Weekend Update 10-19-2008

[DKS]

No real modeling done this week. Between two major software releases to get out at work, plus jury duty punching a hole in the middle of every week, I've had no time.

I did, however, make some headway today on a T scale "starter layout," an admittedly cartoon-like roundy-rounder, just to get a feel for the scale.

[davefoxx]

There's some nice modeling going on out there.  Nice job, y'all!

I added a new staging yard to my layout.  I'm excited by this, not only for the additional capacity it adds to my small door layout, but I tried to design the yard to be fun to operate.  The yard includes, from left in this first picture, an MOW/RIP track, three body tracks for switching, an arrival/departure track, a thoroughfare track, a double-ended track for cabooses, an engine facility at the far end, and, eventually, a couple of spurs for additional industry (one is at the far left and the other will come around the caboose track at right).




Hopefully, I can get a sheet of Masonite soon and install the fascia, which will be built in a way to keep cars from falling to the floor by an errant operator.  By the way, my saw blade really strayed from my cut line on the 2" foam, so the tracks are not really as close to the edge as they may appear in these pictures.  The fascia and some Foam Putty will resolve that issue.

Have a great week,
Dave

[3rdrail]

David, keep us  posted on your progress with  the T scale layout shown:



And tell us a little more about what you are using, like size, track, foam, etc.  What's available in "T" and where can you get it?

Did no modeling last week, went to New Orleans instead.

[asciibaron]

I added a new staging yard to my layout. 

what are the dimension of the addition?

-Steve

[davefoxx]

what are the dimension of the addition?

-Steve

Steve,

The addition is one 12" x 6'8" hollow-core closet door.  Unfortunately, I had to buy a 24" bi-fold door, so does anyone who's local have any use for the other 12" door?  Free to good home, if you provide transportation!

Dave

[Caleb Austin]

Great looking layout Dave, your modeling the piedmont sub right? I'm be modeling the mountain sub on a hollow core door. I'm doing chessie though.

[asciibaron]

i had hoped to start some more benchwork, but right now i'm at work with the A/C guy trying to get the Liebart working - the server room got up to 115F - sucky way to spend Sunday.


-Steve

[DKS]

David, keep us  posted on your progress with  the T scale layout shown:



And tell us a little more about what you are using, like size, track, foam, etc.  What's available in "T" and where can you get it?

More on this layout: http://1-450.blogspot.com/2008/10/starter-layout.html

More about T in general: http://www.t-gauge.net/

T discussion board: http://talkingtgauge.s2.bizhat.com/

[Caleb Austin]

Oh yeah and I made a bare tree with a twig and some sprigs of de-poded pinweed.

[davefoxx]

Great looking layout Dave, your modeling the piedmont sub right? I'm be modeling the mountain sub on a hollow core door. I'm doing chessie though.

Hi, envirodude!  That's right, my door layout is very loosely based on the Piedmont Sub.  If I decide to keep this layout on the long term, I will change the details and buildings to better match that on the Piedmont Sub and in central Virginia.  On the other hand, if I one day build another layout, I will probably model the portion of the C&O from Charlottesville to Doswell, Virginia.  That would allow me to add RF&P, SCL, and Southern trains to the layout for interchange.

I settled on 1970-71 to get the Enchantment Blue paint jobs on the locomotives.  However, I'd be a liar to say that I own no Chessie System equipment.  I have two cabooses as stand-ins until the C&O Magor caboose is released by Atlas (the question is can I be patient and wait for the yellow C&O scheme or will I still impulsively buy the red C&O caboose despite that it's from the wrong era?), and I bought that GP7 last week at the Timonium show, which was the subject of another thread on this forum.

Dave

P.S.  That's a good-looking "nekkid" tree in your last post.

[Caleb Austin]

Cool! I've spent many ours since I was 6 years old watching trains at Doswell and Charlottesville. 

[Day One]

I spent the time I had this week working on the under side of the layout. I installed 1 new tortoise switch machine on the mainline and wired it to a DS64 and have started installing fascia mounted turnout throws for industrial/switching areas. This has been a very gratifying project. It's so nice to be able to flip switches from the fascia and watch them flip on the layout. It's nice to no longer have to reach into a scene in order to switch out cars at these industries.

