Free-moN Staging Yard - 16"x10'

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Spent the last couple days working on the coal & sand service track next to the turntable tracks.

First woodglued down two layers of cork to elevate it:

When the glue was totally set, I sanded the cork down to create the ramp up.
Then cut out spaces for the coal (far) and sand (near) unloading pits.

Used some Sculptamold left over from my daughter's "BFG Cave" diorama to add some hill on the right:



Painted the cork Grimy Black, then glued stained stripwood create the retaining walls and pits.

Cut out some ties in a piece of flextrack, painted it, then installed it with caulk:



Built a small sand shed & installed it, then threw down some basic ground cover of dirt, cinders and a little gravel.
I left the area around the turntable tracks bare until I build and install the coaling tower (still deciding if I want to limit the services to that right track only or have the coaling tower over the right track to be able to service both)(Leaning towards smaller & right side only).
Of course there'll be a bumper at the end.

Here's the other side:



And how it works in relation to the whole area:



[Dirt is still drying so still a bit dark]

The water tower will be on the left between the left TT track and the yard ladder, with water spouts between the two TT tracks.

So time to scratch a coaling tower, a sand tower, and a water tower.
But as of now, all the track for Effett Yard has been laid and ballasted.

My question for you: what's a good material for N scale sand?
Seems like most stuff out there (including real sand) is much to thick.
Thought about roughing up some pink foam and painting that sand color, but something of very fine grains would be better.
Perhaps cement? Or grout?
All suggestions appreciated!

Thanks for looking.

[sakel]

da-dee-dum

[sakel]

mcfunkeymonkey

Had a lovely day running trains with the Silicon Valley Free-moN dudes at the Coast Division Meet in San Leandro, CA:

'); // -->

The space we had available was a funkily-angled atrium at the Boy Scout Headquarters building, but, hey, Free-moN can fit anywhere!

Speaking of fitting things in, here's a "Behind-the-Scenes" of how I get my Shoo-fly & Staging Yard modules (& equipment) to meets:





Notice the high-tech shock-absorbing packing material.
If I build another module, it will be a good excuse to get a bigger car ;)

Thanks for looking!

This is me stealing the music in the middle of the video.

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Well, the beat goes on.

Picked up some "Haystack" color unsanded grout that I'll be trying out later.
Meanwhile, I've been building the water tank, using stripwood, scribed sheet, music wire, and a 1 1/2" PVC cap:



Traced the PVC cap and then drew out placement for stringers and legs.
Built it upside-down, which seems to work alright.
The "door" is just the piece of scribed sheet turned around in place.
Also went ahead and tacky-glued the concrete bases to each leg [PITA!].



Stuck Grandt Line O scale 1" square NBW details on the legs where the rods would stick out.
Another PITA but looks kinda cool.

For the tank I loosely followed a prototype photo of one in Drummond, Montana ("Home of the World Famous Bullshippers") though painted it Grimy Black instead of Bullshipper Blue. The access door I just scratched out of 0.02" styrene and a grab handle:





Haven't installed it or really weathered it yet.
Still waiting for some ladders from TrainCat.
There will be one or two water columns between the two tracks.

Now onto the Coaling Tower!

Thanks for looking.

[mcfunkeymonkey]

While waiting for some NBW details to arrive for the coaling tower, I thought I'd get started on the first of two MOW buildings.
The second will be a plank-by-plank long shed, but the first is a brick shed with truck & rail loading docks, so I thought I'd share how to make some simple loading docks.

As I wanted the docks to wrap around three sides, I first traced the building on cardstock to get the space outlined:



Turned out to be 30', 25' and 55'.
The lines inside the spaces are for the stringers, which are HO 6"x6" stripwood cut to length, stained in the Big Jug O' Stain (BJOS), and then placed on thin stips of double sided tape laid over the ends of each section:



Using the Chopper II, I cut HO 2"x4"s to 7 scale-foot lengths for the planks and then gave them a BJOS bath:





Dries fairly fast.

[cont.]

