Weekend Update 6 December 2009

[BCR 570]

Daniel:

if you can locate any Sunrise weed kicker plows, they might work for you as a flanger blade.

Last night I completed the wiring of the helix.  The final step was to terminate the bus runs with a capacitor and resistor.  This is recommended to avoid any possible irregularities in DCC operation resulting from reflections along an unterminated bus run.  I began by soldering the capacitors and resistors in pairs.  Small clip-on heat sinks were used to avoid any potential damage to the components during the soldering process:




These were then soldered in place at the end of each branch of the bus runs.  One end goes to the end of the black wire; the other to the end of the red wire:




One last test with these components in place to make sure there was no effect on operations, this time with my factory-decoder-equipped Atlas ALCO C-420 out for its very first run:




And that is it.  There are some finishing touches to attend to at some point in the future, chief among them an indicator panel to monitor trains in the helix, but that is for the future.  This portion of the layout has consumed my attention and energy since early 2007, and it is time to move on with other things.

Were I to do it all over again, I do not believe that there is much I would change.  The materials and methods used have proven to be very successful for this specific application.  The cost of having all the wood laser-cut was money well spent and contributed in no small way to the success of the project.  I would loved to have had a few more inches of radius, but the space is simply not there.

I will now be moving on with track connections in and out of the helix, but at least I now have somewhere to run trains, if only around in circles for the time being. 




Tim

[Craig Martyn]

Working on behind the scenes stuff this past week as always...

Every once and a while I get to have some business-related fun.  This photo was snapped at the 2009 Ernst & Young Strategic Growth Forum/Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in Palm Springs, California. 



Find us on Facebook!

[Philip H]

You know Craig, if HE starts collecting BLMA producst none o fth erest of us will be able to afford them!   

[up1950s]

Craig Martyn , I just hope Jay knows just how fortunate he is to have met such a go getter . It is nice to see that my awe of your accomplishments was shared by others . Is your fame , for railroad models only , or do you have other hat tricks ?

[davefoxx]

I now have the basic scenic forms (i.e., hills and dales) roughed into shape, so I painted the layout with an earth color to get rid of the blue and pink foam look.  I applied a base coat of ground foam over the wet paint in some areas to add to the feel of progress.  The "unfoamed" area at top right in the photos is the roadbed of a street to be constructed.  A highway bridge will be built over the tracks where the roadbed stops.



Dave Foxx

[asciibaron]

i got nuthin.  well, nothing tangible.  i have been working out how i'm going to sort out moving from paper to the layout - i've decided on using cardboard to fine tune the layout of things before i cut the plywood.  the cardboard will serve as a template for the plywood and it's much easier to correct problems with the cardboard.

any word on those Atlas curved turnouts (that's the main reason i'm not moving fast right now).  if they don't show up, i'll go the FastTracks route.  i have the templates printed out and will build around those if that's all i can do.

[Craig Martyn]

Craig Martyn , I just hope Jay knows just how fortunate he is to have met such a go getter . It is nice to see that my awe of your accomplishments was shared by others . Is your fame , for railroad models only , or do you have other hat tricks ?

Thanks for the kind words, Richie!  I've got other things in the works that aren't model train related; however, once I graduate, I'll be able to really push the envelope......another semester and I'm done!

[chuck geiger]

Dave more pix please, hard to tell thats 2x3!

[tom mann]

Craig Martyn , I just hope Jay knows just how fortunate he is to have met such a go getter . It is nice to see that my awe of your accomplishments was shared by others . Is your fame , for railroad models only , or do you have other hat tricks ?

Thanks for the kind words, Richie!  I've got other things in the works that aren't model train related; however, once I graduate, I'll be able to really push the envelope......another semester and I'm done!

Awesome...next to you, Jay looks old and too heavy!

[Roger Holmes]

Got a few things almost done in my first four days of retirement.  First, a kitbash of two DPM Reed's books as inpired by the GHQ website.  Very similar to the building where I spent my first five years growing up in Chicago.  Still needs some paint touchup and GMM TV antennas.



Finally finished Kato RDC Amtrak repaint and DCC decoders.  My photography still sucks.  Maybe now I'll have time to read the manual.



My Milwaukee Road 1:29 scale kitbash article is in the current Garden Railways Magazine.

I return to part-time law practice Jan 1 and start as Adjunct Professor at University of Ill in mid-January.

[Zox]

I've finally got the road assembly for the bridge module completed, and in the process of getting glued down, along with some of the styrofoam scenery underlayment:



And I've got glueshell overlay in place on the southwest bank (the simplest of the four), to create the surface profile over the styrofoam:



This means I may actually have some grass on the module soon (in addition to the little bit that's part of the road assembly).

I can't take any decent pictures right now, because all the clamps and weights are in the way!

MARRS N-scale is exhibiting at the South Columbia Baptist Church this Thursday through Saturday. While I doubt I'll have the module fully scenicked by then, I hope to make a fair amount of progress by Wednesday night...

[Coxy]

Ordered a couple of  N scale Seico boxcars from Chuck for Tom M.'s community shortline painting project (http://therailwire.net/forum/index.php/topic,19535.0.html).  Started experimenting with the fading mixture on Gary Hindshaw's "Fading Fast" post (http://therailwire.net/forum/index.php/topic,16573.0.html).  Just messing with mixture and airbrush settings and wanted to see what the extremes looked like.  Here are a couple of shiny black Roundhouse Coal Liner gons after the fading treatment.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/coxsj/4162160934/.

Received my copy of Pelle Soeborg's new scenery book. I think it's a pretty good read.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/coxsj/4164207009/

Cheers,

Coxy
P.S. How to include images in a post?

[Zox]

P.S. How to include images in a post?

While you're writing/editing your post, look for this icon above where you're writing, the third picture from the left on the row above the smiley faces:



If you click on it, it'll insert "img" and "/img" tags into your message. Put the link to your image between the tags, and it'll show up in the message.

For example, here's your image from above, between "img" tags:



Please note that you can't use the Flickr page link, which in this case was "http://www.flickr.com/photos/coxsj/4164207009/". You have to use a direct link to the image in question, which is "http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2522/4164207009_3cfa1c7ae1.jpg".

[RDG_Rich]

Started on a scratchbuild...



No pics of the build, just started it tonight.

Yeah, I know I could just buy company houses, but I have lots of windows and doors and clapboard...

Rich

[TrainCat2]

Just some computer modeling for me.