layout party if you want to check out what happened and what is expected out of you. I host this at www.trainboard.com in the “Layout Design” forum; I am one of the moderator there. Also trainboard has free Image hosting (picture hosting) so you might want to take advantage of that service. Again, the title of the thread will be: BEACH BLANKET LAYOUT PARTY If you have any problems joining trainboard or posting pics, let me know. And I will get some one to assist you. To see an example of one party (Please don't post there) follow this link: http://www.trainboard.com/ultimatebb.php/ubb/get_topic/f/33/t/000345.html [ 14. June 2004, 20:23: Message edited by: rsn48 ]
ok Rick/Guys My plan for the next 6 weeks is to finish my yard/intermodal area.. And finish my track work. I am about 95% done on track work just need to glue ballast and add a few more pcs in the yard. If I do get all this done I will start too finsh my buildings. (warehouse's)
Hey Mike, your layout's coming along nicely. Your wife hasn't asked you to clean up, lately, has she? Since I may be moving soon, I'm going to confine myself to building structures for my layout. I may only be able to participate for 4 weeks, since I'm scheduled to go overseas for business in a month. And keeping it modest, I will shoot for 4 buildings, all either scratchbuilt or kitbashed.
My plan over the next 6 weeks is to get the rooms finished (cleaned out, drywall up, painted), which *should* only take about a day (read as: the whole weekend).. and then starting laying down the deckwork. With any luck, I can get some track laid as well (if I can finally settle on a trackplan), but not going to push myself Here is a lousy diagram of the space i have available: http://dev/gentoo.org/~todd/upstairs2.png This weekend is pretty well shot though, the local club is putting on a little show down at the power authority for the weekend and I volunteered to work the whole thing.
Thanks William!!! No.... not lately we just put the Broom in the shop this past weekend for a check-up
well, i want to get the yard ballasted..... seeing as i have never done scenery, that could take a month on its own.... i also want to get my upper foam in place, and my upper industry throat in. i think thats a hefty load. if i have time, i want to at least look at designing my extension that i have been toying with. progress is here: http://www.trainboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi/ubb/get_topic/f/9/t/003355/p/3.html?#000029 later guys! -Rob
This won't be a good week for me so I am not committing to anything as my 80 year old mother was admitted to the hospital and she is on Vancouver Island while I am on the mainland in Vancouver, so lots of arranging to do - it sounds like she can no longer live at home. However this party will be going on for the next six weeks. I still have lots to do in my "nolix" area with getting the spline road bed in, so I will commit to that for the six weeks.
I'll try again, as I fell off the wagon good and proper the last time. All I would like to do in the next six weeks is to fix the baseboards together - for portability, and get some track laid. Sounds easy but I failed miserably last time. Jon
My goal is to finish latying the roadbed, and start laying the track back down. And oh yea... Send my commander into Atlas for repairs for $55
Okay. I'm in. My layout is about 70 per cent finished. Some parts pretty well done and some are still blue foam board. I do have all the track down. One area of my layout is "Joe Freeman," named for the Joe Freeman colesium area in San Antonio. There are about 6-7 industries in the area. I want to complete the Regal Plastics industry before I move on to others. This area is near the B Lee Transfer and Storage. It is about 6 inches wide and two feet long. The road crossing is in, so I have to build the building, material holding facility (tanks or bins), and ballast/senic. Regal Plastics receives plastic pellets from covered hoppers and makes extruded plastic parts for industry. The siding holds about seven cars. I will be able to get a picture of this up on June 23-24. Come to think of it, I am not sure the industry ships anything yet. I'll have to work on that. Maybe ship by truck? More next week.
Cool - our company is a Regal Plastics customer and I have a few sheets of their styrene (no coincidence there! )
William: There is a Regal Plastics outlet near my house. I once bought a 4' x 8' .060 sheet of styrene for bases of my structures. Other than that, I usually buy misc styrene sheet from the scrap bin where they charge $2 for all you can haul out at one time. I modeled the company because I bought so much styrene from them; didn't know they were a national company. I have made up a lion-type sign for the building. I don't know what their real logo is.
I was interested in doing this, but as the time frame falls across the NMRA convention and the vacation time that goes with it for me. I wanted to get my DCC going but I don't think it is going to happen, as I'm in the middle of some scenery. I'm going to say I will put the outside world connection and secondary branch connection track in in the area I'm scenicing. This involves putting down roadbed and track after clearing construction junk from the area. have a good weekend folks, And Jon enjoy seeing your cat in the photos and cats in others too. Long story. Gnarly (Atlas refugee)
I'm in! I've been in learning/accumulation mode for almost a year (N scale). Had fears of starting etc., but this last weekend huge progress was made! Built a 3'x10' bench in the garage! Set up a nice unitrack loop, too! Took pictures but had troubles with railimages last night. Will try to post again tonight. Week 1: Build Table - Running trains - DONE! Week 2: Refine track plan, put in BIG order for unitrack and peco. Investigate/buy foam risers. In downtime, paint some automobiles, tanks, peoples. Layout description: Transition era, but with quite a bit of leeway either way! The newest vehicles will be about 1953. However, there will be a "Doc Brown" tunnel where trains from other eras appear! Will have two continuous loops, yard, engine facilities, and a highline for mining and logging (Shay already on order!). I'll be modeling a mythical mountainous area between Colorado and the Sierras, so will have some UP and DRG as well as others. Probably will start with 2-cab conventional operation. Will go DCC at sometime, but cost is an issue, as well as time involved. I already know how to do DC, DCC seems like too much to take on at this point. I want to get things up and running! With blocks, I can phase in DCC at a later time. Anyway, thanks Rick for starting the party! Feels good to have gotten off my rectal area and start building! Jim
Good to hear Jim!!!!! I know what it feels like when you get that First Train running post some pic's as soon as you can. I also got some work done this past week I will post as soon as I take the pic's
OK, first week over - I finished the oil loading rack from a ConCor Cambria City kit, and I finished a half-built ADM grain elevator. My hands must be very uncoordinated, because that ADM kit looks flat ugly! When the first and fourth walls came together, they were off by almost a quarter inch. Outcomes like that make me hate modeling!!! Fortunately it will literally be in the farthest corner of the layout, and it passes the 50/50 test - OK at 50 feet and 50 mph! As bad as that was, kits are still easier than designing and scratch-building the facilities I have planned for this week: Waste Management recycling and Weyehaueser recycling, both on the same part of the layout... Doing this has intimidated me for a long time, but the party finally got me rectally mobile If I get both done, I'll be extremely pleased with my old self
Well I cleared out half the area and layed some homosote down. I have a wierd little section where the track starts a down hill slope after leaving the industrial area this represents, that took some extra work. I have a photo of the area I before I started but with the site down it'll have to wait till tonite now that we're back. This part is helping move me along though.
I have some kitbash buildings I'd like to get completed and mounted. Because of those great Model Expo blow out deals and some recent topics on service yards, I've decided to do an engine service shop and car shop area. I don't have a full track plan yet for the 18"X78" area, with a double track main entering on the left centered 6" from the back edge. My goal for each building are to tie them in with the paint sceme of existing RR buildings, as well as distract from the recognizability of the kit and avoiding the two buildings end to end look . The car shop will be triple length with a covered center open area. Because I have used this kit elsewhere, individuality is also important. The engine shop will be almost twice as long, with concideration given to roof truss spacing I would like to take full advantage of all that glass and maybe have the main run behind the engine shop. I don't have the turnouts I need to lay all the track for this area (I'm using Peco C55), but I would like to have a track plan figured out also. Not to lofty of goals I realize, but with time available, I think it's reasonable for me.