[mcfunkeymonkey]

I use a toothpick to spread woodglue along the stringers and then tweezers to place the planks across:



I usually work in sections of about an inch at a time, as the woodglue gets gummy rather quickly.
It's not too hard to eyeball, but sometimes you can use a straightedge to even out the planks on the building side.

It's a bit tedious, but the planks look pretty decent when you're done:



After all planks are in place, I cover the platforms with a weights so everything dries flat:



Once everything's set, I flipped the platforms over and marked out the 5' intervals for the posts:



[cont.]

[mcfunkeymonkey]

After measuring how high I wanted the dock (about 6'), I cut more HO 6"x6"s and stained them.
There's probably an easier way to do this, but I just dab a little woodglue on the stringer, place the post, and then use a Lego to square it up:



I also placed some diagonal cross-braces on the long dock.
To fill the gap under the doors and between the columns of the DPM walls I glued a strip of HO 2"x4":



After sanding the dirt down, I glued the building in place (after making sure that building + dock would fit with some space at the track), and then CA'ed the docks in place:




Yes, the gap was intentional.
Always good to cut & stain a few more planks than you think you need!
(Can always use them lying around as more clutter anyway).

Need to get a few more Gold Metal Models stairs, but the one I do have right now gives you an idea:



More stairs, some barrels & crates, gravel & weeds around the ground, some tire tracks & a truck will "finish" this part.

Now on to make the plank-by-plank wood shed that will extend about 60' off of this one down the track!

Hope this helps get people scratchin', and thanks for looking.

[MisterBeasley]

Seems to me I've seen your work in the current issue of MR, September 2012.  Very nice article.  Thanks.

[mcfunkeymonkey]

MisterBeasley

Seems to me I've seen your work in the current issue of MR, September 2012.  Very nice article.  Thanks.

Thanks, Mr. B!

It was great to see the article in print, and in the fine company of all the other "Small Space Solutions" artists!
My philosophy is "There's always room for a layout!" and it's great to see MR include more N scale work.

There are more construction details & photos of the Mt. Coffin & Columbia River layout on my construction thread here on the forum.

Thanks again, and I hope others find the article useful and N-gauging!
Cheers!

[NP01]

Fujiwara-san,

Indeed happy to see your work in MR this week ... I have been reading your posts and website for a while. I would really love to make your oak trees if I had the time. 

NP

(Palo Alto, CA -- 21x6' HO is my first layout slowly shaping up)

[mcfunkeymonkey]

So us Silicon Valley Free-moN dudes decided to build another staging yard, though one that doubles (back) as a return loop.
And I'm going to post photos in this thread because 1) it's a staging yard and 2) I'm getting confused with all the construction threads I've got going.

A main and two staging sidings, at 22", 23.5" & 25" radius curves (22" is the min.). We also wanted to make it as portable as possible, I designed the module to consists of 5 sections, all under 3'.
Scott Forrest, a man of many talents and possessing great woodworking skills and equipement, built the benchwork:



He laminated two layers of 1/8" MDF as the curved skins, and the benchwork came out great. [Looks like a mystic crop circle or a toilet seat] One leg per section is all we need!

Yesterday we hauled it over to Steve William's house and proceeded to laydown the mainline cork:



[Those are "tacky" model railroaders Steve on the left & Scott on the right]

Only the main has cork all way round. The two staging sidings will be laid directly on the ply, and so the cork goes only to the next section, where I'll sand it down to a 4"-5" transition grade.



After cutting the UTP panels in the middle two sections, we sprayed a first layer of flat black on the outer fascia. Amazing what a little paint can do to make it look good!

I'm going to install a 3"-4" tall styrene "backdrop" along the inside and attach some pink foam to create some California hills inside of the loop, so that'll get painted later.

So far I've built the #8 wye as well as one set of #8 36"/24" curved turnouts:



They'll be thrown with Bullfrogs, all under the "keystone" section. We'll use a PSX-AR for the reversing section (everything above the wye).

