Gibbon, Cozad & Western - "The 100th Meridian Line"

[learmoia]

Oooooo! Kiosk mode! I shall explore that. It would also help with a non-trains project on the list. Thanks! Yes, JMRI already has the panels as separate URLs, and pre-sizing for the tablet screens was what I had figured.

Forgot to mention that I also put together a dedicated WiFi router for the layout, and chose one of the non-default frequencies to keep traffic clear of the "house" WiFi. The router is not connected to the internet, which should keep Google's snooping to a minimum. I'll have to relent intermittently to update things, but by and large the isolated intranet should keep us out of trouble and network performance as good as it can be.

Ohh common.. maybe Google AI can start dispatching trains for you..

[C855B]

The kiosk mode on the tablet seems to work, with 3rd-party software. It might need an upgrade to the "pro" (fee) version for full-screen, but as-is it configures the tablet to boot to the desired web page, and does everything it needs to do.

Meanwhile, I've been somewhat nose to grindstone on the RR itself the past couple of weeks. Here's work under way on "Complication Jct." (for the time being), where the double-track backbone intersects with single track branch plus a siding entrance and becomes a 3-track main. There are four crossovers plus a diverging switch. There's a signal plan on paper with triple-head signals on all approaches given the numerous possible routings, but in looking closely at the "siding", it can be reduced to a double dwarf and be "correct".



From this perspective it dawned on me that a double-slip would save some real estate, but that's not heavy mainline practice. What is there will be most correct.

Bigger news was this morning's project - a "check it out!" trip to the grand opening of a local Menards. I've been leaning heavily on area Menards for benchwork materials, and we had three to choose from - all over an hour away. I flat wore-out the late, great box truck on these trips. The new store will turn what was an all-day project into a lunch run.

[learmoia]

Menards stores are a nice thing to have around..   Ours is 6 minutes away..

Also not a bad place to work as far as retail chains go.. My wife went from Walmart to Menards and it's a 180 degree difference in corporate culture, and management style.  Same base pay, but  $3/hour bonus on weekends.. Plus up to 10 hours of overtime each week if you want it.  Supposedly full time employees can get every other weekend off, but she works every weekend to keep the same days off as I have with the railroad. 
Bonuses consist of year end profit sharing, and a spring bonus for working 45+ hours/week for March-June.

The only downside is that all the promotion opportunities that she wants are Saturday/Sunday off.. (Only in our twisted world is that a downside)

Walmart was no weekend bonus, 38-40 hours a week.. ABSOLUTELY NO Overtime.. (They'd call you into the office for literally $0.75 of overtime.. ) - Quarterly bonuses based on store performance, but they would cut your hours for the next month to pay for it.  Weird Attendance policy that punished you for coming back to work as soon as you were ready vs taking extra time off, but they started to fix that towards the end.

Blahh.. Off topic. but pisses me off just thinking about Walmart.. (But it was better than K-Mart.... 2 words.. Minimum Wage!)..

/Rant
~Ian

[C855B]

Not as off-topic as you might think, for two reasons. First, the XPS-on-steel benchwork approach would be difficult to impossible without 'em. Lowe's changes suppliers like underwear and can't be counted on for consistency with the XPS nor a selection of sizes, and they don't carry steel studs. Home Depot has that "hour away" problem for us, plus the XPS selection is very limited. They just started carrying steel studs in our region, but 2x4 studs and rails only. Menards? Every XPS thickness from 1/4" (fan-fold) to 2" with two grades in a couple of sizes, and three sizes of studs and rails. Layout construction heaven. For me, at least.

(I gave our locally-owned D-I-Y store a chance to be my prime supplier. They would only order the XPS by the full pallet at damn near close to MSRP, and refused... no kidding... to order the steel in anything other than 2x4, while at the same time bad-mouthing the big box chains. I know the owner, but I didn't bring up this "problem with the help" with him since he's our city manager and I want to stay on his good side.)

Second "topical" is related to the layout building. I mentioned before the auto parts store catercorner to our property. Aside from their being a regular source for truck parts, the guys took an interest in what we were doing, and, of course, they reveled in the soap opera associated with the collapsing house and the scuzzy apartments we eventually bought and demolished. Well, that store closed without notice to anybody (not even their own regional manager), and suddenly the crew there is on the streets. So we're at the new Menards yesterday, I turn the corner into a tools aisle - and there's John, the friend from the auto parts store who was our watchful eye, stocking shelves. He confirmed what your wife said, great place to work, and pays much better than the parts store, that the layoff was the best thing that happened to him.

[learmoia]

Cool.. we are attending the Menards train show this weekend In Eau Claire, and they have their own little town of stores, offices and factories (apart from the regular store..).. it's pretty cool.. 

We're going to poke around a bit tomorrow and see if we can get a tour.

One cool thing.. is they were adding on to one complex, and they wrapped an exposed warehouse wall in old billboards to protect it from the weather. (I'll try to get a picture).. I learned yesterday they take wood pallets (free to drop off at the stores) and recycle them (very resourceful..)

Oh and they do get inbound fright by rail.. mostly lumber..

Glad your friend was able to get in at the new store.. (if he's a hard worker. He'll be promoted in 3-6 months if he wants it.)

~Ian

[learmoia]

Oh and dont get me started on local hardware stores.. we needed an 8' 2x4.. and we went down to the local lumber store.. It was cheaper to drive 30 miles to Menards, Buy a 2x4, and drive back!  And no credit cards.. cash only..  long story short.. I didn't go back.. Same with the grocery store next door..  (I swear they drove to walmart, bought store stock and marked it up 50%)..

