Weekend Update 2007/08/05

[John]

This past week, I have been roughing in an engine terminal for the M&O

The M&O main engine terminal, consists of an Atlas 3 stall roundhouse, and a Heljan / Walthers manual turntable.  The track alignment between the TT and the RH is not quite correct, but if you center the TT on the middle track, the other two can be "adjusted"

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[John]

This is another industry I am test fitting this week .. I picked up this old grain elevator at a flea market real cheap ..  we will call it Rockingham Grain for now ..

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[Erik W]

I haven't done much modeling this week but managed to get my Life-Like Berkshire listed on Ebay, thanks to the feedback I received from you guys on how best to list it.  Check it out here: http://tinyurl.com/2seamq

While this is not N scale I thought you guys would appreciate this.  My grandmother gave this to me recently.  It was my great grandfather's childhood toy.  Our best guess is that it's at least 100 to 105 years old.  I also recently learned that I had a great, great uncle who was an avid railfan in the 1880s in the Northeast.  We found his 120 - 130 year old railfan diary.  He wrote down everything he saw.  It was quite interesting, especially tales of a wreck or two.  I'm trying to convince that part of my family to give me the diary since currently I’m the only one in the family interested in trains.





Erik

P.S. - Congrats Tom on the new addition to the family and don't worry she'll weather herself . . . you'll be changing it.

[up1950s]

Erik

P.S. - Congrats Tom on the new addition to the family and don't worry she'll weather herself . . . you'll be changing it.

Thats like the two loco's sitting upright on the ocean floor off of Jersey .

[3rdrail]

Erik W, hate to disappoint you, but I recognize the CN&W "Pioneer" and the tender and coaches from the Strombecker "DeWitt Clinton" wooden train kits. I built piles of their stuff in the late 1940's and early 1950's. The "Pioneer" and "DeWitt Clinton" were roughly O scale, while they had an HO USRA  Mikado, which I used the ICRR lettering for, and I also had an HO B&O "Sentinel Service" boxcar in blue  and silver.

My pride and joy was a B24 "Liberator", though, as a ten year old...

[Erik W]

3rdail,

Hmmm.  I wonder if it was my uncles then.  He was born in 1946.  I'm not sure where else it would've come from.  Plus that would explain why it was unearthed out of the piles of stuff stored at my grandparent's house.

Erik

[wm3798]

Well the party just broke up... film at 11 ;D

Lee

[MEC_FAN]

Modified a Walters pulprack to better match those on the BAR.
Ground the deck overhang back flush with the deck and made a side frame out of .015 styrene. Glued it to the frame and made side stakes out of .040 sqaure styrene.



Made a load out of dried up evergreen trimings.


eble attempt at weathering.

[wm3798]

Congratulations, Tom.  But if the baby was 6 hours old when that was posted, you had plenty of time to get here for the ops session!  What, don't they have nurses at that hospital?!? ;D

Anyway, here's what you missed...

This is the crew.  That's me on the left, with Ed, Brian (Rock GP40) Tim Nixon and my friend John Bailey.


We kept Ed pretty busy as the yard boss, throwing trains at him from all directions.  Every train movement had some work in the yard.  He whined a little bit, but we gave him a beer and that him feel better.


Brian ran a couple of different jobs, but he had the most fun switching the paper mill. 


Once Tim figured out where east and west was, he had a good time running through a variety of jobs.  His Chessie GP-38-2 with sound was pretty cool, but naturally, I refused to photograph it on my layout. ;D  Perhaps there will be some other display of Kitty Litter elsewhere in this thread...

My friend John was a bit overwhelmed by it all at first, but he had a good time just the same.

We were all under the watchful eye of the Land Lord, who added some monster trucks and robots to the scenery...


I think we all had a good time.  Thanks to everyone who made it over the bridge.  Hopefully we can do it again soon.

Lee

[keystonecrossings]

Sorry I couldn't make it, Lee, looks like you had a good time!

Tom, congrats on the new arrival!

[wm3798]

Just put a little update on my blog with a retrospective on operating sessions....

www.wmrywesternlines.net

Lee

[Hiroe]

Let's see if my image links work. (apologies if these are huge.)
All current projects from the Cherry Valley o-scale layout.


Control panel i designed and built for the CV layout. Dry erase board, used 1/2" electrical tape to 'draw' the lines, then spraypainted it black and peeled the tape off. In retrospect, i should have used black chalkboard spray instead of paint, as then we could have kept notes chalked on the black fields. (some jackass later came along and added the little numbers and letters by way of a label-maker. I had planned to mark them with sharpie instead.)


NJ International signal, rebuilt with LEDs, and wired into my custom signaling system. Each of these has an 8-pin dip plug potted into the base, which plugs into a socket installed on the layout. Makes for fast changeout of busted signals; as well as easy removal to work in the immediate area, so they don't *get* busted up.


Close-up of the 8-pin dip plug.


Another example signal with the dip plug, as installed on layout.


Completed scenery work along the north wall. Harry kinda gets into the whole 'whimsical layout look', without really discussing what the hell the rest of us want. This has been a source of some friction.


View out of the tunnel along the south wall. John has been the one working in this area, and he's a lot more receptive to reality.


Recently i installed tortoises in this area, replacing all of those hokey twin-coil snap machines. Reliability of operation has improved significantly.


Foam-core mock up of the new passenger station. Tracks to the rear of the building are the freight bypass.


Main-level staging loop. Each track can hold a ~25-car train.


--Drew

[Virginia Atlantic]

My newest freelance design:

[choochin3]

Congradulations Tom on your new bundle of joy!!!
Watch out for the weathered diapers.

Carl T.

[Denver Road Doug]

Congrats, Tom!  No better bundle than that one, not even a large bag from the LHS!

More progress on the layout.  Track down, trains running.  I'll let the photos speak...details can be found in my Trainboard blog.