4 out of 5 switches done in the Missoula area.


closeup of 2 of the 5 switches in Missoula.


This area was a tight squeeze! I was fortunate enough to have inherited a lot of old RC airplane bell cranks, clevises, push rods, screws, etc.


Here's what the topside looks like.

[wm3798]

For the first time in a couple of months, I got to spend the afternoon in the train room.  Over the summer I had picked up a couple of these old auto racks off of eBay.


These old clunkers have been sold at various times by AHM, Trix, Arnold and Bachmann.  The tooling is coarse, the vehicles are terribly detailed, and of course, everything is cast in "living color"...  But, until ConCor did their enclosed auto racks back in the 80's, these were the only game in town.  And Micro Trains only provided relief for those of us needing open racks within the last few years.

Well, I have collected about 8 or 9 of the MT cars, but I've dreaded the idea of loading them with decent looking vehicles.  First of all, good looking vehicles from the late 60's/early 70's are pretty hard to come by.  There's a lot of resin cast cars that are a pain to paint, there's the old Bachmann car sets, which out of 8 vehicles you get maybe 3 that are decent enough to put on the lower racks, there are some Viking models that can pass for US prototypes if you cross your eyes and your train is moving pretty fast... but they're not cheap, and you have the Ford LTD made by Classic Metal Works.  These are great looking, but they're pretty expensive if you need 15 of them to load a single tri-level rack, they're also a lot heavier than they need to be for this line of work.

So, I resolved to hunt down a few of those old cars to see what I can do with the vehicles on them.
Let's take a closer look...

Mmmm.  Nice big cars, station wagons.  And a couple of Mustang Fastbacks....  Upon closer examination, the big cars resemble Ford LTD's from about 1969 or 70, which had full width grilles and hidden headlights.  The auto racks have three versions...  A 2 door coupe, a 4-door sedan, and a Country Squire wagon.  The only Mustang body they offer is a fast back.

I started by disassembling the older rack, and gently prying each car from the little mounting tab that holds them in place.  The old racks got chunked.  I think of that as N scale Darwinism...  Next, I disassembled each vehicle.  This involved prying the undercarriage from the body.  There is no glazing in the car, so getting these ready to paint was a snap.  I painted all the undercarriages flat black, top and bottom, then primed all the bodies with gray primer.  Once that dried, I separated the cars into 6 batches to paint in different colors.  I selected colors that I had in stock from various other projects, but they were a good match for Ford colors I recall seeing as a kid.  Metallic gold, Silver, Black, Red, Dark Green, Pale Yellow, and Almond did the trick.

This was followed by adding bumper, taillight and window trim details using various Sharpie Markers, then adding a few vinyl tops, and of course, some simulated wood paneling to the sides of the Country Squires using acrylic craft paints.  Finally, I used some Modge Podge clear gloss to apply window glass.  Here's the results...


I just kind of stuffed them into the MT rack for the photos.  I plan to install them to a strip of black styrene so they can easily be removed from the cars between ops sessions.  This will also help me achieve more prototypical spacing.  Here's the overall car.


When I buy the old racks I always cap my bids around $10, so for that amount, I get a dozen automobiles, and in this particular case, I got a pair of MT trucks with couplers with the long extension.  I'm now up to 36 automobiles, or enough to fill two racks and have a few left over.  If I can get my mitts on one more, I can fill three cars, which will make a decent representation.  I also have 3-4 bi-levels, which I'm working on filling with pick up trucks and vans, but these are very difficult to find.

Anyway, it was a lovely way to pass the afternoon and evening.

Lee

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I spent all weekend hanging with the beehole squad from the CRHS, including our visitor Gert from the Netherlands.

I also wanted to plug some work I just finsished on the CRHS site, that we're rolling out just in time for our convention: Google maps and a new site design: http://thecrhs.org/?q=ScenicAndActionGallery/DonKalkman/Map. We still have a LOT of images to tag with the geo data, in fact that map only represents about 30% of Don's images that I got done tonight, but I think it shows the promise.

[womblenz]

Just more trackwork for me







so how does it look guys will it pass?

Cheers Warren