This was a few years ago, but it in the age of big box stores and Amazon Prime.. there is no future for places like this.. at least not in the midwest..

~Ian

[C855B]

"Things are looking up." So that must mean we're working on sky again. After minor skyboard tweaks to a club N-Trak module under my wing, I started seriously reconsidering what it was going to take for the scheme we'd cooked-up to mount 4x8 foamcore panels to the walls after Robyn painted each panel in her studio. Sort of a skyboards on steroids. Conclusion?

Nope.

After reviewing the photos from the research trip, there is so much sky to the... uh... sky that it would be silly to do anything other than paint the walls, as we discussed here a couple of years ago. So after a trip to the Sherwin-Williams store down the street, "What are you two up to now?" , we had a load of color chips in hand, having blindly guessed at a range of "close enough", let's see how it works. Nope, again:



The inkjet ran out of light cyan before printing all the samples I'd picked from the trip, but you get the gist. Color chips are all wrong for Western sky. From top left: northeast NM, north central NM, southern NV, Mojave Desert and then southwestern Utah. Paint colors we guessed at are mostly too green, but getting closer with the bottom two groups of chips. The quart can where you can barely see the color blotch on the lid is the module skyboard color, also wrong for our skies. Now knowing the tint bias should be towards indigo, we'll take the pictures with us tomorrow and try again.

Plan is to refresh her airbrush skills (... practice practice practice ...), using a small HVLP gun. She wants subtle unevenness, especially the lightening towards the horizon. I'm not going to discourage her attempts, but I will supersede if necessary and go solid color if she can't get a consistent inconsistency.

Backdrop image plan we're working now is horizon images applied to 1/8" foamcore and cut out for the profile. Whether they'll be panoramas from the trip like the one below or her artistry remains to be seen.



Beyond the sky stuff I'm mostly working on wiring. After several tests and re-dos, a modular electronics plan is in the works and I think... hope... that this will reduce time to get more junctions, crossovers and detection fully operational. Gotta do somethin' - I've been running trains for a while but with very little ops due to the small number of working turnouts.

[MVW]

Hey Mike, with the immensity of your project, is it possible to get everything in an all-encompassing photo? Just thinking it would be helpful to see how elements like the junction you're working on fit into your overall construction plan. Would be cool to see how the cavern is starting to fill up!

Jim

[tappertrainman]

You probably don't need this, but here's a photo I took a few years ago in Colton.



James

[C855B]

You probably don't need this, but here's a photo I took a few years ago in Colton. ...

Quite the opposite! I don't have any digital photos south of the San Bernardino Mountains. Very useful, I'm printing it now at max quality to help with color matching.

Turns out that Sherwin-Williams doesn't come anywhere close to this range of blue in their palette, either at the S-W store or in the "exclusive" S-W line at Lowes. We picked-up a bunch of Dutch Boy and PPG chips from Menards this afternoon that seemed better, so once we get back over to the studio under the full lights we'll see where things stand.

[eja]

You probably don't need this, but here's a photo I took a few years ago in Colton.



James

Fake News .. the air is never that clear in that area !

[C855B]

Fake News .. the air is never that clear in that area !

Ha! You should've seen what it was like in the '70s, back when the Fontana steel plant was going. I went to school in Pomona. If wind/temperature conditions were right, you couldn't see across the quad because of the brown haze.

Jim, I took a panorama of the layout room tonight for you, and you're probably going to be disappointed. The leftover construction stuff still lives in the middle of the space because of lack of room in the workshop (longer story... I'll spare you). On the plus side, the pano shrinks everything to where you can barely make out the five trains on the mainline. That's a lot of track down, and much, much work to go:



Checking against the room lights, we believe we found our sky palette at Menards this afternoon. I'll need to cove the corners where I had planned to curve the foamcore panels, but that's no big deal, and we can start on an ombré sky.

[MVW]

Jim, I took a panorama of the layout room tonight for you, and you're probably going to be disappointed. The leftover construction stuff still lives in the middle of the space because of lack of room in the workshop (longer story... I'll spare you). On the plus side, the pano shrinks everything to where you can barely make out the five trains on the mainline. That's a lot of track down, and much, much work to go:

Thanks, Mike! Just what I was looking for, and not disappointed at all. Very, very cool to see how things are coming along. It's always a pleasure to see your updates.

Jim

[learmoia]

Here is a suggestion.. (and you can see it in all the photos..) Match the blue towards the top of the picture (maybe stay on the lighter side since a darker color could be overwhelming), then overcoat with a fine coat of white about mid-way up the wall.. the white would transition from almost no white at the top (mid-point) of the wall to almost white where the layout meets the wall.
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~Ian

[C855B]

Here is a suggestion.. (and you can see it in all the photos..) Match the blue towards the top of the picture (maybe stay on the lighter side since a darker color could be overwhelming), then overcoat with a fine coat of white about mid-way up the wall.. the white would transition from almost no white at the top (mid-point) of the wall to almost white where the layout meets the wall.

Sort of the plan. We're going to start the experiment with three middle hues from the color card you can see in this crop of the panorama shot. Also shows how amazingly close the match is:



I think you might be right about dark first followed by a lighter overspray. It might be easier to control the transition. We'll fool around with various approaches for the easiest and most consistent result - butcher paper is cheap.