Rainier Great Western Const Update

Thanks gents. I've learned an awful lot over the last couple of years by following Boomer Dioramas on YouTube.



He's a professional modeler and he gives tips as he goes. He's also very forthcoming with answers to questions in the comments section. I highly recommend him as a follow.

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Beautiful work there Mike, as always!

 

Looks great M

 

Thanks fellas. There's a wonderful backstory to this 134ft Diamond scale turntable. A gentleman in his late 70's came up to me one day, seems like May of 2003, when I was running the 4th Division Tacoma clinic for the NMRA. He wanted to thank me for giving him so much joy through the hobby. I tried to explain it wasn't me, but everyone in attendance and especially those who do presentations. He said he understood that, but he knew that I played a big role in getting presenters and orchestrating the evening. He said he got to laugh, learned things and made good friends.

I was most pleased by that alone. He said he had something in his friend's car he wanted me to have. Turned out it was the turntable. Said he bought it when the kit first came out and never had the chance to put it together and at this advanced age and with shaky hands, he never would. Wanted me to know that the RGW would be it's best use and forever home. I almost cried.

I tried for days to talk him out of it. Nothing doing. So before the bowl was even in place we had him drop by and sign the underside. He died about a year later and never made it back to the layout. His name was Warren Shaw. One heck of a great guy. He will forever be remembered as part of the RGW and a true lover of the hobby; one of the nicest men I've ever met.

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Short update from last night, Rey and Scott were running locos around the layout looking for impediments, especially our many tunnels. During these runs we found a voltage drop in one block, so the search for a cause started in earnest. Nothing determined as of the end of the evening.

I kept up with the turntable. Using the deck and a temporary placement of the arch to determine clearance for a typical locomotive.



As you can see we'll have about an inch to play with. This works perfectly, as the arch is sitting just under the deck in this test, but as you'll see later, it's a little bit lower than flush in the final design. Once that was done I began to form the supports for the arch using quarter inch brass.



The connection point will go under the walkway. It is a Styrene sandwich of .125 tube in the center and .060x.125 strips on either side. I top the sandwich off with 020x.25 strip. I'll attach the sandwich to the bottom of the deck so that the feet of the arch fit perfectly. Then I'll epoxy the supports in place.





As you can see shims were need to keep the supports proud of the sides of the deck. The sandwich sections need to be filed to final profile too.

Looking forward to the next few steps. That's all for tonight, thanks for checking in!



RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Thx Tom, I sure hope so. M

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Spent some time between kickoffs working on the turntable bridge. I started by using my 123 blocks, some clamps and a small triangle to place the arch supports in their proper, aligned location.



Once I was happy with that set up, I used 5 minutes epoxy to attach the brass supports to the shims on the bridge.



After about 30 minutes I set up a test fitting for the final set up.



Really happy with the fit and the alignment. Now I'll get to work on the supports for the operator shack.

Thanks for checking in!



RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Here's another RGW readers digest minute....

I spent a good deal of time searching my styrene scrap bucket for something that might work for the operator shack supports. I found a couple of diagonal supports from the New River Mine kit. A lot of tweaking, sanding and an extra styrene support led to this.



After some additional sanding to get to a good fit, they were mounted on the bridge.




Here's how they look doing their job supporting the operator shack.



For all intents and purposes that complete the turntable deck build. Still need to paint and weather it, wire it up and put her on the layout.

In other activities, Scott and Doug spent the evening organizing our under the table mess. You know how that goes, week after week things get moved around and set down. Eventually you need to put it all back in a logical order. That started tonight. We've essentially started getting ready for the May NMRA regional here in Seattle. Somehow they recruited the RGW for the layout tours, so off we go.

That's it for tonight, thanks for checking in!


RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Nice update Michael! There is nothing like visitors to get motivated to clean up the layout room! LOL

 

Quick note from last night, we found the source of the voltage drop, it was an old feeder that just was not up to snuff any longer. Three new pairs and everything worked great.

So what do you do when you solve a problem? Run trains of course. All four of us grabbed a throttle and took off. Everyone made a full run, usually about 38-40 minutes start to finish, and then we sat and talked about priorities to get done before NMRA in May.

That's all we did. Cya next week. Thanks for checking in!

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Another readers digest RGW update. We decided to pull about 12 feet of flex in order to eliminate some persnickety kinks we were getting along the East wall. They were causing derailments so the entire section needed to go.

