N scale Falls Road Secondary 'Retro Modeling Childhood memories'

[MK]

Make sure he or you get all the needed permits from your town/state.  That A word causes all kinds of scrutiny, rightfully so.

[learmoia]

True.. I'll check on that..

~Ian

[Wardie]

Negative air filtration is common in remediation, we have two we use for oil spills that pull the air through HEPA filters and then exhaust the air outside the space through temporary plastic ducts. We don’t do asbestos but it is a common method.

[Doug G.]

I feel so sorry for you that you have such limited space.



Doug

[learmoia]

I feel so sorry for you that you have such limited space.



Doug

I know.. I feel really bad about rubbing it into the local O scalers

~ian

[learmoia]

Not a dead topic...

Tile floor comes up Tuesday!!..   Then I can build the work bench..

In other news.. Mother nature has been putting the new gutters (and basement water issues) to the ultimate test... With Acceptable results..

A few months ago.. we got 2.5" of Rain which gave us a steady stream of water from the usual corner I put off fixing (which I vacuumed multiple times a day.. for 2 days)... Plus water pouring in the front basement window, floor, and front entry basement floor due to inadequate gutters.

Enter new 6" gutters with extended downspouts..
The next week.. we got another 1.75" of rain with no water in the basement..
-- Not completly dry since then.. but no major issues..

But over the last 3 days.. it's been insane!..
9/1/18 3.23" (This happened overnight, and basment was dry when I checked in the AM.. )
9/2/18 1.28" (Some seepage in the back corner.
9/3/18 2.4" (7.08 total so far this month)
(Here is a video for 9/3..-- At this point the ground is saturated.. so everything stayed on the surface.. (Neighbors basement is dry too.. ))

9/4/18 Raining today.. (maybe .5"? Supposed to end up at 1-2" tonight)
9/5/18 More Rain (1-2"?)
9/6/18 Clear?
9/7/18 More rain (Leftovers from Gordon?)
9/8/18 More rain (Leftovers from Gordon?)

Results:
I think I vacuumed the usual spot 4 times (3 times on the 2nd day, and once yesterday..)
No water anywhere else.. (Sump pumps are getting a work out..  But.. Pretty Dry.. )

My wife had a good idea to take her truck sandbags and lay them in the area where the water flows into a corner and into the basement... .. So we may take a tarp and lay it out in the low spot with sandbags, and see what happens Friday/Saturday.  The long term plan is to regrade the area and lay down plastic and rock to make sure the water flows away from the house to the french drain..

Many others fared much worse.. (Menards is sold out of Sump Pumps and Dehumidifiers).. One lady told my wife she had 19" of water in the basement..

In Other Other news.. Our LHS got a HUGE N scale collection in, and I've been spending my free time picking out retro cars I didn't have.. (Ending up with lots of cars.. and finding lots of variations..) 
I found both versions of:
Gulf Center Flow (Thick and Thin Lettering)
Jack Frost 3 Bay (Fat and Skinny)
Bakelite 3 Bay (Both numbers)
IC Double Door Box (3 versions) Dark Orange, Light Orange Thin I with line, Light Orange Thick I without line
(You can see the degeneration of the printing pad through the run)

I think have a Heinz 57 Vinegar Tank variation that isn't listed..  I've got the usual Yellow Tank with Blue Flat, but I also have Yellow Tank with Brown Flat.. (At first I thought it was the ER Models version.. but it's different.)  I'll get a pic when I get it dug out of my box of goodies..

I've got cars with the same paint scheme and number used on 2 different body styles from 2 different mfgs...

Lots of goodies.. Next post will be before / after on the tile project..

~Ian

[learmoia]

Not too much to update.. Asbestos project got pushed back to later this week..   

I've been reviewing the town designs.. which were drawn to the limits of my old house.. but now that I have more space, I can spread out and get closer to 1:1 scale.

I've been working on redrawing Lockport Yard to back date it from the 1990s to the 1960s.. which would include several more tracks, a few more industries and a freight house.  Cool thing is that I can model the yard in 1:1 scale (length wise).. I had to do a bit of selective compression for width.. (True 1:1 would have about .9" track centers and be 28" wide..).. The N scale version has 1.25" track spacing and 24" wide.  To do this.. I had to omit 1 of 7 yard tracks and 2 of 7 freight house tracks.

The new yard is 22' long..

I'm thinking about doing the same thing for other towns, but we'll see..

~Ian

[OldEastRR]

Think about avoiding the track routes running parallel to the layout edges. Every scene looks boxed in and standardized. Tracks don't always follow street grids, or cross rivers at 90 degree angles, or line up perfectly parallel to every factory. Especially if modeling the NE part of the country, where the towns platted themselves first and railroads had to come into and through them as best they could.
Even if you line up everything else to the layout edge the track going at an angle through the scene will look more visually distinct and stand out. A very simple adjustment is to put the track at a shallow angle through a long stretch of benchwork (like the right hand side of your first room) instead of exactly parallel to the front edge. Say, it enters one end of that section at 6" from the front edge and exits the other end at 2" from the front.  Another version is to make a long straight section into a very very wide curve (we're talking about a radius of 18 to 30 feet, not inches). No need to lay it out, a curve that wide can be easily be done by eye.
Or angle the town away from the front edge, so the straight track section isn't parallel to the street grid. And each town can be aligned at different angles.
An added interesting look to this method is tho the track doesn't match the street grid, the industries in that town do -- so you need to angle spurs off the main to align with the industries. Sometimes the spur needs to do some sharp twisty-turny to do so. Or a switchback is needed, not just in there to make things hard for the local engineer in your ops sessions.
However, if part of the nostalgia trip is to make the Lionel-type jammed with track and structures that early N scale layouts copied, then that's how you'll go.   

