Hi Mark,
Sorry for the slow response. As usual, your progress on the layout is impressive!
Cheers!!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
We haven't heard from you in 28 days. I hope all is well.
Edit: I just watched layout update #45 on YouTube and Mark appears to be just fine.
hon30critterWe haven't heard from you in 28 days.
Made me feel tired just watching the video!!
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
I would like to help you with your reefer shortage. Send me an email. My email is listed in my profile.
Thanks guys! Just been busy with the layout.
Dave, I sent you an email.
6 August 2023
I posted my usual monthly layout update video on 3 August:
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
Thanks for the update Mark. Another well done video.
- Douglas
Thanks, Douglas!
12 August 2023
It's been almost two months since I posted a photo update. Time to catch up!
I continued working on the Greybull area over the past two months, building turnouts and laying track. Here's how the swing gate looked as of June 18th:
By July 10th I had the last of the tracks laid across the gate, and most of the body tracks for the double-ended section of Greybull installed.
On the 16th I was installing turnouts that would lead to the engine facility. All the switch ties (except for the PC board ties) are printed on my resin printer. Much cheaper than buying the plywood ties from Fast Tracks!
By July 28th the first turntable lead was installed and the turntable powered and tested.
On August 1st I was laying the last of Greybull yard - the two stub-ended tracks near the aisleway.
As I was laying track I'd stop periodically and wire in the tracks to that point. The heavy red and green wires the mainline track buss, while the blue and yellow are temporary jumpers to power the staging tracks, which will someday be on their own power district.
I wasn't just working on Greybull during this time - that would make Mark a dull boy! I was also working on the scenery around Rocky Mountain Drilling.
I continued building chain link fencing, and by June 20th the area looked like this:
A couple days later more chain link fencing went in behind Rocky Mountain Drilling. Fencing is done for now, since the scenery to the left of the building needs to be done before I can add that part of the fence.
On July 2nd I shingled the small house that will go behind the fence near the backdrop. Then it sat for a few weeks while I worked on Greybull.
Finally around the middle of July I 3D printed a chimney for the house, installed it and piping vents in the roof, and weathered the house.
I weathered the slightly larger house that has a porch too:
In early August I set the two houses in place and added a picket fence to the brown one. Then I started adding some shrubbery and grass.
Then came a few scrawny trees and a third house. The third house blocks the view of the dirt road colliding with the backdrop.
I've done a bit more with the area, adding more grasses, putting racks of drill pipe in the Rocky Mountain Drilling yard, and weathering the third house rather heavily (owner doesn't maintain the house very well). Still to come are some lights in the brown house (maybe) and lots more stuff in the pipe yard, along with more grasses and weeds generally.
On June 27th I hosted an operating session. Several of the local club members participated, along with Kevin and his wife Mary Kay from Harriman Wyoming (about 140 miles away) and Dave from Basin.
Although Greybull was nowhere near complete at this point, we did run the Burlington locals out of there for the first time. Sure took a load off the Casper yard crew!
Here Kurt, in the far distance, is running his Worland local back to Greybull after completing a meet in Basin with the Thermopolis local, being run by Kevin and Mary Kay.
With Burlington locals now coming out of Greybull (CNW locals still run out of Casper), shortages of both motive power and rolling stock became very apparent. We used every locomotive on the railroad to complete the runs for the day, and some of the Casper industries couldn't even be serviced because there aren't enough cars on the layout to handle everything!
Here's how Casper looked at the end of the session, with the CNW local having brought some loads back from Riverton and Hudson. The train on the mainline track next to the aisleway is the eastbound reefer express, theoretially on the as-yet-unbuilt East Staging tracks. It's much shorter than it should be because there aren't enough reefers!
While I was working on Greybull I also began installing track that will lead to West Staging, under Casper. Here, the last day in June, I'm in the middle of installing the subroadbed for the downgrade under Douglas.
On July 2nd I had track installed and ran a train down it.
Unfortunately, when I tried to run a train up the staging lead, I had a lot of wheel slip. Since this area will be hidden, that was not a good thing at all. I had laid the track to a 2% grade, but my 2-8-2's couldn't haul the required 20-car-plus-waycar train up the hill reliably! I needed to reduce the grade.