Reynold drew the short straw, so he got to venture into the pit of eternal peril.



After a total team effort, including Scott soldering up 4 pieces of flex and Doug handing Rey anything he needed, the final result was perfection. Great track and multiple runs with different locomotives.



I started working on the transfer station again. Here I laid down a skim coat of Golden Fine Pumice Gel on top of roughed up styrene. This will give me a nice asphalt like texture for the road surface.



That was all we did tonight. Really pleased with the work Rey did. I've wanted to pull that track section for quite a while. The back story is that the track was laid years ago and when we were dividing the layout into blocks we thought this track needed a reverse section. Turned out we were wrong, but once the track was cut (and why it was cut in the curve is anybody's guess), we never had reliable running. I can't even remember how many times I went into the pit to spike the track back into property geometry. But now it's fixed. Thank goodness.

That's all for now, thanks for checking in! M

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

A quick thanks to all of you who follow this blog. The numbers are stunning and much appreciated. Last night there were just three of us working on the layout. Scott and Doug continued to work on the new track on the return loop. They filed down some errant solder joints, added feeders and replaced ties. Next week they'll complete the process by tying into the main bus.

I continued work on the transfer station. I completed the wet sanding of the surface then replaced the tape for the structure.



While that dried, I addressed the main structure. It needed some tweaking to fit the outline I had taped off.



The final test fit seems to do the job.



Before the night was over I gave the surface it's first coat of varathane. I'm using Boomer Dioramas method for asphalt. I just substituted styrene for the balsa wood base. Here is how he does it.



Thanks to him for the diagram and for his continued inspiration. I can't stress how much I recommend his YouTube channel. Well, that's it for tonight. Until next week, thanks for checking in!

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

After skipping a week for respective Valentine's dinners, we got back to it this Tuesday. As mentioned in our last update, we needed to tie our new feeders into the main bus. Rey, Scott and Doug managed to get that done by evenings end.



Going back to the weekend, I added more colors to the asphalt surface of the transfer station.





This one was designed to accentuate spills and leaks, especially in the low lying and heavily trafficked areas. After another coat of varathane, it was time to give it the primary asphalt color. In this case Vallejo Air 71.054 Dark Grey Blue. I also lightened some areas with USAF light gray. This was a wet on wet process, starting with a decent amount of water on the surface, then multiple drops of paint. Then it was a matter of spreading it out and adding more where need. No varathane coat for the final layer, just the paint.

Here the base is set in place and I've positioned the primed structure for photo purposes.







Very happy with the layered look on the foam base. Now it's time to finish the structure and detail the screens that surrounds the base. Until next time, thanks for checking in.

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Short and sweet update for tonight. Scott ran trains all night, checking for any glitches; with specific emphasis on two hidden turnouts. They've proven problematic in the past, but extensive effort to make them reliable seems to have paid off. Several passes with different locos and multiple cars were flawless. Next step will be to put the fascia back up.

I continued work on the Transfer Station. I added a custom cut styrene platform to be used for the container feed area.



I used my paper template process to create the custom cut. As long as you leave a little excess to trim for fit, it always works. The opening will employ a chute to feed the empty container, which, when full, will be lifted onto a well car for transport.



The next couple of steps will be to colorize the platform and lock it in to place, then cut and fit styrene on all the areas of exposed foam. More next week.

Thanks for checking in!

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD

 

Like this a lot M

 

Hey gang, here's a primer for tomorrow night. Over the last week, including last Tuesday night, we've tackled some new projects in an attempt to get ready for the NMRA Convention in May. As you can see from the following pic, Tuesday was a multi-tasking night for me.



Tweaks to the turntable bridge, a repair to the arch, and scribing brick lines into a piece of Masonite; finishing it off with a wash of dark blue gray.

Meanwhile Scott was busy pulling up track near the transfer station. My eye just couldn't make the narrow configuration work for loading containers onto well cars, so we are shifting it over a track.



Meanwhile Rey was upgrading the #4 turnout that will replace the #6 at that location. He rewires the turnout to ensure power will always find its way to all the rails.





Doug put some new scenery along the mainline, specifically foliage on the Chooch flexible retaining wall.



This weekend I attached the brick retaining wall to the transfer station base and set it in place until Tuesday.





Next I'll backfill the area behind the wall and we'll finish the track side of the scene. Well, that's it for today. As always, thanks for checking in!

RAINIER GREAT WESTERN RAILROAD