Sunday, December 27, 2015

New territory for the new year

After 5 turns and 14.5 inches of climbing from the lower section of the staging yard the helix is nearing completion.  The last section for the helix is a special transition section that will connect it to the Wesso section.  In this section the Atlas code 80 track will be connected to the Micro Engineering code 55 track and part of it will have scenery representing the edge of Winnemucca, Nevada so this small section will be referred to as the Winnemucca section.

To cut out this section I first made a cardboard template.  Once I was satisfied with the fit of the template I traced it's shape onto a sheet of plywood and cut this out with a saber saw.  There were still some minor adjustments to be made to get the fit just right.

To install this section it had to be put in over the all thread rods, then slide the end into the last pair of splicing blocks.  To do this I made slots for the rods instead of holes as seen in this photo.

Besides being supported by the rods and the helix splicing blocks there is also a 3/4 inch ledger along the wall where that end of the section is secured.
This end of this small section of bench work will connect to the Wesso section which I have already started to cut the parts for and will post on soon.  The holes shown in this photo are to accommodate any wiring between the two sections.






So as 2015 ends and the new year begins the layout is enter a new and exciting phase.  The most complicated bench work for the layout is now complete and section by section it can now progress around the train room.

Thank you everyone who has been following my slow progress on this layout. May you all have a safe and happy 2016.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

The weathering contest

Work on the layout has been slowly progressing and I'll be posting more on that soon hopefully.  One side project I have undertaken during December is weathering a couple of my Micro-Trains 40 ft box cars for entry in a Micro-Trains sponsored contest on Trainboard.com.

This is the one I entered.  If you are a member of Trainboard.com all of the entries can be seen and voted on at:

www.trainboard.com 




If your are not a member, it's worth looking into.  There is no cost and they have quite a few separate boards for each modeling scale plus rail-fanning and other railroad related topics.  This months weathering contest is going to be the first of several with each month being a different type of car.

This is another car that I weathered at the same time but did not enter.  These photos were taken on one of my Ntrak modules.

Hopefully before too long both of these will be running through the Palisade Canyon.

Happy Holidays to all !