Finished the Rail Painting and Ballasting at Johnstown

As stated in my yearly progress report, one of my goals for the season was to get done with all the scut work. In service of that goal, I painted the remaining rails and ballasted nearly all the track in Johnstown.

Since the track in this area is visible from multiple angles, I had to paint both sides of the rails, essentially doubling an already tedious task.  I just cracked open a beer, put on an Alan Keller video and got on with it.

As for the ballasting, well, you've already read enough blog posts in which I bitch about Woodland Scenics ballast, so I'll spare you. In all honesty, it wasn't so bad this time around. I don't know what I did to make the gods so happy but hey, I'll take it.

 In other news, I decided to add some elevation to one corner of Johnstown. I laid a few pieces of white styrofoam packaging and cut it to shape with my hot knife. And yo, with the window open, the fumes from the white beaded stuff are nasty.

With the foam layers cut, I glued them together with some Elmers and painted everything raw umber. I decided the top of the hill would be a perfect place for my Model Power "Victorian House" kit. This was one of the first structures I built for this layout and for a while, it seemed like I wouldn't find a home for it. It just looked out of place to me, which is mind-boggling since this style of architecture is found all over this part of Pennsylvania. 

I'm toying with the notion of adding a sign reading "Historic Floode Mansion." Hmm, no if I recall correctly, there's some significant event in Johnstown's history that might make that in bad taste. We'll see how it shakes out.

With this done, I have some more mountains to build and a bit more ballasting at the far end of Johnstown.  Stay tuned.

Team Steam is Back!

I finally got around to getting two of my mainline steamers up and running again. For the past two years, my Kato/GHQ L1 has been sitting idle in the Altoona locomotive shop. The darn just didn't run right after conversion to DCC.  After a little detective work, I found the problem lay with the tender. Its wheels provide most of the power pickup and they weren't making good contact with the rails.

The solution turned out to be dead simple. I went to Hobby Lobby, bought some Pinewood Derby car weights and packed as many of them as humanly possible into the tender. And that was the ticket! The locomotive ran smooth as silk after that.

You may recall that a few months ago I ran my brass I1 into a turnout set the wrong way, shorted it out and cooked the decoder. I purchased a new decoder back in August and over the past few days have been working on installing it.

Now, as delivered, the locomotive's drivers pick up the right rail current and the tender wheels picked up the left. This arrangement was okay but not optimal. There were a handful of turnouts on my layout that were impassible obstacles for this loco. My solution was to swap out the stock tender trucks with Bachmann trucks, which draw current from all eight wheels. This would prove far easier said than done.

The tender chassis had to be modified to accommodate the new trucks.  For the forward trucks, I fired up my Dremmel and proceeded to cut two slits in the chassis. Believe me, taking power tools to a $400 brass locomotive is not for the faint of heart! I successfully cut said slits but in the process obliterated the screw holes for holding the shell on. What's worse, I cut right through the end of the chassis! Once that happened, I knew it was time to fight my Greek genes, go downstairs and take a break. After having some lunch and taking some time to cool down and think rationally, I arrived at a solution. I reinforced the front of the tender with a piece of styrene.

For the rear trucks, I decided cutting slits wasn't the way to go.  Instead, I opted to cut off the vertical tab on each truck contact. Using a pin vise, I enlarged the holes on each side of the bolster to accommodate the wires. This worked beautifully.  With that done, I soldered the wires to the truck contacts and the decoder.

The final hurdle was mounting the trucks. The mounting holes on the Bachmann trucks are considerably larger than those of the stock trucks. After scavenging the local hardware store for washers, I came up empty-handed. My solution was to take two small pieces of styrene and drill small holes in them. These act as retention plates for the trucks.

With the decoder installed, I put the loco on the tracks and it ran perfectly. It moved through the turnout that had once stopped it dead with total confidence. So, the effort paid off. That said, I would sooner endure a root canal without novocaine than do that again!

While we're on the subject of steam, Broadway Limited delivered their long-awaited T1 shortly before Thanksgiving. While not quite as good as their M1, it is a fine locomotive. In terms of steam, we sure have come a long way in the last five years.

