[tankist]

it occured to me that "i have layout" was probably wrong thread name. well it was growing long anyways so i'll start fresh. for those who will be looking the part one of my proggress is located HERE.
all the pictures i take i keep on my Fotki website. if interested take a look


allrighty.
finished gluing roadbed where i'm going o have roadbed. decided to not use roadbed for underpass line to squeeze all the vertical clearance possible. slopes took extra work but i think i got the best i could get out of them. the breaking out for bridges did not make thing easier climb slope is okish the descent one however is ungodly. had to take a hammer to a section of cast "rocks" as it wouldnt clear the cars. glued foam "retaining wall" in place

so, some more of those pictures pictures. and since its been bit time there are more then usual

the granary area. i do realise the line is deam near the edge and measures to save trains from the floor will be taken

western industry area. (not sure which one it will be)

playing with rail layout for upper portion. r18 sections right after curved peco . not ideal but should be doable with slow moving switcher. allows me to have an industry on each line. suggestions on what to do here are welcome. i tried different arangements but i just keep coming back to that dblslip.

if there is a picture i'd be doing this entire thing right now it would be that one

Bridges. notes welcome

roadbed is flush with the plaster and recessed plywood forming level transition.

climb. the middle support is visible here. drilled holes in the "rocky" wall, inserted a contraption build from hanger wire and "poured" plaster of paris. still need to give it proper shape

climb bridge upper support

descent bridge lower support. the newly blasted rocks are repalced by still pink concrete retaining wall

upper

note. coloring is obviously not final and will be revisited

 

[tworail]

Wow, great progress! I haven't been keeping up with all the threads but what sort of industry will be present on your layout?

 

[tankist]

thanks tworail. i guess the forum does good job of administrating itself

as far as industries i'm not 100% sure yet. when it gets close to buildings that i was thinking to post a thread welcoming to discuss possibilities. for now its to early as i keep changing my mind as i go

so far decided there will be granary (the 6 silos are visible from under the paint). rest is still open question. the industry near the descent line will accept boxcars and perhaps chemical tanks on second track. when and if I go forward with my phase 3 expansion plan (see attachment) both tracks will be for boxcars and the RED section for chemical cars for that same industry.

on the upper section i was thinking something that accepts coal but with short 2 car spurs it will look silly so it either very small intermodal container handling area (plenty of open space for trucks ) or just 2 unnamed buildings accepting boxcars or small chemical terminal or mixture of any of the 2.
purple section if ever built, will be coal loading terminal.

after i drawn this one i thought that the red section can be extended further and made into dockside track. then there will be somewhere for that coal to go.

as you can see i'm all over the place changing my mind often. still to early to discuss





as far as progress.
after neat-picking here and there i finally decided to tackle the conversion of old shinohara turnouts i have to be "DCC friendly". i was quite reluctant on this and started to feel somewhat sorry i got the turnouts in first place. but it turned out quite doable. drilled out the 2 rivets holding the point rail assembly in place, desoldered the points and used rail joiners to put them on. i cut a strip of PCB from old PC modem card i had laying around and filed it till copper showed.isolating was bit of interesting since those PCBs are multilayered, luckly enough the copper powerplane was only on both sides and not in inner layers otherwise isolating the sides would have been impossible.

cut grooves in underside of the ties for the wire, inserted it in and soldered to rail. now that i'm thinking about it i should have paid attention to route power from stock rail to appropriate point rails more then jumping the after the frog rails, (those will get power anyways). still to be done. but i'm very happy that i managed to hide everything and not melt the ties down.

the isolation of the frog was my biggest fear. turned out smplier then soldering jumper wires. used cut-off wheel on dremel to cut the rail, inserted and super-glued plastic tie pieses removed from same turnout earlier. when dried i dremmeled everything flat. i think it turned out quite good.

the first turnout took forever (and now i will need to revisit it and solder to more jumpers) the second one however went much faster. i think it is easier to work when you know what you doing still need to wire it. and i probably should include a drop for the frog to keep hot frog as an option. i have 6 more to convert and even though now i see this is quite doable from now on i will think twice before buying old shinoharas again, it better be really good deal :laugh:

 

