RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted October 9, 2011 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted October 9, 2011 Good Job! I like the way you've handled the area to the back of the layout where the foliage merges into the backscene. Particularly as seen in the second scene at about 1:00minute plus. Cheers! Did you know my brother, Nick Wright? He died last year but lived in TonTeg. Had a Rio Grande N layout in his loft and a large scale narrow gauge in his garden winding up the hillside around a Koi Pond. Best, Pete. Sadly, no - although I'm relatively new to the area. I'm sure one of the local modellers will have known of him. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted January 25, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted January 25, 2012 A brief spurt of progress on the G,A&E: I can't believe how long it's taken to reach this stage of development on the top left corner - I've only added about two foot of semi-finished scenery in the last couple of years. Along the way there have been technical snags and minor rethinks, as well as long months where I didn't touch the layout at all (other than to run a train now and then) but I think things are finally moving forward again. The hidden storage yard is - touch wood - working really well, better than I could have hoped for, infact. Since I installed the monitoring camera, there have been no derailments and only the very occasional instance of a stalled train. Double-heading eliminates stalling almost completely, and most of the trains need it to get up and down the grades. It's not hard to lift the concealing scenery but I haven't had to do it more than a couple of times. Here are a couple of shots illustrating the start of scenic development on the 2% double-track grade. Watching slow freights creep up and down these reverse curves is very satisfying. It makes me wonder what could be done in a similar space using British models: maybe a South Wales branch line in the 70s, with double-headed 37s? The road over the tracks swings around to the left and eventually enters a town district, which at the moment is little more than bare polystyrene and a collection of unpainted buildings. I've included this shot (below) to give an idea of the modular scenic elements - as I've mentioned before, all the hills are removable and lock together in a way that is hopefully not too obvious when in place and covered with foliage. Some of the older hills, on the right side of the layout, haven't needed to be moved since they went in, over three years ago. I've also continued detailing some of the existing industrial areas. This building has received some additional roof detail and extra supports for the canopy over the loading bay. That's it for now, thanks for reading. 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 I saw a twin of the Southern box car in CSX sidings on Bayonne just two weeks ago...... Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted January 25, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted January 25, 2012 I saw a twin of the Southern box car in CSX sidings on Bayonne just two weeks ago...... Best, Pete. It's amazing, isn't it? Southern ceased to exist - what - 30 years ago? Guess they painted 'em good in those days. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold John B Posted January 26, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 26, 2012 I'm now working down in Georgia for the forseeable future, Al, and from what I've seen of the suburban areas of Atlanta so far, the rolling hills and vegetation are right on the mark for the area. Once the spring & summer comes I'll try to take some snaps of the area, if you're interested.. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted January 26, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted January 26, 2012 I'm now working down in Georgia for the forseeable future, Al, and from what I've seen of the suburban areas of Atlanta so far, the rolling hills and vegetation are right on the mark for the area. Once the spring & summer comes I'll try to take some snaps of the area, if you're interested.. Please do! My only visit to Atlanta was - gulp - 20 years ago (Jan 1992), in very cold weather. Don't remember too much of the surrounding topography other than a very chilly visit to Stone Mountain. Snow came in on the day we were due to leave and we were eventually de-planed after ice build-up on the wings. Staying in any central Atlanta hotels? The one I stayed in is the same one used in the film Manhunter. Quite amazing lobby, with elevators swooping up to dizzying heights. Love to go back, if only for that hotel! Perhaps I'll pop over for some railfanning fun Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Snow in Atlanta is pretty rare. When I lived in the South (Greensboro, NC) what I always feared were "Ice Storms". I went down to Atlanta from Greensboro for a visit in 1992 too. I was disappointed somewhat that they had ripped the guts out of the downtown area. Stayed at the Embassy Suites - show you what sort of trip I had (my reputation went before me) ended up at The Gold Club (?) giant strip club, one night and for some reason was taken to "Hooter's" twice to eat. Man, I really hate that "chain"! Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted January 28, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted January 28, 2012 ended up at The Gold Club (?) giant strip club, one night and for some reason was taken to "Hooter's" twice to eat. It's a hard life! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 Sounds like you went to The Gold Club too.... "Hooters" as a concept started out well but now you've got elderly waitresses wearing support hose......which would only work if the food was any good. Can you imagine opening a "Hooters" in the Valleys? Unfortunately I can only too well. All the best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted January 31, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted January 31, 2012 Nothing much to report here, just a selection of recent shots. B23-7s: B23-7s again: And again: MPC15 switcher: E8/9 A/B on a passenger service: Woods Furniture Co: SD24s: And again: Cheers! 11 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted February 9, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted February 9, 2012 Had a bit of a nasty surprise a couple of days ago. I'd bought a new loco a year ago, but had only test run it at the shop (it's CSX so I'll only run it when I operate modern-era). Keen to try it again, I placed it on the layout and selected address 3. The loco ran fine ... but what I'd (stupidly) forgotten was that another of my locos, presently parked in the hidden storage area, had the same address. What happened, obviously, is that the other loco also started moving, although I didn't realise it at the time. Since the point in the exit throat hadn't been selected for this loco's track, it ran into a point set the wrong away and experienced a short. Unfortunately this short wasn't detected by my system - the power stayed on, and I carried on operating for what could easily have been a couple more operating sessions. By the time I discovered the stalled, shorted loco, it had undergone complete meltdown of one of its tender trucks - and I mean meltdown; the truck had literally exploded into about a dozen pieces. Remarkably, the loco was still responding to DCC. Even more remarkably, the point was still operational. I then did some testing and found that the short circuit protection was not tripping reliably at all points on the layout; in fact it only seemed to trip for about 50 % of the places I tested. Obviously this isn't ideal but the layout operates well so I'm loathe to rip out all the wiring and start again. I think the problem is that I wired the layout for cab control sections, rather than using a DCC bus-bar type of arrangement, but there were good reasons for doing that; it allowed me to phase the transition from DC to DCC over several years rather than jumping in headfirst. I've tried to adhere to good wiring practise, using plenty of droppers (well, more than I'd normally bother with) and careful soldering, so what else could I have done, I wonder? The layout isn't huge so I don't know if there'd be any point adding power districts. However, I will admit that I'm not likely to ever go back to DC now so there is always the option to do a complete DCC-optimised wiring job. With lots of the track now ballasted, though, I would not want to go around adding extra feeders in. I don't think I'm likely to make the above mistake again, but it has given me pause for thought. Fortunately the melted truck is available as a spare, so the loco will be back running before too long. I've posted this in the spirit of honesty as I think it is as valuable to document cock-ups as it is progress! 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted February 13, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted February 13, 2012 Here's a crude sketch of the the current plan: The hatched area is where the layout is finished, or at least presentable; the rest of it either doesn't exist yet or is just bare wood and trackwork. Over the last couple of years I have been grappling with the problem where to add a locomotive servicing terminal. Admittedly a small-ish layout like this could easily manage without one but my thinking was that a roundhouse would give me a nice place to store locos, justify swapping power on trains, and also offer a chance at having a turntable on a layout. None of my 4mm layouts have ever been large enough to include one. The problem is that, as one learns more about US railroading practise, it becomes clear that locomotive terminals were almost always placed in connection with a bloody huge classification yard, which opens a whole other can of worms - where am I going to fit a yard and a terminal into this already half-finished layout? Obviously the smart thing would have been to design the yard and terminal in from the outset, but not only did I not know what I was doing when I drew up the original GA&E plan, but I doubt that back in 2007 I would have envisaged wanting a loco terminal this badly. I have tried numerous permutations of yard+terminal in my head, and on paper. The most elegant solution included a run-through yard on the main with the terminal situated on the central penisula. This would have allowed for double-ended arrival/departure tracks as well as several stub-ended classification roads. The drawback here was that the terminal would have dominated the room unduly, needing to be at least two feet wide and I also felt it would have been vulnerable to damage by being stuck out in the middle. In the end I settled on this arrangement, in which the terminal sits on the lower leg of the layout and the yard becomes a stub-ended arrangement on the peninsula. This isn't at all realistic but the yard can still function as a yard, even if trains may need to back in and out depending on direction of travel. For me this is an acceptable compromise. The yard need not be wider than 18 inches. Here's the rectangular area where the terminal will eventually sit: and here's the template for a 9 or 10 road roundhouse, giving some idea of the scale of these things even in N. When I drew this template it was a real shock to see how much space it was going to need; everything else is small in N so it's tempting to forget that roundhouses ate up some serious real estate. I've no idea how people build these things in HO. More progress as it happens... 