Work session at Paul's 7-30-10

Great night tonight! Donna made brownies for treats, and Ken, Mark, Keith, and Rick showed up. Collin Daly called to ask if he could come over, and I said "Of course you may!" He showed up a little late, but got involved with our main task tonight...

I had the remnant carpet that had originally been installed in the room where we built the upper level re-installed on the raised floor earlier in the week. So we took all my boxes that had been stashed in the back aisle of Donna's back stock room, and moved them under the benchwork on the raised floor. That allowed us to segregate them them a little, into boxes with Active Roster models; regular rolling stock, parts, and supplies; stuff to sell on eBay and at train shows; and narrow gauge models. Keith expressed the opinion that they wouldn't all fit, but they do! There's some stuff that wasn't in boxes, and I have to get some non-standard boxes so I can take the eBay stuff out of some standard boxes we had used, and most of the stuff left over will fit into them. The other stuff will sit on top of the stacks, under the benchwork. Then we took a break...

We did some track spacing determination on the second turn of the helix to move the track a little farther from the edge than it is now - my concern is that the farther from the edge the sharper the radius, and since it'll have a passing siding inside the main, the siding radius will be even sharper. As we re-configured it, the outside track will have about a 44" radius, and the inside track will be about 42", which should work out pretty well. Then we ran trains for awhile, including Collin's SD-70. Of course, it lost part of its program, so Keith took it home with him to re-program it on his NCE system, after fighting with my Zephyr for half an hour, and searching on the internet for the instructions he used last week to program it originally. That only took another 20 minutes! Anyway, we made a short night of it, but it was great progress for me. Thanks, fellas!

Paul

Hoovertown residential on the Richlawn Railroad

I've finally started to do the residential area behind the Hoovertown business district. As with the business district I want to do the work off the layout, so the first step is to make a removable support structure. Once the support structure is completed, I'll remove it from the layout and place it on my work table to add the streets, landscape, structures, etc.

I wanted something light and easy to work with, so I opted to try for the first time PVC lattice. I know that it's expensive compared to wood, but I like that you can bend sharp curves (using a heat gun) and that using the standard PVC primer and clamps can work very fast. For you engineer types this may look over-engineered and you are probably correct. I never claimed to be an engineer!

The next step will be to add a 2" thick foam top to the PVC base and then add individual foam pieces to get the contours I want. As you can see in the back left of this picture where the track crosses over itself there is a big change from in track heights around this area. So, basically the foam top of this area will have to be built up more on the left and even more in the left rear.

More pictures to come as I progress.

Neat pictures

Guys,

There are only a few railroad pictures in this link, but all of the pix are pretty cool. Check them out at:

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-america-in-color-from-1939-1943/

God bless,
Rick

Piedmont Meeting last night

I attended the Piedmont Division meeting last night and I must say that it was short & sweet! We were actually done by 9pm. The reason for this was that many of the "big wigs" and members were at the National NMRA annual convention. There were approximately 50 people there and I must say that the room was cooler than normal - probably because there wasn't as much hot air!

The NCIOG was well represented with yours truely, Coalfinger Ken, and Packrat Paul. I was able to pick up a free Railroad Model Craftsman magazine (May 2008) that of all things features Gary Siegel's Eastern Kentucky Division of the L&N! I didn't have this edition and it's got lots of great pictures and info on coal hauling which I will be adding to the Richlawn Railroad. It's even got good ol' #2507 U28 featured on the cover. A picture of the mag is below.

With attendance down there wasn't alot of display for this month's theme - motive power. I brought the "Grass-o-Matic Turbo 5000" for show and tell along with a little diaroma that I threw together to show how static grass could be used on a layout. During the break I had about a dozen people come to talk to me about building their own version of a static grass applicator. The good news is that the static generator (12 volt) is again available for $25.00.

Dr. Joe Nichols, Jr. gave a great clinic on Motive Power for the AP Program. Although it's not something I plan on attempting, the clinic was very interesting. Dr. Joe Jr. is a great presenter and fun to watch / listen to!

We missed the other members of NCIOG, especially Gator Scott. I even tried to bribe him to come by offering to pay for his dinner! Many of the other members were out of town and I know that Glue Bob would definately have been there had he been in town.

Take care & keep modeling!

God bless,
Rick

Rick's House June 25, 2010

Thanks to all for your work and fellowship this past Friday!