2017-18 Annual Progress Report

Well, folks, it's that time of year again. The layout has been under construction for five years now. I can hardly believe it; time flies. There is very little of the layout left to scenic at this point.

Let's have a look a the progress, shall we?

Track 100% complete to the original plan, plus industrial sidings in Johnstown.

Wiring 99% Complete, no I still haven't done the engine yard at Altoona. Now quit bugging me about it.

DCC Conversion: System install 100% complete, PRR Fleet 100% complete, NS Fleet: 60% complete.

Scenery: 90% complete. All that remains is about a quarter of Johnstown and all of Altoona. Scenery should be done by 2020.

Last year my primary goals were building of staging yards, adding new industries and sidings at Johnstown and finishing the scenery at Johnstown. Funds didn't permit the staging yard construction. However, the switch of the main line and lead were installed.

I added three new rail-served industries to Johnstown and a new industrial spur to serve them. This should keep several operators busy.

I didn't finish Johnstown but I am close. I should be able to knock it out this year.

My goals for this year are to finish Johnstown and go around a redo a few areas. As you all know, I took a trip up to Altoona this summer. And boy did that show me everything I got wrong! So I intend to address this.

Another goal is to try and knock out all the tedious scut work. I'm talking about wiring, rail painting, and ballasting. There's not a lot of it left, so why not get it done already?

So that's it for this progress report. I am participating in NaNoWriMo again this year so there won't be much work done on the layout until December. See you then.

Finished Rslaserkits' Outhouse

I picked this kit up at the Hub City Railroad Museum for $2. It comes with a trio of outhouses. I figured the folks visiting Horseshoe Curve could use some kind of facility for, in the words of Bachmann Turner Overdrive, takin' care of business.

I started out by hitting the kit with a coat of Minwax "Special Walnut" stain. Once it dried overnight, I cut the pieces from their sprue and proceeded to glue them together. This was my first laser-cut since Branchline Trains "Tower House." (Link)  That kit was a total knock-down, drag-out slug fest. This kit wasn't nearly as bad, but it did remind me of why laser kits are challenging.

The glue kept wanting to stick the pieces to my fingers and not each other. It ended up demolishing the damn thing several times before getting it put together. So that explains all the glue shmootz on the walls. But since this thing will be viewed from about five feet away, nobody's going to notice.

So that's that, a lot of blather for a four-walls-and-a-roof kit.

Tree Experiments

I was reading fellow N Scaler Spookshow's blog and at one point he decided to add some larger trees to his layout to represent older ones. I read that and thought "a good idea's a good idea." But then, when I visited Altoona this past summer, I realized a lot of the trees near the tracks were on the small side, no doubt their growth having been stunted by years of steam locomotives dropping hot cinders.

With that in mind, I decided the smaller Woodland Scenics trees were appropriate for about 95% of the layout. However, I did pick up one large tree kit and placed them in areas away from the tracks. I placed a few in Johnstown, the farm area and in Gallitzin. And I must say, they do look quite realistic.

Now, I have to say, these Woodland Scenics trees are just one hell of a tedious pain in the ass to assemble. The prescribed method is the shape the plastic armatures into something tree-like in appearance, slather on the "Hobby Tack" and then attach the "foliage" (essential ground-up Nerf dyed varying shades of green). Well, this is what I did and I had one hell of a time getting the trees assembled. Turns out Hobby Tack is great for sticking foliage to your fingers. But for affixing it to plastic tree armatures? Not so much.

I assembled about five trees my first go around and was quite peeved to discover nearly all of them had shed their flocking a day later. So on the second time, I let the Hobby Tack dry a bit before adding foliage (another Spookshow idea). This worked marginally better but I still had issues.

On the last few batches of trees, I had tried Elmer's spray adhesive. It made for easier assembly but, it didn't last. I have a layout full of trees losing the foliage! So anyway, I still have 114 small trees to build and plant (God help me). Here's hoping I can unlock the ancient Chinese secrete to doing it right.

Road Work Ahead

 

It's that time of the year and I've got the bug again. Tonight, I decided to take on a nice, simple project, repainting the roads in Gallitzin.  I initially painted them light gray. After living with it for a few years, I decided I didn't like the look. After all, this is Pennsylvania, not Florida.