I'd finish building the next set of curved turnouts and attach pc boad ties to the section edges, but I left the bag of pc board ties at Steve's house ["D'oh"], and he lives about an hour away with good traffic, so as soon as he mails those to me I'll be back in business.

Hopefull all this will get done for the GTE show in mid-Sept.!
Thanks for looking.

[mcfunkeymonkey]

So now the staging loop sections occupy my newly-cleared workbench. When we glued down the cork, we didn't lay the glue across the joints but about an inch away from each side (I almost learned the hard way by almost gluing together the two sections of my Shoofly module!).

So when I got home, I just lifted up the ends of each cork section and soaked those with wood glue. Much easier to wipe up the overflow when the sections are separated!

Then filled in some spaces with spackle:



It's nice to have it in 3' sections: fits on the workbench & fits in the car! (hopefully with all the other modules, too!)



[Unfortunately, my car is smaller than the one in the garage!]

Sanded down the outer track cork to create the grade down to ply:



For the long staging yard, I had just sanded & sanded until smooth and my hand was cramped beyond recognition. This time I tried the forming tool for the "rough cuts", and it worked like magic.
I clamped the sections together when sanding the top & sides of the mainline cork across the gaps to prevent any dips.

I also learned from the staging yard that it's a good idea to paint the ply early: seals the wood & makes all processes easier (especially if you're laying turnouts directly on ply, which I realized later that I'm not here).
But as I went to paint the sections, I realized that if I painted everything, I'd lose the track center pencilmarks we made with a trammel yesterday.

So I just painted "outside" the track sections:



And that's why there's a section of unpainted ply next to one side of the cork.

But once I lay the track and paint it, the ply under it will get painted too. So all's well that ends well! (fingers crossed)

Thanks for looking.

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Here's a close-up of the nifty leg set-up Scott built:



He glued a 90 deg triangle block of wood to the middle cross-brace, and the drove the bolt through that to hold the single "L-girder" leg on. Strong, firm, fabulous.
I Gorilla Glued the bolt & washer to the cross-brace so we can slide the leg on and then use one hand to tighten the wing nut.

Today I installed the backdrop:



0.06" styrene bought from Tap Plastics in an 8"x8' sheet, then trimmed with scissors to create hills. (foam & spackle will fill in the space between the styrene and the mainline cork) While the whole section was put together and clamped, I wrapped and clamped the styrene around the inside, then used about a whole tube of Walthers Goo and some screws to keep it in place.

That gap is where a road is going to go, perhaps with a front-side mirror across the gap. I'd like to say it's cleverly positioned, but that's where the 8' of sheet ended, and the other piece of styrene I had leftover from the shelf layout backdrop only made it that from from the other side [D'oh!]
So it goes.

After installing it, I went back and cut the styrene vertically to separate the sections:



0.06" is a little flimsy, but once the foam and spackle is glued in place it'll be a solid scenery structure.

While the garage door was open, I carried the whole shebang outside and sprayed the layout-side of the styrene with grey primer and the inside of the module the same flat black as the fascia:



All the styrene will be covered with scenery (probably), so I just didn't want any white showing through any trees / bushes / etc.

Got the PC board ties in the mail from Steve, but I don't have enough to lay all the track across all the gaps until another shipment arrives from Fast Tracks (next week?), so I'll probably be building the other set of curved turnouts and start gluing in the foam.

Thanks for looking.

[mcfunkeymonkey]

I plan on trying to build some endplates for these sections to ease transport and protect the scenery (always an issue with modules), but we'll see.

As I'm waiting for some shipments of PC board ties and Bullfrogs from Fast Tracks, I decided to start in on the scenery by laying down the foam. Caulk takes days to cure, so slobbering that on now when there's some time makes for a no-brainer. (some have commented on how fast I work: part of that is, working at home, I can pop out to the garage for 5-10 minutes and do some jobs that take time to dry/cure, but a lot of it is just planning which jobs take longer than others and doing those first)

So I ripped chunks of foam off a dearly-departed layout and just stacked them up along the styrene backdrop:




The clamp is to ensure the foam stays square (and squares) the styrene. I left overhang on each side of the sections so I can sand down to get a close fit when fitted together. (Yes, I could have cut even, smooth, one-piece sections from a fresh piece of foam, but I used what I have, and, really, in the end, it won't matter.  I hope.)

