[SF Gal]

I worked thru the evening yesterday and only had 2 hickups so I consider this look pretty much detailed and done.
Having said that, I am sure I will add more detail like more people, vehicles, and wires on the electric poles.
Can you spot the hickups while I tease you with night time pictures? BTW, working on removing the 60" Sony television for a 40" that will expose more of the back of the layout.

The two Hick ups I had are in this picture....

Gosh you are good, you saw that the EAT sign is not illuminated. I have to pop the roof and check what happened....

And you're right, the missing decorative fake sidewalk light on the end poped off the hatch trying to replace it on the layout. I also need a little filler piece on the easement of mainstreet at the firehouse driveway and the restaraunt parking lot....

Here is a view of the buildings I was working on yesterday to illuminate, the construction company and the warehouse...

The hotel, fruit store, and general store ended up on the street I call route 66....

Wish I could take pictures without the blur.....

On to fixing the hickups, swapping out televisions, and moving on to scenery to the right of this area.

A Work in Progress!....Stay tuned!...

 

[OilValleyRy]

I don’t know what type of camera you use, but a balsa wood unipod will steady it. You could use anything, but I say balsa because it’s so light weight that if it fell onto a structure it’s unlikely to do any damage. The top end just needs some sort of cradle/fork to hug whatever camera you use.

 

[Raege]

balsa tripod seems expensive I’d go with a cpl wee drams of your favorite whisky 😉
Looking good really making loads of progress 👍
ps I know the whisky won’t stop a blurry snapshot but it will make you not mind it so much

 

[Lemonhawk]

Nice work on lighting!

 

[Mannix]

Where is the Barbie and Ken House ? Sorry I can't resist...

 

[SF Gal]

I actually have a Barbie house...and a camper...and a few of my Barbies from the late 60's. Just the wrong scale.
Maybe if I ever get a G scale garden layout I could incorporate them into the garden....🙄

 

[OilValleyRy]

balsa tripod seems expensive I’d go with a cpl wee drams of your favorite whisky 😉
Looking good really making loads of progress 👍
ps I know the whisky won’t stop a blurry snapshot but it will make you not mind it so much

Nah, just a Unipod. An 8”-12” balsa stick to steady the cam.

 

[Gramps]

I actually have a Barbie house...and a camper...and a few of my Barbies from the late 60's. Just the wrong scale.
Maybe if I ever get a G scale garden layout I could incorporate them into the garden....🙄

My daughter had Barbie back in the day and even with G scale it would look like the old "Attack Of The 50' Woman" movie.

 

[Roy Merritt]

Barbie are 1/6 scale. A 1/6 scale SD40-2 would be around 11 feet long.

 

[SF Gal]

No pictures today but I went back to a few building still lighted with grain of wheat bulbs and changed them out to LED's, now my whole layout is running LED's, Yay!!!!
I am going to start organizing all my scenery materials into cabinets by my workbrnch and get them off the layout.
The layout really needs a good cleanup.
After that, I will be working on cleaning train track and fixing a few obstructions to running trains again.
I have a lot of cars to sort out, repair or recycle, 5 diesel locomotives to convert to DCC, and possibily a updated chip to install in my NCE power pro...the fun is just beginning....I hope!


A Work in Progress!...Stay tuned!.....

 

[Chops]

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no foolin' around!

 

[SF Gal]

Today I scored some stuff from a train store about 30 minutes south of me.
I went because I really want a rail yard spotlight tower, like the ones in a thread I created.
But they didnt have anything like that. Here is the haul...the bag of people I got for $6 but they need to be painted better.

I bought the derrick oil rig to see if I could kitbash a spotlight tower with it...it is pretty detailed.
So I started assembling it. I will paint it silver or black...not sure yet. I do have these LED adjustable spot cones with LED that came with a battery pack and on/off switch I do not remember where I got them from....

So I got stuck what to do or even if I am going to use them.
I shifter gears and fabed up a new test track for my locomotives to use to test DC locos and later, once I get my engines cleaned and lubed up, program newly installed decoders in rebuilt/repaired/cleaned/lubed engines....

It was a good time to evulate all the locomotives I somehow were gifted and a few I bought.
I went through each locomotive and wrote down all the issues I found with each one....

Any the final verdict....they ALL have to be cleaned and lubed as none of then have ran since 2012. Besides that....