I had a small bottle of Apple Barrel "Pavement." I managed to exhaust my supply of it on two streets. But, the stuff is cheap and readily obtainable at Walmart. So there you have it, a nice way to ease back into things.

As for my trip to Altoona, well, it was awesome! I shot tons of photos and video and I'm still sifting through them. But a highlight was seeing the Pennsy Heritage Unit on the curve. 

A Blessing in Disguise?

After not running trains in months, I decided to spend a rainy afternoon doing just that. And things did not go smoothly. There were a whole lot of derailments and shorts and other issues. But the worst was when I ran my I1 into a turnout set against it and fried the decoder.

Suffice to say I was not happy. The stream of obsenities that left my mouth sounded like a Lenny Bruce routine. I set the locomotive on my display and went about running some other stuff. Eventually I got the layout's creeks worked out and things ran smoothly.

Once I cooled off, I realized maybe this wasn't such a bad thing. First off, if any decoder was going to get fried, better the cheapie DZ-126 in the I1 than one of the expensive sound decoders in my BLI locos. It could've been worse, right?

Second, I realized this is an opportunity to do things right. The initial decoder install on this beast was a nightmare. It took me a good two weeks of tinkering to get the locomotive to do one lap around the layout without derailing. A big reason for that is the wires running from the tender to the loco are too stiff. I plan to replace them with more flexible wire that's colored black.

While I'm replacing the decoder, I plan to make some other upgrades. Chief among them is replacing the tender trucks with Bachmanns, which feature all-wheel pickup. Right now, the drivers pick up power from one rail and the tender wheels pick up power from the other. As such the locomotive has a tendency to stall on turnouts, even with powered frogs!

And as long as I'm replacing the decoder, why not go all out and add sound? This will be a nice upgrade.

I wouldn't be making these upgrades had I not fried the decoder to begin with! So maybe this is a blessing in disguise. The accident forced me to quit kicking the can down the road.

In other news, I've published my first eBook. If you're wondering what I've been spending my spare time on while I'm not working on the layout (or burning up DCC decoders), this it. So now, I'm oing to try and sell you something. If you buy my book for the low, low price of $1, you'll get to read a really cool story and you'll help finance further layout construction. Check it out:

Multiple formats including Amazon Kindle can be found here:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/821410

And you Nook users can get it here:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/cataloosa-island-alden-bauers/1128568803?ean=2940155234418

Hope you all enjoy.

A Tree Grows in Johnstown

Wow, four months since my last entry. But it's summer and you know how that goes. Honestly, today was the first day I ran the trains since March. Now, on to what I actually did.

This project took all of about five minutes. In involved me going to Hobby Lobby, buying a 14-pack of Woodland Scenics prefab trees and scattering them about the Johnstown part of the layout. Now, I tried my best to situate the trees in odd-numbered groups. I read on Spookshow's site that trees tend to look better this way and I tend to agree.

 

Another project I'm in the midst of is making high-voltage transmission towers. They'll run from the Model Power susbstation back to the wall. When I needed transmission lines in Gallitzin, I opted to use HO telephone poles. But, I decided not to half ass things this time.

I bought some basswood dowels and square sticks at Walmart. These looked about the right size in the store. The next step was staining them with Minwax "Special Walnut." While the stain was drying, I built a jig to speed assembly. I fastened everything together Gorilla wood glue.

The wire supports and insulators came from my Model Power substation kit. They're held in place with some Testor's model glue.  

Here's the prototype:

In other news, I'm planing a trip to Pennsy country at the end of the month. I'll be staying in Altoona and visiting many of the places I've modeled. The last time my dad and I made the trip was 2010. So yeah, long overdue.

My dad and I basically came to the realization that it was now or never for making this trip. He's not getting any younger and my list of responsibilities isn't exactly getting shorter. With that in mind, this will most likely be our last father and son trip to Altoona for quite some time. So this is bitter sweet.

At any rate, I plan on shooting tons of photos and video while I'm there and I'll be making a full report when get back to the Palmetto state.