Here's all the sections:



And they'll sit there curing for a couple-four of days, while I build the second of the two-curved-turnout set.

Does the foam look bulky and gross? Sure! But have faith! Over 50% of that foam will be rasped away into the gentle slopes of the Sierra Nevada Foothills. I think I still have some rock castings left over, too, that will become exposed sections of hill and cuts.

Three weeks until the show, but it will all work out!

And now I'd like to take a moment to pay respects to the final section of a dearly-departed layout.
One section became my Mt. Coffin & Columbia River layout.
Another section gave up it's foam to become the BFG's cave for my daughter's 4th grade book project.
All of the wiring found its way into all of my later layout projects.
One section of benchwork support is my workbench, and another was the support for the Mt. Coffin layout for the past year.
All the turnouts I built for it gave me the skills to do the multiple-curved-turnout fixtures for Mt. Coffin and now the Free-moN modules.
The last section has sacrificed its foam for the staging/turnback loop module.
And now, here's all that's left of the Dogeared & Broken Spine RR, the urban switching layout that was to last me a good 5 years until a "life event" forced a move:



A couple more chunks of foam to give, and then into the Chainsaw it goes.
RIP.
(as in "RIP another chunk of foam off that so we can get this layout built!")
So it goes.

Thanks for looking.

[mcfunkeymonkey]

I've found my new Super (Glue) Hero!



I've been using regular Gorilla Glue to affix PC board ties to module / section ends.
The benefit is super-tight bond and no worries using the soldering iron (CA & epoxy pops with heat).
The drawback is the long cure time and the foamy-foamy expansion.
And, when clamping, sometimes you clamp too much:



[You can see the PC board ties I clamped INTO the cork under the ones I Gorilla Super Glued afterwards] [That was a first!]

But the Gorilla Super Glue has all the benefits of regular GG but cures in less than a minute without the foaming: I was able to put down all the PC board ties for all the sections in an hour, instead of gluing, clamping, waiting, waiting...

So tomorrow I can start laying track!

Especially since I finished building the two-right-hand-curved-turnout fixture, so all trackwork is ready to go:





The super-long throwbars are because I realized during our last build party, that I couldn't put both Bullfrogs directly under between the points of both turnouts: they'd be in each other's way!

But by spreading the throwbars out, and flipping one Bullfrog around, I can mount them pretty close together. The final throwbars won't be as long: I'm just waiting for the Bullfrogs to show up in the mail to I can get the spacing right.

That won't stop me from laying track tomorrow!
Will solder all the flex together first, and then wrap each course around the whole module at once to ensure smooth curves.
Wife & kids will be gone to Japanese school in the City all day, so should be a fabulously Free-moNy day!

Thanks for looking.

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Marathon build weekend!
Started with pink foam blocks on empty benchwork, Finished with shaped scenery forms and running trains!

Spent a couple hours Saturday filling the garage with pink snow as I cut, formed and sanded the backdrop hills, then glued on some rock castings:




I worked on each section individually, and then fit neighboring sections together to get smooth transitions.
Eventually it'll look like the Sierra Nevada foothills in eastern California. There'll be a small town with a depot on the right at the short straight section. Maybe a farm with cows on the other side.
Otherwise, rocks, grass & a lot of trees (gotta start making some oaks again!)

Just to add a little variation,  carved out the continuation of a wash on the front side:



Burned the sander off!
Actually went too deep and broke through the ply, but some styrene superglued underneath patched it up.

When I put everything together, I slipped strips of 0.02" styrene between the sections to add some cut room on the tracks laid over:



Adds only a little space and doesn't throw off the curves, but makes for better cuts in the end.

