Good morning, Joe. Coffee, please.
Congrats on 9000, MrB. We went with code 83 on our layout. Sounds like you have been doing some serious planning. Are you using track planning software?
I have been under the weather since Labor Day, and I am just feeling a little human again. Mostly thinking about the layout. I have been too lazy to pick up the camera to do posts.
Chuck, That does sound like perfect weather. It was wild that we had a stretch of 100+ degree weather. I did not know that only 30% of the people in the Pacific Northwest have air conditioning. I suspect that might go up some.
Later, Sue
Anything is possible if you do not know what you are talking about.
Finally, progress photos.
With some forced perspective.
Sue
WOW! Very cool bridge, Sue!!
I'm harvesting goldenrod blossums for more trees. Looks like a bumper crop this year!
Terry
Terry in NW Wisconsin
Queenbogey715 is my Youtube channel
Sue and Larry, what a fine trestle. It looks like raw lumber. I can almost smell the sap running out of the long poles.
Terry, is that goldenrod? Makes my eyes red just thinkin' about it.
Here is the track plan for the extension. The new part is at the top, the long, thin section. It will be 19 feet long by 30 inches wide, with a balloon out to 54 inches wide at the left end. At the far right, there will be a car float. I haven't got all the tracks connected, obviously, but they will be on the layout. The existing layout is only partially filled in, just enough to show the connecting tracks and get them positioned properly.
It started out as staging, and that's still there in the 4 long parallel tracks. Then I added the loop to give me a much longer continuous run, and the passing siding. I spaced it so that it is "opposite" the passing siding on the existing layout, so I can run a pair of trains in opposite directions and have meets on every loop. I put in a crossover, too, to give me another reverse loop. It's also opposite the loop on the existing layout, so I can always reverse a train at one or the other, depending on which direction it's headed, without having to back through the loop.
The car float will provide a lot of switching. I plan a few industries, too, but I'll probably wait until I start laying track before making the final call on where the sidings will go.
I'm going to do this section in Code 83, vs. the Code 100 on my present layout.
Any criticisms or suggestions would be welcome.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I am still at the top of page, so I buy, Joe. That is if anyone comes it join me. An Irish coffee sounds like a great nightcap.
Terry, We had a great fall for harvesting tree material until 3 weeks ago. When the rain starts, everything turns to mush.
MrB, I am studying your layout plans. Do you still plan to use it for staging? Or will it be a working yard. It is always fun to place industries. All the more reason for an operating session. You will like code 83.
It’s been a LONG while….
I have been way busy and then to top off matters with frustration: For what ever reason, I have again had trouble logging on!
Larry & Sue: Nice work!!
Mr. B: The plan looks like it will be a nice addition.
I have been doing nothing in the Trainroom, but have been REAL busy harvesting (cleaning up after the logging operation) fire wood, improving and building new trails.
But…Today is WAY wet, tomorrow is forecast for snow…And I’m heading for the RR for a bit today before work.
Terry: I have Golden Rod growing here too! Haven’t tried making trees out of it though. What is your method and how do they turn out?
No problem!
Looks like this when harvested. It oughta be ready up there about now.
Trim it into a tree shape:
Load it with green paint of your choice and roll/sprinkle on ground foam.I use a mix of foam and dyed sawdust.
There ya go!
gear-jammerMrB, I am studying your layout plans. Do you still plan to use it for staging? Or will it be a working yard. It is always fun to place industries.
Right now, it will be staging, but I could see how it might evolve into a working yard. My current layout is primarily a simple loop with 1 passing siding, as far as "mainline" trackage goes. This lets me run one train around while doing some switching. If I want to add a second train and keep the other on the siding, I can do that, but it blocks some of the industries. With a second passing siding, I will be able to use the parallel tracks as either staging or a yard, I suppose. I don't plan to hide the tracks, and the area will have scenery, so I guess I can decide when I get up each morning whether it will be staging or yard.
Well, off to hockey for me. Hopefully, we'll get a better turnout now that the Red Sox have settled down for their long winter's nap.
Howdy, Joe. I'll have a Strumpet - I'm feeling adventurous.
Sue, that is one fine looking trestle. Rather reminds me of photos I've seen of the West Side Lumber Company's more serious bridges.
(Just to show how different Japan was, on the Kiso Forest Railway a bridge that size would have been a steel viaduct. Wood trestles would have been much lower, and built out of whatever slash wasn't worth sending down the line to the mill...)
Mister Beasley, when it comes to open-air staging, didn't Dave Barrow have such a yard? I seem to recall that he had a tower at one end labeled West Mesa. The one at the other end was East Hill. According to the employee timetable those two names were on opposite ends of the division...
After a long period of virtual inactivity, wheels are once again rolling in the netherworld. I still can't stand up very long, but at least the temperature in the garage is down from its summertime high. Next on the priority list is to finish the benchwork to the approximate center of the garage door and get enough of the netherworld built in that area that I'll be able to finally surface at the Nichigeki Tunnels, just down from the crossing of the Harukawa. (Very, "Just down from" - the bridge abutments are about two scale meters out from the tunnel portals.)
