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.