The 2% grade was necessary to prive clearance for the track to duck under the higher elevation benchwork at the west end of Douglas. I had to lower the west end Douglas benchwork to reduce the grade on the staging lead. That was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and it took only a couple hours to complete. Here it's all done except for trimming and reattaching the legs.
I reduced the grade from a solid 2% to just over 1.5%, about a 22% decrease. The Mikado's handle the trains just fine now.
Once the grade issue was settled, I extended the subroadbed and track onto the newly-lowered west Douglas benchwork. This is where it's at now. Once I get the Douglas backdrop installed I'll contine the track around the corner and under Casper.
After the operating session I started building more rolling stock to ease the car shortage. Since the operating session I've added 14 "new" cars to the roster, including two boxcars, two tank cars, two stock cars, two flat cars, two hoppers, one gondola and three reefers. More are in the pipeline.
Here's a sampling of the added cars:
I'm also actively looking for more motive power. I picked up a CNW Consolidation at the Evanston WY train show last weekend. But I'm woefully short of Burlington power! It will take a long time, but I need to almost double my Burlington power, plus add two or three more CNW units to the layout.
Finally, I've begun working a bit on Wind River Canyon again the last few days. I've started adding support for the mountain above the turnback curves at the free end of the peninsula.
You have made great progress over the last two months! You make me feel guilty for only spending a couple of hours a day on my train stuff.
Hi again Mark,
Your package is in the mail.
hon30critterHi again Mark, Your package is in the mail. Cheers!! Dave
Good luck with your surgery Friday!!
22 August 2023
I shingled and weathered that third small house for the area behind Rocky Mountain Drilling.
I added some stacks of drill pipe to the pipe yard and put the house in place. The area looked like this as of August 12th:
I need to add a lot more clutter to the yard. With the addition of some lights in the brown house and sparse grasses along the edges of the road and other places, this area is almost done (for now).
After I took the shot above, I added the signs to Rocky Mountain Drilling and weathered the building. It will go back in place in the next day or two.
After I built the structure, I found a few pictures of the real Rocky Mountain Drilling. I modeled the sign after the real one, but beyond that the structure doesn't look a lot like the prototype, I'm afraid. Maybe at some point in the future I'll scratchbuild a closer version of it.
I spent quite a bit of time the last couple of weeks working on fascia install for Wind River Canyon. I built a pretty stout set of supports for the tall fascia at the free end of the peninsula.
Then on the 17th my friend Dave from Basin came down and helped me with several things around the layout. The near corner of the benchwork in the above shot was far too sharp for the Masonite to curve around it without breaking, so we cut the corner off and installed a 45-degree (more or less) bevel in its place.
As it turned out, the benchwork alterations and fascia support frames took up most of the day he was here, except for one other thing I'll mention below.
On the 20th I was finally ready to add the sheets of fascia around the end of the peninsula. Here it's partly installed:
And in these two shots it's finished. It wasn't easy doing this part by myself, but I managed. Later the top will be trimmed unevenly to the profile of the mountain slopes, and the fascia will be painted green to match what you can see at Casper to the left.
The other thing Dave and I did on the 17th was install the backdrop for Douglas, the lower level in this shot. Track level for Douglas will be about the bottom of the right-most part of the backdrop, where you can't see the skyboard at the bottom.
Press Sec. by Bear, on Flickr
Thanks for posting, Bear!
I have slacked off a bit on the photo updates - I've been pretty busy on the layout! But until I'm either dead or seriously incapacitated (or abandon Model Railroading alltogether), videos will appear the third of each month. In five years I've only missed two, and that's because I was moving and in between layouts.
I'll post a photo update in the next day or two.
Another great video Mark. The layout is really shaping up.
And speaking from a selfish viewers point of view, thank you for breaking up the construction into sections...benchwork to scenery all mixed together as a variety of topics for the videos.
Thanks Douglas!
10 September 2023
Last layout photo update I posted was 22 August. I've been doing a lot since then.
I'll start with the Rocky Mountain Drilling area.
I'd weathered the houses and the industry. Then I started messing with lighting. I added a couple LEDs to the brown house (the one with the porch). Best night shot I could get with my cellphone camera (the only still camera I have) is this one:
It left an obvious dead space between RMD and the lit house, so I went back and added LEDs to the white house that faces front. I figured the thick resin walls and exterior paint on the house would stop any light leaks, but boy, was I wrong!
