Good grief, Charlie Brown, where is everybody?
Just posted a heads-up about a possible probable MR Mag subscription scam. Be on the lookout for anything originating with an outfit called National Magazine Services.
At the moment I have a forlorn little memory of a layout past sitting next to my keyboard. It's a 5 x 7 black plastic 'project box,' once a control panel for the (approximately) 2 x 7 shelf that provided a destination for the trains leaving my 'end of the railroad' module, then bearing the name of the serious former girlfriend who introduced me to my wife. Small as it is, it had a fully-labeled track diagram (10 turnouts, 3 master blocks and a regular MZL power selector (rotary) switch. The rotary switch, several pushbuttons, four DPDT mini-slide switches and sixteen stud, nut and washer terminals have been removed, but the track schematic (seven spurs and a double-track passing siding) remains - including the station name, Castro.
Why Castro, on an unapologetically Japanese prototype model railroad?
It was a Fidel yard...
See ya (over his shoulder as he runs for cover)
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with several fiddle cassettes)
Coffee and a sugar-free donut for me, Joe. Thanks...
Mister B, I've had good results using miniature D connectors to attach wiring (including train propulsion and twin-coil switch machine power) to my removable yard throats. They are relatively inexpensive (especially when priced on a cents per wire basis,) hold well and can have their anchor screws engaged for a really permanent - but readily separable - connection. Cutting up computer cables can get $$$, but soldering discrete wires to D connectors is reasonably straightforward and not overly time consuming.
Why sugar-free? My doctor finally discovered the underlying problem behind a lot of my health issues. If you guessed type 2 diabetes, you got it in one. That's my reward for helping out with that Ranch Hand C-123 that landed in (base name deleted) reeking of Agent Orange.
Speaking of which, I'm off to see the local VA clinic. Seems there's a program to help people in my condition...
See ya.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
SWMBO? Well, a beer for you too, Mr. Rumpole.
Of course, the wheel in question is brass. Perhaps this is the impetus I need to work on a long-overdue project, improving the wiring to 2 of my liftoffs by adding plug connectors. They are the two "downtown" sections. One forms the roof of the Penny Lane subway station, so it's got subway station lighting in addition to the the separate structure and streetlight bus lines, and the special-purpose line for the neon-like Pizza signs. The other's got buildings, streetlights, a different line for the flashing HOTEL sign, and a whole bunch of wires for the traffic lights.
But, I've got a mess of track to lay first. So many projects, so little time....
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Lunch time, Joe. I'll have a Singha.
Mister Beasley, some day when man has vanished from the pink foam earth, some alien will beam down from his flying saucer, note an anomaly on his artifact detector, point his selective tractor at the Moose Bay Subway's long-abandoned tunnel and extract a funny-looking disc with a flange and a stub axle. It will probably confuse the ??? out of yx.
I did mention that I sometimes amuse myself by writing science fiction, didn't I. Incidentally, YX is an all-purpose pronoun used when the writer is unsure of sex, or the critter has hermaphroditic or 'third sex' attributes. (Sexless critters are 'it.')
Of course, the wheel would have to be non-ferrous. It would be too simple if a magnet could attract it out of its lair...
Somewhere in my layout space there is a shouldered screw that once held a Kadee #6 coupler to the underside of a four-wheeled gon. It, too, is non-ferrous - and it, too, has vanished from the ken of man. Even careful examination of the contents of the Shop-Vac have failed to reveal it - but I did recover quite a few spikes, several rail joiners and some other useful odd ends.
I've temporarily paused in my electrical work to attack the next bit of trackwork with something short of great gusto. It's the UP entrance to hidden passenger staging - four equal-radius curves that form a 90 degree scissors crossover (yes, there is a diamond crossing with both routes through it curved...) Only one of the turnouts will be powered, the others being spring switches. Of course, that one powered switch will be at the one place where getting at it for maintenance will be a bear - which is why I will be building it on a small drop-out section.
