Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

Don and Jim started wiring in the Digitrax system, more on that later. Don Stoddart suggested that there should be a hill where the main line starts to climb out of Lincoln. Then he left Tom and Rod to build it.  Then others chimed in with their opinions about tunnel length and it's location, so construction was halted to reconsider its position and shape. The new station area was levelled as trees were added near the farm. The main street for Lincoln gets lines courtesy of Doug and his paint pens.  Jim Long brought in the cattle pen he built for the meat packing plant, the gates even work. Glen brought in two other buildings, the ADM Elevator and the Moving and Storage background building by Walthers, which he resigned into Bigham the Movers. Glen also added some Woodland Scenics figures to it.

the hill

trees by the farm

nice lines



ADM Grain

stock yard



Bigham the Mover

Neat result

Matt and Trent had to make a base for the area Trent wanted to work on. A large two inch piece of blue foam board was selected and cut to shape with a drywall saw. This raw, jagged edge was to be covered with castings later on.  At some time it became apparent that the raw saw cut edge had a neat texture and it was painted to look like a rock cut, a neat result to something not planned.

Country Feed and Seed

Another small industry finds a home in Springbank. This is the CO-OP Storage Shed by Walthers, assembled by Glen. It just seems to fit right in, there is even a road for truck traffic.

Other points of view

As with any group of people, many have other interests. I often hear Cliff talk about cars, so it wasn't a big surprise when he suggested we needed a junk yard on the layout. A long narrow area along a spur track in Valleyview  was chosen. Now where is Cliff going to find a model of the Piston Pushers club house?

New station

There is a long run between Valleyview and Wellington so we decided to put in another station.  Now it needs a name. Keeping with our naming convention we can call it, Vanier, Vansittart (too long), Victoria, Vimy Place, Vincent, Walter, Warwick, Water, Waterloo, or Welford. What do you think?

new station area

Making the Railroad Layout Come Alive

Here is a nice, serene country scene with a classic gambrel roofed barn and wooden fence next to an unpaved country road and watched over by an imposing rock outcropping. But notice how this rural picture, nice as it is on its own, has gained some interesting appeal with the two Holstein "ladies" chewing their cud near the barn. It's no longer a static scene with the added animal life which will catch many people's eyes as they tour our layout.


The picture below is of a loading ramp running from trackside to the second story of a meat packing plant. A stockyard is being built [hint! hint! Jim L.] that will be located on the left side of this ramp. Stock cars will bring cattle along the track in the foreground  and unload them into the stock yard. Then selected steers are directed over to the ramp and on to the packing plant. In this picture, you can see steers being herded up into the ramp which creates added interest to this scene. This track will also be used by refrigerated boxcars known as "reefers" picking up the meat products to be shipped to various markets.

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

Trent worked on his hill area, putting down grass. After arranging some buildings and foot print plans, some roadwork was done in Valleyview and on the power plant road.  Backdrop painting began  near Ridgewood and under the McDonald bridge.  The DCC system wiring was started and throttles arrived, remember your checks next Tuesday.

grass on Trent's hill

buildings at Valleyview

Ridgewood Falls

DCC module wired

Friend connect

Someone left a message using friend connect, this blog is not set up for that system, so I cannot read it, sorry.

Quarry update

Jim and Don have put in a lot of time on adding scenery to this area.  To start this story we had a rock wall from a previous layout, just to nice not to use, and it was a perfect fit for our quarry. It not only acts as the back of the quarry, but supports the upper level behind it, the location of our cement plant.  The only problem is that we do not have a mold of the unique rock work on this wall, well not the only problem.  The upper loop of track now needed some logical support system. Part of the trestle from the above mentioned layout supports the track over the entrance to the quarry (this was a S scale layout so the bridge timbers are very substantial for HO but it fit in.) The rest of the track is supported on a long narrow peninsula of rock, apparently the rock has been quarried up to the right of way, that's our story and we're sticking to it. A long rounded hill was added to the raw top of the wall. This now acts as a view block and softens the top of the wall. It was painted and dusted with grass.  A steep hill was added to one end of the wall. The other end had its own problems.  A hill was made to blend the wall, the top of the wall, the trestle, the backdrop it attaches to, Trent's hill, the lower level and two tunnel portals at different levels. That was even hard to say.  Now someone has to paint all the rock faces to match the quarry wall and then Glen can put in his gravel plant.

original wall section

wall section and hill above it in place

rock wall supporting the upper loop of track

hill added around tunnel portal

hill at the trestle end blending it all together

DCC system

Our shipment of Digitrax equipment has arrived. Barb Owen is putting our names on our own controlers and we will each get a receipt for it, thanks Barb. There is also two blister packs of electronics in the box.  When it is all installed, we can run a train to see if we need to fix any bugs in the wiring and track work. Now we will have the struggle between operating and detailing.

