Goals--no pics

My goals are twofold:

1. Complete a running scratchbuilt locomotive

2.  Get trackplans finalized

3.  Complete at least one piece of rolling stock, scratchbuilt or kit, painted up--something unusual.  Perhaps this 2 foot gauge intermodal car:

4. Learn to Solder

5. Finish my mini diorama for photographing rolling stock and locomotives

(I said twofold, but my ambition grew as I was writing!)

The Called Shot

Count me in. I like a challenge. My goal for the summer is nothing less than having a functional layout. Benchwork, track, and basic scenery. I have an 11' x 11' room that will house either an 8'x11' donut or a folded dogbone shelf around the wall Sn42 layout of a coastal Mexican narrow gauge railway circa ~1880's. I have most of the turnouts and track I need now, and a few HO locos slated to become various critters. As of right now the layout room is completely empty. This room has been used for storage and was the last room yet to be renovated in this house. The nasty carpeting has been removed, and this week it will be remudded while I mud the new addition as well. I managed to get the entire 650 s.f. addition taped today (walls only- ceiling is wood). Should have both rooms  painted by the end of next week, and hopefully have the trim on the layout room by the next. At that point I will begin the layout benchwork. A couple of multi drawer hobby cabinets that will form the main part of the base are already underway. Getting some good ideas here, so in the near future I will decide what I am actually going to build....

Pictures soon to follow....

I'm In

I'd like to turn this area into a finished scene.

That will mean painting and weathering track, building the fill contours along the roadbed, adding a culvert, ground cover, vegetation and ballast.  The scene extends quite a ways to the left of this shot, so the plan is to finish the whole thing.  Part of that means completing the backdrop for another several feet.

Repair, reletter cab, then finish A&Y #338

I just got my computer back to where I can use my ALPs, so I need to fix a smoke jack, then letter my (ex N&W CF class) cab for the A&Y (they purchased one during WWII), and weather it a bit.   Then, if I still have time, I'm getting back to work on converting an MDC Old Timer into a close, but not perfect, model of A&Y 338.   I'll post the photos of where I am in a day or so.  I hope to have pics of an official A&Y train by Labor day.

I'm In Too

I want to take this:

to the point of having all track, wiring, track painting and building rough scenery and building mock-ups.  Not sure if I'll get to the last point or not as my honey-do list seems to be growing exponentially.

i'm New but i'm game

Son and I want to have track down and at least 2 - 3 scenes on our back lot tour layout built and finished.  I have no track and half a building built as of now.  Just basic tables built over the last few weeks and foam was just put down last night.

I have about a week head

I have about a week head start, but I want to join in too. I am building a rive/swamp scene on the club layout. I will take a few pictures the next time I am in to post. Sounds like fun.   

And here I go taking the Nestea Plunge!

Working on the N Scale Baton Rouge Southern (Mount Rainier Division), I plan to:

1. Finish all track work.
2. Wire all power zones (no booster yet, but I want to get them in).
3. complete painting and detailing of KCS SD40-2 in iconic white!
4. Develop and implement and operating scheme.
5. finish basic weathering and body mount all couplers for freight cars.
6. begin scenery on the Hwy. 61 crossing and adjacent L&A/KCS/BRS yard.

I'll probably throw a few more paint activities in there - painting in a cool basement in the heat of summer is a welcome relief.

NB - I'm on the road for the next two weeks, so there will likely not be an update until the second week of June.

let's try this again...

I have been stalled out on my SP&S RS-3 for a few months and would really like to get this thing done. I have promised myself to only work on one project at a time. So I had to table this project to work on something else for a little while, but I have got it back out an plan on finishing it.

I still have a lot of detailing to do plus adding an interior, lights and sound.

So, maybe I can get it done this time around, I would really like to participate in WPF with a finished model =)

Planning to get started

Being a good, government employed process guy, I looked over last year's thread.  Here's what I planned to do then:

1. Complete all remaining benchwork - this is easier then it sounds, as I have everything all set up modularly, so this is really an installation issue.
2. Complete and wire all trackwork.
3. Install remaining Humpyard Purveyance switch throws on  new benchwork segment to use track.
4. paint fascia and install location sinage.

