Another week has flown by like a Zephyr! What do you want to work on this weekend? Being "Airplane season" for me means no real time for model trains. My only item on the list of train things this weekend is to get about six small display dioramas built to display my N scale engines for the upcoming St. Louis Prototype Meet next month. Otherwise it is shop time but for planes, not trains. So how about you? What do you have planned for the weekend? Track work, painting or scenery, whatever it may be, let us know! We'll come back on Monday the 21st to see how we all did. Until then, have a happy and safe weekend and... High Greens!
The next step is the bridge that crosses the liftoff to the new section of the layout. That's got to be done before I can lay track. It's a Central Valley Pratt Truss bridge kit. I've never built one of these. The instructions are thorough, but there are a lot of steps and a lot of parts, so it will take a while. I've been playing with how I'm going to fan out the tracks to the staging area. The curved turnout in the plan is already at my LHS. I pulled out an old Shinohara brass 3-way turnout from a box under my layout, and used that to see how it would work. It was a good idea, as it allows me to fit all the turnouts on the first module, greatly simplifying the whole modular design. I'm also giving serious thought to building yet another section right away. I was planning to put that off a while, but it's not that big a deal to build, and it will probably be easier to do the benchwork and tracklaying now so I can concentrate on scenery later in the year.
Already got to work this morning. I removed a length of track from the existing layout and installed a pair of #6 switches for a new industry as well as a connector to the new end module design in progress. I rigged up a loop to allow me to cut the foam base down for a lower track level using a soldering iron, haven't tried it yet. Hope it works.
Starting off my two-week vacation with a trip to the Seaway train show, in Long Sault, Ontario, just west of Cornwall. I was there last year and it's a smallish affair, which I like because I can find some nice used goodies for cheap. Stuff I can paint and detail, or just some freight cars (I look for billboard reefers especially, beer or unusual) or some kits that no one has got around to. And it will be my first longer trip with my 07 Crown Vic - she's behaved so far going to work, and uses surprisingly little gas (30-35 MPG (US gallons) highway).
No modeling for me this wknd. I want to really spiff this yard, (grass, flowers,veggies) before I leave. Then finish getting ready for the move next week, but it'll get dark and I've always got research and planning to do.
Please let us know how this works out. I saw some photos where someone rigged a loop of #12 (?) wire to a Weller soldering gun, and used it to cut a tunnel through a stack of pink foam.
My soldering iron is a smaller, lower wattage iron. It heated about 3 inches of the wire but the end if the loop barely got warm. A higher wattage tool probably would have worked. I just had to bring my grade level down about 1/4" so the two sections kept track on an even grade. I went back to using the razor knife and just carved an incline about 30" long dropping around 1/4" +-. Already have cork gluing down right now. Ill have to fine grade the cork with a palm sander later. Sent from my LG-P930 using Tapatalk 2
