Portola Valley RR

[RBrodzinsky]

Those grades look fantastic, Noah.  And, it was nice meeting you in person!

[Noah Lane]

Thanks, Rick. And likewise! Hopefully I'll see you guys again soon. Perhaps the N-Scale convention in Sac?

[Noah Lane]

It's been too long again since my last post, so I'll try to keep it fresh. The only layout work I've been doing is the mundane task of making trees -applying poly fiber may contest ballasting for the worst jobs of a model railroader!

I figure I'd post some new, random layout shots.















And this represents about another half of a batch of trees:

[railnerd]

Looks awesome

[Jeff AKA St0rm]

looking good

[RBrodzinsky]

Great photos, Noah

[Noah Lane]

Thank you fellas!

Happy Easter!

[chris.mincemoyer]

Great job on the ballast and scenery.

[Scottl]

Noah, this is really looking good.  The ballasting is excellent, and the roads are very convincing. 

[Noah Lane]

Thank you for the compliments, fellas!

- - -

I pulled out all of my 100+ trees, and decided to re-arrange them on the layout. Mind you, none of them have been glued into place. But the technique I'm using with the 'nail' for sticking them into the layout, creates a pretty secure bond. The trees stuck into wood, wire mesh, or Sculptamold, certainly need glue to be stabilized.


I first dreaded having to make another batch of trees. But after the re-arrangement, I realized I had about 8 trees leftover. If anything, I might make a single, more well-made "Fujiwara" oak trees for the triangle of space to the front-right of the layout.

Slightly different [but still crummy] lighting. The thing I'm not happy with, is the overall color of the landscape seems...drab or washed out or that it's just too many shades of green. I'm thinking/hoping that once I add some yellow "mustard" to the pastures, the painted structures, cars/trains, Magic Water, etc, the layout will come to life a little more. Thoughts?






Side note: After I finished up with the trees last night, I started cleaning up the layout and track, in preparation for ACTUALLY RUNNING TRAINS again. Haha.  Anyhow, this camera squeeze-blower cleaner may be on of the handiest tools for a model railroader. You can delicately dust locos, structures, track, etc etc -you could never use the office supply-type compressed air sprayers. Those would cause have on a layout.  This squeeze blower works especially excellent for landscaping; you can blow off any loose ground foam, ballast, sand, dirt, excess weathering powder, etc. I HIGHLY recommend getting one for your layout!

[Noah Lane]

I spent yesterday evening reconnecting feeders that had been dangling. Many months ago, I had removed some pieces of track and when I replaced them they were backwards (or something) and a couple feeders got mixed up. I ended up cutting some of the feeders above their respective Posi-Taps, in a short-finding frenzy. With as many feeders as I have, I knew it wasn't likely to be an issue for a while, so I left them dangling.

I finally got under the layout last night, to reconnect everything. I had to do some upside-down, under-layout soldering to extend a handful of feeder wires. Let me say, I was very thankful I chose those Posi-Taps for connecting feeders to the bus. Soldering under the layout is not fun! Especially when you slip up, and fling hot solder onto your face and arms!

Fortunately, all of my under-layout-wiring is connected again, and I can check that box on my 'list of to dos'.

[Noah Lane]

I ended up using 0.020" metal music wire $.99 for a pack of it from Slobby Lobby. The wire makes for perfect fence posts, and is a lot sturdier than wood or styrene.

I sunk the first section of fencing on Friday night, then went out of town camping for the weekend. I spaced these posts at 20' apart, but after a weekend driving through Napa-Sonoma countryside, I quickly realized that pasture fencing has post-spacing typically more like 7-10'. I'm just going to add extra posts to make for 10' spacing.



Here's a quintessential California shot -from out little weekend in getaway on the Sonoma Coast. These are California Poppies, our State flower. We wanted to avoid the 88 degree heat in the Valley, and enjoy some coastal fog. It was a pretty spectacular little weekend trip!

[davefoxx]

Noah,

The posts look good, but I think that they might be a little too close to the railroad right-of-way.  Not a clearance issue, mind you, but a property ownership matter.  Also, I doubt the farmer would run the fence into that sharp acute angle with that last single post.  Just remove that post and have the fence corners at ~90 degrees at the next two posts.

Hope this helps,
DFF

[Noah Lane]

Now that you mention, they probably are a bit to close to the ROW. The pin holes these posts leaves behind are so small, I could easily reposition all of them, and place just a 'grain' of ground foam over the former postholes. And yeah, that last triangle post probably needs to go.

I appreciate the insight, Dave.

[Noah Lane]

Sorry for the lack of updates again!  Since I started running trains, that's all I've been doing! Well, actually running trains has created other tasks with fixing/improving couplers, trucks, DCC issues, wiring, etc.

Here's a little shot just kicks:


Oh, and I brought the wife back up the Mendocino Coast, and camped a few days in Fort Bragg. It was beautiful, and the weather was ideal!


We landed this sweet campsite without even having a reservation -basically unheard of, this time of year. We got incredibly lucky!