I pulled the house off the layout and painted the inside walls of the roo with the LEDs a dark grey. That pretty much did the trick.
All I needed to do now was balance the intensity of the LEDs a bit. For that I added resistors of varying values to the LED leads. Here's how my LED driver with wiring looks now:
This is attached to an L-girder under Casper. I'll need to move it slightly to make room for the west staging track that will pass under here right at the left side, as it turns out.
After adjusting the brightness of the buildings, here's how it looks. The brown house throws some light onto the backdrop, but in person your eye edits that out, so I probably won't go to the trouble of trying to add baffles to block that.
It looks better in real life than in these photos - a combination of both camera limitations and my meager photography skills.
There was one more thing the area sorely needed, though - some overhead lighting for daytime. The area is tucked under the upper deck curve leading into Hudson, so it sits in shadow. I added an under-counter light to brighten up the area, and a switch (the one on the right below) to the fascia to control it. The switch on the left controls power to the outlets the wall-wart(s) is/will be plugged into for the LED lighting. The switch on the right has been replaced with a dimmer, but I don't have a shot of that.
Here's how the area looks with the light at full brightness. Pretty intense. The dimmer helps with that.Before I took this shot I added some additional grasses in the pipe yard and along the road.
Final shot of the area, finished for now. As time goes on I'll add additional clutter to the pipe yard, and finish the chain link fence around the front of Rocky Mountain Drilling.
I also finally tied in the Cody branch (the track with the helix I installed in December of last year) to the Frannie end of Greybull. Took all of about an hour to do that. I still need to gap the tracks so that the power switch on the swing gate (which is just out of view to the right) will cut power when the gate is open.
The biggest project I've tackled is building up the foam underlayment for Wind River Canyon landscaping. With the fascia all in place around the end of the peninsula I was able to continue that long-stalled project (last work I did on that area was around a year ago).
Here are the first new pieces of pink foam installed above what will be Pink Tunnel (the prototype train crews' name for the real tunnel) on the layout.
I trimmed the foam chunks to roughly fit against the curve of the fascia. The wide pieces you see here are to provide a solid support over the CNW line for the foam that will be stacked above the area.
I also went back and added the missing tunnel, Tunnel 3, a bit farther south in the canyon.
Then it was just a matter of cutting and stacking foam. Here's a few in-progress shots of that task:
Here's where things stand now.
In the next few weeks I'll start carving the new foam and trim the fascia down to its fina height to about halfway around the end of the peninsula. The bulk of the canyon will be ready for plaster cloth, hydrocal and final finishing. That will take a lot of rock castings! The Thermopolis end needs yet more foam added, but I have work left to do at the south end of Thermopolis (like adding a turntable) before I can do that.
Speaking of Thermopolis, over the last few days I've added the backdrop vertical supports to that area. That was a bit more involved than I expected, thanks to some not-so-forward-looking work I'd already done to the benchwork - notabley the track power buss wiring. The green wire in this shot was right where the backdrop supports needed to attach to the joists.
I moved it to the right (in the above shot) a bit and then had room to attach the supports.
The supports will be capped with a horizontal 1X2 for backdrop attachment, so they had to all be the same height. That was pretty easy to do using level as a stop at the top. I also used a ruled along the Thermopolis baseboard to position the supports in a line.
Then it was just a matter of clamping a support into position from under the Wind River Canyon side of the peninsula (had to bend like a pretzel to reach some of these!), get up off the floor and walk around to the Thermopolis side to check how far off of vertical the post was, then go back around, crawl under the benchwork again and make some adjustments, then check again. For soe of those posts I did that four or five times! I walked about two miles back and forth to get all those posts lined up and straight.
All that effort was worth it though - here the supports all installed and ready for the capping 1X2s:
Now I need to drive back to Denver (about 300 miles) to buy some sheets of styrene for the backdrop.
I've also spent some time the last few days extending the subroadbed for West Staging. In the first shot you can also see the dimmer I replaced the switch for the light over Rocky Mountain Drilling with.
