The new Missouri Valley Western

[MichaelWinicki]

Same here, long periods of neglect and then focused attention.

One way to help with that is to get to the point of being able to run trains.

The goal on my pike was to get the main down as quickly as possibly if I dilly-dallied with that and didn't get it to the point of being able to run a train around the entire layout I'd lose focus... And it would probably be a while before I gained it back.  Big reason why I went with commercial turnouts as opposed to building my own– If I had to take the time to build each turnout, the layout would never have made it to a present 85% completion stage... Never. 

I needed to be able to go out there and simply run trains now and again and not have to push myself to build another building or complete more scenery.  I'd run a train or two... Sometimes watching it... Sometimes reading a model RR mag while it ran.  It allowed me to avoid those several month long intervals when the layout would not be touched.

Just run a train now & again.  Quite often that itself will motivate you to do something... Even if it's a small project.

[Jbub]

One way to help with that is to get to the point of being able to run trains.

The goal on my pike was to get the main down as quickly as possibly if I dilly-dallied with that and didn't get it to the point of being able to run a train around the entire layout I'd lose focus... And it would probably be a while before I gained it back.  Big reason why I went with commercial turnouts as opposed to building my own– If I had to take the time to build each turnout, the layout would never have made it to a present 85% completion stage... Never. 

I needed to be able to go out there and simply run trains now and again and not have to push myself to build another building or complete more scenery.  I'd run a train or two... Sometimes watching it... Sometimes reading a model RR mag while it ran.  It allowed me to avoid those several month long intervals when the layout would not be touched.

Just run a train now & again.  Quite often that itself will motivate you to do something... Even if it's a small project.

I have a ways to go until I'm able to start on a home layout. I have to build the house first . Right now all I have is a 12 foot module and train shows are what "motivate" me to work on it. I'm only able to get trains ruining on it 3-4 times a year depending on the invites we get. Luckily there's is one the 4th-6th of Aug in Evanston, WY that is pushing me right now.

[MVW]

One way to help with that is to get to the point of being able to run trains.

The goal on my pike was to get the main down as quickly as possibly if I dilly-dallied with that and didn't get it to the point of being able to run a train around the entire layout I'd lose focus... And it would probably be a while before I gained it back.  Big reason why I went with commercial turnouts as opposed to building my own– If I had to take the time to build each turnout, the layout would never have made it to a present 85% completion stage... Never. 

I needed to be able to go out there and simply run trains now and again and not have to push myself to build another building or complete more scenery.  I'd run a train or two... Sometimes watching it... Sometimes reading a model RR mag while it ran.  It allowed me to avoid those several month long intervals when the layout would not be touched.

Just run a train now & again.  Quite often that itself will motivate you to do something... Even if it's a small project.

I think you're exactly right, Michael. One of my goals for this layout was to have something operational ASAP. I achieved that, and have had some fun and interesting (solo) ops sessions, but I still don't have the capability of continuous running, which I think would be a huge bonus. Sometimes it's great to just turn 'em loose and let 'em run. (And I say that even though my interest in the hobby is probably 70% in operations, and 25% in design/building. Just running trains doesn't do it for me as an end game, and yet it's still vital. Funny that.)

Realistically, I'm still probably 1-2 years away from having a loop-to-loop system in place. But I will consider it a watershed moment when I achieve it.

Jim

[MichaelWinicki]

I have a ways to go until I'm able to start on a home layout. I have to build the house first . Right now all I have is a 12 foot module and train shows are what "motivate" me to work on it. I'm only able to get trains ruining on it 3-4 times a year depending on the invites we get. Luckily there's is one the 4th-6th of Aug in Evanston, WY that is pushing me right now.

Gotcha!

Yeah, you're in a tough spot.

Maybe a switching layout of some sort that is less reliant on other modules?

[Specter3]

@Jbub I lived that modular no layout life for a long time. I lost my layout space in the house when my first kid was born 13 years ago. It prompted me to switch from HO to N just based on the fact that Ntrak was out there even though there was not a local group. Solo for a while with modules being set up in the house when the wife went to her parents with the kids on occasion. Then a group kind of local started up and I found out about them. It has been about 7 years of running with them and only having the shows we did and occasional trips to out of the way places to run other's layouts as my running time. We just bought a new place and if you have seen my thread you know I am having fun with my own space. So though it is a drag don't give up on having your own space someday. If you make it a goal, it will happen at some point.

My home running consisted of three modules I rigged together in the crawlspace of my last house. I referred to it as the dungeon.



You do what you can to scratch the itch.

[MVW]

Specter3, that looks eerily like the space I was using in our old house, before we moved three years ago! A person has to really want to railroad to set up shop in places like this. As I used to say, that space is only slightly better than no space at all.

I've been following your thread; congrats on the upgrade!

Jim

[MVW]

Been busy tidying up the train room, and decided to get some "typographical scenery" up on the walls. These are on both sides of the stairs that descend into the room, to help set the mood, so to speak.

Here are a couple Chicago & North Western ads from 1953 (I model '54-'55), appropriate because much of the traffic on my layout is food-related (livestock, fresh meat, grain, PFE shipments). And I figure the "92% on time" is a nice way to subtly turn the screws during ops sessions. 