[learmoia]

Think about avoiding the track routes running parallel to the layout edges. Every scene looks boxed in and standardized. Tracks don't always follow street grids, or cross rivers at 90 degree angles, or line up perfectly parallel to every factory. Especially if modeling the NE part of the country, where the towns platted themselves first and railroads had to come into and through them as best they could.
Even if you line up everything else to the layout edge the track going at an angle through the scene will look more visually distinct and stand out. A very simple adjustment is to put the track at a shallow angle through a long stretch of benchwork (like the right hand side of your first room) instead of exactly parallel to the front edge. Say, it enters one end of that section at 6" from the front edge and exits the other end at 2" from the front.  Another version is to make a long straight section into a very very wide curve (we're talking about a radius of 18 to 30 feet, not inches). No need to lay it out, a curve that wide can be easily be done by eye.
Or angle the town away from the front edge, so the straight track section isn't parallel to the street grid. And each town can be aligned at different angles.
An added interesting look to this method is tho the track doesn't match the street grid, the industries in that town do -- so you need to angle spurs off the main to align with the industries. Sometimes the spur needs to do some sharp twisty-turny to do so. Or a switchback is needed, not just in there to make things hard for the local engineer in your ops sessions.
However, if part of the nostalgia trip is to make the Lionel-type jammed with track and structures that early N scale layouts copied, then that's how you'll go.

Good point, My first version of the yard was compressed and everything is 'squared' to the benchwork as a space saver.  The revised design was only squared to the main line, and the tracks, roads, buildings, were drawn to real life angles.. I'll get a comparison soon..   Revised version is much better.

Oddly enough, the prototype mainline features many sections of 'miles' of tangent track.  (with only a slight curve every few miles).. The longest section I've measured is 16 miles of tangent track.  (So the long sections of straight track you see in the drawing is prototypical.)

~Ian

[learmoia]

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Progress update:
Floor tile is up.. Trying to decide if I want to do anything with the floor.. (I may rent a concrete grinder / polisher.. to smooth everything out) or just leave it as is..

Either way.. Next up is electrical.. Need to do a 20A outlet circuit (or 2) to get the outlets off the light circuit in the basement.

It will be a bit.. (in the middle of a bathroom remodel.. so nothing else til that gets done and the budget settles down.)

In the mean time, I can build desks and work benches and get a few other little projects done.

~Ian

[jpec]

(Attachment Link) (Attachment Link)

Progress update:
Floor tile is up.. Trying to decide if I want to do anything with the floor.. (I may rent a concrete grinder / polisher.. to smooth everything out) or just leave it as is..

I'd just seal the floor and put those squishy mats where you'll walk for the layout and if you need something for the non-rail area an area rug. Too many horror stories about having to tear out and replace whatever floor covering due to a flood or burst pipe, etc.

[DKS]

Might want to consider turning the "blob yard" inside-out, so that the multiple parallel lines run around the outside for larger radii...

[learmoia]

I assume your talking about the Peninsula Staging yard?.. I have redrawn that several times.... one version  has the yard on the inside..

The current version uses curved switches through the broad curve  in a compound ladder to handle 2 sets of sidings.  I have 8-10 tracks on each side.. at about 10-12 feet each.

~ian

[learmoia]

Updated Designs..
Black = Track
Blue = 1980s track (as reference)
Yellow = Roads
Green = Buildings
Purple = Benchwork edges.

First Lockport Yard.
Top is redrawn to areal photos and based trackage from 1968
Bottom is late 1980s
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Second - Revised Staging Yard... (How reliable are curved Switches?  )
Don't mind the colors...
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Still maintaining 30" mainline radius 

Thoughts?

~Ian

[learmoia]

Finally an update worth posting..

I've been spending some time finishing up 'honey do' items this fall and winter before focusing time in the basement..

However one item has led to tangible progress on the layout in a way.

>Get the Garage cleaned out to be able to get the vehicles inside for the winter.
-- There was a bit of lumber from an old layout that I inherited years ago, that I wanted to get out of the garage.

So I took the time to convert the lumber into legs, L-girders and cross braces, and ended up with an 8' desk and 16' of bench work in the basement.

This was my first attempt at building benchwork on my own and I learned a few lessons.
1: L-Girder bench work, not box frame (the desk was box frame).
2: For narrow runs, keep legs towards the outside edges of the layout for stability.

Long story short, the components that I built are fine, but I'm going to tear them apart and incorporate them into other parts of the layout, and rebuild this specific section.

The main goals was to get the garage cleaned out, and to get some table space in the basement to run some tests in modeling and sort through trains.

Done and Done..

~Ian