HO 1950s/60s NYC-ish 7x17 Layout

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Unfortunetly more so--5-6 months to build everything--8 hours to disappear it.

But Don got infiite enjoyment running trains while he had it, & I enjoyed building it!
(Disassembly presented its own enjoyable challenges :)

Thanks for all the kind words, everyone.
All of your exceptional work inspires mind & body to get off our caboose & get back to the workbench.

Cheers!

[HO-Velo]

Hey M.C., fun vid., appears you're as adept at taking a layout down as you are at building one up.

Thanks & regards,  Peter

["JaBear"]

Gidday MC, while it’s not the exact way I’d hoped to see you at work, it’s good to see you back, even if it’s only for a fleeting visit.

Cheers, the Bear.

[MisterBeasley]

Why doesn't the owner take it with him?  It's a shame to just walk away.  Your gain, but his loss.

My layout is all packed up to move in a couple of months, but I plan to reconfigure it as necessary for its new space and have it rise again.

[ROBERT PETRICK]

Hey McFM-

What a great video. Sad, but great. Inevitable.

I especially liked the lunch break interlude.

Been following your work for years.

Robert 

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Thanks for all the kind comments, but I have some sad news to share:

I finished this NYC-ish HO layout for Don back in the summer of 2015.
He wanted Montecello, NY in the late 1950's, so I built it for him.
(With fab structure help by Miles the Weathering Guy)

This last weekend (4/14/2018)  Don calls & says he's moving.
In less than a month.

This Saturday, with multi-scale model railroad superhero Eric (from the Silicon Valley Free-moN Anarcho-Collective we rock together, & Silicon Valley Lines HO Club), we take down & remove the entire layout, saving as much as possible for projects our own as well as to share with others in our orbits:

A good chunk / good chunks of this project will appear in many Bay Area layouts over the coming year.

Plywood to plywood,
Foam to foam.
Funk to funky.

Here's a time-lapse of the dismemberment process.
What took me (& Miles) over 6 months to build, Eric & I removed in less than 7 hours.

May it inspire you to get building!

Life & model railroading is fleeting.

Thanks for watching.

[rrinker]

 That looks great. The interiors on the drug store and theater really finish them off.

The overall view as well - we may not have ever had superdetailed buildings on any of our layouts when I was a kid, but EVERYTHING had lights, from the news stand all the way to the ski chalet on top of the mountain (with the Brawa cable car running between the base which was a repurposed Plasticville train station up to the chalet). Really makes a difference and makes the town scene come alive when stuff lights up.

                  --Randy

 

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Thanks, Peter.
It's been fun to play in HO, but will be nice to get back to N(ormal) scale  

A few more details added earlier this week:

Added lights to the racetrack billboard:



Added a light under the Rialto marquee as well as inside the two stores on either side of it:



[Hue is more yellow in person]

The Broadway strip:



By the time the steamer comes back from the shops in 3-5 weeks I should have a bunch more people painted.
Probably plenty more trees & bushes as well.

Thanks for looking!

[HO-Velo]

M.C., Congrats, mighty fine work.  I think it's so cool how model railroads can act as a "Wayback machine" and contain subtle and not so subtle tributes to family and friends.

Thanks and regards, Peter

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Spent a very warm & lovely Labor Day Weekend hemming & sewing on velcro to miles of skirting:





Fortunately an avalanche of Euro Cup & African Cup of Nations qualifiers (and the A/C) were on!
Only 102 right now  
So not going out the garage any time soon.

Don told me about some other stores from his childhood memories of Monticello, so I was able to get pretty close approximations of both Kaplan's Deli:



[Put on a closed building for now, will remove brown paper & have an interior later]

The slim Greyhound station:



And Davco Stores (where he bought his first bow & arrow set):



And got the dancers dancing & the boys playing ball out in the park:



The Coup de Grâce: the plastic tarps are off the floor, the carpet vacuumed, & the skirting installed!







Perhaps might have trimmed an 1" of fabric off the bottom to lift the skirt slightly off the floor (prevents skirts falling into aisles), but still can because all 42' of skirts (in 6' panels) are attached by velcro (in turn epoxied to inside of fascia).