Time to take care of some business. See ya,
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Hi there. Been a long while since I popped in here. I see lots of familiar faces. I'll take a Bud Lite and be on my way.
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
Hi All !!!! Is this what has replaced the old diner??? If it is I just sit and listen, but I remember Sue and the train room burned down just after Christmass and mother-in-law also; and Kathy did the same on columbus day this year. What was left was salavged and brought into garage and is growing again. Chuck aka sunset beach.
Good morning, Joe. I will have coffee to start.
JB, Do you cut most of your firewood on your place? I assume that because you are making trails.
Terry, Thanks for the tutorial. Your forest looks natural. Great photo.
MrB, Are you working on the benchwork yet? It would be great to get most of the track down and wired during the holidays.
Chuck, Are you still having 80 degree weather? One of my friends is down there this week. When do we get to see photos of Japan RR?
Jeffrey, Thanks for stopping by. We are not as active as the diner.
Chuck & Kathy, No fire here. That must have been Rob that you were thinking about. Sorry about your loss. The garage might be a larger space. Is it heated for the damp winters?
Ah, lunchtime. I'll have the steak tips salad with the pumpkin vinagrette dressing, and a big glass of water. Trying to lose a bit of weight without suffering too much. Thanks.
I plan to pick up the lumber for the benchwork on Saturday. Penny and I have to swap cars, because she's got the big white van, which the kids call "The Whale," and I've got my little Saturn. Fine for anything I'd buy at the LHS, but not much when it comes to loading lumber and foam. The forecast is kind of dismal for the weekend, which will let me get started on benchwork rather than doing landscape timber replacement in the out-of-doors. We don't know when ski season will start yet, but if anyone saw the Patriots game on Sunday, you saw the freaky October snow last weekend. With luck, I'll be putting down the foam base in a couple of weeks, with track to follow.
MrB, You have lunch, but it is barely breakfast on this side of the world. Half of the effort is organizing your materials. The inventory on the turnouts and track can be mind boggling. Which support system have you decided on?
Ah, yes, the joys of time zones. Lunch is long gone for us already, but I'll take a virtual Sam Oktoberfest, Joe. Thanks.
I'll be building free-standing table benchwork for this one, too, but I won't have wheels on it like the original section. I decided that the small saving in wood I'd get by attaching it to the wall would be more than offset by the complications of doing that. I'll build it in 3 sections, so I can build it in the garage and carry it upstairs to the trainroom easily, and move it again if I ever have to.
Yes, I need to think about turnouts. I think I'll try a couple of Tortoises this time, just to get the experience of installing and using them. For economy, I'll probably go with Atlas in the staging ladder, since I need something like snap switches to fit in that space anyway. The diagram doesn't show it, but there will be some underground staging for the subways, too. That's going to require some sensing and indicators, which should be another fun learning experience.
Time zones….
I’m off to work in just a few minutes. I’m wishing for a “time zone” where I don’t have to go to work!! Maybe some day!
Terry: Thanks for the pictorial. That really looks great! I’ve wanted to do the same type of thing with Tansy, Queen Ann’s Lace and a few others that grow around here….But haven’t gotten there yet. Hope to try the experiment very soon and will post the results.
Sue: YES! Most all my fire/fuel wood is harvested here. We have a “60” with about another 300 plus of county land around us. I maintain the ski trails on that land to, so I also harvest a lot of dead falls from across those trails.
Thanks for the kudos on the trees,guys. They are reaaaalllly easy to make. Not scenic express, but also not $10 a pop either!
My wife is allergic to goldenrod. I've gotta make them in the garage, but if you wait till they go to seed and get all fluffy it's not bad,her words.You can make easily 100 in about an hour. We have a lot of white birch here( the area I model). To make them, I rattle can the trunks flat white, dab it with a black sharpie and you're done.I've planted a TON of them in the last week. I'll try to post pics so you can see what they look like on the layout.Like I said, alone they are so-so, but planted ? Pretty good:
yes Sue the garage is heated with a big 300 gallonboiler that heats all 2000 sq ft of the house, and I deiceded to borroy a plan from Ian Rice that has both a small waterfront and axcess to a lumber operation all on a 4 by 8 with a small ext.to the woods. I didn't loose all the brass or metal parts but I'm having a lot of work cleaning these up. chuck
Good afternoon. It is a little early for spirits here so I will have coffee, Joe.
JB, You will like burning birch. We have found that it burns slowly because of the density. Do you cross-country ski then? That would be cool to not drive to enjoy the sport.
Chuck, Sounds like you are toasty in the garage. That surely helps progress.
Hey, welcome back, everyone. Strumpets all around, for the thirsty and brave.
With fall in the air here in New England, the modelling itch has returned. I'll be picking up wood over the weekend, and hope to be laying track by Thanksgiving. First will be some staging for the subways, not shown on the diagram, but a small effort. I'm thinking of a bit of PVC pipe to use as a tunnel for the approach to the staging, just to have a round bored tunnel section. I don't need to scenic the subway tunnel staging, but, well, I know in my heart I will.