Night Fever

 With major combat operations over for the season, I decided to get out my good camera and take some shots of the layout. What better way to show off all the lighting I installed than by taking some long-exposure night shots. Enjoy!

This is Johnstown's Business District. The building at right is The Oasis, a notorious spot that's often padlocked by the police.

The TO agent at SF tower enjoys a smoke break as M1a #6720 barrels past with a mixed fright. The building in back is the Ezell Safety Products Company.

The Superior Paper Company looms over Johnstown.

The Broadway Limited vanished into the darkness of Portage Tunnel.

Som reefers with perishables from California have just arrived at the ice house.

And that's a wrap for this season!

Well folks, after a short but busy construction season, it's that time of the year again. The weather is warming up, yard work is coming into the picture and I'm ready to shift over towards running some trains. It's the same thing every march. But this year is different. Most seasons end with me stuck on some major task that can't be put off any longer and I don;t have the energy left to take them on. This year, I managed to knock out those two last projects.

First and foremost, I plastered up the remaining roads and sidewalks in Johnstown. It took me the better part of two afternoons but I got it done. Once that was done, I went ahead and drilled the holes for the lights.I finished things off by getting all the plaster work painted.

emboldened by my success, I decided to go ahead and get all the lights installed and wired up. I started off with a pair of Busch operating traffic lights. Then I installed some incandescent street lights along the main streets in the Johnstown business district. The buildings are lit with a mish mash of LEDs and incandescent salvaged from my last layout, whatever was on hand.

For the industrial areas, I used LEDs except for Water Street Freight Terminal. I used a pair of Model Power highway lights for Superior Paper and a pair of Goosneck Lamps for the freight station.

Now, I had planned to use a pair of NJ International crossing flashers. I did start the process of stalling them. But wen I tried to untangle the rat's nest left over from the last layout, things got ugly. The resistors on each signal decided to come unsoldered. After a bit of fighting, I gave up and tossed the lights and PC boards into a box for next year, if I'm desperate.

The last thing I did was apply some turf to a few spots and then spent a few hours cleaning track and trouble shooting. The K4 and M1 needed only a few spots cleaned. But on my first attempt at running the centipedes, they went stumbling and stuttering down the track like a misfiring car! The I1 wasn't too happy either and there was a lot of work with the bright boy and alcohol and rag.

So that's it for this season. I'm sure I'll get the itch to tackle the odd project or two here and there, but the heavy lifting is done for a while. Before we know it, it'll be fall and I'll have the itch again. Until then, have a nice summer everybody!

Finished the Last Two DPM Buildings

Boy, I love these DPM buildings but painting them is a tedious PITA. But as mentioned in an earlier post, that's the trade off  for easier assembly. Anyway, I knocked out the last two.


First, I took on the "Corner Turret Building." I started by spraying all four walls with Testors "Flat Light Aircraft Grey." Next I brushed everything but the trim Floquil "Boxcar Red." I did the roof in my usual Grimy Black.

I committed the pointy witch hat-looking roof for he turret since my Cornerstone "Merchants' Row" kit has a similar roof. I installed more of my folded construction paper drapes in the ground floor windows and hit it with a coat of weather wash. I can't really call it done until I get more Dulcote, but that step takes all of two seconds.

 

 The last in my bunch of buildings was the Corner Apothecary kit. I started by spraying the walls with some cheap Wal Mart spray paint. Next I brushed the windows and trim Foloquil "Roof Brown." The roof was "Grimy Black" yet again. Finally, I touched up all my my hand brushing oopses with some Floquil "Reefer White."

"Why white paint?" You may be wondering. Well, back in the March 2017 issue of Model Railroader, Lance Mindheim wrote an article suggesting painting buildings shade of white, being that this is a common color in real life. Mr. Mindheim is an extremely talented modeler whose layout looks phenomenal. 

That said, I have noticed there are some drawbacks to white paint. First and foremost, it's very unforgiving of mistakes. If you've ever painted a DPM building, I don't think I have to tel you it's only a matter of time until you're painting window trim and "oops!" the brush slips. 

