A little more scenery

Sorry for the late post.  The internet hated me last night.  I worked on a bit of basic scenery today.  Not much, but progress is progress.

 

Added lights to another building.

 

 

internet problems

Having trouble uploading pictures tonight.  Will post as soon they are up.

 

 

More lights and a snowmobile!

Put lights in a few more buildings today.  Here is a day and night picture.

 

Made up this little old Ski-do today.  Just for giggles.

 

 

 

 

 

A grain elevator and more lights

Finally got down in the stack far enough to build the last grain bin for the elevator.  Took it out to the layout and set it all up and realized that I will need to take the piping back apart to move it for paint and ground cover.  That's what happens when you rush I guess.

 

Put lights in the next building in the paper mill and tested them out.  Hoping to put lights in a building a day until all the built buildings are done.  I would say that I have learned to light structures as I build them, but I only have a few buildings left and I'm not planning on building another layout after this one  =p

 

 

A street and a bridge

Put together this Rix road bridge today and did some plaster work around this part of the river bed.

 

 

I started working on a small town street.  Most of the scenery on the layout is either industrial or very rural.  I thought a small town would add some variety.

 

lights

A pile of LEDs showed up in the mail today so, I spent some time installing a few in the boiler house.  The stack lights are flashers.  Next time, I will get red instead of blue.  I put a few floods outside to light up the pulpwood unloader and 3 SMDs inside.  I guess I will need to paint the inside of light colored buildings next time. 

 

 

Played with dimming the lights to not be so overpowering to the camera.  Turning up the lights so that the outside floods are useful makes the inside of the building show through. 

Background building and parking lot.

Finished up the background building that I have been working on, very slowly due to being sick, over the last 2 weeks.

 

 

I ordered a big box of bulk HO scale cars from overseas on Ebay to help fill up the parking lot and the yet to be built main street.  I was skeptical at first, but considering how inexpensive they were, I'm satisfied.  Mixed in with a few high quality well detailed cars, the effect works well.

I was taking a break and saw this this overview of the north half of the paper mill, so I snapped a picture.  The layout is coming together well.  Now to do something about that gap at the top of the wall and the ceiling.

A few things

Not much time today.  Assembled and painted a set of sideframes for the dummy F3 that I have.  The previous sets were really old Athearn blue box sideframes with almost no detail to them at all. 

 

I have been working on this background building with leftovers from a couple Walthers and Rix kits.  Should be ready for the layout tomorrow.

I got this used flatcar assembled with the load on it a few months ago.  It looks great, but have never ridden right.  Looked awesome in the yard, but derailed on every frog, switchpoint, and rail joint it crossed.  Wheelsets were in gauge, but I tried a set of new wheels from Kadee for giggles.  It didn't help.  I brought it in to the bench today and completely swapped the truck out for a new set from Walthers.  I will run it tomorrow and see what happens.

County fair

Its fair weekend here in town, so I've been escorting the little lady around the fair grounds all day.  She loves agricultural fairs so she can hang around with all the animals.  Not like we don't have enough of them at the house anyway. 

 

Here is a picture that I took last week of the scenery in progress at the cement plant.  It's not quite as finished as the scene actually is right now, but it's the most recent picture of the area that I have.

 

 

Grain hopper and new motive power

I put this hopper into service today.  I weathered it gently with just a bit of dirt and rust from the airbrush.

 

 

I got these two GP38s in today.  Since they will be tied to other units with sound already, I may skip sound decoders in these two to save some money.

 

 

A view of the fleet idling in the south end of the Brownville Jct. yard.

 

Bad rail joint

Since I have been sick for so long, I haven't been in the layout room much and have been able to run trains even less.  In an area where I cut in a new siding, I found this bad joint that derailed just about everything that crossed it.  I tried to spike it down to smooth it out to no avail.

 

 

So, I just tore it up and replaced it with a new piece of flex.  No joint, no derails.

 

 

Tried something new with a combination of static grass and Silfor mats. 

 

 

 

And here is that clear picture of the bridge that I promised from yesterday.

 

GrassTech applicator back in action

Got my static grass applicator back from GrassTech USA on warrantee work.  Great product from a great company.  One of the best hobby purchases I have ever made.  Here are a few pictures of grass that I put down today near the south end of the paper mill.  I love the job it does, but the finish of all 4 brands of flocking that I have used is very shiny and plastic looking.  Maybe some flat paint will help it out in the future. 

 

I put quite a bit of work into painting and installing this pony truss bridge on the branch today.  Unfortunately,  none of the dozen plus pictures that I took of this scene came out clear.  This is the best one of the bunch.  I'll try again tomorrow.

More scenery and a bridge

First day in a week where I felt well enough to spend a few hours in the layout room.  Hung another set of track lighting and put in some more scenic details.  More bushes and trees, some static grass, and ballast on a siding.  Here are a couple overviews of the area that I am working on.

 

 

 

After a bit of work on the layout itself, I retired to the portable workbench to work on a bridge kit.  I bought this neat old Walthers kit because it is close to a bridge near where I am modeling.  It's completely made of pressed paper.  I have never worked with this stuff before.  I didn't even know Walthers ever made kits out of it.  But it's going together well so far.

 

A few random things

 I had very little time for train stuff today due to, once again, being very sick.  I swapped couplers on a few cars and made a short country road.  (sorry the glue isn't dry)  I put down a bit more static grass in a few places and turned on the layout just to listen to all the diesels idle.  Then I went back inside for more medicine and sleep. 

 

 

 

Just a few details

Only had a little bit of time today.  I put a few scenic details in around the boiler house.  A few pipes, some weeds and grass, and a grown over access road.

 

Without trust there would be no free candy

But seriously kids, don't take candy from strangers. 

 

 Didn't have much time today so, I put together this van kit that I had in the pile.  I couldn't help but have a little fun with it.  The little lady thought this was kinda creepy but, I thought it was a fun project.

 

F units

Spent a bit of time working on this pair of F3s today.  #49 is all finished up.  #42 is just a dummy for now and still needs window glazing and a bell.  These are both Carey cast metal shells with brass details.  #49 is sitting on an Athearn Genesis sound equipped frame.  It took major modifications to make this frame fit this shell so, #42 will likely stay a dummy for awhile longer. 

 

A few misc. things

I'm trying to get the rest of the LED track lights up and wired in.  I've been quite lazy when it comes to the ceiling of the layout room.  I will have to make an effort to finish it up asap to keep down the dust.

 

I built a small dock today and spent some time carving out some of the bank to a more shallow angle for a boat launch.

 

 

Put a bit more scenery in around the yard at the paper mill.  Here is an updated picture.

 

 

I did some weathering on this CP pulpwood car by Walthers.  Just a couple rust washes and a bit of oil paint for streaks.

 

 

More scenery at the mill

Worked on some more of the scenery at the paper mill today. 

 

Now that I finally ordered more of them, I really need to get these two pulpwood cars in to the bench to put sergent couplers on them like the rest of the fleet.

I also finished up and added a log conveyor to the mill.

 

I added some piping between buildings.  I have quite a bit more of this to install.