What are you building right now?

[Anonymous]

I just finished installing the mth catenary on the inside mainline, i now have to fini***he corner scenery so i can start the mountain scenry to the second level. The tunnel portals will come next on the first level. This area must be completed so i can finish laying the track on the second level. The curved 2 track trestle will then complete that corner. Then it is on to the rest of the layout. Btw my layout is 13x26 with AtlasO track and switches. I call my layout semi hirail because i like to use some operating acessories but they must look right in the scheme of things.

Dave

[Bluecometk]

I am restoring a 1950 forty foot Matthews boat so that I can sell her. I am also creating and revising the plans for the Christmas layout. This year is our turn for the family host house so I have been limited in my area. Last year it was 33' x 10' but this year the wife actually wants to use the living room. The nerve of her.

[cnw1995]

Spent three hours 'drying' damp rock ballast. Finished clearing the crawlspace and rearranging everything. On Thur, hope to get 3 more 4x8 foam boards....that'll make 7 in all and then try to find a bunch of inexpensive 027 track. I'm spending the next few days trying to come up with a track plan that would allow me to run two trains at the same time on different tracks using my R transformer.

[Anonymous]

Idea's for the extra six feet of layout space I have

[brianel027]

Money is excessively tight for me right now in this "transitional" jobless period that I'm in. For a while there, I was emotionally too low to even run the trains, much less think about them. But I'm finding again, there is some saving grace to having a positive diversion once in a while. Being alive is more than being alive... it's also feeling alive too! So I look at the supplies I already have on hand (paint, wire, wood, styrene, motors, electronics etc.) and figure how can I make do with what I already have?

I've always liked the Borden's Milk Tank on a Flatcar by Lionel but think the $50 list price is just totally insane for what you actually get (like many of Lionel's list prices)! So while in a Dollar Store recently I found these kid toy "friction" trucks. One of them has a trailer with a tank on it that is a close enough replica of the tank that is on the Lionel car... not a copy, but sure close enough for me. For a buck, I thought this is worth it. So I removed all the racing stickers that came on it and treated the plastic so that it would take paint. Then gave it a flat white coat followed by gloss white. Decals of some kind will come later, as will some handrails. I did have to cut a base out of some scrap foamcore board that fits inside the tank to help keep sides along the length perfectly straight (it was previously screwed in to the molded chassis of the truck trailer). I already have some short flat cars where the tank looks pretty good and all this for much less than $50.

I also took a Railking Operating Freight Station that was sitting around in it's box for almost a couple years and got busy. It had been given to me, but never fit in on my layout. So I cut a little more than an inch off each side of the ground platform and rebuilt the ends so that the base was shorter. Then repainted the base and roof more to my liking. I also removed the Century Beer signs and will replace those with something else when I can get on a computer with a printer. I also added some addition load items to the moving load base to make it look more "substantial." I found I had to make the additional load items thin (a facade of sorts) so that the whole load assembly would still disappear into the roof - and it worked. I did have to make an adjustment in the tension spring / solenoid assembly as outlined in the instructions. When the operation was still a little sluggish, I sprayed the solenoid with some electronic tuner cleaning spray and that solved that problem. I painted the colored wires running through the base up the metal roof supports flat black so they don't stand out like a sore thumb. I then added some workman figures that I already had to complete the scene. I had thought about making one of the figures animated to go back and forth or adding a moving forklift truck to the scene... but I guess that alteration can come at a later date.

[Dave Farquhar]

Let's see. A scratchbuilt tank car, a small fleet of scratchbuilt lumber cars (intended to be used as conversion cars so I can run whatever I want together), and a firehouse from a wooden kit.

In other words, too much. :)

[FJ and G]

Construction on temporary hold (crying)

Building a screenplay w/toy trains in it.

DJS

Deaden sound in Fastrack? I've never examined it but have some realtrack. the sounds are emited from the hollow space under the fake ballast.

I wonder if shooting some Dap into that space might deaden the sound.

Just a wild thought.

[Anonymous]

A worked 350 =P

Hey, You asked.

[Anonymous]

I've finally had the time to start construction of a river bed/ small bridge in an area of my railroad. I have been looking at this area for a while and i now finally had the chance to start construction. First thing was to remove the track, tracing it out with a marker. THen i took a marker and traced out the creek/river bed. That done i broke out the jigsaw and started cutting. AFter that was done i glued the cut out piece to the bottom of the cut out area to form the river bottom. After that was dry i used balled up newspaper to fill in the banks and give shape to the river. I used stone retaining walls that i cut to fit to be the stone abuments of the bridge. You can cut plaster, using a fine tooth saw and some patience. THese i used gorrilla glue to glue in place.
Tonight when i get off work at 11 i will fini***he rest of the landscaping and put the first cout of plaster cloth over it. I have been taking pictures so i will post tommorrow night.
Bill