Starting the new layout!


progress

great to sea on: "You tube" the progress you make!!( watched them from the beginning...)
Internet is sooo great!!;)Thank you for sharing!

Jos
 
Great backdrop! I really appreciate the blending job you did. Planning ahead makes quiet a difference. Can't wait to see your scenery detail if this is how you start!!!! Kudos to your daughter too :)

(I'm still getting used to all this, I need to read the whole thread before I reply... ) The progress looks great!!
 
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I got back from another trip and I finished up the yard tracks. They are all running smooth and nice. I have to wait for my Dad to get back from a vacation to China before we can install the switch machines. The next time down I'll start work on the engine service area... sand tower, coal tower, water tower and columns, ash pit, turntable, and roundhouse. Somewhere in there I have to find room for a yard office tower. I forgot to bring the camera this time so next trip I'll shoot more pix.
I'm going to need 3 reversers... reverse loop and staging area, branchline/reverse loop, and the turntable. I'm leaning towards Tony's Train Exchange, or maybe DCC Specialties. They both are available with a breaker built in. With Tony's you have to say if your using a NCE Powercab or not to get a special reverse with lower settings. Does anyone have any preference?
 
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I never looked at DCC specialities so I looked them up, they are Tony's in disguise?? Same street address.

I have a Tony's reverser for my turntable works brilliantly, set and forget.

Ken.
 
Remembered the camera this time!

Yet another productive trip done to my Dad's layout. On the forth of July 2007 a great thing was born... a "turning point" in this nation of ours... The turntable pit was installed!:D

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Great fanfare... the theme song to "2001: A Space Odyssey" Bum bum Bum bum BUM! Horns blaring!

OK, enough of that... we did do some other things, too. We actually had off together, which is rare, so we took the opportunity to install more of the under-table switch machines. We also fixed/tweaked some track that was a little askew. And very importantly, we cleaned the track. My Dad told me a couple weeks back that the trains weren't running right, hick-upping, or just plain sittin' there. I immediately thought there was something wrong with the NCE Powercabs... something fried or worse. I started trouble shooting when I first got there. Nothing was working. Then I happened to catch the glare (or lack of glare) off the tracks, and realized they were quite dirty. First lesson in track maintenance. So we used isopropyl alcohol and an old t-shirt to rub them off... and Vwa-la the problem was fixed. Of course we had to take some time to run trains around "the Christmas tree"... I mean the layout.;) Just to make sure everything was running right.

It was the first time I had both throttles hooked up. We had 4 trains running at once, 2 on each throttle. The recall depth is only 2 on the Powercabs. I don't think I could handle anymore then that anyway.

Here's some more pix.
Prior to cutting the hole, I'm transferring all the reference lines to the plywood.
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The freshly cut hole.
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Me cleaning all the sawdust the router kicked up.
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I'll post pix of the roundhouse I'm working on on another thread under structures maybe, or showing off. I just started a couple days ago on it.
 
Scott and David

Thanks. I just got back from another trip down, but I forgot my camera. So now I'm waiting for my Dad to send me the pix I tool on his camera.

I got the middle peninsula backdrop started. I also installed more lighting above the main yard and the lower right section. Boy did that make a BIG difference.

More pictures and video to come soon.
 
Sweet! I wish I would have made as much progress in these 7 months as ya'll did. Life always seems to get in the way of my projects.

Cant wait to see some scenery!
 
Thanks Josh... I thought you were ignoring it or something.:D only kidding. This isn't the soap opera forum now, is it?

I forgot to mention we tried out that CRC 2-26 electrical lubricant spay everyone is talking about. A few posts back I mentioned the trouble with the track cleaning. I tried it out on the little 4x4 layout I made with my daughter and the small 1x6 switching layout I have and it did wonders to the performance of the engines. I also put some on the wheels and now my Stewart Baldwin VO-1000 creeps at a snails pace with minimal juice.

I highly recomend the stuff. As soon as I read about it on this and other forums, I went to the True Value members site and ordered it to come into my store in a few days. (God I love working at a hardware store... just one of the perks). I think you can put it on the wipers and motor contact to improve performance also. I could be wrong on that though.

Still no pix from Dad yet, and I'm going on vacation for a week. So it could be a bit before I can post them.
 
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I finally got the photos from my Dad via modern day Pony Express (E-mail).

The first couple shot are an overview of the area that I worked on.

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In this shot you can see the backdrop and 4 light fixtures I installed. The Backdrop board is temporary, only 2' high. The actual boards will be 3' high to block more of the view and light from both sides. The extra 1' of hardboard, leftover from the 4x8 sheet, I plan on using for the fascia.
View attachment 7106

You can see how BIG a difference the lights and center peninsula backdrop makes to the layout. I still need 1 more light fixture above the roundhouse area.
 
Here are some shots of the back side of the center backdrop. I ripped down 2x4's to make the upright supports. They ended up being 1x1-1/2". I temporarily spring clamped a 2x8' piece of hardboard I had leftover from the first backdrops on the main wall.

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I just need to get a feel for what it's going to look like, and also how the lighting was going to be effected by the backdrop. The final backdrop will be 3' high by 8' long, running down the center of the peninsula.

In this picture you can see the drill sitting on the upper most part of the track. this is where the next few pictures are located.

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Here are the shots of the upper most industrial area on the branch line.

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We decided to make this part removable (only temporary), so that it would make it easier to lay in the track and install the switch machines. The curved turnout at the bottom of the photos leads to the High-line, a representation (although be it with a lot of artistic freedom) of the elevated railway that run south and west of 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. The plywood will run between the window and the end of the 3x8' center backdrop.

As soon as my Dad emails me the video I took, I'll post that up on Youtube.

Till next trip...
 
Ron...I'm impressed! The work you have accomplished in a relatively short time and on a complex layout is amazing. Good Work!
 
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