After running trains for about a month I decided I didn’t like the grades so I removed them and reworked the tracks. This is the layout as it is right now. I may or may not make some fine adjustments to the track. and this is an overall photo Once I’m happy with the track I will start doing the backdrop.
Well, there has been a little progress on the GD&R. Still not done with this area and a lot of others.
Another good couple days of progress. The tanks and related piping got installed on the base. It is much easier to do this at the work bench. After everything was done with the tanks, I set the base temporarily set on the layout. The brick pump house got a brown weathering wash to bring out the mortar lines. Also been working on the fence and it's almost done. Next I got to finish the piping and hoses that unload the tank cars and load the delivery trucks. Looking at some videos it seems that there is both a top and bottom connection on everything so as liquid level changes vapor / air also changes. This is evident with the connections at the storage tanks. I want to represent this at the loading / unloading area. Yes, I tend to over think these things.
That looks really good, Brad. When it’s done will you dig out material to drop it in or build up the sides a bit? I think either way would work.
Thanks Joe. The bases fit into the styrene strip borders that I had already prepared. I mounted the fence to these borders. The bases will be attached to the layout with adhesive when done. This is along the front edge of the layout and I am going to leave the front open to suggest that the facility is bigger than what is represented in the model. I did the same thing with the scrap yard.
continuing on with the bridge... I printed both abutments in one print but the bottom one failed on one side. Doesn't happen often but can happen. I usually don't add any supports to what Chitubox puts in automatically but before printing that abutment again I did add more supports to that side. It is easy and fast to add or delete supports. Click on where you want one and Chitubox does the rest. The next one printed fine. On a 64 ft. girder bridge I designed and printed with the Ender 3 Pro filament printer I printed the bridge shoes separate. This time I took those and combined them with the new abutments and they printed fine and are right where they are needed. Later I'll paint the bridge and abutments and then glue them together and put them in place as a unit. Earlier I had designed the different plate girder spans shown above along with one that has 10 foot side plates that was 80 feet long which I didn't use. I took that one and extended it to 104 feet for this one. I'm not sure how tall a real bridge's side plates are for a double track bridge that is 100 feet long. I'm going to research this more and maybe change it to a bridge with 8 foot side plates. Appreciate if anyone can point me to some info on that. Those openings in the walkway are a N scale 2” x 4 “ and the metal that makes up the grate is just a tad over 1 scale inch. That is all really small in N Scale. From the side of the layout you can't really see that the grating is open but still fun to print it and see what the printer can do. . . I'll leave this at this stage and come back to it later as I need to keep working on the landscape near the coal mine. A link to this whole build ( HERE ). Thought I'd share this... …. Dottie and I drove 50 miles south onto the Navajo Nation (reservation) to visit an area that I use to go to when I still had the Purple Sage Trading Post open. I bought Navajo folk art from the people there. It was toys that the Navajo would make for their kids out of mud and wood to play with since there wasn't money to go to town and buy toys. Later they made it and found they could sell it to the trading posts in the area which would then sell it to tourists. After going down a few times they started driving to the store to sell to me so the trips pretty much stopped going into the back country there (Sweetwater). I've driven near the Sweetwater area and can see the main mesa there from the house but hadn't driven back into there for a lot of years. The trip was down memory lane and one of the many views was of the tall ridge shown above. Would like to model that formation but it would take some time. Sumner
This morning, I printed over 200 track labels and put about 3/4 of them in place, but I'm very disappointed with how they look. I'll let them stay for a while, but unless operators say they are a definite asset, despite their UGLY/unnatural appearance, I'll probably remove 90% of them. I put them on with double-sided tape, so I could easily remove them if I wanted to take pictures of the scenery without the labels, but had trouble getting the tape to stick sometimes, especially in areas where there was rougher ballast or turf instead of a smooth surface. When I added the ground throw labels a few weeks ago, I used a smear of Elmers Glue and those labels are very tough to remove because the water-based Elmers soaked into the Homasote, cork roadbed, and ground foam grasses/roads, as well as, into the paper labels themselves, so removing them dry resulted in tearing off the top layer of paper while the bottom layer remained stuck to the scenery. Soaking in water first weakened the paper and also loosened the scenery, so sometimes the paper labels tore off in small pieces, and I had to touch up the nearby scenery after using water to loosen/remove a ground throw label.