So still a few more scenicking details (like gravel for the gas station, etc.), and lots & lots of people (who are currently melting in my 120F-deg garage), but definitely in the home stretch.

And, of course, the short progress-update video, showing both the layout & it's relationship with the rest of the bonus room:

Don's dad (upper 80's) just arrived for a visit, so looking forward to his feedback on Monticello as well!

Thanks for watching!
Stay cool, & I'm back to the workbench!
(After this cool drink).
Cheers!

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Installed the last block of buildings in Monticello:



[L-R: shuttered, bar, appliance/record store]
Still need to attach the store signs.
And hide the wires behind vehicles/bushes/etc.
But the animated BAR sign shines through the gaps in the buildings in front, so you can see it from the aisle or from the center of the room.

Was having major issues of locos stuttering & randomly spouting off horn/bell sounds.
Added a terminus resistor/capacitor to the end of the bus wire, then cut gaps in track to interrupt the continuous loop, but loco stuttering problem persisted.
A single bus along the center of the layout was feeding both sides of loop, so I added another bus and shifted some feeders so that all separate buses feed the lower & upper sections of layout.
Also added more feeders around the lobes.
The result?
Smooth operators:

Another river pour, some ground cover texturing, more signs, lights, trees, peoples, & the skirts... and we're done!
Final stretch!

Thanks for looking.
Back to the workbench!
(And to watch USA vs Peru)

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Got the Miles-made Spector's Pharmacy installed (minus the sign):



Introduced some auto vehicles into the scene (minus the Greyhound office sign):



Installed the background warehouse:



LEDs have a thin coat of orange craft paint, which switches things up nicely.

Will coat some other LEDs with other colors.
Like I painted every other LED orange, yellow, & blue in the (totally un-prototypical but fun) pavillion in the park:





Poured first layer of Grimy Black-tinted Magic water in creek under truss bridge, then dabbed leftovers along track to mimic oil spills:



After cure should work in well with weathering powders.

Also painted fascia a found eggshellish exterior black.
Will report back whether more eggshell-ish or eggs-hellish after it cures.

Few more buildings to go & off on quest for curtains!
Back to the workbench!
Thanks for looking.

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Lucite rods!

Totally forgot about those.
Used to play around with them building fighter plane & Tamaya tank models many years ago.

Thanks for the reminder.
& looking forward to seeing your arcade!

Cheers!

[rrinker]

 OH, and if you are worried about trying to fit fiber optics under the machines and not have it be visible - instead of fiber optics, lucite rods may be the thing - there's an article way back in MR about using it for searchlight signals back in the days before LEDs, and when light bulbs were still far too big to fit in an HO scale signal. Nothing has to bend - the rod can just go into the light box behind the wall, run under the table, and by sanding the edges, the light will be directed up to the table surface. The rest gets painted flat black to hide under the machines, and to keep stray light from leaking out. A lot of intensity is lost in the plastic, but those LEDs you have a plenty bright to still give the effect. Really ambitious, place another set of LEDs set back from the existing ones and extend the rods to those. This will be the primary color/effect for the playing field part, with some leakage from the other LEDs adding different colors sort of like happens with the back glasses.

 Hmm, makes me want to try this myself, print out some early 50's tables and see if I can make it all work. Hmm, an Aurdino and some RGB LEDs so I can make any color desired, and have them all flash randomly... I was thinking how to incorporate this in my layout and I may have just thought of a way - I have a diner I am naming after my uncle, I could also do the skating rink I used to go to, which besides the skating also always had 3-4 pinball machines out front plus one or two other arcade games, like the sub battle one (this was before video game machines, these were electro-mechanical like old pinballs).

                          --Randy

[mcfunkeymonkey]

For this one I went with the "splotchy paint to accentuate the lights" effect, as I didn't know how effective it'd be.

