N Scale Hi Rail - Retro Hollow Core Door Layout

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So far I'm pleased with the results.




While I have the brine working I also threw in a batch of Super Trees that @mu26aeh gave me.

Lee

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Staying tuned.

Also, at first I thought that was a bear! Such a linebacker. Lol. Give him some scritches for me.

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I added my new lichen crop to parts of the layout that needed filling in.


I was able to move around many of my China trees to even things out.  I took the gray/black dye lichen and applied som spray mount, then rolled it around in green flocking.



I filled in existing areas where I thinned out the China trees, similar to what one might do with puff ball trees.  I think the lichen gives a superior look.  And for me, it's cheaper.

Then, I started adding a few Super Trees to the freground.


With predictably good results.

I'll be adding more as days grind on.

Lee

[PiperguyUMD]

I’m liking this black dye trick! What is it? India Ink?

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Rit Dye.  Available wherever fabrics are sold.

Full disclosure:  It did not take as well to the Super Trees, but they did benefit from the glycerin.  They're much more flexible.  I ended up shooting them with some flat black paint to darken the trunks.

If you need some lichen, pop around next time you're in the hood!  We can take a stroll up the ridge and collect all you want!

Lee

[OldEastRR]

The trees are great and look right -- with all that lushness, I'd expect tall grasses and heavy shrubbery on open ground not covered with trees. Bare and clear along the ROW, of course.

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Last night I stayed up way too late monkeying around with several of the locomotives that were sent in a bundle of surplus from @Albert in N .  I replaced the motor and the draw bar on the Rivarossi Mike, and it's running like a champ.  I'll be adding that to my Laurel Valley fleet once I get some time to do the lettering.



The Bachman U23/30 had a bad decoder.  Apparently the model's been discontinued and parts are no longer available... just painted shells... so I again rummaged through my endless supply of junkboxes and found an old Atlas light board so I could bypass the decoder and run it on DC.  I'm thinking I might order a Digitrax decoder and hardwire it in, as well as a Conrail shell I can use when I go run trains with Ed.  Might also make it a bit more marketable at the swap meet in Altoona.  Anyway, it's now running too.




The Bachmann Prairie 2-6-2 runs smoothly enough, but there is definitely a click.  I don't think it's a cracked gear, though, because there's no binding or hesitation when it runs.  I think there's something in the drive rods that's out of alignment and catches just enough to make the click.  For now I'm calling it a "sound system"... It's not like little tramp steamers are silky smooth runners!



I took apart the one basket case SD40-2 as well.  Something is causing a dead short when the frame is reassembled.  The motor works fine outside the frame, but not in.  Since the shell is pretty rough, that will probably be parted out.  Its stablemate, though, runs very well, and the blinky light is kind of fun!



The Atlas 0-8-0 Cotton Belt likewise has a good motor, but it binds up when reassembled.  I've done a bunch of these, and it's likely that there's enough zinc rot to misalign the drivers, as they won't stay seated when power is applied.  It will probably also find its destiny in the parts department.  With those old dogs, either they ran great until they cooked the motor, or the frame warped so the motor has barely been used.



I haven't dug in to the two Atlas diesels yet.  I could get both to run forward and backward, but there's definitely some slipping going on in the drive train.  They both suffer from slippy universals.  A dot of super glue strategically placed should get them back on the road, but that will require a clear head, and a clear workbench! 





There was also a significant quantity of rolling stock, including many vintage pieces, several MicroTrains cars, and a bunch of cabooses.  I'm grateful for the opportunity to tinker with all of this, and see if I can get some of them back into service.

Lee

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[Ed Kapuscinski]

Would

[OldEastRR]

Naw, I think brass

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Bachmann.  With a nose job.

[NorthWestGN]

Nice shot Lee!

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Excursion night!

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Started reworking the yard area.  The upper yard had been attached to the lower yard, which is set up as a TTRAK modular design.


I've separated them, and will hang the upper yard on some shelf brackets so I can pull out the TTRAK yard for those occasions when it needs to be portable.

Of course, it's all very temporary.  Hopefully I'll be getting the round tuits necessary to finish the basement somewhere in the next 12 months.

Lee

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I'll respond to these over here so as not to clutter up the Weekend Update unnecessarily...  First, from @OldEastRR

That's a lot of yard for such a short mainline. I assume it's basically a parking lot for equipment. 

It's actually not that much yard.  There are only 2 actual yard tracks, each about 4' long.  Then there's two "main line" tracks, and at the front, a run around.  You'll notice that most of my rolling stock storage is in the drawers below the yard.  At some point, when I'm a bit more disciplined and less distracted by my other hobbies (cigareets and whuskey and wild, wild wimmin) I'll be able to set up an evening's JFRTM by plucking the trains du jour from my drawers , setting them up on the yard tracks, then turning them loose on a sort of schedule.  The lower main line is still pretty much a double track loop, with the inner not connected to anything yet.  The plan is to put a Kato double crossover near the stone arch bridge so I can run trains out in either direction then back into the yard again.  With two staging tracks already available on the layout, the additional two yard tracks will make it possible to operate up to 6 trains over the course of a session.  A seventh is possible thanks to the runaround track, but I'll probably want to keep that clear for arrivals and departures.  So in essence, it's really pretty minimalist.  There's not much room for shifting cars and setting up trains with a crew, f'rinstance, but since the ops on the lower loops are limited to run throughs and passenger trains, that's not really mission critical.

Our next piece of viewer mail comes from @seusscaboose

that last pic looks like the Old' Elkins.... in the old house...

It does trick the eye a bit, doesn't it?   The Elkins yard now resides down on the coast of the Gulf of Murca at @Philip H 's Swamp Gas Central.
But this is more like the original Ridgeley Yard from the earlier iteration, since it's c80 track, and like the above noted yard, fairly minimalist.

If I'm not mistaken, the carcass of the old yard is still leaning up against the wall of my old garage, moldering away, beyond salvaging at this point.
The upper yard will be a bit busier, since there's the opportunity to switch industries on that route, and I'm anxious to get that properly hooked up and operational for that purpose.  I do miss bumping cars!



Lee