And here we have (from bottom to top) artwork from an early '50s dining car menu (I will be trying to recreate this scene on the layout), a late '40s ad for the City of Los Angeles (which will eventually be a star performer), an 1890s ad for the C&NW system, and a recreation of a 1960 poster for the C&NW's signature "400" passenger trains.



Enjoy the soft porn copy writing from the UP ad:



I don't know about you, but it makes me feel like climbing on board. 

Finally, the C&NW system ad is noteworthy because in the upper left-hand corner it mentions the Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley railroad and the Sioux City & Pacific. In real life, these were swallowed up by the C&NW (or were created as arm's-length subsidiaries). In my world, these two lines merged to create the Missouri Valley Western, gobbled up another real-life line that went belly up in the 1870s, and survived as a bridge route between the UP and C&NW.



OK, now that that's done, maybe I'll get back to laying some track. 

Jim

[MVW]

In keeping with my recent proclivity to do anything to avoid laying track  , I began farting around with a Walthers ice house kit for my Armstrong meat packing plant. The kit is based on a C&NW prototype, which used to stand in Antigo, Wis. I'm not modeling that particular ice house, but I'm shooting for a look that's similar to the way it appeared in summer 1954 (my time period) in the accompanying photo.



(The photo is from "Chicago & North Western in Color, Vol. 2: 1954-1958," by Morning Sun Books. Highly recommended.)

Still lots more work to do, but of course I had to jump the gun and geek out with the visual possibilities a finished structure/scene could provide.







Jim

[milw12]

Looks good Jim, that will be a nice eye-catcher when done!

-Lucas

[MVW]

Work continues ... slowly ... on the ice house, etc.





Jim

[MVW]

Started building and mounting car card boxes in hopes of bringing my first guest operators aboard in January.



This is turning out to be a surprisingly quick and easy project, even for a "fumble fingers" like me. Boxes are constructed of .060" styrene, with a .187" rod underneath for support. Happened to have some gray auto primer on hand. Mounted to the fascia with two self-adhesive velcro strips. Need to build two more like this, and a five-pocket jobber for the Armstrong packing plant/Doolittle Manufacturing area. And add labels, of course.

Jim

[MVW]

A quick update for this thread to set the stage for some more recent progress:

The year began with me starting work on Clinton Cereal Co. for the first TRW challenge of the year. That began well enough, but life happened, and that project was derailed. I won't recap that thread here, other than to provide this photo of the prototype (a Kellogg Oats plant in Davenport, Iowa), flipped horizontally to fit my needs.



For reference, the start of the build thread is here:
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=43682.0

Anyway, even though I had to bow out of the challenge, I kept plugging along, eventually arriving at this:



Much more work to go. I'll need three Middlesex Mfg. kits for the two large buildings, but it's a lot better than where that scene stood last January:



From here, I've recently moved on to another long-delayed project. More on that in a day or two.

Jim

[MVW]

After a truly remarkable stretch of procrastination (two years?!  ) punctuated by brief flurries of semi-productive avoidance behavior (see Clinton Cereal, above), I finally forced myself to finish laying track at the east end of Cedricsburg's Arrival/Departure Yard.



The three unballasted tracks at right complete the A/D yard, which is now double-ended and slightly larger than I'd originally planned. I'd hoped the longest track would accommodate 25 or 26 cars with double-headed power and caboose. Turns out it will hold 28 cars with power and caboose. (The other two tracks can handle 23-car trains, as expected.) The longest track isn't any longer than I expected; it just turns out more of the curves at each end are usable than I anticipated.

The three tracks at left (above) approximate where the first of five classification tracks will be. I hope to have them down this weekend, with the whole mess painted and ballasted within the next month.

Here's an overall shot of Cedricsburg Yard from the stairs descending into the layout room:



Up until now, the yard has necessarily been switched from the west (right) end. As soon as the class tracks are down and everything is tied into the power bus, I'll move the yardmaster's position to the far left (to the left of the car card boxes). The classification yard ladder will be isolated from the A/D yard on that end, so a switch crew can work the class yard without being hampered by incoming or outgoing traffic.

The backside of the aforementioned Clinton Cereal plant provides a bit of a backdrop near where the yardmaster will soon be stationed:



And finally, a few more gratuitous shots:





Jim

[GaryHinshaw]

Nice!  Feels good to make progress, eh?

[MVW]

I barely know the meaning of the word, Gary.

The reality is that while I've been dreading the trackwork, I've had an operational layout to play with, and tons of other projects to tackle ... like roads, the ice house at the packing plant, Clinton Cereal, the West Cedricsburg diner (more on that one later). So I haven't completely neglected the layout (even though I've gone months at a time without touching it). But I've certainly discarded my original timeline for construction.

Once this bit of "yard work" is done, I'll be in position to begin ramping up operations considerably. Right now, a session includes simulating four road freights in and out of the yard, and four local switch jobs. The next couple (relatively minor) phases of construction will more than double the operational possibilities.

Jim