Soldered four sections of C55 flextrack together, pre-curved them, and then started laying track down with caulk and soldering across the gaps:



For how I lay track across seciton ends, see my "How to make Beautiful Butt Joints" video.
Four sections of flex fit nicely from straight section around to straight section.
Running the flat car on the left around before soldering ensured smooth curves.
The turnout fixtures are also caulked in, with the wye soldered to the modular end.

[cont.]

[mcfunkeymonkey]

After laying down & soldering all the curves (and cutting the joints in case of an earthquake or bump), I connected the curves to the the turnouts through the straight sections:



All railjoiners are soldered.

This is what happens when you get ahead of yourself and cut the rails before you solder them!



D'oh!

To be fair (as an excuse), it was a long day and that was the last section to be connected. Just held it with tweezers and soldered it:



Turned out fine.

Also attached the PSX-AR auto-reverse / circuit breaker to the side of the keystone module:



The center will be busy with Bullfrogs when those show up later this week (I hope).
Free-moN standards call for 12 gauge wire between modules (that's the blue & orange), but we used 16 gauge speaker (70's shag carpet brown-yellow) wire for the sections because that's what we had, and it's enough for this space.
So the main bus will go from the terminal strips, into & out of the PSX-AR, and then out to the sections.
Everything above the wye's point rails, including it's frog, are on the reversing section.

[cont.]

[mcfunkeymonkey]

So with all track laid & wired & tested:



it was time to run some trains!

Moved the loop down to one end of the garage & connected the Effett Staging Yard with instert, and that took up the rest of the garage:





Reason I made the staging yard as long as possible was to see how the max-long train would work going around the loop.
Turns out 20-car trains (about 8 feet) go around great.
The main is 22" radius curves, with the passing sidings at 23.5" and 25".
There was very little "chasing the tail" (being able to see the loco on one side and caboose on the other), though the dips in the backdrops helped give peeks of the train's progress.
The 50" railheight helps a lot too.

And, of course, there's a (less-than-5-minute) video:

watch?v=42qyZ1LUpik&feature=plcp

Even was able to back the 2-10-2 with all 20 cars through the turnouts without problems.
Woot!

Best part: got everything broken down & put away & vacuumed before the wife & kids came home from karate!



So now I can file the rails flush with the section ends, and then get to work on the fun part: scenery!
Paint track & hills & rocks, lay down dirt & basic ground cover, ballast, & start adding grass, shrubs and trees.
But most of that I can do a section at a time (need to, so the glue doesn't stick the sections together!).

But at the very least, Silicon Valley Free-moN has another return loop and staging / passing module.
And that rocks!

Thanks for looking.

["JaBear"]

Gidday MC, what can I say apart from once again thanks for sharing.

You made the comment on your  "Summer Shunting Shelf Project", ............"Most of the time I think people don't comment because I'm doing N scale "

If I didn't have to be realistic and acknowledge my eyesight and hamfistedness  then you would have certainly sold me on N scale.

Also if you hadn't said you were modelling N scale and hadn't posted the photos of the modules in your car, I would have assumed it was HO.

Thanks, and Cheers, the Bear.

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Cheers, Bear!
And thanks for taking the time to chat ;)

Much unglamorous but necessary work today:
--slipped in a kabillion replacement ties
--painted track (grimy black)
--painted/stained rock castings (watered-down Big Jug O' Stain with some slate, stone & concrete added)
--fine-sifted dirt
--painted landforms ($3 mistint latex)
--sprinkled dirt on wet paint

The photographic evidence reveals a dirty mess:







All the dirt won't stick to the paint, so I'm hoping a whirlwind doesn't rip through the garage before tomorrow, when I can lay down other shades of dirt, talus, some ground foam, maybe even some static grass.
I'm still debating between spring & summer (anyone know how to make manzanita?)
Also gotta start making some oaks! (at about an hour a tree...)

Anyway, I know it looks pretty blah right now, but patience, young grasshoppers... ;)

Thanks for looking.

[MisterBeasley]

My wife and I have been talking about where we want to live after retirement in a couple of years.

I wonder how I will explain to the realtors that I want someplace with a local Free-Mo group.

