A foam filled day!!!

With the holidays, I've had more free time to work on the layout. This week, I've been concentrating on getting the basic scenery base in place. I'm using a few different types of foam and cutting to fit the spaces on my open grid benchwork. I've been running trains for a while now but I've been VERY nervous while running on the upper deck as a derailment could be catastrophic with the open grid. I'd hate to see a custom painted and weathered loco tumble 60" to the floor. Now that I've got the foam in, I feel a LOT better about running trains and testing the track on the upper deck.



Here's a shot of a local I've been running all week while testing some Sergent Engineering couplers. These are by far the best couplers I've ever used. Much better than Kadee so far. They are strong and reliable and prototypical in operation. Zoom in on the open knuckle on the front of the GM&O unit. I'm swapping out my entire fleet. Notice the open benchwork below the track bed. Accident waiting to happen.


Here's a view from the same spot above but looking "West" towards the East bound local. Now that the foam is in, I feel much more at ease when thinking about derailments. The area under the tank cars will be a low wetland area with a couple of small creeks and two wooden trestles.

Here's another trestle that's already in place. This will be also be a low swampy area with cypress trees in standing water. I'm looking forward to working on this scene.

About time for an update!!!

Well, it's been 7 months since my last update. After 16 years, I finally decided to go back to school to get a masters. I'm now halfway through the program and it's kept me BUSY!!! Thanksgiving has offered a little relief so I thought I'd add a quick update to show a few things that did get worked on.

First off is this scene where my IC/KCS main is about to cross the double track Southern/NS line. Here, I've added in the bridges, a couple layers of plaster cloth and some of Joe Fugate's cement ground goop. I REALLY like his recipe for this ground goop as it forms a VERY solid scenery base. Having a solid base is important to me with my three young kids "helping" on the layout!!

Next is the last bit of track that I installed. It included these industrial spurs towards the backdrop. This will be the Georgia Pacific MDF board plant in Louisville. It has an outgoing shipping track for box cars, two "Glue Tracks" for tanks and hoppers and one track for woodchips. I only have one more track to get in service on the layout. It's a Rip track in the Artesia yard. I need to get off my duff and put it in!!

Finally, we have downtown Ackerman. The L/A Local pulls through the siding at Askerman while Pap cooks fish at Pap's Place in the background. These downtown buildings were built by Rich Cobb. He did a great job on them. I can't wait to finish this scene.

Well, that's all the updates for now other than a few mechanical and electrical repairs while running trains.

Getting closer to the golden spike

Today, I laid the LAST turnout on the layout. It's on the upper deck at the Georgia Pacific particle board plant. This plant has three switches and four spur tracks. The only track left to lay now are the four spur tracks!! The countdown begins!!!

A busy month....

It's been a busy month since my last update. I've gotten a good bit accomplished but of course, never as much as I wanted to do. First of all, I got my command cab bus wiring in and complete including six NCE UTPs for emergency plug-ins for my radio cabs. Now, no matter where you are on the layout, you are only a few steps away from a CAB bus plug in the event of battery failure on the radio cabs. 

 

I was also able to get all the fascia in place and 98% painted. I've got one some area left that I plan to get painted this week. I've also got a small bit of fascia trimming to do as you can see in this shot of the Tibbee area. I've still got some foam to lay in for contour then I'll trim my fascia to match the contour. 

 

My latest bit of track work is shown with this photo. This is the Port of Greenville that's on the back side of the Columbus and Greenville reverse loop. Now, I'll be able to prototypically run the Columbus to Greenville train on the layout. you can also see the Helix in the background of this photo. 

 

 

 

I was also able to get all the track on the upper deck back into running shape. This winters cold, dry air played havoc on the track. I had several places where the benchwork shrank causing the track to buckle. I'm now about 97% done with track work. I've got about 8" of code 55 track to add to a TXI cement plant track and I've got about 6' of flex track to lay at the NS interchange on the lower deck. This should only take about an hour or so to get done. After that, the last bit of track work is the Georgia Pacific plant at Louisville on the upper deck. A few hours on this should wrap up my track work. I hope to be able to report all that done by the end of the month.

More plaster and some rail

I was reminded that it's been over a month since my last update so here goes.....

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This is a view of the yard at Artesia looking from the Southwest to the Northeast. The red line represents my backdrop on the layout. Notice the three arrival/departure tracks and the run through track on the right side of the yard. Also notice the wye track on the North end of the yard by the radio antenna. This wye track is used by the C&G coming from Columbus going to Greenville. It's also used by a couple locals that turn at Artesia.

This photo is a composite photo of what my Artesia yard looks like on both sides of the backdrop. On the right, you can see the yard as seen from the aisles of the layout room. You can see where the arrival/departure tracks go though the backdrop. To the left, is what the arrival/departure tracks look like behind the backdrop. These will be 30' staging tracks along with one run through wye track and C&G staging. I'm almost through with wiring this up. All tracks but the wye track past the switch are live.

