The Burlington C&I Sub

[w neal]

Great layout Paul and a fantastic prototype. I was lucky enough to railfan that line once with a trusty sherpa guide. Oregon sure amazed me. It is indeed very lumpy, or is that gradey? Part of the area reminded me more of appalachia than Illinois. I hope you will model the "trench" near & west of, or is that above?, Oregon. I stood there on the wooden overpass bridge trying to imagine the NCL and the Empire Builer rushing underneath. Inspirational! I'll try to dig up my pictures...

There is nothing so satisfying, to me, as trying to make our N scale worlds resemble/simulate the real ones. You are capturing the flavor of things well.

Looking forward to seeing your progress.

[PAL_Houston]

In previous posts, I threatened to add  to this thread to talk about how I got to where I currently am with the C&I Sub.  I also expressed the hope this is useful background and information for others who may be considering building their layouts, and I still have these delusions.

In previous posts I talked about building the first 3 modules in the garage, and in post #4 the track plan that I am working towards.

Today's Topic:
A quick (pictorial) survey of how I got to where I am now...

Long about last October (2011) I repossessed a spare bedroom above the garage for what is now known as "The Train Room".  First steps were to prep the room with some new paint and LED track lights.  Since I am not an electrician, I had a professional do this.  I am glad I did.  The attic space above the bedroom is not readily accessible, and this guy had some cool tools including an auger extension for his drill and a fibre optic snake that allowed him to run wires for this circuit in (only!) 4 hours.  Fortunately this bedroom was originally wired for separate circuits for the lights and ceiling fan and for the wall outlets. 

I chose LED's for a couple of reasons:  first, they use and dissipate a lot less energy, which translates to a cooler room and lower energy (light and A/C) bills; second, I could get 5000 K color temperature, which better approximates daylight;  third, they are supposed to last forever (30,000 hours).  The big disadvantage is they are expensive.  On the other hand the difference between LEDs and the same number of lumens in incandescent lights was enough that I did not need to run a completely new (additional) circuit.  Looked at this way, the LEDs saved me about 1500 smackers, even before the additional enerygy savings I will be getting.  I got LED lights at the local big box, along with the light tracks and connection hardware.  A friend & I installed the tracks in less than 2 hours after the wiring was completed, including cutting some of the tracks to fit.  (I will be happy to answer your questions about brand and model & etc offline -- PM me). And, after  doing that and taking a beer break, we also hung the backdrop for the first 3 modules.



Note that the room is still carpeted.  After discussing options with my better half, we decided to leave it rather than install wood or rubber flooring, since the carpet is still in good condition and isn't all that old.  I vacuumed it, shampooed a couple areas, and re-stretched it after it dried.  Then I covered the layout area with a plasticized drop cloth before starting to move & erect modules.  The drop cloth will be removed after I am "done scenic-ing".  I have noticed static discharge from me to the track (and DCC system) on dry days, and after looking for advice on this topic I adopted using Static Guard spray when conditions warrant it.

After moving the existing modules upstairs and getting them re-installed, the next step was using the recently vacated garage space to build some more modules.  That set of steps went pretty quickly, and so by Nov. 2011 I was already laying track on modules 4,5 and 6 covering Galena Jct and Savanna.



Wisely, I thought, I had planned some vacation around the Christmas holidays, and so spent my December vacation "terraforming" the new modules by shaping layered sections of foam insulation that were glued together with latex caulk.  My tools of choice for the shaping were a keyhole saw, an electric carving knife, a surform tool, and a vacuum cleaner.  Most of the shaping was done in the garage, and the cleanup was with regular use of a shop-vac.  The shaped landforms were then brought upstairs, positioned and adjusted as necessary and then pegged in place with short lengths of 3/16ths wood dowels.  This allows removal and reemplacement, which was necessary because after I was satisfied with the fit they went back downstairs to the garage for "base-coating" with sand-colored spray paint and "earth" colored latex. paint.



After that was done, I then "colorized" the Palisades, and Plum River out-crop sections of the layout with acrylic paints, and started "vegetating" these areas with grass and etc.  I also installed a masonite scene-divider, pre-painted sky-blue, and after getting the alignment where I wanted it, I painted the lower parts of the scene-ivider with various shades of green acrylic to represent wooded bluffs and grassy hillsides...  This was done a little bit at at time on nights and weekends, and pretty much took until the end of February.





In March I started on installing structures.  Many of these I had built during the preceding years when I was "waiting to repossess" my train room.  It was nice to see some of them finally make it onto a layout!!  Savanna depot was one of these:



The Oregon stock pen was another:



I also went into structure building mode including a couple of houses for Savanna, along with a gas station, a coop store and the Rosenbaum Bros Savanna Elevator (which was scratched from dimensions I extracted from a 1943-vintage fire-insurance map and some photos I scrounged off the internet for the present-day CGP barge-loading facility.



So, that pretty much sums up where I am at on this project today.  Lately, I have been running trains (!) to test track and evaluate the track plan, while considering what I need to tackle next.  There is plenty left to do!!

[Philip H]

hey Paul, I didn't see any pics, in today's post . . .

[wazzou]

Me neither.

[PAL_Houston]

hey Paul, I didn't see any pics, in today's post . . .

Sorry, guys, I don't know what to tell you. 
I see them fine, and I am on a different computer than when I posted them.
None of the pix are particularly large (less than 100kb, each), but there are a bunch of them.

Do you even see the links?

[Pomperaugrr]

They all showed up fine on my PC.

Eric

[conrail98]

Perhaps they are blocked by our corporate firewalls because I can't see them either?

Edit: I just saw you linked to images in nscale.net. I don't think you can see them unless you are logged into that forum too. I know I'm not a member of that forum so maybe that's the same for the other guys,

Phil

[Philip H]

All I see are spaces between words.  No red x. no link, nothin!  And I'm using Firefox's latest version, which admits pretty much everyone else's pics just fine.

[avel]

In Firefox I am seeing about 1/8 of some images. Right clicking on the picture and selecting View Image, lets me view it.

[Philip H]

I have nothing to right click on.

[conrail98]

Guys, it's because he's posted images that are housed on nscale.net which won't allow pictures to be shown unless you are logged into that site as well. I suggest taking them off there and putting them on something like photobucket or Picassa,

Phil

[wazzou]

I've got bubkus.  No Corporate firewall constraints, using Firefox, just like Phillip...nothing.

[Bob Bufkin]

I can see them and I'vd never logged onto Nscale.net.  Go figure.

[conrail98]

Bob, you may want to check that. I just logged into nscale.net, and saw them (nice, btw). Then I logged out and can no longer see them,

Phil

[PAL_Houston]

OK.  I will see about putting them elsewhere and re-linking. 
I am surprised about this though, since no one said anything about this issue relative to the previous posts on this thread, which are also out on Nscale.net

Go Figure!