Hmmm. We have a quandry, a dilemma, a puzzle to be solved. In the small confines of the Beer Barn, we now have two "Chuck"'s. What to do? At college, we named our second Gary "Gary Prime," and to this day we call him Prime.
Not sure who has done more trees - Terry, or JB. Certainly, the 1:1 trees are more work.
Irish coffee, please. It is 5:00 somewhere.
Yes, MrB, names can be confusing. Chuck from Oregon can be Chuck and Kathy. I think that their original layout was logging if I remember correctly. They invited us to one of their local events.
And the other question is real trees or layout trees for Terry and JB.
My addition will probably have very few trees. It's going to be mostly industrial. I want to get the look of a waterfront with warehouses and cobblestone streets, with the tracks running through the cobbles. Mostly brick structures, including seedy bars and such. In keeping with the rest of the layout, the scenes need to be acceptable for the 1930s or 1960s, depending on which autos, trucks and trains I put down.
I was born in Brooklyn, NY, and that sort of tight, confined urban railroading is in my blood, I guess. Even now, when I ride a train, I'm fascinated by the backs of buildings, dumps and fences I see next to the tracks. Amber waves of grain and purple mountains' majesty is nice, but I'm just more accustomed to dirty bricks and old tires, I guess. Anyway, those are the rail scenes I want to duplicate.
A good weekend evening to all. Strumpet Oktoberfest for the daring, Joe.
A trip to the Depot. No, not the railroad kind of depot, the Home kind. The place where you buy lumber and foam for benchwork. The materials are on hand in my garage now, and soon the smell of sawdust and the sound of power tools will creep into the basement. I took the advice of some of the folks on the Layouts forum, and found a few sheets of banged-up foam. Not much damage, really, but they gave me $4 off per sheet. Every little bit helps.
I did my lumber shopping while wife Penny hit the mall, and then we met up again for a fine Mexican dinner at a nice little restaurant just north of the border (the New Hampshire border.) Delicious beef chimichangas for me. They don't serve Strumpet, but Sam Oktoberfest and Harpoon IPA on tap are quite acceptable.
Greetings to Beer Barn patrons. I think it's been a long time since I've stopped in.
Mr. B..... Believe it or not you can now sell Stumpets in our little county in western KY. It has been a dry county until a vote a month ago to end prohibition. Nothing like keeping up with the times!
One of my good model railroad frineds was on the committee trying to get the measure passed. Cheers to him.
Happy model railroading
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
Good evening, Joe. Strumpets soonds just great.
MrB is putting the materials together for his next batch of benchwork. I am looking forward to the progress.
Good to see you here, Garry. You are always welcome. Everyone else should be checking in shortly.
I'll take a Strumpet..Thanks!
Got the trainroom cleaned up and I'm ready to tie the upper level to the upper staging. It has ben a long time coming!
colvinbackshop Got the trainroom cleaned up and I'm ready to tie the upper level to the upper staging. It has ben a long time coming!
Can't wait. Keep us posted.
'Evening, everybody. Just stopped by to share a chuckle.
Just read the Wikipedia article on Franco Crosti boilers. One locomotive so equipped was a Belgian tribute to Rube Goldberg, with three sections hinged together and two boilers joined at the hip (fireboxes, actually.) The wheel arrangement was 0-6-2+2-4-2-4-2+2-6-0 and, with two firemen shoveling, it developed a whopping 3000 hp, or 300 hp per driving axle.
According to the genius who wrote the article, that was, "One of the most powerful articulated locomotives."
Say WHAT!!! An Allegheny, or a N&W A, could develop that much horsepower in either engine. Any of the sixteen-drivered articulateds, compound or simple, could have dragged it away with its drivers spinning futilely in the opposite direction. The USRA heavy Mike, a close contemporary, probably developed more horsepower - with 4/10ths as many drivers and one less crewmember.
Guess why, when somebody on here quotes Wikipedia, I always go looking for a second, better-informed opinion.
(And on that note I'll quietly sneak away.)
Hello everyone,I will take a large Strumpets.Getting ready for the big move(downsizing).I will be taking a sawzall to the layout saturday.Gonna have to deal with a smaller basement,Oh the humanity........
I've used this line before, but it's more appropriate now, Joe. "Jesus was a carpenter. Maybe that's why I use his name so much when I'm doing benchwork."
Not so bad, really, at least so far. I kind of like the smell of sawdust. It has a "new" feeling associated with it. I've got the basic 4-sided box cut and partially assembled for the first section of The Expansion. It's the tricky part, with the connection to the existing layout. I had to design the part where the new subway staging comes in this morning. The rest is straightforward box frame, but for this part I had to worry about the lower level.
A round of Strumpets for the gang. It felt good to go to the LHS and buy track again. Today's purchase was the last of the code 100, for the subways, but the next stuff I buy will be code 83. Time to turn over a new leaf.