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

Wow, after all this time, our ballasting crew is still at work, but mostly fixing up missed areas and patches. More backdrop was painted and some hills and rockwork went in around the loops. Lincoln and the branch line were also worked on.  The inclusion of a junk yard at Valleyview was talked about.  An area of a hill was cut away to put in a station on the long run between Wellington and Valleyview, Rod needs more stops for his new passenger train.
Pledge with future was added to the harbour.

water is running out of the harbour

Rod ballasts as Trent looks on

Doug lays track at Lincoln

tunnel on the branch line

Jim adds rocks at the cement plant area

An AHA moment!

An AHA moment! 

Larry and I [Glen] got caught up on making streams for bridges along the front of the layout near Valleyview one recent Tuesday night. One of us, probably Larry, thought we should have a culvert coming out of an upper portion behind one set of bridges, thus creating the need for the bridges. I went home thinking about what to use for a culvert and, as I save most things that look like they could be useful, spied some hollow plastic tubes from fax machine rolls. AHA! A section of this could possibly make a pretty good culvert. I have a 10" metal lathe in my basement so I chucked up a short piece of the tube and cut grooves on the one end to simulate the culvert corrugations. Then I used a round needle file to round out the grooves. One could likely use a drill press and a regular round file toward the smaller end and get a similar result or use a triangular needle file. A shot of aluminum paint and some rust paint to simulate weathering and we had our culvert. Now to get it installed.

                

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

Great strides were made in adding scenery in different areas of the layout.  Bill, our newest member worked on the branch line while others made more trees.  Don informed us that our digitrax system has been shipped.  A few members did some general clean up some of which included removing excess ballast and testing the track with a box car.  All of the rocks behind the port were painted and Trent put on a base coat of tan paint on his hill.  Bill located the Simmer's block of buildings (he painted them) to Valleyview, the first this town has received any attention.

rock wall painted

Trent added a base coat of paint

Bill and Ralph work on the branch line

town of Valleyview

no one told me there was a meeting

Woodstock Train Show

The  WOODSTOCK MODEL TRAIN SHOW AND SALE  takes place on Sunday, April 13th, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., in the Oxford Auditorium and the Mutual/Market Buildings, on the Woodstock Fairgrounds, at 875 Nellis Street.  The April Woodstock Model Train Show will be expanded to two buildings and will feature over 170 vendor tables of Model Trains of all scales including Train Sets, Locomotives, Transformers, Rolling Stock, Track, Structures, Photographs, Videos, DVD's, and Railroad Memorabilia.  Worth the drive from anywhere.  The largest Model Train Show in Southern Ontario.  A great family event, with lots to see for anyone that is interested in Model Trains.  At least seven model train layouts will be in operation throughout the day.   Admission is $5.00 per person

Farm scene

Doug's barn was painted red and positioned in the start of this little scenic touch. A picture of a farm house was glued onto the backdrop with painted trees and bushes blending it in. A driveway, fence, farm clutter and animals will complete the scene.

Painting the log pond

The log pond at Miller was painted with spray cans of light green, tan, dark green, dark blue and black. The black at the front edge makes the water look deeper.

bare log pond

adding paint

Program Track

This track is electrically separated from the main line by two brass rerailers, which are insulated at each end, so you can't program the whole layout by mistake. We thought that the track being brass would alert operators that this section of track has no power. The rerailers will allow you to push your engine on to the main.

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

A little later, but I forgot my camera and had to go back to take some pictures.  The top of the quarry was repainted and covered with ground foam. More trees were added to the branch and at Miller.  The New river area was worked on and some scenery was put down along sections of the main line.  The yard at Lincoln was ballasted and the main street was touched up.

ground foam blown on to wet paint at top of quarry

greening up the branch line

main street touched up

scenery along the main line