[tankist]

took a break from the entire thing for couple days but now i'm slowly getting back.
i've been itching to run some trains already so i tacked down the track. before i start soldering track i'd like to se how everything works. was surprising to see how my seemingly endless (i had 15 pieces ) pile of flexi track was thinned. i love the "continuously welded" track in the curves . the underpassing line is still in sections. was watching watching the train doing loops for over an hour. actually not all time wasted most of it i run the CF7 and that thing needed serious breaking in - was very noisey even for athrean.

i realy like this engine for some reason

the underpass curve needed careful positioning not to rub against stuff and the clearance is quie tight but it is workable. i am going to install a roadbed there as well, it is significantly noisier and it would be nice o quiet it down. as long as highest car passes it doesn't matter how much more room left.

i guess i'm not going to surprise anybody when i say i am disappointed in atlas switches (i don't have enough shinos to cover everthing). as much as i don't want to spend money now i will start getting better turnouts before i solder everything together. on the bright side the test engine pulled 8 cars up the climb slope no sweat which is huge relief. the second slope is still not ready.

 

[rhenry]

It looks really good so far keep up the good work!

 

[tankist]

thank you



painted several places to hide the pink better. amazing how much such a small detail changes things. but for the most part i'm taking a breather from building. while there are other things to do, i'm holding off untill i find good turnout lot. i can't stand not having all the materials at hand and this time i'm missing 6 right hand turnouts. kinda puts stop to desire to work on things. i might settle for less and use the atlas ones for the less critical places (sidings). i don't really care about the code either. if i'll manage to get some of them in C83 or C75 they will be the representing lighter gauge siding rails. i got myself a sample of C83 and C75 rails and pretty sure i'll manage to do good transition between all of them if need arises.

but so far it looks like i might need to go to a hobby store and just order new walthers switches. over 100$ of them. yaikes...

 

[chessie14]

What road is that CF7?

 

[tankist]

the CF7 is IANR - Iowa Northern. the real railroad sold all of theirs couple years ago however.

 

[hoguy12]

Nice job!!!!
I cant wait to see more.

 

[tankist]

ok so here is the update

you might be wondering what this has to do with model railroading. well, that' a prerequisite project that has to be complete before i can mess with my layout again. you can't lay rail before you glue the cork and you can't do any MRR stuff before you do the kitchen.

its been crazy 3 weeks. logistics are not simple, especially with 14 month old running around. after seeing bare walls it is quite satisfying view.
even though all the appliances are installed and working (besides fridge that is still in the store, we can't make our mind) and water is running there is still bunch of small stuff to touch up and finish up here and there. annoying. and then there will be rest of house garage cleanup project. hopefully soon

 

[burlington77]

That layout is looking great. I'm always impressed by the three-dimensional stuff. All my track is flat. Maybe my next layout will get more "lift."

 

[calirider]

That is looking good, keep the post up so I can keep getting ideas for my future layout

 

[Reckers]

Hey, buddy---that's impressive! I think you've really shown a lot of creativity in your setup, particularly in the areas of climbs and descents. You're an artist, at heart. Please keep posting your progress.

 

[tankist]

thanks for the kind word. hardly an artist though.


been busy finishing up my kitchen project (lot of little pesky items) and preparing our to our Halloween party. in the mean time for the .5 hour or so i got an evening i just procrastinated and kept running some trains in a loop (i don't know what it is, i just can keep watching). so the resent progress was rather modest:

soldered proper power lead and routed under the table. attached DCC comand station underneath the table as well. the power lead is switched between the DCC comand station and MRC1400 DC powerpack. the choice of DC vs DCC is just a flip of the switch . i will make couple more drops but for now the entire layout is powered just fine with no voltage drops with that one lead.

finished building surface and supporting base for my next add-on module (red). it will be full 7 feet long with posibility of 3 more feet extension (wall limited). will house an industry and a ship loading dock (or 2 industries if i goof the dock). peco small radius made almost perfect geometry for the diverging path mainline.

replaced most atlas turnouts with peco's. geometry and length is bit different so had to rearrange my sidings, but things are significantly smoother now and i eliminated an instance of "S" curve i had. i don't like the power routing feature and will wire to eliminate it.

