Sunday photo fun 01/07

[Sturgeon-Phish]

I don't know if someone is designated to start the post or not, so goes.

Some of the people on my layout are representing real people I know

My youngest daughter Anna

Patty

Bob and Martha

Fr. Pete Fr. Matt, Joe & Nancy and Jim & Mary

Here is a pic of the C&O Bridge and a barge on the Ohio

 

 

[spankybird]

Any forum member can start this thread. Guess it depends on who gets up first.

 

Here are some pics from another one of our OTTS members. Jack has both 'O' and 'G' gauge. He has a very nice garden layout in his back yard, which includes a switch yard and a pond that his trains goes over. Last Friday, we had our meeting there and we were out in the rain taking these pics.

And his Christmas Village

And the village and train around the tree !

be sure to click on the pics to enlarge them

tom

 

 

 

[marxalot]

Nice photos Sturgeon-Phish and Tom and all who follow.... like always. I'll post a few of my layout "as it stands" ending 2006 and heading into 2007. I guess 2007 should be "the year of the scenery" as we could use some more eh? Okay I'll pusue that. Have a great day and week.

Jim

 

[fifedog]

Mornin' phish. Can Patty get a litlle privacy?

Mornin' spank. That reminds me --- buy more Dept 56 stock before the porcelain housing boom tapers off.

marx - I think most people enjoy seeing layouts in the emerging stages...look at all the hits thatboy37 gets whenever he posts.  Plus, it reminds some of us who have finished pikes how far we've come. Thanks for sharing.

[daan]

Great photo's, I always enjoy looking around on other layouts!

My contribution for this week:

Santa Fe F3 emerging from the tunnel and on the other side a BNSF freight train.

The chap in the van better stops, because the pacific in the tunnel doesn't..

A mixed freight train on the bend in the eagle canyon. On the open spot there is place for some future industry.

A bit closer (and unsharp, sorry) I planned on doing some cactus vegetation, but the first load of them I burnt in the oven And black cactus don't excist..

To finish off, the Postwar 2353 with it's passenger train in the eagle canyon. Nest time I hope to show some pictures with some trees, the next part to get the first start in scenery will be the forrest part. (The desert will be finished off later on.)

[Brutus]

Nice pics guys -

Daan, love the Weetabix!  First heard about it in a book, The Last Coin, where an eccentric guy, Andrew Vanbergen, coffee enthusiast and inventor of preposterous excuses, is struggling to start a bed and breakfast with his wife Rose.  He loves breakfast cereals and wants to offer exciting fare to his guests, so he sends his friend Beams Pickett to Canada to buy a carload of Weetabix.  He had it once while in England.  They are under the impression that it is illegal in the U.S.  After getting it, they find it at a local supermarket!  I sought some out after reading the book and it was good - kinda like shredded wheat.  They have it in the health food section at Schnucks, a local grocery store.

http://www.weetabixusa.com/

I'm updating my website a little and scanned this pic, although not related to toy trains - portrait of the artist as a young man:

[johnandjulie13]

Hello Guys:

As usual, I love the pictures.  I have a contribution this week!  As I make glacial progress on my layout, I have finished putting the Vinlybed under my track.  Next up will be wiring.

Regards,

John O

[Brutus]

Looks good - lots of action on your plan.

I've been (finally) updating my webpage and here are some pics from my Halloween 2005 layout after I went crazy and bought a bunch of Dept 56 stuff - I actually had 2 layouts for Halloween that year, before and after 10/31!

 

There are more on my website, just click on the link if you are logged in to CTT!

[pbjwilson]

My new little layout(see my micro layout post)

[luther_stanton]

Everyone's postings are looking good today. 

 I finally found some time to get some pictures of the progress made on the layout.

 Test fitting a #38 Water Tower (new release, not PW):

I also got my Gantry Crane back in action as well as a new (but not yet complete control panel made up in ACL colors):

And a new 497 coal loader (again, not true PW):

Enjoy!

- Luther

 

 

[dougdagrump]

Afternoon All !

Great photos as usual, we had a great run last friday. I still need to start learning the DCS operations. Don't know about you but I start reading it and the eyes kinda glaze over to the point of "the lights are on but ain't nobody home".

Anyway here's a couple of shots.

AT&SF, old and older.

Still need to find some passengers for my Overton coaches.

[weldman87]

Great pictures everone. Have a great sunday.

[mcattardo]

Great pics everyone. I hope to have some of my under construction layout next week. For now, I thought some of you may enjoy this 1:1 caboose I stumbled on. Sorry for the cheap camera phone image, but you get the idea

[ChiefEagles]

Great pictures guys.  One of my favorite engines [Lionel SD60] on a test run on new layout.

[Frank53]

Whoa! - My smileys and format commands are back!

 Finishing touches over in one corner, trying to keep the hooligans out:

Started building the new cliffside:

Going to build a traffic tunnel coming out of the cliff to theis freight station. The tunnel is made for an HO train - but the front half of a pickup truck will fit fine.

Lots of Elmers glue later:

Ballasting the lower level on this wall and reliving a little New York Central:

[ChiefEagles]

Frank, I'll be Frank.  Good looking clifts and really like the retaining walls.