When you're using two dark colors like Boxcar Red and Roof Brown, those mistakes aren't nearly as noticeable. But a dark color on white paint? Yeah, that sticks out like a sore thumb. So unless you have very steady hands, I suggest not painting DPM buildings white. 

Painting issues aside, I'm just not believing it. The buildings done in "Antique White" look alright, but not white white. But as I was driving today, I really looked at the buildings I was driving past, and most of them were white or tan. But for some reason the brick colored buildings on my layout just look more realistic to me than white. I guess I find a more impressionist approach better than trying to force reality into where it doesn't want to go. 

Where the white paint does work though is in the industrial areas. Both the Ice House and Bralick building are painted white and they look right to me. They also show of weathering quite nicely. This makes total sense since Mr. Mindheim primarily models industrial areas on his layouts. 

So yeah, I'm not bashing Lance Mindheim at all. Quite the opposite actually. His layout is a sight to behold and the level of realism he achieves is unparalleled. I'm just saying I tried one of his techniques and it didn't quite work out for me. But it goes back to the paot I wrote about there not being a right or wrong way to do this hobby.

Finished DPM's "Otto's Auto Parts"

This was definitely not one of my better efforts. I started off by spraying the building with Testor's "Flight Light Aircraft Grey." Next, I proceeded to paint the brickwork Floquil "Roof Brown." I didn;t take me long to realize I'd completely screwed the pooch on the color scheme. On top of that, I had an unusually-difficult time keeping the Roof Brown paint inside the lines. The result was an ugly building that looks like it was painted by a three-year-old! Take an educated guess as to what color I painted the roof.

Once the building was assembled, I put in the window inserts and shades. Then I his the walls with some weather wash. The last step will be Dulcote, but I haven;t had a chance to get to the art supply store for another can.

At the end of the day, I'm not sweating things too much, since there are lots of ugly buildings out there in the real world. Also, the building is situated in a way you really won't see the front wall. At any rate, that leaves two more buildings and I can call Johnstown's business district done. Then it's just finish up the sidewalks, some turf and lighting.

Finished DPM's "Reed Books"

Yet another DPM kit down. I went with Krylon "Meringue" for the brickwork, Floquil "Tuscan Red" for the trim and bay windows and of course "Grimy Black" for the roof. I skipped the usual proceedure for the mortar lines since these bricks would have been painted. I also skipped the Dulcote because I ran out.

As far as DPM kits go, this one was a bit more challenging to put together. Each bay window is three separate pieces. I tried gluing them together before affixing them to the rest of the building but that didn't work as I managed to get the angle wrong. This resulted in a whole lot of glue shmootz on the front of the building! So I had to snap the bay windows apart and reassemble them and touch up the damaged paint!

At any rate, that's four down, three to go. I've already got Otto's Auto Parts painted and ready for assembly. I other news, Spring has started to, well, spring here in the Palmetto State. Usually this marks the end of moy model railroading season as my enthusiasm starts to peter out and yard work starts to enter the equation. But so far my enthusiasm is remaining strong this year. It's not like the layout turns into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight on March 1st, so as long as I feel like it, I'll keep on going.

Finished DPM's "Bruces Bakery" Kit

I knocked out another DPM kit, "Bruce's Bakery" this time. I decided I can't use "Boxcar Red" and "Roof Brown" on every building in town. That'd get boring in a hurry. I used Floquil "Depot Buff" for the brickwork, "Souther Freight Car Brown" for the windows and trim and of course, "Grimy Black." I don;t know what I'll do when I finally run out of that last one, but I digress. All in all, I think the color scheme works quite nicely.

It was the same basic procedure for the brick mortar lines and windows as the last two buildings, so no point in repeating myself. That said, I did go a bit further with the window dressing. First, I used bits of the white stryrene left over from the roof to create window shades on the upper floors. For the ground floor, front windows, I took pink construction paper, cut it into strips and folded it accordion style. This nicely simulates drapes. Credit where it's due, I learned that trick from Spookshow's blog.

I still have no idea which businesses will ultimately inhabit these buildings. I'm currently scrounging through my collection of leftover decals to see if any are usable. I would be nice if DPM included some, but since I only paid $6 a piece for these kits, I really shouldn't complain too much.