SWMBO has decreed an expedition to the local AFB, to deal with various items of business, and she wants to leave NOW. See ya.
Evening, all. I'll have a Strumpet IPA, if you please, Joe. As they say, nothing goes down like a Strumpet.
I made a lot of progress yesterday. I cleaned off the clutter from the benchwork, and did some foam cutting to extend the base all the way to the far wall. Then I cut the roadbed sheets to fit. I've been using WS foam roadbed all along, and since I'm doing a long staging yard, it made sense to use the foam sheets for this as well. By the end of the day, I had the Hudson chuffing down to the end of the line, to boldly go where no train has gone before, through the staging yard ladder at the end and everything. As I played, I ran some other trains. And then, the proverbial wheels came off the proverbial bus.
OK, it wasn't a bus, it was a trolley, and it was only one wheel. I had my old Bowser PCC car looping down in the subways when I heard a clunk and the short indicator shut down the system. I lifted up a lift-off cover, and there was the trolley with its rear end skewed off the side of the track, in a place were derailments were uncommon unless I forget to set the turnout correctly. It was pretty easy to see that there was a wheel missing when I lifted up the trolley. Not a big deal, since these are metal wheels which push into a plastic tube axle. So, easy to fix, right? Well, if you can find the parts...
This was last night, and I can't locate the wheel. I've pulled all 7 liftoff sections, including one which has been in place for years, and I can't find the wheel. I powered up the train-cam and ran it through the tunnels. Nothing. This loop is 20, maybe 25 linear feet of track. And I've lost a wheel as if it had been teleported across the 5th dimension. Where is Buckaroo Banzai now that we really need him?
Hey, Joe, just coffee this morning.
Chuck, I am glad to hear that someone is getting 80 degree weather. We have to settle for the low 60's. If it is not raining, I guess that we consider that nice. Sounds like you are really going to town. How soon until you are up and running. When we switched to DCC, it seemed to make more sense to me. Have fun.
Sue
Anything is possible if you do not know what you are talking about.
'Evening, Sue. Joe, a Kirin for me and a refill for anyone needful.
Well, spring has sprung. The daily highs have been going up and down like a yo-yo, nudging 80 one day, barely touching 60 the next. Makes for some interesting working conditions.
Permanent installations continue. Today it was what will become the main 120VAC feed to the entire layout - a GFI outlet, the master switch for all rail and accessory power and the first of what will probably be a dozen or more special purpose outlets. Still to come is the, "Kill all power to the rails," circuit - I did buy the box it will be built in. That switch and reset will go at the site of the CTC board, at the opposite end of the north peninsula from the main power switch. For fairly obvious reasons, the main switch is close to the entrance door.
Working with #14 and #12 wire on the main power system (and the common rail and common switch machine return busses) is a lot different from running #22 and #24 communications wire. #24 is fine for indicator lamp circuits, #22 is my standard for relatively short rail and switch machine feeders. DCC might not be happy with them, but I'm still running analog DC.
Mister B, I don't envy you your sloping ceiling. Had one in a semi-finished attic room I used for a while in Tennessee. Only time I got into the habit of wearing a hard hat to work on a layout.
Well, tomorrow will get here whether or not I'm ready for it, so I guess I'll toddle off to bed. See ya...
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - if I ever get out of the netherworld)
Joe, I will have a Strumpets. We will see who shows up this evening.
MrB, I know too well about the areas that you will never reach again. Can't wait to see your yards full of junk. Your cluttered areas always look great.
Thanks to you, we are working on interiors for some of the buildings in our town. We purchased some lighting kits from Ngineering. Larry is working on the Standard Gas Station. We decided to make our buildings before doing the actual placement. Goals change as you proceed.
Have begun working on the 10-inch-wide extension down the left side of my layout that will be yard-staging on the north end and a switching/industrial area ending in a car float on the south end. Building benchwork is an enjoyable activity for me - very rewarding to do it right.
