Workin on the Railroad (what did you do this week?)


Outback

Low Budget & Old School
This idea was taken from various Jeep forums I follow. There is always the thread about "what did you do to your Jeep this week", so; without fanfare and in the hopes of starting a new updating trend, here is the all scales friendly...

What did you do in your Railroad world this week?

Please post whatever projects you are working on or completed this week and pics are always welcome.

On my desk this week is a Walthers Feed Mill and a couple frieght cars I am working on...

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next...
 
Lets see, What did I do??? Well, for starters(last sunday) I ripped out my old turntable & all surrounding tracks & train shed. Took a day for that. Then I started to replace all of the track & added 2 switches to that area for something else. That took 2 days.
Wednesday I took the day off. Thursday I worked a little on the engine mfg. plant & adding ballast to the rails going into that area. That took about 3 hrs. Got to hot in the trainroom & I worked on repairing some freight cars, replacing couplers, repairing lights in 4 loco's & starting a scratchbuild on a small office building for the mfg. plant.
Friday I did all of the block wiring on the new section where I ripped out the turntable.
Got an incorrect reading on the amp meter from the mainline in the yards to the new section. I had all of the block wires reversed. So, had to unsolder everything & start over. Then, worked the rest of the day removing the old foam sheeting around my new turntable & new engine shed that I put in 2 years ago. It had warped between the rails & when I was removing all of it discovered it was dried out & had become hard like cardboard. I'm always learning from my mistakes. Today, I took the day off & went to a noon time party at a buddy's house.

Don't forget I'm retired & work about 7 days a week on my layout. Usually only take Tuesdays off to watch the new movies that come out on Redbox.
 
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Dont have a railroad just yet. Just building up some more walthers ps2 highside covered hoppers. Trying to build up a decent sized train to bring to the club im trying to become a member with.
 
I actually got around to fixing up the ballast and track at the Fuerst Matthes paper mill yesterday...
 
I worked on laying rail some. I laid the turnouts for the small yard. Only three tracks. Mostly though I cut sheets of corrugated aluminun into tiny pieces for the Campbell silver spur mine I am building for the layout.
 
Ive been trying to clean my spare room out so I can start to build my layout.

This is all aquarium stuff I acquired due to my other hobby.
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Here is all the free wood I got from my job.
It was all left over from crates we used to ship windows to Costa Rica.
TrainRoom2.jpg

 
I've been finishing my bench work. I had to add a 24"x24" section due to not having enough room for the freight I need to run. Talking about a PITA. I'll get some pics of it soon.
 
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This week I got my rolling stock that I bought from ebay in the mail. They are late 1970's 100T 3 bay hoppers by Bethlehem and are a perfect match for the proto railroad I am going to start building soon. And of course, I couldn't just sit there and look at them, I had to hook them up to my wife's birthday present to me and take a couple pictures to show them off! Sorry for the bad resolution on the second one!
 
I'm twisting individual corn stalks with a tweezers. I'm getting a start on it before three more boxes of corn show up. This could get old!:)
 
1). Pulled up some broken switches and replaced them with others that weren't serving any purpose, but were on the layout anyways.

2). Tore out my scrapyard and moved it to a new location. Built a mountain (in one day) where the scrapyard used to be. The flour-water mixture I used as paste for the mountain is just about dry.

3). Added some new backdrops and tunnels so it looks like my train actually goes somewhere, instead of looking like something that belongs under the Christmas tree.

4). Picked up an Athearn caboose body and a Bowser covered hopper kit from Value Village. That's the first time I've ever seen model trains there.

5). Cleaned up the layout and put away those piles of locomotives and cars that are missing wheels, trucks, or frames. Hopefully I'll keep it clean this time. Not having a dedicated work bench can be annoying.

6). Having fun with it all! :D
 
1.) Worked on another scratchbuilt cabin

2.) Taught my younger cousin how to run trains. Kids got good tastes, i told him to pick what engine he wanted, and he went for the CPR AC4400 first, then pointed to the BNSF ACe. :D To bad the KCS ACe isnt here yet, we could have had one sharp looking consist.