Seriously, other than going to shows and seeing Free-Mo layouts, this thread and its cousins is about the best publicity that Free-Mo could have.  Thanks again for sharing all your work with us.

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Thanks, Mr. B!
Remember "No Free-mo? No Go!" ;)

And another marathon build weekend, in which I:

--laid down basic ground cover (dirt, ground foams, fine-sifted gravel, etc.) and talus
--added cinders around the edges of tracks (will stick out a little when I ballast)
--installed three grade crossings out of spare ties
--applied static grasses
--added bushes and tufts
--made & installed over 20 dedicuous trees
--made & installed over 20 pine trees
--made & installed 4 oak trees
--scratch built a farmhouse, a warehouse, a stucco & spanish tile depot / freighthouse, and three false storefronts
--touched up painting the turnouts and staining the replacement ties under the points
--ballasted 3-out-of-5 sections of the module

Would have finished ballasting but the module had been standing in the garage all weekend, and my wife had the silly notion of wanting to park her car in there tonight!

So except for the ballasting and a few more trees to hide some partial buildings, I think this one is pretty much good to go! (Well, until the Bullfrogs show up, and then I can install those)

On with the pictures! (There's quite a few, so bare with me).
Basic ground cover & cinders:





Those were the deciduous, and here's the pines:



And let's twist again, like we did last summer...



Not sure if making 4 oaks at a time speeds anything up except the carpal tunnel...

[cont.]

[mcfunkeymonkey]

The three little grade crossings:



used Aileen's clear gel tacky glue this time & liked the working time and tackiness.
Seems to hold alright.

Wanted to try a cement road, so just laid some coffee stirrers down, tacking the ends with white glue (and sometimes a spot of CA):



For my roads I tried the same trick on the "Alameda-Belt-in-a-Box" layout: watered down & tinted lightweight spackle.
Man, you think it's too thin, but as soon as it hits the ground, it starts hardening and foaming a bit (or seems like it).
Had to water it some more and pour some gap fillers.
The trick is NOT TO TOUCH IT until it's TOTALLY DRY (like a day or so).

But when it is dry, you can sand it smooth and rub some dirt into it to weather:



My other nifty discovery of the weekend was NEOLUBE.
Yup, but not for steamers.
For staining stripwood replacement ties directly under the points!



Why didn't I think of this earlier?
Not only does it darken the rails and ties, but ensures smooth throwing action!
D'oh!

[cont.]

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Added mucho trees:



Tried to vary the locale as you go around.
This side is more pine-y & mountain-y (greens, pines, etc.), while the other side is more brown like the foothills (weeds, manzanita).

I also, while doing the static grass on the workbench, briefly joined the sections one at a time to try to blend the sections together and hide the gaps.
(can't keep the seciton together or the diluted glue will seep down & make one big module!)
Not sure if I was totally successfull, but there are distict scenes.

Had a bunch of buildings to build, and so I drew out some simple dimensions for all the buildings at once:



Makes cutting & marking a lot easier when you can just hold the styrene or wood next to the section and tick it off.

For example, here are all the pieces for the depot cut & ready to get stucco'd:



I'm basing the design loosely on the Tidewater Southern depot in Turlock, just because 1) it has a depot and a freight section & 2) I wanted to try stucco & spanish tile roof.
For the stucco, I followed Dave Schneider's technique he shared over on Railwire:



Basically Liquitex "Ceramic Stucco" stippled on, dried, then sanded down to N-scale stucco.
I painted my primer grey first, and then the white, which I think turned out okie dokie.

[cont.]

[mcfunkeymonkey]

So here you can see the finished stucco texture, as well as the depot mid-build:



I probably could have sanded it a wee bit more, but true N-scale stucco would be very very tiny.

Here it is installed:



Not too thrilled with the size of the "Devil Mountain" sign (the "Turlock" was stenciled right onto the building), so might redo that one.
(BTW, Mt. Diablo towers over the East Bay, so it was either Devil Mt. or Devil's Camp)
(Briefly considered the town name of "Britches"... hmmm... still considering...)