Tonight, two trains sleep on the staging tracks. The track isn't complete by any means - it's resting on bare pink foam without roadbed or ballast, but a freight and a passenger train chugged down there on their own. The Hudson took a test run, too, with no problems.
I was pretty happy yesterday afternoon. I'd done enough work for the day, but I have to consider scenery, even now, because there's one critical section with more reach than I'll be able to muster once things are glued down, so I have to deal with what's beyond the tracks. It's butting up against a 45-degree roof wall, too, but with a bit of inspiration I'll be building a set of small back yards, some fenced in, some full of junk cars, and some low buildings. I think it's the right approach to deal with that awkward space, and it won't be too difficult to put in prior to that final commitment to glue the section down and move on. Besides, I love doing scenery.
It's been comfortably warm here in New England. It looks like the danger of frost has passed us by for the season. We hung up our skis, and I'm looking at the bikers riding by and thinking about squeezing my fat behind into lycra shorts once again. There's still some yardwork to do, but not much, so I hope to keep making rapid progress on Phase 2. Sorry, benchwork and foam make poor subjects for photos, but I'll be snapping shots of those run-down fences up against the rails as soon as they're in place.
Good morning, Joe. I will have coffee please.
Chuck, Glad to hear that you are getting layout time. I opened a free account with photobucket.com for posting photos. You just download you photo to photobucket and enter the long photoname into the post.
JB, We all have been here less. I usually have one week a month that I am lucky to get the computer turned on. Today if it quits misting, I plan to limb some downed trees. It is time to start on the firewood for next year. We will probably burn until May.
I am expecting an order from Walthers. I ordered some buildings for the town of Shelton. Larry started on the gas station this weekend. My current project is a scratch fence along the plywood lip by the window.
Later, Sue
'Evening everybody. Hope all of you had Easters as happy as mine.
Love the scene, Sue. I gather that the fisherman is waiting for the tide to come in. Funny thing about logging lines and bridges. In North America, the 'standard' was wood (The monster trestle on the Cowlitz, Chehalis and Cascade comes to mind.) In Japan, my favorite logger went in for steel bridges on masonry foundations - the wood was too valuable to use for trestles!
Mister Beasley, are you planning to photograph South Ferry before the roof goes on? My curiosity is aroused. There's still plenty of snow on Mount Charleston, and our local ski/snowboard park is still open. I've been up there in August, but not when there was white stuff on the ground. My time in South Dakota cured me of any fascination I might have had with snow!
Well, I got all the switch machine wiring connected and ops checked. Just one little glitch. I had mis-labeled two terminals inside the panel, then wired them accordingly. Correction required me to remove three nuts and four washers, turn two diodes end for end and reinstall. Total fix time, five minutes minus (part of it spent rounding up the necessary sockets and ratchet wrench - I am not the neatest worker!) Now all's working fine.
I've progressed to the point where I can e-mail photos! Anyone who sends me an E-mail address will receive the rather meager documentation I've shot so far. I did photograph the Mikasa yard throat top and bottom before I reinstalled it on the layout.
Speaking of that reinstallation, horizontal alignment was near perfect (had to tweak a couple of rail ends that had gotten bumped - they overhang the edges.) Vertical alignment was less so. I had also misjudged the clearance needed for the D-plug that connects 25 wires at one shot - it was fouled by the riser that needed to be dropped, so I did the Westcott L-girder thing. Removed four screws, shifted the riser, clamped it to the joist, inserted screws in the top flanges to hold the subgrade. Then I applied my leveling tool - 18 inches of 75# rail - and drilled two new screwholes with the steel stud screws. Vertical alignment is now perfect.
My wife wants me to talk to our granddaughter on the phone. See ya.
Hey, MrB. Skiing at 70 degrees and shirt sleeves. I remember the days. We are still getting 1-2 feet of snow daily. I can't say if it is decent to ski on, and I am sure that it is not shirt sleeves.