Present were:

Packrat Paul
Concrete Keith
Steve-bay

and, a phone-in by Glue Bob who was still on the Cresent returning from New Orleans!

We spent the first part of the evening discussing the expansion track plan and after looking closely at the two plans it was plain that one plan allowed for better following of the trains by operators. I then showed the guys who to make a wire armature tree in the hopes that we could turn out a few before the night was over, but.......

the guys were anxious to put up a little drywall - so that's what we did. I had coved the two corners in the back of the alcove extension and we worked on the one wall.

Pauls is heading up the end on a piece of drywall that will go between the exisiting wall and a new section.

Checking the fit at the top where it meets the ceiling.

Keith checks the spacing at the top for the next filler piece

Paul handles the 1" screws into the studs. Since the studs were only 1" x 4"s we had to use the short screws.

Keith measures for the stud centers for mid panel screws.

Steve functioned as the measure man/ gopher / cleanup / grip for the guys and looks on here as more screws are added. In this picture you can see the coved (curved) hardboard corner in front of Paul

Keeping things straight for the screw line.

Here you can get a better view of alcove and the two coved corners. It was decided that the track and benchwork in the foreground will be detached, turned up on end and and hopefully walked out of the doorway to the right of Steve. Once the doorway is closed up, the alcove finished, new benchwork installed, and track added, then the removed benchwork and track can be reattached outside of the room to provide the temporary return loop.

After the drywall work we decided to solve the world's problems with having some drinks and munchies. It was a early night with everybody leaving around 10pm.

Keith's work session 6-18-10

Many thanks to Bob for taking all of these pictures. Tonight was more scenery work, and we divided into 2 man crews to "get-r-done" Summary: there was a bunch of us, and a number of visitors and we had a bunch of fun! Thanks, Keith for letting us play with your railroad!

Mark & Steve worked on the tunnel area forming the foam.

Bob couldn't resist taking some pictures of this wonderful layout

Father & Son team also working on foam scenery in a different area.

The gang discussing things, including sightings of the very rare Scott P.

One word - WOW!

Keith giving us his input and support.

Steve cuts & Mark glues.

Beautiful!

One of our guests - Bobs neighbor - the future of model railroading!

Steve making sure it's done right!

If looks could kill........

Ken & Rick doing plaster cloth work while mark gives helpful suggestions.

We all took some time to admire the layout, and even got to run some trains!

Friday Night 6/4/2010 at Paul's (and Bob's)

So, last night proved rather eventful...

I had been napping for a few minutes, getting ready for a productive night at Keith's, but Donna let me sleep until almost 6:30. So I rushed on out there, getting on the freeway around 20 to 7, at which time I realized I'd left my cell phone on the dresser. I got to Keith's around 10 minutes after 7, and it didn't look good - no cars in the driveway, the basement door was locked, and (insert face palm here) Keith had told us last Friday that he'd be in Flagstaff this week! With no cell phone to call around, I returned home, figuring someone would know something when I got there. And sure enough, Bob and Mark had called a couple times, and Donna had talked with them. I talked with Bob, and some of the guys had gone to his house to paint backdrops, but several were willing to trek down to Duluth to help me out. "Come ahead on," I told them. Bob, Mark, Steve, and Ken showed up around 8:20 or so, and we got right to work.

I had made a cardboard template for the next length of helix roadbed, and Bob, Ken, and Mark marked out where the template would be cut to transfer the lines to my last sheet of plywood. While they worked on that, Steve worked on installing a sliding drawer in the first corner of the lower deck benchwork to mount the Zephyr. And that's what we did. Mark and Bob concentrated on the plywood, and Ken and Steve worked on the slider. I had also installed another section of Masonite around the curved wall of the helix (I decided to call the thing the Roundhouse, because it feels like being in one now), and Bob and Mark trimmed the top edge to conform to the slope of the roadbed climbing up the helix. Steve left early, about 11:40, and Ken, Bob, and mark toughed it out until midnight.

For an impromptu session, we did great work and accomplished several important objectives. This morning, I wired in the Zephyr in its new location, and it works! Today will be clean-up, and next week I'll concentrate on wiring up the Loconet and mounting some UP-5s to plug throttles into, and powering my UR-91 for radio throttles so at least 3 people can operate trains simultaneously. I'll be able to stage a train on the helix (since it doesn't go anywhere, yet), and have trains in both loops and the passing siding.

Keith, thanks for swapping with me!

Paul