3.) Picked up some new trucks, trailers, and containers. Most of which will be converted into various things. One truck will be modified into a truck that tows mobile homes, the other will be stretched into a log truck or remain a tandem semi.

4.) Just about closed the deal on some SOO SD60s, theyll be getting heavily weathered and the other lightly weathered.

5.) Toyed with the idea of buying another ACe or repainting one ACe and paying to have it custom painted in CPR Beaver Scheme. I dont have $150 for a new ACe and new paint though.

6.) Got some stuff together for a new thread im making. Looking to narrow down my modeling and seeing if i can swap anything for things of i could use.
 
Okay I'm adding to my original post.
Although doing the scenery was rewarding and verging on being fun... it pales in comparison to this afternoon when I programmed my new Genesis F9 and forgot to throw the dang isolating switch!
Yup... cranked up #800 and as I watched the wee beastie pick up speed onto the main twenty three other locos revved up and shot past their fouling points.
(insert "D'oh" here)
 
i just made the first steps to installing my own tsunami's....well sorta installing them. I was able to remove the old genesis board and install the genesis tsunami board and hooked up the wires with just those black wire cover things. Powered up and moved. Held the speaker wires to the tabs and it was running with sound. So i just gotta get some solder and solder the power hookups and headlight's/ditch lights. Then work on speaker placement.
 
Okay I'm adding to my original post.
Although doing the scenery was rewarding and verging on being fun... it pales in comparison to this afternoon when I programmed my new Genesis F9 and forgot to throw the dang isolating switch!
Yup... cranked up #800 and as I watched the wee beastie pick up speed onto the main twenty three other locos revved up and shot past their fouling points.
(insert "D'oh" here)

LOL Rick. Explain that one to the division super lolol.

Did some more work on my Feed Mill today, it's finally starting to look like something. Will post some additional pics later in the week. Planted some bushes at the Station grounds and gave some thought to stripping the Russell for repainting into Corporate colours.
 
mostly building models this week. Trying to run the train on the tracks some and enjoy what is already set-up. The usual.
 
I needed a place for RR yard workers to eat -- near the SP station.

This was a Blair Line laser kit of a AT&SF section house. I liked the look of it and this was a good way to work it in on the layout's edge. It has interior and lightiing.
 
I put up some cardstock buildings mounted to foam board and placed them against my backdrop. I did the backdrop two weeks ago. I found the cardstock buildings here:
http://www.illinoishistory.gov/ps/construct_mainstreet.htm#byom

I just cut them out, mounted them to some foam board with spray matte, and cut them out in contour.

I also was able to make a cheap, easy woodchip load for the one woodchip car I have. Very easy, and the results look good. I cut out a piece of Woodland scenics FoamBed (roadbed) to roughly fit the shape of the woodchip car. You have to cut a little notch in the middle bc the walthers car has a little support in the middle. Next, took some elmers glue and outlined the outer top edge of the foambed piece. Took some leftover sawdust and sprinkled it on the edges and sprinkled some uniformly all over the piece. Sprayed with isopropyl alcohol and diluted glue and let dry in the sun for a couple hours. Fits well. Very easy.

Two easy projects which cost me nothing more than some printer color ink and some sawdust from my garage.

Next up, Im going to try to add some skyscrapers to the background using pictures I found from this site. http://www.skyscraperpicture.com/index2.htm (the one building in black and white kind of hanging there is a test sample for scale).

I also super detailed my NS SD70 but have yet to weather it.
 
This week was a few diff projects.
I started construction a cheap window paintbooth with fan a neighbor gave me. (not top of the line but will keep fumes outside)
A NICE Genesis weathered box car I won on eBay came. (Was amazed with this one!)
Working on the fence to my sub-station.
And the club took an exploration day on the Shade Gap Branch of the East Broad Top Railroad in Pennsylvania.
 



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