First, my apologies for not getting out the WMP on Friday. The absence was due to one of the worst cases of the Flu I have ever had. Thursday started normal but by 11:30 a.m. I felt tired, sore and dizzy. I signed off work and went to bed only getting up briefly Thursday night. Most of Friday was spent in bed and at the Dr. Office. Fortunately I'm feeling a bit better now. Watch this strain of Flu, I have never had anything like this on. So as if to ad insult to injury, Mother Nature has put most of the country on a Winter Wasteland conditions. What used to look like farmland out my window looks more like the planet Hoth. We are not getting any breaks today either with wind chills bringing the temps down to -40. Where we are at in central Illinois, no one is going anywhere. So as you probably have guessed it, nothing railroad related got done this past weekend. How about you? Any luck? Let us know and let us know what the storm did to you. It is one big winter storm. We'll try to get together again on Friday the 10th and do it over again. Until then, stay safe and warm and... ​High Greens!
Sorry to hear you're ill. Since a real nasty case that kept me from work for over a week a few years ago, I've been getting flu shots every November. The snow and cold detered me from making a 50 minute trip to an operating session on Saturday evening and I stayed home all day on Sunday, too...so I had lots of time to work on my own layout. I'll take some pics this morning and post them here and in the Layout Party.
I managed to get all the "temporary" holiday related storage out of the train room. Since my layout is in a room off the dining room it tends to get rather full this time of year. Hopefully I'll be back to trains tonight.
In my Layout Party Progress Report on Friday 1/3, I posted pics of the tree flats, trees, grass, and some paper building mock-ups I put in last week behind the visible staging yard tracks of the Hillery Yard on the lower deck of the peninsula. As of Friday, at the end of the aisle where the peninsula comes into the west wall, I had about 1/4 of the grass done, one tree flat near Hillery, and behind the field and Mattoon bridge, and I only had bare blue backdrop (with some white splotches where I had spackled some holes in the hardboard [salvaged from a previous layout]). This weekend, I worked at the dead end of the aisle where tracks come onto the lower level from the Peoria Helix deep in the shelf between the left end of Hillery (on the peninsula that sticks out of the west wall) and the right end of Mattoon (along the south wall). I sanded and painted the repaired holes, and made several tree flats to go against the backdrop on the west and south walls. There are several tracks deep in the shelf that I want to hide, but which I must be able to access for cleaning or repair, so any tree flats or view blocks need to be movable. Although there are some permanent trees near the Hillery Engine Facility, in the field between Hillery and Mattoon, and near the road bridge that passes over the tracks into Mattoon, there are also 7 movable tree bases: pieces of foam board about 2 inches wide and 5 to 9 inches long with trees, shrubs, and bushes planted densely enough to provide view blocks. This pic shows the 3 Hillery tree bases and 2 of the backdrop flats for behind the field: This pic shows one of the 3 movable tree bases to the left...hmmm...and that I need to tweak the height of the shrubs in front of the tree base to hide its front edge better. This pic shows the field without the 4 tree bases in place...but one of the Hillery tree bases and the 2 backdrop tree flats are visible in the background. With the field tree bases in place, the tracks from Hillery and the track from the lower exit of the Peoria Helix to the Mattoon road bridge are not visible.
The road bridge at Mattoon without the tree bases around the field (along the bridge ramp). All of the trees in this pic are permanent. The bridge with the movable tree bases in place. Oops, I see that I'll need to tweak the toothpick tree trunk. And, yes, that is a railroad truss bridge that I used to mock-up the road highway bridge. The final 2-lane bridge will look more like an interstate bridge (green girders and concrete side rails).
After converting a gaggle of Proto cab locos from incandescent to LED bulbs over the Christmas vacation (2 weeks... woohoo! But half of that was either shoveling or the flu... boo hiss...), I tried my hand at doing the same treatment to an Athearn F7A. At the same time, it cured the engine of the classic Athearn lighting arrangement - 95% of all light pouring out the cab windows, and the rest from the headlight. I put a 1N914 diode and a 1k resistor in series with the anode (positive) of the LED, and soldered the cathode (negative) to the chassis contact. I put the LED a lot farther forward, under the nose of the unit, and added some black paint to block light going backward. Now there is very little light coming out of the cab, and there is a genuine beam coming out of the headlight. I did another Athearn F7A on the same arrangement with the same satisfactory results.
Piru Creek on the INland PAcific RR I just keep adding scenery tidbits here and there on a new module. Today was mostly trees and additional brush. I doubt I will be able to pour water into the creek, but most of the year Socal creeks are dry anyway. I painted and decaled a Container with the group "IP" logo. This will actually be a small construction yard with the container as storage. Still need to add more tall grass and small blooming trees. If you have a chance and can tear yourself away from the football games check out the N-land Pacific at the Anaheim GTE show this weekend. We will have a 50x70 space plus many new exciting modules. No preasure Mike and Mike. .
Sorry to hear about the flu. My wife Penny had something over the holidays, too, which messed up our skiing plans. But, the silver lining was progress on the layout. The previous week, I put up a picture with a lot of white plaster cloth, including a gash of white beneath what had been a double-track line on solid ground. The first order of business there was to build a set of short trestles, and to change the standard track to bridge track. For the bridge track, I slid the ties off the end of the flex track, removed the spacers and slid them back on. It's tedious and time-consuming, but not particularly difficult. I've still got to add some guard rails. Then, I did 2 pours of Envirotex into the pond and the stream, after adding Gypsolite, painting the base and adding some boulders and scenic stuff. After the first pour, I added the stone wall below the tannery building.
Mr.B, Does the envirotex creep up the shore at all? It does not look like it in the photo, but I cannot tell if that is dry or not. I may pour my little creek, but not without as much info as I can find. Thanks
Yes, Envirotex does creep up some. On a shallow slope, it looks natural. But, after the last pour I usually go back and add some ground cover around the edges to mask at least some of the creep.
John, I hope Mr. B., won't mind my jumping in here to answer the question. No it doesn't creep up the sides but it does shrink as it dries. Anything that comes in a liquid state to start with will shrink. However, this is easy to fix with some flat based earth tone paints you can make it look pretty good. Thin pours, multiple pours are essential. No more then 1/8 of an inch although, I've poured 1/4 of an inch and it set up nicely . Mr. B., your pour turned out amazing. Some fine work as you prepped the scene well. Looking good.
I got absolutely nothing done last week due to a funeral. I did get some glue so I can finally build my fuel refinery. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free
