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Terry's Layout

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Terry:
I have a few things I want to do on the layout this weekend.

I don't have a track plan, I just fit what I could into the area I have to work with. In trhe southwest corner I have a station area with lots of Lionel 156 platforms. The idea is I can back the train in, and then pull out another train.

I want to have parking lots with my Tootsietoys along the sides. Originally I had the first siding straight along the layout edge, but I removed one of the sidings and recentered all the track so I could get more tootsietoys in by parking them diagonally.

I cut a section of 054 curve in half to get into the siding. This is a mess. I can't get the trains the trains to go through the reverse curve without derailing.



So I'm going to move the curve and the switch east so it's a straight shot into the yard. Basically where the switch is sitting in this picture:



I think there is enough room that I won't have to move the inner loops of track. Also while I have the switch out I want to figure out why it triggers the couplers on the cars.

Next I have these Schoenhut houses. I can't get under the layout in that area. It was designed to be mountain, but I like them there. I'm thinking I can cut groooves into the layout with the circular saw and run the wires in the grooves.



The houses don't have lights in them. I was thinking I'd put the old style ceramic bulb holders on the layout and cut holes in the bottoms of the houses. But, I found a bunch of prewired for AC LED fixtures in a box last night. I want to try one and see what it looks like compared to a regular bulb.

Lastly, I have the burning house on the hill. I put a German light controller in it that has one red bulb and 5 blinking yellow bulbs. It looks good.



I decided I'd make it smoke by putting a flyer smoking tender unit in the powerhouse with a hose running up to the house. I also found two firemen with a hose that sprays water that I want to put up by the house. (It's a german animation with the spray being a pulsating LED and a strip of fiber optic cable. )

That should keep me busy.

Terry:
I finally got some time to work on the layout. .

I got the approach to the passenger terminal straightened out and didn't need to move the inner tracks.

 

I cut the bottoms out of the Schoenhut buildings with the router. I also found the station on the left side with the roof off. That's a rare building from 1932-33. I'll repurpose it as a school building. I think there is another box of Schoenhuts somewhere. 

 

Then I put the track in for the Hornby engine shed. I'm going to use manual switches here. Also, I bought 15 more sections of the 3 foot straight tracks with extra ties on eBay last weekend for $4 each postpaid so I filled in the straights on the mainlines.

 

Then I marked the location of the roadbed. I started with a sheet of cardboard and a marker, but that didn't work well so I made up a wood block on a postwar tender frame to hold the marker.

 
 

When I was marking the track, I moved the accessories that don't define the roads off the layout. Now you can see why I put up the small section of the standard gauge layout.

 

I'll mark the roads with a red marker tomorrow after I do the final positioning of the streetlights.

It turns out the town I live in does paint recycling. I can get five gallon buckets of tan and gray paint just for driving over and asking. I'll use the gray for the roadbed, and the tan for putting down the grass. I should be able to add pigment to the gray to make black for the roads and the roadbed in the station terminal area.

One thing I did in the train room that you can't see is I changed all the lights to LED bulbs. One of the Asian supermarkets has pallets of floodlight led bulbs for 50 cents each. I bought a few to see how they looked, and then went back and bought enough to replace all the bulbs in the house. 

It's so much cooler without the bulbs heating the place up.

I rewired 2 Z transformers, and figure I'll need 3 of them. I probably don't need that much power, but I want to have each area on two knobs so I can adjust the lights in the buildings and the streetlamps separately.   

I still have to run the hose for the smoke on house on fire. I did find the smoke unit, but need to find the wire to rewire it.

Up next, I'll mark the streets and the locations of the houses and streetlamps on the mountain and then take up all the track.

Terry

starfire700:
Looks like you made some good progress. I have to find time to do the same.
I like the car you made for marking the roadbed, also noticed you have a Madison Hardware diner.
I don't recall seeing the overall dimensions of the layout.

Terry:
The O layout is 12 ft 6 inches by almost 27 feet. If I was thinking I would have made it 12 feet wide so I could use 12 foot long boards to hold the standard layout above it. BUt the difference between a 12 foot and a 16 foot board is only $3 and I only 5 of them so I failing to think didn't hurt me.

I have a Madison diner with a 617 coach too. It's trashed, but I have most of the parts and a good 617 body so I can put it together. Chuck Brasher had a 1691 blue litho observation madison diner at a show years ago. I never saw another one. I also had most versions of the madison wartime freights including the dump car and searchlight that came from Al Cox. I didn't have a caboose which I've never seen or a 1717 gondola.

The free paint place in my town is closed for the flu season. I still have the vehicles registered at the old city address so I can try their paint recycling place. 

Terry:
I got all the track up after marking roads with a red marker. I was thinking I could work on the mountain with it there, but decided I don't want to work over and around it. I'm too old to play twister.

 

Then I ran wire to the streetlamps on the mountain.

 

I use the 3M Scotchlock connectors. I bought them on amazon because the price was lower than I could find locally.  Both wires can pass through the connector so I can connect two lights at one point with connectors between them.

 

Then I connected the transformer to the wires I ran under the layout before I put down the homasote.

It turns out the ground isn't connected, and neither is the line on the north side of the mountain.  That's why I check everything as I go.

Here's a photo of the prewired layout:

 

That seemed like a good place to stop for the week.

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