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted March 28, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 28, 2012 Couple more shots for no reason than I haven't posted much lately. Although this part of the layout hasn't changed much since 2008 I have recently returned to it with a view to sprucing it up a bit and adding more foliage. 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted March 28, 2012 Share Posted March 28, 2012 The Southern livery is beautiful, is it not? http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=392928&nseq=0 Best, Pete. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted March 29, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 29, 2012 The Southern livery is beautiful, is it not? http://www.railpictu...d=392928&nseq=0 Best, Pete. I'll have one of them in N! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Joseph_Pestell Posted March 29, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 29, 2012 HO ho ho.... tiTTer Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted March 29, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted March 29, 2012 Was there a point to that, Joseph? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted April 5, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted April 5, 2012 By way of a brief update, here's a shot of the locomotive terminal under construction. Getting the turntable and roundhouse aligned was a major headache, but after much fiddling around I eventually managed it. There is a handy template supplied with the Walthers turntable, but even so I still found it quite tricky to get everything right. I have wired in some of the tracks but there are still more to go - it's one of those boring jobs I can only face in small doses, since each track needs a lot of filing to match the profile of the turntable road. You can also see the Walthers coaling stage, which is a very pleasing but complicated kit - and I'm still not done with it! I have some sanding and ash facilities to add, and then I'd like to add some diesel fuelling points, possibly on a siding on the other side of the main. I'd had the Walthers turntable for two years before powering it up - fortunately (after a bit of a learning curve) I got it all working nicely, and it is a very impressive piece of kit. Eventually it will feed the 9 roundhouse roads plus a couple more open-air tracks. Meanwhile - but not too far away in layout terms - more progress on the branchline. It's probably not too clear from the track plans I've posted, but the idea here is that the branch climbs away from the main at 3% (as the main descends at 2%) and then diverges, with one direction crossing the main and heading out onto the peninsula. The other track continues on to serve some high-level industries located near the servicing terminal. The diverging route, at 11" radius, is the tightest visible curve on the layout but given that this is essentially an industrial spur, I think it will look acceptable and offer a nice contrast to the more generous curves on the main. I thought of having the branch cross the main via a bridge, but in the end opted for the main diving into a short tunnel. There's an odd visual illusion going on here whereby the branch looks less steep than the main. That's it for now, cheers for reading. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuart-AU Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 HI Nice layout, thanks for sharing. I enjoyed the viid. Stuart-AU 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted April 5, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted April 5, 2012 Ta, Stuart! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Al, Is this cool, or what?: http://www.railpictures.net/photo/394237 Best, Pete. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted April 6, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted April 6, 2012 Al, Is this cool, or what?: http://www.railpictu...et/photo/394237 Best, Pete. Fantastic! One of the best colour schemes ever, still looks great. And lightning! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold roundhouse Posted April 6, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 6, 2012 Would be nice if Kato bring this livery out on their N scle ones Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Barry Ten Posted April 6, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted April 6, 2012 Would be nice if Kato bring this livery out on their N scle ones Yeah, would be. And the Southern heritage livery too. They'd be fools not to. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold roundhouse Posted May 21, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 21, 2012 Barry After our conversation yesterday at the Stow show, youm netioned your USA N scale so thought I would take a look. Some very impreesive modelling. I struggled to do gators in HO scale let alone N! Regards Ian 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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