[MartyE]

Here's a couple from my brothers PW layout...

 

[cnw1995]

Here are some photos - please forgive their quality - they're from a broken camera - handed down to me for train photos from the daughter and the bride
Christmas additions
The Apitz Forest is taking shape

I moved the farms together

Mt Eagles and the 520

 

[Frank53]

The Apitz Forest is taking shape

 

[Frank53]

Frank, I'll be Frank.  Good looking clifts and really like the retaining walls.

Frank:

While enjoying the aroma of Frankensense scented post war smoke pellets and watching "Young Frankenstein" while eating some Oscar Meyer Franks, it dawned on me that your Frankness is,quite Frankly, aways appreciated.

Frank

[MartyE]

Man that's Frank'n hilarious!

[underworld]

Great pics as always guys!!!

Frank53 Is that cliff made from ceiling tile material? Looks great!

cnw1955 Does your camera have the ability to change shutter speed? If it does, try using a slower speed with flash like 1/60th or 1/30th. That will lighten up the back ground and give the shot more balanced lighting.

underworld

[Frank53]

Frank53 Is that cliff made from ceiling tile material? Looks great!

Yes, all indivicual strips cut from ceiling tiles.

[underworld]

Frank53 I'd heard of that being done...but hadn't ever seen it yet. I think there are some broken tiles in the back room at work...I'll have to ask the boss if he still wants them!!!

 

underworld

[Frank53]

trimmed out the cliffside and fit the tunnel:

[daan]

@Frank, I'm each time amazed how you build your layout. I see track balancing in mid air, each time there is another few feet newly made.. Normally one builds the substructure, lay track and then after everything is laid down and wired, scenery is made. You do a few feet of track, make the scenery and start another few feet of track.. It's really fun to see the layout extending and growing over time. Also the first pictures of a new addition makes me wonder how you'll be able to make something out of it. It's narrow, all sorts of materials roughly shaped and glued on places where to me the function is not clear and a few photo's later you manage to make something really good out of what seemed a hopeless gathering of leftovers.

Your layout is more like a tree, it grows, but in every growstep the details are already in it. Something completely different in layout building. And a nice way to show that you don't need expensive materials and a lot of space to make a very realistic layout.

[FJ and G]

Handrail and bell

I learned a couple of new skills over the weekend. As I was pouring over plans for a Plymouth diesel, I asked myself what the most difficult part of building it would be, as I like to do the hard part first to get it out of the way. The handrail/grill/bell portion looked the hardest, as it would require heat sinks. But I instead decided to solder it in one fell swoop. Here’s how I did it (thinking is harder and takes more time than actually doing portions of projects as many of you know!):

1. Got a piece of plumbing tube (you can’t beat the price of copper, at about a dollar a foot for inch diameter). Using a sledge and a piece of 1:1 rail, I beat the copper flat, then trimmed the edge with my bandsaw and unfolded it.

2. Cut the strips needed with the bandsaw and drilled the holes for the bell rod and deck mount

3. Got a piece of sacrificial pine.

4. Spiked the copper pieces to the pine (if I had pins, those would have been even better)

5. Fired up my large propane torch and took the project outside on the brick patio

6. fried the work and quickly added solder to all of the joints at one time (called “sweating” the piece)

7. filed a couple places where the solder blobbed

I then added the bell rod, which is a piece of Romex grounding wire, 14 gauge.

I tried making the bell out of clay but was unsatisfied with the results so I learned another new skill. I opened my unused woodcarving set and carved the bell out of the sacrificial pine that hadn’t been charred and drilled a hole thru the top.

Painted the handrails flat black and the bell a sort of rust-gold color.

Photo is below.

Of course I worked on 8 or 10 other projects as well, such as my Maine 2’ passenger trucks and even started on a tipple car for my 7/8n18.

Cheers

[Dr. John]

Great job, Dave. You never fail to come up with a creative solution to a problem!

Keep us posted with the progress on your project. 

[Frank53]

Daan:

Thanks for your gracious comments. There is somewhat of a method to this madness.

I am forced to build this entire top level first due to the fact that once I build the main level benchwork, the top level will not be as accessible. In a way it is good discipline, as if I built all of the benchwork and wired it, I might get so caught up in running trains, I would never finish the scenery.

In the grander scheme - one end of the layout will eventually have this bridge and reversing loop:

that is this area:

The other end of the top level, shown below:

will use this bridge:

However, once I place the benchwork on which these bridges will be placed, it will be much more difficult to get to the top level and finish the scenery.

 

[daan]

@Frank, now it's perfectly clear..Very nice bridges! For places where I can't reach I use boards which can be removed. I started with the forrest today, which is (I'm gald about that, saved me my back) on a seperate board.

The lights are wired with a connector, later on the board will be "porridged" into the layout with my latex and sand mixture..

A closer look in different angles.

The forrest is made with plastic trees bend in a nice position and glued with woodland clump foilage. Only the trees in front have the clumpfoilage applied all over, the ones in the back only the top half. Between the trees on the second row I squeezed loads of darkbrown and darkgreen irish moss (don't know if you call it that way) to mimic the deep forrest look. Here the background needs some tinkering to make it look bigger afterwards.