Staging is going to be more difficult to install than I was expecting. From this point forward I'll build the subroadbed in the garage and add it in subassemblies. When I get to the yard throats I'll build those completely in the garage, then assemble them in final position under Casper. NOT looking forward to that job!
And as if this update wasn't far too long already, I've also been adding additional rolling stock to the layout. Here's a few samples of the 13 freight cars and waycars I've added.
This is one of the oldest (in prototype years) cars on the layout - A truss-rod boxcar. This is a LaBelle kit built and custom lettered by a guy who was thinning out his collection when I was just lucky enough to be there. Too old for interchange service by my era, this car will be limited to running along the Cowboy Line between Casper and Lander.
Here's a waycar also custom lettered for the Wyoming & North Western (a Chicago & North Western-owned railroad that built the Cowboy Line from Casper to Lander. That railroad was absorbed into the CNW in 1920, but in my world a few pieces of the W&NW equipment were somehow missed and can still be seen running in their original livery). This was done by the same guy that did the boxcar.
Here's an express boxcar from that very same guy. This is an Athearn RTR car I added Kadee sprung trucks and couplers (which I always use), then weathered the car.
And there's this reefer, which is an Accurail car I got, along with about a dozen others, mostly reefers, as a gift from one of the forum members here (I didn't get his permission to say who he is before posting this, so he'll remain anonymous for now). My heartfelt thanks to him for such a generous gesture!
And finally, the guy who was thinning his collection also was getting rid of a bunch of the Walthers Heavyweights passenger cars. The CB&Q passenger cars were the first of the Walthers now-annual name train series. I've been kicking myself for not buying them then ever since.
Now I have the full set - enough to make up two trains for my layout, with the two I already had from buying them on ebay.
The very last thing for now - here's a hobo's-eyes shot of a flatcar being delivered to Rocky Mountain Drilling.
As always, amazing work, Mark! Thanks for posting the progress.
York1 John
Mark: Thank you for posting pictures of your excellent modelling.
Thanks John, Tin Can II!
26 September 2023
The last couple weeks have seen progress and a near disaster.
At the end of the last update I was working on the lead into West Staging. Because of it's location under Casper, it would be very difficult to build the lead in place, so I built it in the open and mounted it later. Here's the final section of subroadbed that leads to the staging yard itself, ready for track. It's late on the 10th of September.
On the 11th I added track, then worked the new section under Casper and mated it to the already-placed section under Douglas.
I had the section sitting on plastic bins for temporary support, but I crawled under Casper and installed the permanent supports a couple days later. I was very careful to set the grade properly on this track, since it will be hard to work on later.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could sit comfortably on a step stool under the layout without being hunched over. It made installing the roadbed supports much easier than I thought it would be.
On the 15th I backed a long train down the entire lead to make sure the trackwork was up to par. The yard, which I'll build in the garage and then move into place in sections, will start just behind the waycar (caboose) to the right of this photo.
If you look close, you can see where the pre-attached feeders are dangling just beyond the second support from the camera. These will be attached to the Staging power buss, which I haven't run under Casper yet. I'll have to do that soon.
With that done, I turned my attention to the Powder River stock pens. It was time to add dirt to the base and finish the scenery in this area.
First I had to fill in the gap between the edge of the base and the fascia. I did this by soaking paper towels with diluted glue and putting them in the gap.
Next I misted the pens with water and sprinkled on the powdered grout, then misted it with some more water. Everything looked real good at this point.
A couple hours later I went back into the train room to see how the pens looked, and got this nasty shock.
The water had twisted and warped the stripwood in the pens a bit, and made the foamcore base curl up drastically! It was significantly worse than it looks in this picture.
This was NOT GOOD! For awhile I was thinking all those hours I spent building the pens had gone completely to waste. I thought I would have to start all over again.
I removed the pens from the layout and set them on the library table to dry out for a couple days. Here you can better see how badly warped everything is, and when I took this shot it had flattened out quite a bit from where it was earlier.
To top it off, at several points the fence posts had come loose from the base and lifted up. You can see that clearly in the fence sections closest to the camera.
I considered lifting the pens off the base (hopefully) in several pieces, and then trying to rebuild them on a new base. But I decided to try putting the entire thing on a new, more solid base first, to see if things would flatten out. What did I have to lose? At worst, I'd have to go back and take it all apart anyway.