But thanks, Randy, for the resource.
Will use for the next arcade!
(In N scale :) )

[rrinker]

 Those pinball machines look awesome with all those flashing lights. Not sure where you got the images to puton the Shapeways pinball machines, but there actually is a site called the Internet Pinball Database (like IMDB for pinballs - IPDB) which pretty much covers the entire history of pinball machines and has images of the back glass and table for most of them. A good high-res printer and boom, HO scale actual pinballs that would have been in the arcade in the modeled timeframe.

          --Randy

[HO-Velo]

M.C., Cool, you're a 1/87 "Pinball Wizard" and a "Hustler" of baking sprinkles billiards!  

Safe trip, regards,  Peter

[angelob6660]

Wow that's crazy amazing how you did the arcade video game interior.

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Dude wanted certain buildings from Monticello in the Broadway strip, and one was an arcade.

Miles The Weathering Man http://www.weatheringman.com/ did a great job of creating & painting a Rialto Movie Theater - Greyhound Office - Arcade unit (among many other fine structures for this project):



I found the signs with a google search (so much PacMan!)
& found HO billiards table & pinball machines on Shapeways:



The billiard balls are cupcake sprinkles, sealed with Dullcote.
(Just FYI: There are a lot more white sprinkles than other colors in the bottle)
They make slightly enlarged pool balls, but dude's always telling me how much bigger a man's balls were back then, so...

Checkered floor just a found image pattern printed on cardstock.
Pool cue sticks are brass wire sprayed brown then brushed painted tan & tipped with white.
I'll attempt the taper next time. 

I really wanted to figure out how to make the pinball machines light up.
Glued the machines to the back wall, then drilled holes in the upper pieces.

Attached an array of Evens Designs LEDs directly behind the machines:



L-R: Green Flash, Red/Blue Flash, Yellow Fast Flash, Green Flash, Yellow Flash

I originally wanted to run fiber optics from the LEDs to the pinball machine body top surface, but ran out of time.
The groovy thing is that, with this arrangement of the LEDs slightly back from each machine, the neighboring LED light shines through between flashes, creating a more random pattern of many more hues than one would think.
I thought the effect turned out pretty groovy (see video below), but any suggestions to build a better arcade always appreciated!
(Especially when I attempt in in N scale   )

Quick video of arcade in place on Broadway:

Still need many details along the street.

Also got the bagel bakery & plumbing supply installed, with another Miller Engineering sign for 150% more twinkle:



And here's a photo of what my wife made for dinner last night:



Cucumber, Tsukemono (pickled daikon), Avocado, Ebi (shrimp).



Away for the weekend to Portland (for a memorial service, not for PDX2015   ) but hope to have the rest of Monticello wired up & install by next week.
Woot!
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.
Thanks for looking.

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Cheers, Peter!
Thanks for taking the time to watch, & hope the video came in handy.

Getting close to the final stretch of layout construction!
Built & installed the stretch of buildings for All-Star Items (garment industry):

Still needs lots of weathering & details.
All those LEDs looked great until the 12V 500mA wallwart blew out.

So off to Fry's to get a 12V 2amp wallwart.

Meanwhile, in the 110-degF garage workshop, furiously finishing all the buildings for Monticello, including flats:



& finishing up the interior details of all the fine work Miles did on most of the Broadway stretch:



Next step (after finishing the fine 21st Amendment brew)(& take a shower): build a billiard hall & pin-ball arcade with machines with flashing lights!
Back to the workbench!
(Well, when I wake up in the morning at 3AM when it's cool)

Happy Weekend, everyone.

[HO-Velo]

M.C.,  Gotta be extremely satisfying to see the fruits of your labor in action.  Also, enjoyed your barbed wire fence youtube vid.

Thanks and regards,  Peter 

[mcfunkeymonkey]

The BLI I-5 started having the same stuttering issues as the SW7, so tried resetting PowerCab throttle, then SmartBooster.

No bueno.
Just about to mail off the locos to BLI for inspection when the lightbulb went off over me head:
Switched out the 6-pin cord between the PowerCab & SmartBooster, replaced it with the curly 4-pin cord.
Tah-dah!