Here's the whole town of Devil Mountain:



Not bad for 9" of space & three tracks!
Still need to put in some trees behind the depot & over the storefronts.
And stuff.
Lots of stuff.

The other buildings are, left to right, Pappy's Whiskey & Dynamite Co., the Tombstone shoppe, Lucy Furr's Pleasure Parlor, and Bub's Saloon:



Will look moocho better when I'm done with it.

[cont.]

[mcfunkeymonkey]

For the farmhouse I used some scribed clapboard siding I had lying around, sprayed it grey, then misted it with white:



Love those Legos!

0.02" styrene subroof, with RLW random cedar shingles stuck on.
The shingles have some sticky, but I find spraying the subroof styrene with adhesive helps keeping the peel down.



It's only three sides (why model what no one will see?), and I actually had to cut off part of the roof in the back to fit up against the hill.

So here's the scene:



Pond on the left, road up into the trees, then house.
To me it seemed a little bare.
Needed a big massive tree, but I didn't want to make any more oaks (those suckers take time!).
But I did find a WS armature that I bent, painted & "oakified" it.
So now:



Needs lots of junk around, included a rusted 1920s pickup truck.
But a fun scene to pass by.

[cont.]

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Alrighty, last one! (for now!)

So after ballasting, I took some sections outside for a little last sunlight. Here's the oaks in the keystone section:





Should be a nice scene to watch trains roll through, one way or the other.

Trackside shot of the depot burning in the sun:



And the farmhouse enjoying the rays:



So I need to finish ballasting the main (raised inner track), and I'm debating whether to ballast all three tracks, or keep the lowered two passing tracks in cinders.
Hmm....

So tomorrow: more trees, more bushes, more ballast, more....

Thanks for looking.
All & any comments & suggestions appreciated.

[dexterdog]

Whew... I'm exhausted just reading this. I don't think I've made as much progress on my layout in the last year as you have in one weekend! (Okay, a long weekend, but still...) As always, I enjoy your posts M.C. Excellent work, and keep those updates coming! I can't help but be inspired by your efforts.

Frank B.

Dorval, Canada

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Thanks, Frank.

So the Great Train Expo is a little over a week away, and, until the Bullfrogs show up, I'm pretty much done with the staging/return loop.
Added a bunch of tufts, some more trees and bushes, finished ballasting the main & cindering the passing sidings (I think I'll leave it like that for visual separation).
The main thing was making two more oaks to fill in the background around the town of Devil Mountain:





Still need to add a few details like people, crates, a bench for the depot, redo the depot sign (too big & it bugs me), scatter some sandy grout, and find a place for the lone "holy freakin' cow".
Maybe build an old wire fence somewhere.
But pretty much done.

Also realized that this staging loop, when broken down, gives me 5 separate dioramas for photo shoots:



Will be easy to take outside on sunny days for some better photos than this one!

Also cut & drilled the plywood endplates that will allow me to "box" corresponding sections with scenery facing in for storage & transportation.
So after today I can box these up and find someplace (?!?) to store them while I go gangbusters on the Effett Yard staging module and hopefully get back to the Shoo-Fly module and get a vineyard and bridge-building scene in there.

Nothing like a show deadline to light a fire under your rear!

And, of course, a video:

watch?v=8za35S VrUM

Sorry about the whacky lighting.
Hope to have better videos at the show next weekend!
Hope to see you there!

Thanks for looking.

[mcfunkeymonkey]

Moocho more details, including peoples:



Under a hot California sun Dudes waiting for the train and a pair struggle to throw up a crate while Hank has no problem throwing up the crate of whiskey he drank at Bub's Saloon:



The lady's from Lucy Furr's Pleasure Parlor are taking a break from the heat inside and looking very lively next to Mr. Krypt's wares on display in front of his store:



[Look like Hanks still heaving]

And looks like the sun's going down but the train has yet to arrive, and passengers & crates just waiting to get out of Devil Mountain:



And waiting, and waiting...

[cont.]