I cut a piece of Masonite to the same size as the foamcore base and gave it a couple coats of diluted Modge Podge to seal it. Here the second coat is just starting to dry.
On the 23rd I sprayed the masonite panel with Supper77 adhesive and stuck the foamcore down onto it. I eft it with some weights on it for a couple days.
The pens are still a bit twisted in a few places, but the base is flat again. I deepened the recess in the pink foam on the layout to account for the thicker base and placed the pens in place again. I still need to straighten some fo the fence sections and glue the posts back down, but it looks like it will be usable without a total rebuild after all.
This is where it's at right now.
While I was dealing with the stock pens debacle, I also worked on the pink foam in Wind River Canyon. I started on the 20th by trimming the fascia to rough final shape with a Roto-Zip.
Here's how the canyon looked after the rough trimming.
Then I broke out the hot wire cutter and began shaping all those foam blocks. I started with the newly-added Tunnel 3.
Once that and a few feet of the canyon wall were shaped, I went back with a Surform tool to rough up the foam so plaster cloth will have something to grab on to.
Then I continued right on around the end of the peninsula with the hot wire cutter.
Then the Surform tool again. Sure is making a mess on the track and on the floor!
After vacuuming up all the pink foam chunks and "de-fuzzing" the fascia edge, the canyon now looks like this.
The next step here is to add plaster cloth, then a layer of Hydrocal.
But that will be a few days. Today I started on subroadbed for Douglas. I have an Operating Session scheduled for 24 October, and my goal is to have the mainline complete through Douglas so it can tie into East Staging at Orin.
PruittThe last couple weeks have seen progress and a near disaster.
I'm glad that you were able to save the stock pens!
hon30critterI'm glad that you were able to save the stock pens!
Stock pens by Bear, on Flickr
“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” - Douglas Adams
Thanks Dave, Bear!
I posted my latest layout update video yesterday:
PruittToday I started on subroadbed for Douglas.
Thanks Mark, I've been wanting more....
Another excellent video Mark! I like what you have done with the Virginian car and the reefers.
Thanks Douglas, Dave!
10 October 2023
Yesterday I hit a major milestone.
I completed the Burlington mainline with the installation of the last section of flextrack in Douglas.
That completes a 3-1/3 scale mile squahsed and folded oval around the room. I can be a roundy-rounder now whenever I want!
The continous connection won't be used in operating sessions, and was simply a fallout of the configuration of the routes to the east and west staging yards (which are not yet complete).
Here's the last town on the layout - Douglas. Neither the siding nor the industrial spurs are in yet. Most of the siding will be installed in the next couple days, but I need to build another turnout at the far end of the town on (left side of the photo), and that won't be done before my next operating session on October 24th. For that session I'll use the siding as another track in east staging.
On October 5th I drove from Casper to Englewood, Colorado (in the south end of the Denver metro area) to pick up styrene sheets for more backdrop. I got four sheets, which will do most of the rest of the railroad. I added cap rails to the top of the support posts I installed a few weeks ago in Thermopolis in preparation for installing the styrene.
Hopefully I'll get the styrene installed before the session, but I doubt I'll get it painted.
Absconder by Bear, on Flickr
Pruitt On October 5th I drove from Casper to Englewood, Colorado (in the south end of the Denver metro area) to pick up styrene sheets for more backdrop.
On October 5th I drove from Casper to Englewood, Colorado (in the south end of the Denver metro area) to pick up styrene sheets for more backdrop.
Rich
Alton Junction
Sorry Bear, no golden spike (maybe a plastic one...)
Rich, it sure is! It's almost five hours. I had to go to Loveland for some work on the Tesla, and Englewood is about an hour further. I combined the two tasks into one trip.
13 October 2023
I just posted a video of the firt train to make the trip around the entire layout:
Pruitt Rich, it sure is! It's almost five hours. I had to go to Loveland for some work on the Tesla, and Englewood is about an hour further. I combined the two tasks into one trip. 13 October 2023 I just posted a video of the firt train to make the trip around the entire layout:
It's an astounding amount of work, Mark, but of such great pains and quality. You'll already be quite proud of what you have accomplished. I would be.
Progress by Bear, on Flickr