I am looking forward to the subway progress. We only got fascia on the section with the riverbed, but soon.
OK, twist my arm. I'll take you up on that beer, Chuck. I'm off the mountain for the day, and probably the season. My legs said enough about the time that the snow got very heavy, so I skied back to the hotel, racked my skis and called it a season. Unless, of course, the weather changes drastically and we get some more snow. But, I'm skiing in a light shirt, no parka, goggles or gloves today, with temperatures in the 70s, so a turnaround this late in the year seems unlikely.
Nothing new on the railroad front, but I'm making plans to swap my little car for the van for a day to pick up a sheet of masonite. That will be the "roof" over the subway, but a lot of it will become the long-delayed fascia. Sue's picture is the latest reminder that my layout has been without fascia for over 5 years now, and would certainly look nicer with it.
And speaking of that scene, Sue, it's one to be proud of. Logging is such great sub-culture of the model railroad world. It's nice to see it being done so well. Keep up the photos, please.
Thanks, Garry. I know that I have not been here as often as in the past. We have been doing some serious layout time. Doing the Bragdon demo made us take off again.
G, Joe serves whatever you wish. I had coffee earlier 8:30 am. Anything to keep him in business.
Thought I might stop in here and support this business maybe- as I don't drink beer.
I might could be persuaded to have a glass of blush or white Zinfandel wine, though. DO they serve that here????
I'll be tehre is not one pie here to be thrown as in the diner!
HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
Happy Easter, everyone.
I like Larry's trestle, Sue...... and the scenery ....... and the logging train ! ... Great photo!
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
If we are not careful, Joe will go out of business due to lack of customers. It is still early so I will just have coffee.
Here is a post of Larry's trestle. Now that the fascia is painted, I filled in the ground goop, grassed it and we put in a few trees. Note the fisherman on the rock.
Good morning, everyone. Coffee again. Wednesday mornings come too early for me after hockey on Tuesday nights.
Chuck, you really need to get a camera so we can see some of this work. I always start out trying to be neat and orderly about my wiring, but it ends up a rat's nest anyway. I need inspiration.
Sorry to hear about old Mister Weller. I picked up a variable-heat pencil iron a couple of years ago. It doesn't have much power, but it's enough for anything I do on the layout, and the low heat setting is much better for soldering decoders and other board work.
The subway station/staging is done and ballasted. Next, it's time to mount the foam on either side, and bridge across the tracks with a strip of fiberboard. That's got to be a permanent installation, because there will be several tracks crossing it at odd angles. The station will still be open from one side by crawling beneath the layout. I've got an old video camcorder with a broken tape mechanism, so I think I'll mount that under the layout to monitor the station. I've also got a set of reed switches in the station to pick up the presence of the subway trains.
Howdy, Joe. Asahis all around, and keep the change.
Glad to hear that your wife is recovering, Mister Beasley. My own experience with broken bones is forty-seven years old - and still evokes unpleasant memories.
I have to mourn the passing of an old friend, my notorious 325 watt Weller hand cannon. I had just used it to solder a series of connections to a switch machine and set it aside while I prepared the next four wires for their appointment with heat and 60/40. A few seconds later I smelled burning insulation. Then the breaker on the power strip snapped open. Smoke was pouring out of the gun's casing. A sticking trigger switch was determined to be the cause. RIP.
So, after a quick trip to the local retail outlets, I now have the old cannon's little sister, 255 watts and 40-something years newer. All's once again right with the world. Of course, the first thing I did with the new weapon was solder those four wires...
Actually, that was the last set of connections involved in the final permanent wiring of my Mikasa yard throat. The old control panel (made out of a small cardboard box!) is now history, and tomorrow I'll hook up the permanent wiring harness to the new Nonomura panel - also intended to be permanent.
As for the Sumo tournament, Baruto (the Estonian) ended up 14 - 1. The only opponent he didn't defeat was the Mongolian Yokozuna, Hakuho. Nobody defeated Hakuho, who won the tournament 15 - 0. Baruto won all the other prizes awarded, and today he was officially promoted to Ozeki. Should be an interesting tournament in May...
