Last post of 2017

Here's an update on the brewery.

14 walls out of 48 done (except for the weathering and the assembly) and also learning about Arduino. Got the garage doors to open, got the bi-color light at the door to go green, flashing red and red and got sound to work. Now I just need to throw everything in the mix and get everything to work on cue.

That's it for the brewery for a few months. Now I need to spend time working on my wiring (feeders, bus line for track and another for accessories and my RGB LED strips under the valance). I also need to work on 3 buildings (paper mill, 2 x grain elevator and the River mining).

Later

December all ready

It's been a month since my last update and I'm still at it. 

I decided to start on my brewery since it might take 1 - 2 years to build. Yes it's big, but I also need to finish the track wiring, paint the tracks, other buildings, backdrops, lighting, scenery, .... well you get the picture, I still have lots of work to do.

My inspiration for the brewery is the Coors in Colorado, but since I would need a room of 20' x 40' to build it, I decided on designing my own. It's still going to be big, about 10' x 11' and will sit on top of my helix.

Here's what it will look like with a few changes as I go along.

I've started by working on the outside stair case since it would be meticulous and long. The only pieces I bought were the stairs and the stair railings, all the rest is scratch build.

Here's what I based myself on.

I also did a few walls. These wall are the freight access to the interior. All the doors will be activated and so will the entrance lights.

I have to do a lot of planning because I want to be able to remove the entire building to bring to shows. The building will probably be in 4 sections, but haven't figure out how yet.

November Update

Hey everyone,

Lest We Forget. As we reflect this Remembrance Day in Canada, and Veteran’s Day in the U.S.

Been a while, but not much to report. Since my last post, I went on vacation for 2 weeks and the week prior and after the vacation, nothing was done on the layout, therefore there wasn’t much to report.

I’ve had my first visitors to my layout and it was a pleasant experience. The first visit was from a group of four that visited Ottawa and on the way back they stop by for a good 2 hours. It’s always good to have different opinions, it’s part of the learning process. Then last week, I had another visitor for another two hours, again with a vast knowledge, this time in electronics.

As for the construction, I’m still working on my work bench. All my gyprock is installed, plaster is almost done and then the paint. My programming track is finish, I just need to install a switch to turn it off the main layout.

I’ve also continued installing Masonite for the backdrops, painted a few tracks and still doing some wiring.

 

For the rest of the year, my main goal is to have all my tracks wired and bench work area completed. I also would like to come to a decision about my 22 control panels. Will I put them on the fascia or the face of the valance (you would need to be 4 ½’ tall to reach).

Later

Latest update September 16th, 2017

Since my last post, I’ve been working on different things.

I managed to close off my work bench from the layout area. On the left where the small box is, that will be the dispatcher area (in 3-4 years from now). I also have my programming track which is fed from the layout. During an operation session, 5 cars will be brought into the workshop for weathering, adding weight, couplers and wheels checkup. With the number of cars, this should take me about 2-3 years to complete the roster. The drawers under the paint brushes in the right corner, will be for storing my rolling stock that needs work.

I’ve also finished the valance along the entire layout. I now need to install the top portion and it will be ready for paint and RGB Led strips to be installed.

The container yard has been totally removed to make way for another yard, the St-Eugene yard. The main reason for the removal was that it wasn’t the right era for the intermodal.

I started work on one of the DPM buildings (M.T. Arms Hotel). You all know that I like details, well I decided that the hotel would have drapes, lighting, signs and people. It sure helps knowing a bit of Photoshop since I had to find a hotel room backdrop, drapes and carpet. The image of the drapes is from a picture at IKA…lol. They needed modification since I wanted, open, semi open and closed drapes. The carpet is needed since the backdrop of the room would be in a curve to show depth, therefore the need for carpet. As for the room backdrop, it was hard to find the right one to fit the hotel. Once I found it, I had to do lots of Photoshop, such as erasing the existing carpet to match the other, shrink the bed because it was to big (it looked like a 16’ bed) and do touch ups around the bed, couch and other furniture.

It's a lot of work, but all those little things make it worth it at the end, besides, only 4 rooms out of 9 will have drapes open or semi open.

That's it for now
Later

Latest Update #7

Been a while, but worth the wait.
Enjoy my first layout run.

 

Back to working on the bench work, tracks and more.

Latest update.

Yes, I'm still working on my layout. I want the last spike to be placed by year end at the latest. So here are some updates.

Been working on finishing one part of the layout. This is the Canadian Pacific workshop, it will have lights on the inside and outside and will have two arc welding lights (one inside and one outside), everything will work on an Arduino mini. I still need to do the chain link fence and a bit of finishing touches here and there.

FINALLY finished the reversing loop of my staging area, well I still need to install 3 tortoises. But I did run some trains back and forth and it ran like a charm.
 

Since I was in the mood to finish my staging area, I continued and installed the rest of the tracks in my yard. I also did the bench work for the extension which will house my turn table and 6 stalls. I had to play around to make the tracks fit because I miss calculated the room in the aisles, I only had 18". So, I shrunk the extension by 10" to give me an aisle of 24", but that complicated the track work leaving the yard to the turn table because I already had glued the road bed. So I had to add roadbed (some places 3 wide) to fit the tracks because I wanted to keep my 30" radius, which is the norm on my entire layout.
 

I've also been working on one of my two trestle bridges. Now I need to finish this one, work on the other and then carve the styrofoam, add plaster, paint and do the scenery, but for now it's on pause so I can work on finishing building the layout.

What's next:
- More bench work and more track laying.
- Will install a few more tortoises (still need to install about 70).
- More wiring.
- Working on buildings.
- More Arduino stuff (speedometer, weighing station and other stuff).
- Gyprock workbench area and finish the workbench with dispatcher area.
- Will be doing my first attempt at weathering and it will be a box car.

Just a little info if anybody is interested. I'm also part of a group called YouTube Model Railroaders. We have many live shows such as Fine Scale Building, Tech shows, Arduino basic, layout tours, etc. Lots of us meet every night live to discuss techniques, ideas or just watch others work on their layouts. We can be up to 12 at the same time live (video and sound), it's lots of fun. We use the appear.in to communicate.

Later all.