Weekend Update 2/18/24

[craigolio1]

Finished up some mine tunnels this week in the mining section of the layout.





Still have 2 more tunnels to do and add more lighting. Thanks

Oooo I’m very interested in learning more about how you built this. Do you have a build thread?

I’ve always wanted to do a little abandoned mine, but with a bit of visibility to the interior. Kind of like an ant farm.

Craig.

[Scott1984]

Yes I do. It is located here. https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=57220.0
The mine is made from foam board,in fact the whole layout is from foam board, except for the bench work. I just marked out where I thought I wanted tunnels to be and cut the board in those areas. The walls are plaster of paris, I molded the walls using the old school tin foil method of casting rocks. The timber supports are just bamboo skewers stained with some dark stain I had laying around. The lighting is 3mm flickering LED's, looks like candle light or just poor electrical generation in the mine. It is turning out better than I was thinking it would. It's not super complicated but is pretty time consuming with the rocks and the timbers and the lighting. I also made mine cart tracks from some florist wire and some some home made ties. Thanks for checking it out!

[milw156]

Modutrak participated in the Mad City Model RR show in Madison Wi., this past weekend. Here are some shots from there. The layout won Best of Show for 2024.

[milw156]

and a few more.....
Garage in Sturtevant specializing in VW's

One of newst modules, Grand Crossing in La Crosse Wi, where the CB&Q and CNW all crossed each other

Heil manufacturing, Milwaukee Wi.

Kansasville Wi

Hansen's feed in Franksville Wi.

[milw156]

a few of my own things
WSOR #3805, a former RF&P GP 40 which had been downgraded to a GP 38. The middle fan was removed and plated over, it also has some of Alvin Ho's shapeways products; The shorter airfilter box (compare with the 38-2 behind it) and the spark arrestors, BLMA grabs, and decals from Circus City and Scale Rail graphics & ESU Loksound decoder.


a steel girder load on Exactrail bulkhead flat I did a while ago


a decal from the 2019 Chicago NSE convention on an Atlas plastic pellet hopper makes for nice souvenir of the convention

[Angus Shops]

Grandchildren - a convenient excuse to spend half a day “making sure it’ll run well” when they come to visit, with bonus points if the rest of the household staff spends their time vacuuming and baking cookies.

[peteski]

Peteski,  here is the CTA Kedzie Avenue Bus Garage that you did the decals for since these certainly weren't available off the shelf.  The building started life as a Walthers HO White Tower restaurant.

Thanks Roger, your layout is such a gem!

[craigolio1]

Yes I do. It is located here. https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=57220.0
The mine is made from foam board,in fact the whole layout is from foam board, except for the bench work. I just marked out where I thought I wanted tunnels to be and cut the board in those areas. The walls are plaster of paris, I molded the walls using the old school tin foil method of casting rocks. The timber supports are just bamboo skewers stained with some dark stain I had laying around. The lighting is 3mm flickering LED's, looks like candle light or just poor electrical generation in the mine. It is turning out better than I was thinking it would. It's not super complicated but is pretty time consuming with the rocks and the timbers and the lighting. I also made mine cart tracks from some florist wire and some some home made ties. Thanks for checking it out!

Excellent. Thanks for that detail, and I’ll check out the thread.

Craig

[lock4244]

Modutrak participated in the Mad City Model RR show in Madison Wi., this past weekend. Here are some shots from there. The layout won Best of Show for 2024.

No surprise, it's a fantastic layout. Like a well executed permanent home layout was taken on the road. In the two days I was at Trainfest 2022 I only stopped by a half dozen or more times. It's quite inspiring.

Definitely not your grandfather's modular layout.

[lock4244]

Heil manufacturing, Milwaukee Wi.

Such a great scene.

[PiperguyUMD]

Being sloppy is the least of your worries. Larger drill presses (like yours) usually use Jacobs taper mount for chucks.  They are *NOT* designed to handle lateral loads of milling. I recommend  reading https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=54357.msg745633#msg745633 and the subsequent posts from multiple members (not just me).  Be careful, and good luck!

Thanks for the heads up! I found lots of information on that. I think that these frame projects will be the outlier, not the norm. I took extremely thin passes and went very slowly when working on them. Should be ok with the same approach for small amounts of various plastics.

[jargonlet]

Peteski,  here is the CTA Kedzie Avenue Bus Garage that you did the decals for since these certainly weren't available off the shelf.  The building started life as a Walthers HO White Tower restaurant.

That’s a great use of an ho kit to make an n scale building. This is perfect timing as I need to replace a building on one of my modules after some changes were made and the old one no longer fits.