It's good to see "Ber barn" open for business !!!!!!!!!
I wish each of you a healthy, happy, and prosperous new decade !!!!!!!!!!!
(Now, where's the Strumpets?)
GARRY
HEARTLAND DIVISION, CB&Q RR
EVERYWHERE LOST; WE HUSTLE OUR CABOOSE FOR YOU
It's morning, so coffee will do, Joe.
Sorry that I have been away so long. We have had lots of layout time. In March, we are hosting our local MR group, and I will be doing a demo of the Bragdon foam. Something like that always makes you push harder.
Larry finished the trestle, and we have been working on the backdrop behind the turntable. I will post some photos when its done.
Mike, Great space. It will sure take a while to fill that.
Terry, Your road looks like that car could get some air on that next rise.
Later, Sue
Anything is possible if you do not know what you are talking about.
Howdy, Joe. Asahi for me, and freshen up anyone who's running low.
Hi, Sue. Long time, no see. Sounds like lots of progress on your and Larry's layout.
Mike, that looks like an opportunity to build a really great model railroad!
Mister Beasley, how's progress on the new section? Model railroading construction pretty well follows Cheops' Law - every project takes longer and costs more...
Incidentally, the new, improved(?) 1:1 scale South Ferry station is being built with two stub-end tracks. I guess the New York Transit Authority finally got sick of the extra mechanicals and cost of maintaining the reverse loop platform.
Good news on all fronts here in the Dessicated Desert. Physically, I feel better than I have in years and even my doctors are happy. On the railroad, a little bother that had been nagging at me finally resolved itself. Adding two terminals to the Nonomura Zone Panel allows me to reduce the wire count between it and the CTC panel by 3 wires, with a corresponding decrease in terminals required. Made the change this afternoon, and now I'm ready to tackle installing the panel and hooking up the permanent wiring for the NN zone, climate willing. (Forecast is for a high of 60 for the next week. I can live, and work, with that.)
Well, gotta run. It's good seeing some life back in the Barn again. See ya,
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Hi, everyone! Good to see you back, Sue. Join me for coffee?
Sue, it's good to know that your absence has been train-related. You are excused, but next time, a note from your Mom, OK? And yes, I'm very much looking forward to pictures.
Glad to hear you're feeling better, Chuck. I'm battling with blood pressure meds myself, which seem to make me overly tired. The stuff is so annoying that I've changed my diet and cut down on beer to get my weight down, so I can hopefully get off this stuff. Having "good numbers" but feeling poorly is not my idea of successful medicine.
I am making slow progress. It's ski season, so some weekends are spent sliding down an icy mountain with boards on my feet. But, I do have all the benchwork up, and the track and control bus wires are installed. I've been really stuck on the the track modifications needed to connect the old layout to the new section. I tried snipping out a bit of the original track and dropping in a turnout, but I ended up with kinked track and derailments. Finally, I ripped out several feet of track, roadbed and all, and I'm in the process of re-laying the whole thing. Naturally, it's in an awkward spot that's hard to get to.
The subway staging / station tracks are in and working, and I've got my occupancy/direction detectors installed, although I haven't wired in the lights yet. I've got to make up a pink foam form for curving the hydrocal wall castings that will form the closed wall of the station. The other will be open for access and visibility.
I did get out to Springfield this past weekend, to the Big E for the Amherst train show. It's bigger than ever, and if the crowds were any indication, it shows that interest in model trains runs very high.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
What kind of music will you have on Friday and Saturday Night-Country or Western??Or both Country and Westerh??
Actually “Fiddle-Bow Eke and the Dew Valley Acorns” played on Sat. night! I was on trumpet and doing some of the vocals too.
We can do it all man….Even the old BS&T stuff. Love those bass section rhythms!
I have been in the Trainroom some, but not enough to accomplish much! I hope that will change soon and that I will have some progress to report.
The plan is to work on some lower level benchwork and extend the trackage…We’ll see how that al goes.
