jeff train: Richmond

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miðvikudagur, 29. júlí 2015

Wordless Wednesday #99

þriðjudagur, 11. nóvember 2014

Work Session Report - November 11, 2014

First of all, to all my fellow veterans and to those who are still on active duty in the Armed Forces, thank you for you services and sacrifices. You're the reason we get to enjoy hobbies like model railroading.

An overall view of the Richmond area as it looked after today's work session.

Progress on the layout had kind of sputtered out a little - I was finding it hard to get motivated to put the mainline back together and finish the track in the Richmond area.
Stic and I had arranged a work session for today a couple of weeks ago - and knowing Stic was coming over shamed me into finishing up the track. I managed to finish all the track on Sunday.
Since I was still left with a bunch of pink styrofoam pieces in the workshop it seemed to make the most sense to spend today's work session cutting the gluing the styrofoam landforms in place.
We made pretty good progress - next step is to carve the foam to shape - which will be as task I'll tackle in short sessions after work in the evenings.
Appreciate Stic spending his day off over here helping with the layout.

Beauregard and Molly are in charge of keeping up morale�. and wrestling!

You can't use an electronic magazine for this! Bound volumes and magazine holders filled with MRs, RMCs, and the like make perfect weights to hold the foam in place as the glue dries! The mockup is a rough approximation of the Richmond creamery.

miðvikudagur, 5. nóvember 2014

Wordless Wednesday #68

miðvikudagur, 22. október 2014

Wordless Wednesday #66

fimmtudagur, 16. október 2014

Thursday Update

Here it is mid-October and I realized I haven't posted any new posts for most of the month!
Stic has come by for two work sessions - we removed the track and after thinking about salvaging the foam board sub roadbed I decided to duplicate the methodology we used in rebuilding Randolph - basically replacing the foam board with new plywood. None of that was very fun but the result is a much better foundation for the track. I'll write it off to "what I should have done in the first place." Currently the only foam board sub roadbed still on the railroad is in Waterbury - that section is also ballasted so I'm more than a little hesitant to take it out. I think I'll leave it be for now.
The photo above shows the current state of the new Richmond scene. I'm still in the process of figuring out the track arrangement "full size."

This is likely old news to everybody but me, but I used to cut roadbed (cork, homasote, or whatever) by the old "lay in the tangent piece and then place the curved section and slice to fit" method outlined in the old Atlas track plan books. Remember those?
I never had a great deal of luck getting the cork cut just right. Then it occurred to me to take the wider sheet of cork (which is sold to be used under yard tracks) and then trace the turnout on that and cut it to fit. I've already made enough "tie blocks" for all the turnouts I'll need for this scene, and then some.

The other task I've just about accomplished is in the workshop. I installed a couple of more shop lights and added an L-shaped extension to my workbench. I still need to add some pegboard to the back (mostly to cover over the shiny silver insulation!).

Don't let the clear surface fool you - also on the agenda for this weekend is "clean up the other half of the workbench."
Off to watch the Pats game.

miðvikudagur, 8. október 2014

Wordless Wednesday #64

fimmtudagur, 25. september 2014

Layout Alterations - further simplifications

When I started the layout I planned to have Essex Junction as my "main" yard scene. Then as the design process progressed I found I could include White River Jct., a scene I really wanted to include, in the "main yard" area - and I relegated Essex Junction to the end of the "rear" aisle. I managed to get the track to fit - of course we didn't have the wye, (I included two legs of the wye), and the train shed and station were on the wrong side of the town relative to the prototype.
I managed to get most of the sidings in place - but the problems really started when I tried to fit the structures into the scene. There was just no room for them.
Not helping matters was the track issues in Essex. Frankly, I rushed the track work in an effort to get it ready for an open house, and ended up with some kinked track that worked - sort of - and stayed in gauge - sort of. But I was far short of 100% operating reliability - the issue was simply too much was jammed into that portion of the layout.
Here's a couple of shots showing Essex Junction - as you can see there's a LOT of track crammed into this alcove.

So I've decided, somewhat reluctantly to remove Essex Junction.
What's going in its place?

Richmond, VT., the station between Essex and Waterbury that had slipped between the floorboards during the design process.
To give you an idea of what this will look like here's a preliminary sketch of the track plan for Richmond. I reserve the right to alter this as we make this change, but the result will hopefully be a simple scene that is interesting to view and photograph.