In this pic, I returned to scenery for a bit and laid in some more plaster cloth at Tibbee. I still want this to be one of my first completed scenes on the layout. It's getting closer.

Plaster and plastic

I took my first step into hardshell scenery yesterday with the application of some Woodland Scenics plaster cloth. I'd picked up two rolls of the Woodland Scenics cloth this last week while traveling and wanted to experiment with it. I thought work in this area using the plaster cloth went very quick and smooth for my first attempt but at $8 per roll, I don't think I'll used the WS cloth again. In checking around, I had several people recommend plaster cloth from Jerry's Artorama that's 1/4 the price of the WS. I placed an order for some yesterday and will post results.

After getting the plaster done, I returned to working on my grain bins. I'd gotten an order in the mail from the hobby shop that included needed paint and styrene strips. So, I got the basic roof done and the first coat of paint on. Many have asked how I made the large grain bin. I started with a piece of green 8" PVP pipe and have been coating it with layers of Rix grain bin panels. The Rix panels are a different radius than the PVC pipe so I first soaked the Rix parts in boiling water to soften them up. Then quickly super glued them to the pipe. So far, I like how my first real scratch build is going. Next up is detailing and weathering.

Lay of the land

I'm still waiting on the mail to bring the latest batch of supplies. I'm needing about six pieces of Micro Engineering Code 70 flex track and about four pieces of ME Code 55 flex to finish up track work. The code 70 is on the way but ME is still behind on getting the new batch of Code 55 out. Once I get the track, it should only be about a days work to finish laying track. After that, I've got some feeder wires to police up and a few center over springs to add to some switches and that should me mechanically complete!!!!!

In the mean time, I've started on laying in the scenery base. In these two photos, I've gotten the foam in and carved to the basic form. Today, I'm going to try to get some plaster cloth laid over and get the hard shell ready. After the plaster cloth, I plan to use Joe Fugate's cement/plaster/vermiculite recipe to fine tune the contour of the land.

Waiting on the mail!!!!!!!!!

Progress continues, at a slow pace. I'm hung up on completing the Crawford grain I've been working on as I didn't have the parts needed to finish. I'm now waiting on UPS and the Postman to deliver what I need to move forward. I sure hate not having a local, well stocked hobby shop. The closest one to me is a four hour drive and the next one worth going to is a five hour drive. So, for those of you that have one close by, support it!!! Otherwise, you'll be in a mail order hobby like I am.

In the mean time, I started working on the scenery base around my HWY 45 underpass at Crawford. The foam is in and the wood base for the road is glued in and drying. The next step is to get more foam on the back side of the tracks and carved out. Then I have to decide what I'm going to cover the foam with. The two things I'm looking at are plaster cloth from Woodland Scenics or Scenic Express or going with Joe Fugate's ground goop made from fine vermiculite, portland cement and patching plaster. Both form a hard shell scenery. I'm actually thinking of using BOTH. First, a light layer of the cloth to cover the foam and tie everything together then the goop to fine tune the land. Plus, I figure this will add extra strength to my scenery base. I've got three kids from age 4 to 9 and need extra strength on everything in the house.
I've also started working on my TXI cement plant at Artesia. As you can see, the base model of this plant is the Walthers Valley Cement kit. I'm going to add onto this kit and bash it some to better represent the TXI plant I'm modeling. I'm about as far as I can go on this project too as I'm waiting on needed parts to continue.
On the bright side, we'll be making a family trip to Atlanta soon and I have Kennesaw Trains on the top of my list. I plan on leaving there with a good bit of scratch building materials to further these two and other projects.

Three steps forward, one step back......

I'm still making slow, but steady progress on the layout. I didn't make my Christmas deadline for finishing all track work but I got close. Since I didn't make my goal, I thought I'd take a break from track and work on some bridges and structures.

Here is the new and improved Tibbe "T" girder span. The other span broke while putting it in. The crack was small but I knew it was there so it had to go. I now just need to get the track back down on the bridge and I can start scenery on this part of the layout.

 

 

 

This bridge is on the NS just before the KCS crossing at Meridian. I plan on there being a low, wet, swampy area here.

Work has also begun on Crawford grain from the post below. So far, there are two Walther's Big Grain Bins and a Walthers Surge bin in place. Also note the progress on the scratch build of a 60' diameter grain bin from a Rix kit and an 8" PVC pipe. I ran out of Rix parts today. Hope to have more by the end of the week.

And finally, the step back. Back in October, I had a track laying blitz with help coming in for the week. Well, I now have to go back and make some major repairs over all the track we laid in October. We didn't cut in any expansion joints when we laid it so this cold weather seems to have made the track buckle. I'm going to have to go back, make quite a few cuts, re-glue track and add in some feeder wire. Not fun!!!