A New Year, a New Post

It seems like most of my model railroad projects haven't really been out in the section house. After the Plano train show in January, I traded some unsold locomotives and freight cars for some Walthers, Rapido and Balboa passenger cars. I am starting to build a pretty decent North Coast Limited and Mainstreeter, but I need dome cars for the NCL and more baggage car or mail storage cars for the Mainstreeter.

My next big project is to add benchwork along the southeast wall. This will allow me to have train continue past Billings and add the Sugar Factory on the lower deck and add Parkman, the top of the grade, on the upper deck. This is what it looked like at the beginning of February.

The blue backdrop is all that remained of Shane's layout, I took it down and salvaged what I could.

You might remember the trouble I had finding studs with the stud finder. At some point over the winter I removed a chunk of drywall and discovered the reason is because the 5/8" sheetrock is offset from the studs by 1x4 material, adding 3/4" of air in most places. My solution was to buy some 5/8" plywood, screw it to the studs with more 1x4s and attach brackets to the plywood where needed. Removing the 9" wide strip of drywall with a circular saw was a horrible, messy ordeal, but it made for nice clean edges. Oh, and did I mention the mud daubers in the wall? Luckily it was winter, but not a very cold one.

With the first strip of plywood up, I was ready to add brackets and fascia.

I started by adding heavy duty shelf brackets upside down and attaching pieces of 1/2" plywood underneath with short screws that still poke through, but they can be ground off.

By the end of February I had the fascia extended around the new section and the bottom painted white. I could finally stack some junk on top of it and get it up off the floor.

October fun

In October I had all the switch machine controllers installed and was ready to put fascia on the lower lever. This is necessary mainly to keep things from falling on the floor. I had already lost a brand new sound-equipped Rivarossi U25C, which wasn't pretty.

I cut slots in the masonite in where gaps between the buildings will be. I will eventually add brick to the track side to represent buildings. These will really only be seen if you look over the fascia, but it will give the effect of looking thru a canyon of buildings that you get when you are in Billings.

A little paint gives the facia a clean look and ties the fascia together with the valance.

We cut some vinyl signs on the Cricut.

The first operators on the layout were Peter Bryant from Houston and John Emerson from Amarillo. They were two of the 35 or so out of town guests to come up for the 2016 DFW Interchange operating weekend. Speed Muller is on the other side of the peninsula, but he didn't count since he was a local. Actually, Speed was a big help getting the switches plugged into JMRI.

The next day David Perkins and his girlfriend Pheriche from Baton Rouge operated the last session of the DFW Interchange. The night before, the third operator decided he couldn't read HO scale car numbers and went home. Pheriche has a Kindle Fire tablet in her hand throwing the switches. The tablets will eventually be mounted on the fascia at eye level.

March progress

With most of the upper deck of the west peninsula wired, I added some facia to see how it would look.

I need to secure it better and trim the top to match the profile and paint, but this gives a pretty good idea what it will look like. I also need to clean up a little.

I operated with Eric Mumper on March 1, which is always fun. Eric models the Fox River Branch of the CB&Q in the transition era. He's my go to guy for all things Burlington around here.

I started adding a lower deck. I used 1x4 joists. Mostly salvaged from the club layout.

The deck is pretty high grade 3/4" plywood. I like to be able to put track right on the plywood if necessary.