1 year layout update with pictures and video

[woodlandtoots]

I started my layout one year ago on my birthday, Aug. 17th. It's now a year later and I just turned 60. My daughter and son-in-law and their two children, ages 10 and 6 spent five days with us and we had a ball (however I just now am beginning to recover).

If you have been following my posts over the last year, you know that I chose to model in HO scale, but have an extremely small area to work with. My entire layout is only 29 sq. ft. Some of the curves have a radius as tight as 15".

Here is a overview picture of my layout in an early stage of construction.

 

Since then I became concerned that some of my curves may not be laid carefully enough, and since I spent my money to buy plywood, track and foam, I did not even have a locomotive to test the track.  Thanks to my friend Ken (Cudaken), he loaned me a BL2 locomotive and some cars so I could test my track. I did have to re-lay one curve, and I disconnected the track that will eventually be a reversing loop, and connected the main line all the way around the layout to make one large oval.

Here is a video my daughter shot last week with my grandson "helping" me run my train. Notice Ken the BL2 handles the 15" curves just fine.

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w184/woodlandtoots/?action=view&current=Travisrunningtrain.flv

However, my goal is that this layout will be set in the 1890's and will use steam locomotion, so for my birthday, I was able to get my own steam locomotive. It is a 2-8-0 "Old Timer" labeled "Denver and Rio Grande Western". Very appropriate as my layout setting (very fictional) will be in the mountains and valley's around Denver.

Here is a video of my new locomotive. (Eventually I'll have appropriate era cars also.) However it can still pull about four of Ken's cars.

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w184/woodlandtoots/?action=view&current=MyNewLocomotive.flv

As you can see, it too handles the 15" curves just fine.

Here is a close up view of my new "toy"

And here is a picture of it coming across my scratch built bridge.

 

And another picture of the bridge I scratch built.

Eventually mountains will line all sides of my layout except on the front. And eventually, I will build a "train elevator" inside the mountain at the middle of the back side of my layout. From reponses to a previous post, I determined that in this small layout their was no way that I could gain height by normal inclines or by a helix. And I am determined to have a second level with several trestles, etc., A logging camp, a gold mine, and maybe other things up the side of the mountains.

So I have been working a building a mountain at one end. I also started work on my backdrop and here are some pictures of it in process. I am using 1/4" birch plywood for my backdrop and eventually it will encompasse the entire backside and both ends. The first end is now complete.

Step 1

I sealed the plywood with Latex based "KILZ" from my local home depot. I cut a hole in the backdrop to be able to access the track inside the tunnel that will go through that mountain.

Step 2

Here I first painted the sky blending the blue with the with white to get the effect. Then I painted the mountains on. (I am not an artist-This was my first attempt at painting anything like this. I give a lot of credit to all of you on this forum who have made many suggestions to various people on how to paint backdrops--I listened and this was the result.)

Step 3

Here I am painting the forest. That was much harder that the mountains. Eventually I will be making trees to plant on the mountain side and hopefully they will blend with the backdrop.

Step 4

 

Here is the finished backdrop installed. I have started painting the foam mountain, but have much work to do on it. You can see more progress on it by looking at the videos I posted above. I still have a lot more work on the final color, but I'm getting there.

By the way, I had to let my two grandkids "help" me build my layout, so here are a couple of shots of them "painting the inside of my tunnel black". You should have seen the look on my wife's face and my daughter's face when I told them I was going to turn them loose on my train layout with BLACK paint.  They did a fantastic job, and they were so proud. So was I.

I think the best part of all is that I got to share my excitement with my grand kids. I have 5 more and I hope they will all get to operate my layout this christmas.

Well that pretty much shows one year's progress. My next goal is to complete the two reversing loops by Christmas, and that means doing some real wiring, instead of the very temporary wiring so far.

Hope this has been worth your time to read. 

Woodlandtoots 

 

 

 

[Canondale61]

A true family project. Fun to watch kids create their own world. Nice job.

Kevin

[AltoonaRailroader]

Wonderful post, thanks for sharing. I hope to be able to show my new project soon too.

[PB&J RR]

Looks like your railroad is coming along nicely.. I or we actually, wife and kids (three girls) included are building our Penneburgh, Briarwood, and Jameson, though not nearly as far along as you are.

I only have 4x8 to work with, so I can appreciate the idea of space as a premium.

I am a writer by nature and I had the idea of doing the railroad as a centerpiece for a family project book, so we are taking lots of photos and our old vhs camcorder runs almost constantly, may be time for an upgrade there, but the children like to use the VHS so I let them...

At some point I will share some progress photos, but its time to go to work...

[Medina1128]

GOOD JOB! Especially getting your grandson involved. You two look like you're having a great time together. The layout will result in lots of bonding time with 'papaw' and leave him with many memories of you and trains. "Me and my grandpa built a model railroad layout together...." And he's well on his way to building his own someday, too! Congrats!

[simon1966]

Toots, this is what it is all about.  The photos and the video of the kids getting involved are priceless and IMO what makes this such a special hobby.  You have made a fantastic amount of progress during this past year.  You should be very proud of what you have achieved.  I can't say that I have come close to you in progress over the summer.  It just seems to have vanished into a haze of kids baseball and soccer practices.  Now I am getting back into the fall modelling spirit, we should plan our previously talked about get together with Cuda.

Happy birthday as well

[ARTHILL]

Great, GREAT GGRREEAATT!! I got started at age 70 so you have a 10 year head start. I agree that my grandkids are part of the joy. Thanks for sharing. Good luck on all the new things that emerge.

[railroadinmedic]

Very nice layout, if I may say so, my 15 yo thinks its a joke, but my 4 yo, now he CAN'T wait to start playing with Daddy's trains! LOL...enjoy the time with the kids playing, as we all know, they don't stay YOUNG for long! LOL