July was a very busy month. After the open house in June the layout room was clean and ready to be torn up again. Of course, the bad thing is that when the room is clean I can never find my tools, so I spend most of my time hunting.
After the convention, this is what the Billings yard looked like. I needed to figure out a way to get the turntable pit installed close to the backdrop.
Yard looked like a stub yard at the beginning of July.
I decided to cut a template with a big plunge router and then use a trim router to cut the actual hole.
Here is the crappy trim router from Harbor Freight. It died about 3/4 of the way through and I had to finish with a rotozip.
This is what the hole looked like before I removed the template.
And with the pit dropped in. I still need to get the correct screws to hold it firmly in place.
It didn't take long to lay the rest of the yard tracks.
A closer view of the west end of the yard ladder.
I had to insert ties in the gaps where the flex track comes together.
At the end of July I went to Durango, Colorado with Speed to take the Soundtraxx Academy. It was a lot of fun and one of the highlights was seeing their surface mount assembly floor. Here is a production worker testing decoders using a functional tester that they have special built to emulate a locomotive.
We rode the Durango and Silverton on Saturday with the Soundtraxx group.
On Sunday we went over to Chama and rode the Cumbres and Toltec. It was a spectacular weekend and I highly recommend it to anyone.
In June my NMRA Division along with the Dallas area division hosted our Regional NMRA convention in Arlington. It cut into my progress some, but then again it encouraged me to get the layout ready for my first open house.
The focus since May has been the Billings yard area. I started by drawing a line from one end to the other where I thought the mainline needed to go. I used a laser to connect the two endpoints. We will see that I didn't really have the right location in mind on the right side where the mainline needs to be near the wall in order to make the turn around the room to come up the wall on the left of this photo.
With a line drawn, I laid the first track in the yard.
Billings has a small yard with the double track main going down the middle. The prototype doesn't have a proper yard lead, so neither is my model. Since the yard isn't a classification yard, it should be OK. I picture mostly block swaps and some trains terminating. It will also give a place for cars to be blocked before switching the Billings Industries.
Looking back the other way, I tried to keep all the tracks from being parallel to the edge of the benchwork.
Before the LSR convention we had a joint division meeting in Allen and Soundtraxx came and demonstrated the new Tsunami 2 decoders.
Here's a short video of the first train on the lower level with cars.
I spiffed the place up a little for the open house. Also, I placed the three Walthers Double Track truss bridges temporarily.
This is a much of the yard that was done by the time of the open house.
By the time the throngs of people came (5) my number one helper Katy had unboxed a bunch of building that were packed away.
We were able to run a couple trains back and forth.
After the convention I took the family to Frisco, TX to visit our new National Computer Gaming Museum. Among other relics, they had my first computer a Comodore Vic20.
Next to the Video Game Museum is what someday may once again be a train museum - the former Age of Rust museum from Fair Park... not the Museum of the American Railroad. Unfortunately, it's not open.
My big event for May was a trip to Ireland with my mom. We came and went from Dublin, but the majority of the 10 days were spent in the west - mostly Mayo where my mom's grandmother left in 1900 when she was 19 years old. I also made great progress on the layout in order to be ready for the NMRA region convention in June.
The typical mall bookstore in Dublin had an amazing selection of train magazines.
A hobby shop on the north west side of Dublin mostly had plastic vehicle models and Hornby trains.
The line to Kiltimagh has been abandoned, but the depot remains and serves as a museum.
Back home, I continued to lay track.
This pano was taken where the slight bend is around the furnace closet. You can see the bucket on this photo and above.
One of the biggest challenges in linear layout design is the turnback blob. I am using curved turnouts from Walthers to add crossovers in the blob.
This side of the peninsula is primarily the Billings warehouse district and passenger station.
By the end of May, most of the switching area was in and I had moved around to the other side which is mostly the Billings yard.
April was a pretty productive month. A lot of changes took place on the layout. Mostly centered around the Billings passenger station and warehouse district, but I also put the connection to the other side of the section house in by adding shelves along the wall in what used to be the bathrooms.
On the first Saturday of April I had a group of guys from the division over to see the progress. I gave a clinic on the spline benchwork I used on the upper deck.
I had my two best helpers painting sky.
Katy is a great helper and her attention span is infinitely longer than her brother's. Here she is mounting the top of the valance to the wall where the bathrooms used to be.
I picked up some LED strips to add some light for the lower deck. I went ahead and doubled up the LEDs, but I think another two strips will be needed to make it bight enough. That's makes the cost about $48 for 16 feet plus a $10 power supply. At $3 a bulb, the light strings are about $52 for 16 feet - but produce a lot more light.
With both shelves in along the wall where the bathrooms used to be, I was able to see where the Yellowstone River crossing is going to be. Somewhere I have a third bridge. I'll paint them all black. The tree boxes also need to be built. I was thinking about kitbashing these Walthers kits into 150' bridges. They are a little short now. The middle pier is from Chooch and the concrete abutment is from Walthers.
Starting to get some track along the downtown Billings section. The LED lights aren't on in this photo but the lights in the valence provide good light for the front of the layout.
More painting for Katy. I recycled masonite from Shane's old layout here. I'm not sure I like it the way it is, but it was easier to work with than the sheetrock. The Homasote is painted with some light brown Oops paint I picked up that is perfect. I need to figure out some kind of cover for the breakers that I can paint blue and will be easy to remove in an emergency.
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.
Coming back from Prairie Rail I was definitely motivated to work on the layout. While visiting Steve and Cinthia Priest, I snuck some construction photos for ideas. I've done this in the past, I supposed I should go back thru Lightroom and grab all the benchwork photos and study them. In the mean time, here are some closeups of what will surely be one of the finest layouts in the country.
Stephen and his crew have very tidy benchwork and wiring. You can see the LED lighting he has chosen to use.
Here is some more of the benchwork without the facia. This appears to be a very good method of turnback blob construction.
Stephen adds signs everywhere something needs to be done so that when crew members arrive, they know exactly where the projects are.
I'm not sure how much I like having the wiring in the front. On one hand it is accessible and on the other, it is in the way.
Some Central Valley bridges roughed in.
Another smaller, bridge with a pier or abutment on either side.
A nice deck bridge with a shallower drop in the benchwork.