Funny, but my list this year includes some VERY similar things:

1. Finish all track work.
2. Wire all power zones (no booster yet, but I want to get them in).
3. complete painting and detailing of KCS SD40-2 in iconic white!
4. Develop and implement and operating scheme.
5. finish basic weathering and body mount all couplers for freight cars.
6. begin scenery on the Hwy. 61 crossing and adjacent L&A/KCS/BRS yard.

Not sure what that says, but I think it says I was a slacker for too long.

Starting Point

OK, here are the promised pics of the starting point of my layout room. This was the last room in this house that had not been at least stripped and repainted.

From the doorway:

Towards the doorway:

I decided to keep this room with the pretty nice 1/4" A/C ply subfloor which I will paint (Now that it has received several industrial moppings with Pine Sol). This will make it easy to fix when I make a huge mess plastering scenery and whatnot. Not sure how or why, but every single outlet and switch box in this house was loose and improperly mounted. Pulled these out yesterday and screwed everything up tight, and mudded everything  in nice and tight with patching plaster. It will get new devices after painting. Spent the morning on the roof moving the woodstove chimney into the new addition. Building the chase for it right now, and will get back to mudding in a couple of hours. Will probably do the first scrape in this room later , during my second shift, a.k.a "Frosty Beverage" worktime.

As you can see I have a serious uphill battle ahead of me. Not to worry though, I really am a professional builder. This room will be transformed into a finished space ready for a MRR layout in about a week. That leaves about 10-12 weeks to actually build the benchwork, get the track laid, and build up the scenery. If that were all I had to do in that time period it would obviously be easy for someone that builds for a living. But, I am also finishing a 650 s.f addition (including new kitchen) at the same time. Deciding to make a layout and then tossing my hat into the ring for this summer challenge is highly motivational.

Thanks for looking and, Stay tuned folks!

                                                             James

ri-HAT-ng

Throwing my hat in the ring.  I am in the process of buying a house, so with that in mind:

1. Get all trackwork/switches/electrical operational
2. Complete the industry
3. Build the "Staging" (one or two)
4. Complete the remaining details on my rolling stock
5. Weather at least one piece of rolling stock
6. Install one decoder
7. Mount the layout on a wall

Some of this is all dependent on the status of the house, but this should be fun.

Summer Goals - maybe

Having just completed the last of the track laying project on the upper deck (see the photo) I'll jump in with some goals for the next stage:

• complete the track wiring
• install last of the manual turnout controllers
• install structure lights power buss
• install lower level LED lighting
• do scenery work in a few hard to reach locations
• complete fascia
• install upper deck backdrop (roughly a 50 ft. monster)

And never the mind I've got a presentation to complete for the COHS annual conference.  Hmm.. that should keep me out of trouble for a little while.

Charles

my before photo

Ok, here is my "before" photo.  This shows my painted but unlettered cab, a "stock" Athearn Old Timer which is the raw material for my conversion to A&Y 338, plus the one that is part way started (cleaned off the boiler, resized the stack, have the decoder and speaker, next is wiring it all to work.  I'm also including a link to my A&Y site with the prototype #338 http://southern-railway.railfan.net/ay/equipment/ay338.htm. 

Progress

OK. The room I had acquired to build my layout is ready:

Presto! Patches completed with two coats of drywall mud sanded smooth. Goodbye horrible gatorskin texture and nasty, dingy, scroungy, paintjob! New outlets and switches all installed. Seems like a minor thing, but nice fresh properly mounted outlets is such a big change from the loosey goosey, scroungy, paint encrusted ones that were here. Compare these shots to the ones in my previous post from 5 days ago when I started. I painted walls, ceiling, floor, everything a tan mixed from some mismixes from HD, this is more or less primer. I am installing wood floors in this part of the house sometime this year, at which point I will tear off the old cove trim and pine out everything after the walls get final patches and final paint. The wife wanted "Cowboy Style" in this house, and here is my take on it.

Room is ready for benchwork!! This is the Good News. The Bad News is that I decided to finish the other spare bedroom and use it for my layout. The Good News is that the other spare room is 14" wider and has a 6' wide closet compared to the 4' on here. Not much, but it seems to make a difference in layout potential and the size of workbench I will have. The Bad News is that this other room looks pretty much like the before photos I posted earlier , which means another week before I get to build benchwork. The Good News is that getting both of these horrible looking rooms spruced up is making the Planning Commissioner very happy. These rooms were passed over and used for storage since we bought this fixer upper a couple years ago. So, now I am off to move dozens of Bankers Boxes of documents, cement block and 2x shelves packed with containers, and last but not least the kitty boxes to their new room. Need to swap the door with the Kitty hole in it over as well. Then a repeat of the patch, scrape smooth, paint, and re-electrical fixture process will comence tomorrow. The Kitty cats approve of the window shelves I am putting on all of the windows as witnessed here in the living room:

Finish IT!