The Real Estate Market Heats Up in Johnstown

 That title aught to get the search engines going! As mentioned in my last post, I managed to score a bunch of DPM buildings at fire sale prices at a train show.  I've already got the first two of them knocked out.

The first buidling (pictured above) was the "Roadkill Cafe" kit. I stayed pretty conservative with the color choices. I used Floquil "Boxcar Red" for the brickwork, "Roof Brown" for the cornice, windows and trim and "Grimy Black" for the roof.

Once the paint dried, I coated the walls with some Apple Barrel "Pewter Grey" craft paint (readily available at Wal Mart) and wiped most of it off with a paper towel. This nicely fill in the mortar lines between the bricks and really enhances the building's realism.

Once the craft paint dried, I hit the building with a coat of weather wash, followed up with Dulcote.  I skipped the chalks because I want the building to look like part of a vibrant downtown and not look rundown.

The last bit of business was the window inserts. Before installation, I sprayed them with Dulcote to fog them up, thus hiding the empty interior. I then installed the windows with the Dulcoted side in. This way you still have a glassy look on the outside. Lastly, I used some of the leftover styrene from the roof to fashion window shades for the top floor.

I started off the kit building with an easy one. From here on out, I decided to build the most difficult ones first. These DPM buildings are all basically four walls and roof and as such go together in about five minutes. The trade off is the windows, doors and trim aren't separate pieces, which makes painting them the time-consuming part.

The second kit I built was "Wilhelm's Mercantile." Rather than hand brush all those windows, I sprayed the two front walls (the one's facing the streets) Testor's "Flat Olive." I then carefully painted around each window with "Boxcar Red." This actually worked quite well as the colors go nicely together and the painting went a lot faster.

For the back walls, I used "Boxcar Red" on the brickwork again and "Roof Brown on the doors and windows. Once painted, it was lather, rinse repeat for the mortar lines, weathering and window inserts. All told, I think this building came out pretty nifty looking.

So that's two down, five more to go. This is what helps keep my enthusiasm for working on the layout strong. When you of doing one thing, you can do another. Tired of scenery? Build some buildings! Tired of building? Ballast some track!. I think what's stopped me in the past is having a big job that has to be done before any other work can proceed and not wanting to do said big job.

The Train Show Haul

 

As threatened, I ventured to Easley, SC for the Central Railway Model and Historical Association train show. I didn't have my hopes up very high as the past few years were kind of a disappointment with very little N Scale. This year however bucked that particular trend. 

One thing I was hoping to find were some DPM kits to finish of Johnstown. Not only did I find some but, they were an absolute steal at $6.00 apiece! They normally sell for $13 to $18. So needless to say I snapped them right up. Normally I like to walk through a train show before buying anything just to get the lay of the land, but in this case, I knew if I didn't buy them right then an there, they'd be gone.

My other big find was a fully-reconditioned Lionel KW transformer. At 190 watts, the KW is the slightly less-powerful little brother of Lionel's legendary ZW. When I built the V&R railroad for my kids, all I had were a pair of train set transformers. I found that Postwar-era Lionel locomotives overloaded them in short order. But the KW can run this pipsqueak of a layout without breaking a sweat.

Despite being 60 years old, ZW and KW transformers remain in high demand and as such usually command premium prices. There is a caveat, they must be reconditioned or subject to a thorough safety check before being put into use. Mine was reconditioned with a new power cord, new rectifier disks and new rollers. I paid $70. You can find them as is for less but it's not worth risking electrocution or burning the house down.

Nobody Gonna Break'a My Stride, Nobody Gonna Slow Me Down!

Yup, another productive afternoon in Johnstown. About two thirds of the rails are painted, including all of the industrial track except the turnouts. I've found Peco turnouts can be funny, and I don't mean "ha ha" funny. You have to be super careful painting an ballasting near them or their performance goes straight to hell.

I use Peco "Electrofrog" turnouts, which have powered frogs. These have the advantage of allowing you to run locomotives with a small pickup footprint. However, the frogs must change polarity depending on which way the turnout is thrown. To do this, the point rails (the ones that move) are connected to the frog and draw power from the outside rails. Therefore, the point rails must make perfect contact with the outside rails or you're going to have some very squirly locomotive performance. So, when painting the turnouts, I always to a few precautions.