Theoretically, which cord shouldn't matter as the SmartBooster should override the PowerCab throttle as the command station, but there it is.
Glad it was a simple solution!

Finished up painting the staging / display yard:



Still need to attach a piece of fascia that extends a couple inches above the shelf so no trains fall off the tall cliff.

Finished & installed another warehouse in the industrial district:



"BoxItUp" was the name of a horse the client used to own & race.
So had to add some horses elsewhere:



Only had thin, Rust EZ-Line on me, and that was invisible at that distance, so I'll string the fence when I get thick black EZ-Line.
(Or see if he notices the Emperor's New Fencing"  )

Lots of buildings in various states of completion.
Soldering & installing the LEDs seems to take up the most time.
Here's the corner grocery:



Should have 3-4 more buildings done this weekend.

Quick video giving an overview of the layout progress so far.

Sorry for the shakiness: didn't have a tripod on me at time of shooting.

Back to the workbench!
(Usually, with the start of the Premier League, I don't get out to the garage until the afternoon, but with a TV out there, I can get to the workbench starting with the first 4:45 AM match! Woot!)

[rrinker]

 Must have touched something else to have fried the Frog Juicer, since the neat thing with those is that you don't have to make the cuts on the Peco Electrofrog turnouts. Just insulate the diverging rails, which you have to do regardless, and hook the Juicer up. When the points move and touch the opposite rail, the Juicer will switch the frog polarity as needed. The old bugaboo there, and with the older non-DCC friendly versions of the Walthers/Shinohara turnouts, was that if you use say Tortoise contacts to control frog polarity, either the Tourtoise contacts could make on the new position before the points lost contact witht he previous stock rail, or the other way around - the points could contact the new side stock rail while the contacts were still made for the old position, either case causing a short.

There's mention of it a few times on Tam Valley's page. Kind of leaves me torn - I am planning to use all peco Electrofrog on my new layout, and I was all set to start stockpiling tuirnouts and running through them assembly line fashion, cutting the one set of jumpers and adding new ones as shown on Wiring for DCC, but I can also just use Frog Juicers everywhere. Or the other servo controller, it uses two relays for frong contacts so it actually poweres the frog off first, then moves the points, then switches the polarity relay, and finally turns the power back on. Pretty nifty, never shorts and solves the same problem. I suspect Duncan will have something similar soon.

                             --Randy

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Thanks for the kind words, Peter.
Client is very happy: he was expecting something more like the 4'x8' layouts of his youth, so being able to have a more visually dynamic layout with separate scenes is very groovy.
Orginally he said it didn't have to look like Monticello at all, but I've been able to do the research and create a closer similarity to what he knows (both scenery & buildings), so he's pretty excited.

Just hope I can finish the layout before his father comes out to visit next month :)

Back to the layout!
Maybe I'm missing something, but I had to almost destroy these Rivarossi 60' coaches to get inside to install the lighting packages.
Unscrew everything off the bottom, remove bottom, pop off one side, pop off roof (all the while breaking off most the tabs).



After Dremeling off part of the thin weights to expose the holes for the feeder wires, it was pretty straightforward to attach 30 gauge magnet wire to the lightboards, CA them to the roof & then thread the wires through the interior.
I'm using Streamline Backshop's N scale lightboards, as Bryan wasn't sure if the HO ones would fit the 60' coaches.
They provide plenty of light, and have a potentiometer to adjust brilliance, as you can see from my state-of-the-art DCC testing station:



There are ways to have two wipers on each truck, separated by an insulating washer, to collect both pos & neg on each truck, but I just have one truck pos & the other neg.
The capacitors on the boards keep them lit for 3-4 seconds after power removed anyway.

Soldered the feeder wires to the truck wipers, and good to go.



Also added some Preiser 1/2 people & some newspapers.
If I had more time I would have loved to paint the interior seats, have a couple joining the Meter High Club in the bathroom, etc., but so it goes.