My project is to finish the town scene on my existing 3'x4' layout and maybe start on Neenah yard.

Here is what it looks like on June 8th.

This picture is from my iPod so its not the best.

Giddy Up!

This is my Apex Mills section of my layout. It is the first scene people see coming down into to the basement, and I'm not real happy  with it. So, I've decided to rebuild it.

I want to make this...

Look more like this...

-George

Progress

 The layout room is now ready! These pics were taken yesterday, this morning I have installed the new plugs and switches, and am right now getting ready to start benchwork. I have tossed around a lot of designs, and have finally decided on the shape of the layout. It will have a large peninsula when you enter the room, wrapping around the wall, ending in another dogbone end in the closet, giving me a full continuous run loop. The plan I am posting shows the benchwork, but obviously I have not nailed down the actual plan 100%. The main idea is to have a continuous running loop with reversing legs to turn around in both directions. The turnouts on the plan are what I currently have to work with. I have worked out several plans using my available trackage that work with this benchwork, so I am going to proceed and build the layout to fit what I have. The basic idea is that on the inside of the inlet will be harbor with loading wharves , river entering at the window which is trestled over, and the long run on the right will be rising in elevation , the highest point being at the end in the closet, the loop punching through a tunnel there. I think I am going to simplify my industries a bit, with a building stone quarry on the mountainside being the primary one. Stone workshops and rail facilities will be on the peninsula, along with some fishing and general port buildings, and of course the "town".

The chief civil engineer is surveying the harbor area from the peninsula. The access walkway is skinny, but so am I , so it is plenty. The control panel will be facing the door where there is more room(where the light wood strip is behind the cat), and I can see the entire layout at once. That face will be a cabinet with drawers as well. I am actually going to make the control panel into a "drawer" that can slide out of the way and be protected while layout work is done. The open area in the closet will have a fold down work table that will allow access when lifted.

Benchwork

Installed the benchwork for the layout today. I initially intended to go with 5mm Luan and Celotex everywhere and attach the track directly to it with brads, but I changed my mind and decided to use some soft 1/4" hardboard for roadbed, and then caulk the track down. So, I used 1/2" ply everywhere else. I guess having the room done and the benchwork in place puts me on first base now with my "called shot" of having a complete layout done by Labor Day.

From the door

From the closet

Towards the closet

Rough plan. I reduced it to basically one industry, a building stone quarry and associated workshops, along with a harbor. It is a folded dogbone with opposing reversing legs. Grid is 4", room is 12' 2" from left to right, and 11'2" from top to bottom, with another 2' 4" into the closet area.Door is bottom left. Access for the loop in the tunnel is from underneath.

About time I showed an update....

So here's where I am. Not finished by any means but progress is being made. I'm going for an Appalachian look. I've always done western scenery before and this is my first shot at it.  I will add the pics to my blog tomorrow and go into a little more detail of how I did the rock. It's basically a combination of plaster molds and Noch foam rock that I salvaged from a previous layout of mine. I think things have improved over the first picture i started this thread with!

Michael                                             

Started with this, well

Started with this, well actually a bit early. This was April 1.

This was April 29

The new floor was in the basement and complete. All the old benchwork came out and Memorial Day weekend I started over with this.

The goal by Labor Day is to have the benchwork complete on a partial double deck N scale layout in the 19x20 room. In addition, part of the upper deck with have track installed. I would also like to have the branch line on the lower level operational.

As of today, this is what it looks like. The upper deck foam actually will be on the lower deck in the background on shelf supports running off the furring strips on the back wall.

and this scene from the upper deck.

Tonight 1/4 of the plywood subroadbed for the lower deck went down, but 1 support will interfere with 2 turnout motors, so some has to come back up so that support can be relocated. Too tired to take a photo, but lots of progress. Even ordered some more track today.

Summertime, when the living is easy.