So unlike me

It really is so unlike me.

To get on and replace and reballast the track so quickly. But it's 90F outside and there is no way I'm mowing the lawn in that heat... So this morning after work I headed down to Hub Hobby in Richfield and picked up a couple of lengths of Atlas Cose 83 flex-track and some Chooch scrap bale loads for the gondolas. Therefore a few hours after I had got home things were looking pretty much as they were before I ripped the trackwork up.

The remounted Kadee coupler magnet works a treat. So another important task before the show will be to make sure all my stock has Kadees on them, all properly adjusted.

Here we go..

There.

The track is now lifted and the magnet removed. All I needed to do to bring it down to the correct thickness was remove the plate that is used to increase the magnetic field.

Next task, buy another piece of flex track...

Snapshots

In the few moment I had before the start of the show on Saturday I managed to get a few pictures taken. Here's a few. I hope you like them.

Trackmobile rests outside the building
Jack Trollopes "dirty old lady" is glimpsed between a couple of box cars
A view down the layout.

A Scrapyard Vista

I did not plan on making three blog entries today but after looking down the layout after snapping a shot of the rusty wheels I thought to myself

"That view looks quite good". Here is that same view for you to see.

There is definitely a "scrapyard" feel to it. Don't you think? Piles of rusting metal, wagons waiting for the cutters torch. Yup, I think this little project is coming along quite nicely.

Rust in pieces

Time to get on an do some more work on the layout. One thing that I noticed about the prototype scrapyard was the way the wheels were stacked in the yard. I knew that I had to recreate this feature on my model. It was not a problem getting hold of the first set s of wheels. I had after all cut up a couple of cheap Bachmann wagons for the layout. Not wanting to spend another $20 on a couple more wagons, being unable to find any second hand ones. I bought a 12 pack of Kadee non magnetic wheelsets. Here you see them piled up on the layout.

The rusting has still got a little ways to go yet. but it's definitely heading in the right direction I feel as this is the first time I've ever tried anything like this. They are painted with acrylics. On there so far is a base coat of "Sunrise Orange" which seemed to work better on the Bachy wheels than the Kadees. The second coat was a colour called "Asphaltum". I'm liking this Asphaltum colour. It seems to be a pretty good colour for rusting wheels when on top of this Sunrise orange and out of curiosity I also painted some onto a boxcar for weathering purposes, it makes a pretty good dirt colour too. But I digress. I need a third colour on there as well because as it stands the brighter rusting colour is too dominant. I need to bring that down a bit. But what I should use I don't know. Anyone got any suggestions?

Cornered

One of the most popular comments on RMWeb (and from my wife too) on how to improve things on the layout concerned the corner and the backscene. Everyone thought that the backscene:

a) needed clouds on it and;

b) the corner needed rounding off (see the picture below)

So, as I thought this was a pretty quick and easy job. I set at it. I removed the backscene, added a thin cardboard flap to one end that I could bend, and then repainted the whole thing and added some clouds. The end result (below) is a vast improvement
Always listen to the RMWebbers (and your wife...)

Day 5 - Mission accomplished!

I'm not going to say finished for what model railway can truly said to be finished. There's always something you can do to any layout. But this afternoon I stood back. Looked at it and said to myself.

"I could take this layout to a show now." That means that to all intents and purposes the project is done. Yes there are still things to do. I've mentioned some of those before. But now, in this state, this layout is exhibitable. So to celebrate I ran trains in a typical operating sequence and photographed it.

1. The mainline diesel brings in a selection of cars to be scrapped
2. The works switcher emerges from the building to pick up a car for cutting up.
3. The switcher detatches one car from the train and takes it on its last journey
4. The car disappears inside never to be seen again.

Without a doubt, I'm very happy the way the project has turned out. Now the long tedious process of detailing begins. Twice maybe three times as may rusty wheels, the scrap pile needs to be bigger, the dumpsters need adding, the backscene detailing need fixing in place... and so it goes on. I'll keep posting more on the layout as I work on it.

But for now, as The Two Ronnies used to say.

"It's goodnight from me"

"And it's good night from him"

(as good as) Done

Here we are then just before it gets installed on the layout and bedded in. The main building. I'm pretty pleased with it so far. Once I get it in situ I'll then add a bit of light weathering to it.

To recap on the construction methods and materials used. The main building shell is 5mm foamcore board. The brick base came from some leftover parts of a Walthers low relief building kit The block walling was hand scribed styrene sheet. The doors are left overs from some other Walthers and Pikestuff kits. The Biffy is from BLMA. The Lean-to addition is a shell of 1.5mm card from the back of a desk top calendar faced with Metal roof and siding embossed styrene sheets.

Time for a coffee break I think.

Day three nearly done

5pm day three. Time to post some progress photos. Things are starting to pull together I feel. The ground is starting to look like ground. Though I don't think I'll ever get the colour of dried out earth exactly right. The buried track looks OK though.

The building seems to b a never ending job after I thought I had the bulk of it out of the way after yesterday. I decided to make a slight addition, as shown by the plain white section of wall there. I'm now happier with the shape of the building but it does mean scribing another section of styrene sheet.
So things are looking good. Technically I have until Saturday to finish things. But that might be difficult so I might have to be done by Friday. Will I get it finished?

Ready for day 2 then?

When it came to 9:30 last night I was exhausted. That was a lot of hard work yesterday.

I didn't exactly finish after yesterdays last posting. There was nothing on the telly that appealed to me and Top Gear on BBCAmerica was a repeat. So I decided to crack on and fill out some details on the scrapyard building. The basic shell is 1/4" foamcore board and some 1mm card that came from the back of a desktop calendar.

The building shell was "knocked up" very quickly and while the glue holding it to shape was setting I rootled in my spares box looking for suitable materials to clad the wall with. I found a sheet of evergreen metal siding embossed styrene that looked eminently suitable for the lean to addition and from a Walthers low relief building kit I discovered a brick base for the main walls. You can also see a door on the end wall that came from some Pikestuff left overs.

That is all my spares box would give me so I need to get some more siding for the roof of the lean to and something to clad the other wall with.

A trip to the hobby shop may well be in order today.

Progress Photo

So he were are then an update to prove the progress.

The track is down and was just about to be sprayed with a mix of cans I found lying around. Dark Earth, Rail Brown and something called "Instant weathering" which looked like some sort of Light Earth. You can see the honking big uncoupler magnet at the start of the curved road. I tested it and it functions perfectly. The curved road will comfortably take 3 cars, the sort middle road 2 and the rear one will also take 2 more. Though that length is intended to be undercover. The feed-in track at the left is intended to be set up for a cassette system like PECO loco lifts

Now I have a choice of things I could do. I could start to put down the lightweight spackle ground cover or I could work on the half relief building.

Decisions, decisions...