Installed two Tam Valley Depot Hex Frog Juicers to help with the little stuttering & stalling over turnouts:



I was sure I isolated the frogs--already plastic rail joiners above the frog, & I used a thin hobby knife to cut the small wires joining frog to point rails--but I guess I didn't get all of them (or some metal was still touching), because my nose soon told me the magic smoke escaped from one of the sections:



So that's off to Tam Valley for a repair.
Other hex juicer works great.
& I've excavated under each frog to make sure each is totally isolated.

Finally got the staging shelf up, then track laid & wired:





I'll attach a low fascia to ensure no trains fall off during an earthquake.
The shelf is the first thing you see when you walk up the stairs.
It will hold a couple of 50"-cuts of cars, and client will be able to back a train into the empty track, hook up with another cut, & then pull out onto the layout.
Or just display cool cars.

Alrighty, back to finish the last of the passenger coach light board installs, figure out why my BLI SW1500 all of a sudden decided to start/stop/have conductivity issues, and finish all the buildings.
So back to the workbench!
Thanks for looking.

[HO-Velo]

M.C.,  Sounds like your client is very happy.  Must say I'm all smiles seeing and reading about your progress.  The lighting effects are way cool!

Thanks and regards,  Peter 

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Installed some Downtown Deco flats that rep the "outskirts" of Monticello:



Originally I attached all three flats on the left to a single piece of styrene, with the idea that I could bend the styrene at the joints & curve all three around the track, but the center flat popped off, so I installed the outer two (still connected to the styrene), then attached the center flat to the curved styrene:



I'll get some roofs on there later.

Richfield Oil is just sitting there until I see if I have enough room for DD's Trackside Tavern in the triangle of space between track & road.
Or if I want something taller to act as more of a viewblock of where Broadway runs into the backdrop.

Finally finished wiring up all 9 LEDs on Penn Plax Plastics, so I installed that in the industrial area:











Dude used to work for Penn Plax Plastics (innovator in aquarium-grade plastics!) for many years, and even though the building isn't 100% accurate, he was pretty tickled pink that I was able to find the seahorse logo.
Originally I wanted to install a freight elevator (or LED representing on) that moved randomly up & down the floors, and Silicon Valley Free-moN friend Eric designed one with a step motor & fake raspberry pi (I think), but I'm running out of time on this project.
I did leave the roof unglued just incase I can install it later.

Personally, I like the way the freight door lights shine through the cars as they move into their spots:

There will be a larger factory on the other side of the tracks, creating a mini "brink & concrete canyon", and should make a pretty groovy night scene.

Thanks for looking.
Have to figure out how to install some Streamline Backshops lighting packages & brass truck pickups in Rivarossi 60' coaches  
So back to the workbench!

[mcfunkeymonkey]

The thick Rustoleum auto primer dried and created some groovy cracks here & there:



And a light sanding with a fine-grit sponge produced a more asphalt-like surface:



And--more important--trains run!



Meanwhile, to build a lightweight staging shelf, I caulked an 8"x58" strip of leftover 1/8" hardboard to some leftover 1" pink foam:



[Purposefully moved the hardboard as far over as possible to allow room on the pink foam for another go if oops]

After a couple days to allow the caulk to cure, I just cut along the hardboard, and POOF! instant lightweight shelf:



The hardboard underneath will allow me to screw into the wall brackets, as well as stiffen up the pink foam.
Because who wants floppy pink foam?

I painted it flat black, but forgot to take a photo  

Started building up the coal dump retaining wall with scrap stripwood:



Supports & dirt fill to come soon.

Just happy trains still run after all the scenicking:



Loco still stalls over some electrofrogs with points thrown only in certain directions: blade contact fine, it's after the jumped cut (for optional isolated frogs) that's not getting any juice.
If it was my own layout, I'd keep fiddling, but dude is mechanically challenged, so I ordered some Tam Valley Hex Frog Juicers and am in process of adding feeders to frogs (good thing I left a little of the stock Electrofrog feeder sticking out of the ties   ).

[If you're wondering why a Weyerhaeuser switcher is on a NYCish layout, dude did a lot of business with them out after moving out West. And it's his layout. So there.   ]

Back to the workbench!