If I don't see you before Sunday, have a Happy Easter. See ya,
Coffee for me, Joe. Monday mourning, although I must say the weekend was a good one.
First of all, Penny is driving again, and she went for groceries yesterday. That's one job that I've had to handle myself for the last few weeks, so we can get back to sharing it now. She's a lot more comfortable now, too. Now that she's off the heavy-duty painkillers, she's back to enjoying her food again (tacos last night) and she's mostly independent, although odd things like tying her shoes are still a problem.
It's been a good few days for the trains as well. I got the South Ferry station pretty much done. I've still got to ballast the track, but that's the last step for a while. Then, I can cover it over and lay the track above, finally putting some rails down for the layout extension.
Chuck, your experience with opening the magazine to find exactly what you'd been looking for is familiar. I'm planning a car float terminal, and a few months back MR did a series on modelling a pier and the water around it. All of these articles are filled with good pictures, which in turn give me ideas. I thought I was going to put the plans on hold for a while, because Walthers "retired" the car float kit, and nobody seemed to have them. Just on a hunch, though, I checked Trainworld and found one, 25% off MSRP to boot. So, there's yet another unbuilt kit in my basement workroom.
Asahi for me, Joe, and top off anyone who wants to.
Sometimes you get lucky! One scene which has been stuck in my memory for 45-plus years was a loading site on the Kiso Forest Railway where logs high-lined down from the other side of the valley were loaded on semi-disconnects for the trip to the mill. I had seen it from a moving train, and by the time I got the camera-bearer's attention it was too late.
So today I got my April issue of Tetsudo Mokei Shumi. Instead of an April Fool joke in dubious taste, on pages 86 and 87 I found eight photos and a ground plan for exactly the kind of loadout I remembered! Included were the winch shack for the high line, the temporary siding laid on slash timber with the bark still on, the high-line landing platform made of stacked logs - all things that I remembered, in detail that I had never had a chance to gather.
So, some day when construction reaches that stage, I won't have to rely on mental pictures. I will be able to reference the prototype. Of course, I'll have to scratch build everything, but that was what I expected to do anyway.
Well, now I have to break off and watch Sumo. If that big Estonian can win one more bout he'll be guaranteed promotion to Ozeki (champion) Tonight he has to deal with the Bulgarian who's already Ozeki. Waiting in the wings is the Mongolian Yokozuna...
Hey! Isn't Sumo supposed to be a Japanese sport?
And on that note, I'm outta here. See ya.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964.)
***Sue, look forward to seeing some pics of your latest layout work. The Snoqualmie River brings back a few memories from years of dragging my raft all over WA for white water rafting trips. Beautiful area with plenty of RRing history to be recreating.
Cheers! Rob
It is a little early here, but you know it is 5:00 somewhere. I will have coffee for now. After we workout I will be in for one.
I am working on a section of a wye that will be in a tunnel. One side will have the bragdon rocks and the other end will be a wood portal attached to an avalanche shed. I plan to model the avalanche shed on the line just west of Snoqualmie Tunnel. It is a rails to trails trip that we took our mountain bikes on.
Glad to hear it went well. I'll have to admit to the same trepidation before starting work with the Bragdon rocks. Hydrocal had been my "comfort zone" for years, but I felt I was ready to take my modeling to the next level. The "Bragdon Experience" does have a steeper learning curve, though. I guess the thing that I would stress is that it really isn't that much more difficult, and the extra effort certainly is justified by the results.
The subways don't have rock walls. I agonized for months over just how to do them, but one night I was just lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and that "Eureka!" moment hit me. The ceiling! Specifically, the textured ceiling. I cut a strip of styrene about 3 inches high and a couple of feet long, mixed up a thin batch of Hydrocal and applied it with a paint roller. After a coating of cheap gray paint and a misting with black, the walls were done, and I could curve them around the 18-inch curves, inside and out, with ease.