for the slopes this is a must have for me. i wouldn't be able to live with flat layout. it will need more work to smooth out slope transitions - I have matches and toothpics underneath temporarily in sertain spots but it already works out satisfactory. with the fine adjustments, longer dash-8 was able to negotiate the descent slope full speed up and down and the "very low to the ground plow" equipped GP50's no longer scrape the rails with it. last night i was able to run my BNSF train (SD-40 pulling 7 ACF 2bay hoppers.) up and down the steeper slope with no stringling and uncoupling. more then i could hope for. and almost no wheel slip. looks like C-C locos have much better weight distribution and adhesion in model just as they do in prototype.

won bunch of peco under-track switch machines. seems like embedding them will be quite an effort. now i just need to determine what to convert to remote and what to keep manual.

i will tidy up and post newer pictures soon but as you can tell the progress is rather not "picturesque" .

 

[mr_x_ite_ment]

Hey Tank...

You have really done a lot in the space you have! It looks like it is coming together nicely! I agree with everyone else...keep up the good work!

 

[tankist]

thank you mr X. i'm trying hard.

an update
worked on track work mostly. finished migration to peco turnouts (all 9 so far, yey!). decided i will have switch machines on all of them. got 4 already, waiting on 5 more + ordered some micro switches. will use these for independent turnout position indication. as soon as the machines are here it will be time to remove rail and "dig" acces holes again. what i really like about peco+peco motor combination is the fact manual override is still perfectly possible. soldered another power lead so right now both mainline and passing siding are on no matter the position of power routing pecos.

worked on electrifying those bridges. i want them to remain removable. attached contactor strips to the wood planks, will attach the spring clips to bridge bases as soon as i have drill long enough to get all the way underneath the base plywood.
oh and cut, nailed/glued, stained and coated with poli the plywood strips on the sides of the table. what a difference this small detail made

base for new lower add-on section shown with turnout leading to the future branch (no foam for now), temporary shelf for the cabs ("running" both DC and DCC). and the cat again.
i can't do anything about it, she just loves to hang out there while i'm in the garage.

crossover with peco medium radius turnouts . and a cement dealer/storage (probably) spur. as much as i don't like the resulting "S" coming from the inner line i don't see a way to avoid it
it doesn't look pretty when the train goes through but at least it goes through without derailing.

view at the new section base and the lazy cat (again).

view of the descent route, switcher stab and an industry spur (undecided yet)

 

[Reckers]

tankist---it's looking great! I guess it's time for me to ask the question that has to be on everyone's mind, at this point: when it's finished, are you going to invite us all over for a kegger?

 

[modeltrainhead]

im so happy for u man

 

[tankist]

with enough (for now) switch machines at hand i started excavating "ground" to install them. before assembling i made a carton cutout plate and inserted in between turnout and the machine so ballast will not fall into the hole. will paint the roadbed grey before i do install the turnout.

yesterday i got the micro-switches i ordered. the idea is to add them to the switch machine so to have independent turnout position read-out. perhaps i could get by with one per machine. but i have a bunch of them and did not make final decision on how i'm going to wire them. so for flexibility i decided to install 2 - now i have a "DPDT" on each turnout . was thinking to make a custom brackets but superglue seems to hold really well.
i like the fact i don't need to enlarge the hole in the foam to house those

while i'm waiting for the rest of the parts to arrive i had some nice progress on small display stand i'm going to be gifting to the friend of mine who gave me all of his railroading stuff. he seemed bit sentimental about that little docksider so he will get it back on a nice stand while i get to practice ballasting on short piece.

at the moment it has 'red oak' stain drying on it (took the pic beforehand).

 

[Reckers]

Very nice presentation piece, Anton. I'm sure he'll treasure it. The layout seems to being moving right along, too. Incidentally, I talked to the gf about your offer to tweak the E-machine; she said she'd love to take you up on it, once she's returned home. She also said to tell you that, if you do that, the next time we come to Chicago, we're taking you to Omega Pancake house for breakfast. *L* It's one of her 3 most-loved restaurants. She's addicted to the cream-cheese-stuffed pancakes and french toast.