Most of the diesel engines that were gifted to me are dead as a doornail...so I will evaluate then to see if they are even worth fixing. Those with passenger car in RR companies other Santa fe I will try to fix and may sell off the consist to pay for new Santa Fe stuff,. Next up separating all my rollingstock from Kadee coupliers and tyco and metal wheels from plastic. I have a LOT of gifted old rolling stock I need to evaluate.....



A Work in Progress!...Stay tuned!.....

 

[SF Gal]

Today I am working on a yard spotlight tower, you can see the build progress in a thread I called Rail Yard Light Tower.
I will post the finished kitbash in this thread soon, stay tuned.
I also found these Hot Wheel finds while shopping today for Easter dinner, in a bin at my local Jewel Food store.

The suburu car is too big but the middle concept all metal car will work as will the USS Enterprise as it flys high above the layout! I wanted a red car so I started painting it as it is a solid piece of machined steel....

A lot of painting the light tower and the little concept car today, not much else to report....


A Work in Progress!...Stay tuned!.....

 

[Raege]

You can skip the light tower and mod the trek ship to fire phasers to light up the yard
Great job on the maint inspections of your engines. Hope I can get as focused and organized.

 

[SF Gal]

I finished the yard light tower and you can see all the picks on the build thread link I previously posted....

I will be planting telephone poles, turnout indicator lighting and a fuel farm next...soon.....


A Work in Progress!...Stay tuned!.....

 

[Gramps]

Nice work.

 

[JeffHurl]

Wow, does that look great!

Maybe adding LED lighting to my N scale layout Weill be a project for next winter... Hmmm ..

 

[SF Gal]

Today was a big help having some people over for a Easter brunch as I was finally able to get a 50" television from dangling over my layout...but it wasn't easy and a telephone pole died during the move....

I cleared all the buildings and scenery I could and I finally got that monster moved!

Looks like I will have to replace a ceiling tile ....and a telephone pole.
I have a smaller television I will be mounting more to the right of the photo that will not obstruct anything.
The reason to move this TV was it was blocking views of the back of the layout and restricting my access through my hatch to access the back tracks.
So after everyone left, I had some time to fix a old road I had made in plaster and add a road to a train station in the yard....

I also added more lighting to the yard, more things to enhance the yard appeal and interest....

The diesel shop got some outside lighting to illuminate the signs on the building....

I added lighting to my coal tower I had laying around...I consider it abandoned since steam was phased out a decade or more ago but it adds interest, I like how the shadows play on the cars near it in the yard....

And finally got the light on the water tower blinking!

I got a real sweet deal on some people that I found at a local hobby shop. They buy layouts and package up everything for resale. So a bag of about 30 figurines with a bad paint job was $7...sold! I also got some bags of sitting people too, 10 for $2. So I repainted them and cut them off there old style footing, prepping them for placement...

So a little more progress...the TV was the best progress of all as I was so afraid all my hard work on the town would be destroyed as the sword of Damiclease hanged overhead!!!!


A Work in Progress!...Stay tuned!.....

 

[Magic]

The lights look cool.

Magic

 

[SF Gal]

I am spending a considerable amount of time these past few days, working on the lower part of my "L" layout which is my Santa Fe yard. I want to ballast the yard but in order to do that, I want to complete scenes, build-outs, signals, etc. Ballast has to be the last thing. As a example, the depot station platform would have been over a uneven ballast surface and looked bad. Here I am working on the platform.....

I got these lamps, still ion the package from 14 years ago and modified the bulbs, I replaced them all with LED's and added them to the platform....

The workers are pretty busy in the area and I added the construction scene, just for fun and to get an idea to add some dummy tracks in the yard to add this scene without obstructing yard operations.

I have been busy also converting "gifted" old train cars such as these construction cars to accept kadee couplers and add new metal wheels. While watching various threads on the THIS forum, I came across a wonderful idea of making a car holder out of styrofoam, so thanks to the forum, I am not getting flustered with cars sliding around on the hobby bench....

The foam will sure come in handy when I start working on the locomotives, soon.
On a somewhat unrelated note.....I was in Rockford, Illinois, checking out Hobbytowns ultra high prices.... *sigh*
....and saw this parked in the lot. Thought it was cute...

And a picture of my "somewhat" finished depot scene and continuing efforts in my yard....

I just ordered 100 more street figurings off of Ebay and 15 more vehicles, due here the first week in May...

The population on my layout will be getting quite busy coming later this year....




A Work in Progress!...Stay tuned!.....