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Fortunately, I have a lot of N-scale ground throws (both sprung & un-) left over from earlier projects, and, fortunately, both sprung & un- ground throws work fine with the Peco turnouts:



Built the coal dump trestle out of stained scrap wood, eyeballing the gaps for two coal cars:



Installed it on the bents:



Probably should have installed the bents after I built the deck so they lined up with the supports better, but meh.
Was going to build a network of wood supports leading up to the deck, but I thought about the time involved and so:



Behold! The Tinted Sculptamold Slug!

After that dried, installed the track:





Before I installed the track, I followed Dr. Dave Vollmer's time-tested technique of coating the base of the tie-less rails with Pliobond (use a toothpick: that stuff gets everywhere!) and the letting it DRY.
Caulked down the track, pinned it, then used 3-point gauges to hold the rails in place on the wood deck while I heated the rails with a soldering iron:



[Normally my fingers are holding the gauges in place while soldering, but difficult to take smartphone photos with mouth]

The heat activates the Pliobond and the rail sticks to the wood. Poof!



Later I'll paint the track and stain the coal dump rails with neolube or ?

Back to the Industrial District:
I got a piece of 1/8" styrene 18"x40', spray painted the rails again, and then pressed the styrene on top to create a guide:



Used a piece of flextrack to outline the ties, then cut out the section from the styrene:



1/8" styrene is pretty thick, so PITA!
You can see where the sheet snapped at the bottom of the left siding.
No biggie.

Caulked it down & let it set for a couple days, then "painted" on some lightweight spackle tinted with craft paint & thinned with water:



On the left I spackled the outer ties first, while on the right I "poured" both inside & outside of the rails.
Spackling first probably worked better, as the soupy spackle tends to weirdly wick:



Turns out I should have made more of a conscious effort to caulk closer to the track, as you can see some slipped under the styrene.
No problems, as no matter what a second application (without as much water) is needed:





This coat can be scraped level across the rails, as it'll be sanded down later.
(After totally dry!)

While that was drying, I finished up the mainline ballasting:



After the spackle totally dried, I took a triangle file and excavated the inner rails.
There was still a little undulation caused by the ties under the spackle, so I tried two paints: 



Usually I prefer the Valspar "Blindfold" as my poor man's grimy black, but this is one situation where the thicker, sandable Rustoleum dark grey works better.

So a full coat of that:



It's still wet, not magically modeled as Prof. Klyzlr's Brooklyn: 3AM but should provide a good base for the warehouses of the industrial district, especially with some tar, cracks, chalks / weathering powders, etc.



Still need truckloads of trees.
Should have trains back running by Wednesday!
(Then we'll see if we need any frog juicers  )

Back to the workbench!

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Wired up & spraybombed the industrial park trackage:



Picked up a 18" x 40" sheet of 1/8" styrene that I'll cut out space for the tracks & then fit around.
I've never used styrene to make streets, so will try various techniques to create concrete & asphalt sections: carve expansion lines, rough up with sandpaper, etc.
We'll see!  

Installed background bushes behind the bridge:



Need to install a culvert, ground cover, lots of bushy trees, etc.
For the trickle of water am thinking a few coats of glossy ModPodge or acrylic gloss medium over dark paint.
Just something to give a hint below the vegetation.

Installed the coal dump trestle piers:



Will build the deck this weekend.

Ballasting all of the double main at once would drive me more batty, so doing it in sections.
Bridge side of Left Lobe done:



WS Fine Grey Blend ballast is a bit bright to my eyes, so will weather with a wash later.

Finished installing wooden grade crossings:



Also started installing bases for Caboose ground throws.
Seems like N scale sprung have the right travel distance--hoping they have enough "umph" to throw the Peco points.
I know I don't need the ground throws since Peco turnouts are sprung as well, but I'd rather the dude flip the ground throw than constantly poke his non-too-delicate finger into the points.
Plus, Caboose ground throws are fun to flip.

Giant's about to take on the Nationals in 5 minutes (at 8am!), so back to the workbench!
Thanks for looking.