Penny only spent one night in the hospital, for pain management. She's home now. The pain is fading, but she's still on the meds and will be for a while. She's actually taking it very well. The dressing is water-resistant, so she can shower, which is a surprisingly important thing to be able to do once you're recovering from an injury. (I had rotator cuff surgery some years back. I had to shower with a full-sized beach ball under my arm to support the shoulder. As awkward and uncomfortable as it was, I had to laugh even then at the absurdity of needing "bath toys" at my age.)
Well, it's past beer-thirty, nigh on to beer-forty. Anyone join me for a Strumpet IPA in an iced mug?
MrB,
Thanks for the positive comments. The presentation went well. I can not believe how many people buy the product and don't use it because they are nervous about messing up. We had 24 people show up. Sixteen is a normal number for the group, so the topic sparked some interest.
How is Penny doing? How long does she have to stay in the hospital? A collarbone injury can be miserable. A friend's husband broke his on a mountain bike this summer. He was pretty crabby the first 2 weeks. Part of that was what he couldn't do though. Sounds like Penny has more hardware. I wish her a speedy recovery.
I plan to do some more rocks along the track to the log camp today before I clean up from the meeting. We work out in the same room. I set up my plywood table on the squat rack so that needs to come down before today's workout.
Question: Do you have rock walls down in the subway? Why are you not doing them with Bragdon?
Sue and Larry, I think your layout is a great ad for Bragdon foam. You've got some superb rockwork. The first time I saw Bragdon rocks at a train show, I had to touch them to see if they were real. Then I asked where to get it, and went right over to that vendor and bought some. I didn't even have a layout yet, and it was years before I actually got to the scenery where the foam rocks were a key element, but now it's a real focal point.
Ski season ended early. Penny fractured her collarbone in a fall last week, and she's in the hospital tonight recovering from the surgery. She's officially bionic now, with a plate and 8 screws to hold the badly-fractured bone together while it heals. She should recover full use of her arm so there's no permanent damage. Instead of being up north, though, I did the odd curved Hydrocal castings for the South Ferry subway station last week, and now I'm fitting them in place and figuring out how to support and attach them. I've got to get this station built before I can go much further on the rest of the layout, because once I start that, it won't be possible to work on that area very well. I've decided to make decals for the "painted-on" signage in the station this time. It seems like a lot of work for something that will only be visible through a video camera, but I really do enjoy the modeling, and there are no schedules or timelines for the Moose Bay Railway.
Sorry we missed your birthday, MrB. Hope you had a good one. I haven't been here much lately. We have been getting ready for a Bragdon Geodesic Foam demo that we are hosting tonight.
We managed some background buildings behind the turntable. We also purchased a Ngineering light kit which will allow us to have lighting in some of the buildings. Our first attempt was the campfire. Fun.
Kirin for me, Joe, and refills for the house...
Well. we had a troll surface just long enough to be hit by the concentrated fire of all the escorts! Well done to the moderators - I think they set a record for expunging the culprit. [EDIT] Turned out to be our old 'friend,' Al Mayo.
Finally got the Nonomura control panel installed. Now all (all ) I have to do is hook up the wiring - about 35 connections to start, more coming. That is straightforward, if tedious, procedure. OTOH, it sure will be nice to get rid of the temporary panel I've been using - made from a cardboard box, with test leads for 'switches.'
Mister Beasley. Having fired a few rounds, I know how important breath control is to accurate marksmanship. Having run a few miles (and cycled a few thousand kilometers) I know the sensation of coming to a stop, huffing and puffing like a cross-compound air pump after a hard brake application. The fact that those biathletes can shoot clean and be away in not much more time than a NASCAR pit stop will never cease to amaze me. (Don't even mention ski jumping, half-pipe or aerials. I don't like heights...)
Woops. Dinner call - and Olympic coverage about to begin. See ya,