Set 'em up, Joe. Strumpets all around. I've finally made some progress.
I've had a problem curve on my layout since the beginning. It's a simple 18-inch, 180-degree swing. It was OK when I first put it down, but I had occasional derailments, which I traced to a kink in the the track where two pieces of flex came together. I tried to repair it, but in the end I ripped the whole thing out and did it right.
Fast forward. The ends of this curve got replaced by turnouts, keeping the original path, but adding the routes on and off the old section to Phase II of the Moose Bay Railroad. I had hoped for a simple drop-in replacement, but it wasn't to be. After a bit of twisting and prodding, I got it together, but I couldn't even keep 4-axle geeps on the tracks reliably. So, I ripped it up one weekend. Having no flex track, and my LHS closed on Sunday, I used a scrap of flex track and some sectional Atlas pieces. Again, it was a bad move. I got the freights to work OK, but that sectional track had more kinks than the British Invasion of the 1960's. It really got me. So, I finally did it right, bought more flex track, ripped the whole mess up including the roadbed, and ran trains over it the first time I put it down. Now I can get started on the addition.
MisterBeasley Set 'em up, Joe. Strumpets all around. I've finally made some progress.
Thank you, sir! Watching the England - Canada curling match is dry work.
I've had a problem curve on my layout since the beginning. It's a simple 18-inch, 180-degree swing. It was OK when I first put it down, but I had occasional derailments, which I traced to a kink in the the track where two pieces of flex came together. I tried to repair it, but in the end I ripped the whole thing out and did it right. Fast forward. The ends of this curve got replaced by turnouts, keeping the original path, but adding the routes on and off the old section to Phase II of the Moose Bay Railroad. I had hoped for a simple drop-in replacement, but it wasn't to be. After a bit of twisting and prodding, I got it together, but I couldn't even keep 4-axle geeps on the tracks reliably. So, I ripped it up one weekend. Having no flex track, and my LHS closed on Sunday, I used a scrap of flex track and some sectional Atlas pieces. Again, it was a bad move. I got the freights to work OK, but that sectional track had more kinks than the British Invasion of the 1960's. It really got me. So, I finally did it right, bought more flex track, ripped the whole mess up including the roadbed, and ran trains over it the first time I put it down. Now I can get started on the addition.
And now you know why my designated derailment checker is parked in Down staging, ready to be dispached to the new end of track as soon as I clear the weights off the newly-caulked trackwork (or my spiking pliers away from the freshly-spiked specialwork.)
Speaking of which, I actually got a little bit accomplished in new construction while the garage was warm for a couple of hours this week. Not construction to support new roadbed, but rather to support the permanent Nonomura control panel that has been the object of my procrastination for altogether too long. Now I can set about connecting the wires - twenty-eight to start, more to come. There are ninety studs on the terminal block, most of them wired to something inside the panel. Some of them are meant to connect to the adjacent zone panels, yet to be built. Thirty or so will connect to the CTC panel, which is still years in the future.
Well, bobsled is on NBC, and curling still going on CNBC, so I'm going to split my attention between them, not between curling and this. Incidentally, how about the lady who competed four heats on skis with four broken ribs and a punctured lung - and won bronze! Now, who said women aren't tough?)
See ya,
Yeah, Penny and I both love the Winter Olympics. That feel of frozen stuff beneath our feet is in our blood. She did competitive figure skating, and even dated a guy who was on those world-class podiums from time to time. I played hockey in college, and still do to this day. Both of us still ski the expert slopes (although not at the speeds seen this week) and we've dabbled in speed skating as well, just to try it out. Cross-country, too, but I've never tried it with a rifle.
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,
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
***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
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.)
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.
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,
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.
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.
Happy Easter, everyone.
I like Larry's trestle, Sue...... and the scenery ....... and the logging train ! ... Great photo!
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.
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.
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.
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.
'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.
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.
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.