To whit:

1. Use a foam microbrush for maximum paint control

2. No paint anywhere near the point rails. Looks may suffer, but I'll gladly trade aesthetics for operational reliability.

3. No ballast between the rails near the moving parts. Again, choosing function over form.

4. When done ballasting, blow out the gap between the point rails and the outside rails with a computer duster.

With the rails painted, I set about ballasting some track. The full length of the Industrial Track is ballasted and a portion of the main line is too. Now of course, no sooner did I ballast the main line then I realized I hadn't installed the sensors for the NJI crossing signals yet! Oops.

As you can see from the above photos, I finished plastering up the road from the industrial area to the edge of the layout. I'll name the nascent thoroughfare Water Street for the freight terminal. Kind of ironic and maybe a bit tasteless considering certain historical events in Johnstown. But hey, I didn't name the freight terminal; Walthers did.

Lastly, I got some more turf put down. I really do love how the scene is coming together. Other than wiring, most of the messy work is finished in Johnstown. Just a few more feet of rail to paint and ballast, a little more plaster work and then it's just turf, trees and detailing.

In other news, I decided I am going to the train show in Easley this weekend. My parents care coming up from Hilton Head and it will be a nice opportunity for my father, my son and I to get out of the house.

In past years, the show has been kind of a disappointment with very little in the way of N Scale. But I still found a few things there. One of the biggest lessons I've learned about train shows is not to be afraid of leaving empty handed. Sometimes the best deal at the show is leaving with the money in your pocket.

Ballast, Turf and More

 

Another productive afternoon of chipping away at the Johnstown to do list. First and formost, I ballasted bout half of the industrial track. You already know of my misgivings with ballasting so I won't bore yo with them again. But I will say this, this ballasting experience was pretty painless as far as that particular task goes.

With the ballasting done, I went ahead and applied the turf around Superior Paper and the ice house. With the turf in place, the scene really started to come together. But there's still plenty to be done.

I think the next project will be to paint the gutters in between the yard tracks black. This will make accidental holes in the ballast much less noticeable. 

The last thing I did scenery wise was to add a pair of Tichy Train Group crossing signs at the grade crossing.

 

Another little project was to add about eight inches of track to the Water Street Freight Terminal siding. This came about because I was spotting boxcars and found my little NW2 didn't quite respond to the throttle quickly enough. My boxcars ended up on the ground. The extra bit of track gives an operator a bit more margin for error.

Lot's and Lot's of Painting

Wow, two posts in one day! After my son woke up from his nap, I brought him up to the train room and I set about painting the roads and parking lots while he happily played with the O-Gauge layout and watched Paw Patrol. I found some Apple Barrel acrylic "Pavement" paint at Wal Mart and the color was perfect.

With the roads and parking lots done, I grabbed my jar of raw umber acrlic and started painting the foam base inside the yard tracks. I tell ya, it sure is fun seeing all that pink disapear and an actual model railroad start to emerge.

The next few projects on my radar screen are to finish the roads, install the NJ International crossing flashers, install the remaining lighting and get the rails painted. That should easily take me into March.

The Johnstown Industrial Track is Operational

Another productive afternoon on the railroad. I guess the title kid of sums up what I did. I had to wire up a feeder to get the out main operational again. So I figured since I was already in wiring mode, I might as well put on my big boy pants and get it all done. Long-time readers of this blog already know how I feel about wiring so, 'nuff said.

NW2 Number 5519 had the honors of being the first locomotive to move under her own power on the line. There were a few hiccups, but I was able to run the length of the track and pickup and spot cars on the sidings. So yay, nice to have that millstone from around my neck

While I was at it, I also laid the track for the Pittsburgh Staging lead and installed the foam mountain in the corner of the layout. Now all that remains to be done is finish plastering the road, plaster the remaining mountains, paint the ground and roads and apply the turf. All? That's a lot actually. Oh and I forgot building and street lights and ballasting track. I better get busy!