This afternoon, I added a runaround in one of the industries along the Rock Island Beltline that runs from the RI Peoria Yard about 3.5 scale miles to the RI Colliers Yard in Bartonville. The Beltline job is worked as a turn and switches 14 industries and 2 RR interchanges. Most traffic to and from this industry travels south to an interchange, so most pick ups have to be made using the RI Kickapoo Yard tracks to make a run-around move a scale half mile away...so I added the runaround in-plant to facilitate/speed up switching. After adding the run-around, I spent some time refreshing the lichen trees in the area. New Runaround (right edge of picture) in J and L Industries along the RI Beltline by ppuinn posted Jan 19, 2024 at 6:32 PM
Putter - The Art of Getting it Done, Maybe Most of the basic goals have been reached. Now is the time for puttering. Ya know, maybe I'll build a new bridge or Perhaps I'll kinds do 'Mystrium Mountain Mine' then again I could work on loads for the flat cars and gondolas still it would be cool to just do the farm scene with a couple of aliens but Of course the industrial area needs 'forming' Wait! I feel a nap coming on zzzzzzzZZZZZZ
I added 20 sections of flextrack, the feeders for them, and tapped the bus for power on my yard and mainline section. Then I connected the bus to the command station and powered up. Dang! All tracks ran fine and the turnouts worked great. I must be getting good at building turnouts as this section included 11-#6 and 6-#8 hand laid turnouts that ran great while testing with a SD45. While testing I was imagining long cuts of cars moved from the A/D tracks to the classification tracks and back. So cool. The DCC controlled turnouts ran great too. Since my eyes aren't what they once were I have to say that Model Railroading will be fun once all the hard to see soldering and wiring is done. Where's my optivisor!!!!
In my last weeks update, we ended with the removal of the fascia on the front side of the layout. As you may have seen in my layout thread, I got that section installed and started applying the accessories. Left end Center Right end Overall view I worked on a few side projects that includes a couple of decoder installs and testing a model concrete mix. On Monday night, I removed one of the end sections of fascia. Then Tuesday night, I removed the other end. On Wednesday, I left for a two week work trip so no layout update for next week but I get back I am hoping to be able to lower the layout back down to it's new height. Did bring a couple of little projects to work on while one so maybe I'll get something done and have some sort of an update next week. Also, with this post and the new one in my layout thread, these updates should now be sync'd up finally.
Sawmill Scenery --- Pt. 1... In order to finish the initial scenery on the other side of the backdrop (see next image) I needed to run at least the roadbed through the short tunnels that go through the backdrop. That meant I also need to be able to put down the road bed on this side at least past the tunnel portals on this side. There will hopefully be a sawmill scene on this side that will take up most of the upper level above the hidden staging tracks here. I also wanted to be able to remove part of the upper level fairly easily so work could be done on the staging below it if needed. It would also be easier to build a lot of the sawmill scene if I had it down on my car-lift workbench. I decide to figure out how far the 'high' scenery (low mesa/hill) would extend our past the backdrop and cut the upper level there. The narrower scenery section at the backdrop would connect to the backdrop including the track just past the tunnel portals on both ends of the backdrop. I cut the first level of foam board that goes along the backdrop from side to side. Above you can see the initial pieces of foam at the tunnel portals on both sides but I cut all of them, form tunnel to tunnel (forgot to take a picture). Then a cut mark was made about an inch past where the foam will be side to side. I was thankful that I hadn't glued the foam to the plywood on this section as I could remove it and cut the foam and then cut the plywood. The upper level was easy to remove and have had it removed for some time while working on the staging tracks. It is held on with screws that driven into it from the bottom of the supports at the backdrop and the uprights to the right. I attach almost all the layout pieces from the bottom so that after scenery is added I can still get to the screws and they aren't covered up with scenery. I was able to cut most of the length of the foam board with the band saw with help from Dottie. Work was started on attaching and... ….. leveling the smaller section of the upper level before calling it quits for the day. A link to this whole build ( HERE ). Sumner
Okay, benchwork is up! Next weekend-finish the foamboard and work on some fascia. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Not sure of the manufacturer-18” HCDs from a second hand store. Great condition, clean, $10 each. So buying 5 cost me the same as one new HCD that size would have. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Last week things slowed down - my wife was traveling for work, and it was a short work week, so I had a few extra things on my plate. Ground cover is slowly expanding for the Wizard in the Woods scene - this is Woodland Scenics Blended fine turf which will form the base layer for everything else. That "seam" down the middle is an open area between two glue applications. It will get filled is, as will the foreground. The sandy part next to the track and building base is the gravel pad that will get detailed with parts, storage racks etc. I also pulled out a Christmas present from the in-laws: Four really bendy arms, clips with rubber cover pads, and a base that weighs about 3 pounds. What's not to love?
@Sumner Phenomenal work on that bridge. I am very pleased with my painting / puttering and will be applying grey with black drizzle to my simple bridge supports. I also applied a tan with greenish hue to the 'valley' areas.
Was never happy with the parts from the kit that represented the unloading of the tank cars and loading of delivery trucks. After looking at some photos and some animated videos on the process I came up with this scratch-built arrangment. That was all done on the work bench then the base was installed on the layout. Spackle was used to cover the seams between the bases and borders and then the whole area was "paved" with acrylic paint. I will be installing the trailer and finishing the rest of the details when the paint dries. Some 3D printed barriers similar to what is in the prototype photos should arrive any day. Here is the tank part of the base with the tanks installed on the layout. The area along the front edge still needs some blending in. One of the 3D printed wheel stops that I had installed got broken while working on the fence. I had spares and I wanted to move them anyway, so the coupler of the tank cars did not hit the fence.
