Working on the Railroad Pt 2

It's taking shape

     Big John and I went to little Johns on Tuesday to see if we could get some more work done on his RR. Plan was for big John to start and attach the wiring, me to continue on the scenery whilst the owner little John kept working on laying track for the new staging tracks at Newton. This is to the left of Flynn.
      A good amount of the wiring when the layout was dismantled was pre- planned where the cuts and plugs would go so this side should be relatively easy. Some of the turnout wires for Flynn were just taken out of the terminal blocks so these will need to be sorted out however John was able to get a lot done in the area between Flynn and Perry. The SE8C needs to be installed in this area before much more can be done. Whilst discussing this, the idea was put forward that all of the Circuit breakers, Digitrax stuff, BDLs along with the Tortoise motors power supply and general power packs could be installed so testing of each re-instated section of wiring could be tested.

     Here is John in the corner doing what he does best. Wiring of course.

    
     Just to digress a bit I went to Johns the day before so we could make sure that the new 15 stall roundhouse would fit it's new space. John had done a great job of ensuring that the pits fitted into the newly cut holes and allowed the roundhouse to be positioned very accurately in relation to to the new turntable. I needed to remove about 2 millimeters from one of the rear walls, cleaned up the mounting tabs on the base and then we gently installed both halves. Thankfully it fit like a glove so we decided to leave it off the layout so the tracks could be laid around it.
    John has already installed the mainline to the rear joining the staging to the old Flynn mainline however there are many more to add.

We will add the remainder of the roofs once John has laid all the tracks. 

That T/T is going to get some weathering also.

    I pushed on with the scenery at the old town of Guthrie's intersection with the main line.

The layout extensions and recommissioning is coming along nicely.
That's it for this post. Catch you next time.
Rod.

Working on the Railroad.

Building more kits and other stuff.

    As the roundhouse got moved over to Johns layout ready to be fitted into position I asked John if he had any further kits he would like put together. "Yep a few grain bins from Rix need doing," so 3 large HO bins along with a Guthrie N Scale set arrived on my work bench (such as it is at the moment as it's on the kitchen table). As I have built several of these kits before for the SFRSD they are not that difficult to assemble. These will most probably finish up in the yet to be built Mopac yard opposite the old town of Augusta.

    This is them assembled but in need of some weathering as yet.

    

      Now that the old SFRSD is set in place it was time to attack the scenery where the cuts were made to disassemble the layout from my train room. We tried to ensure that the cuts were neat as could be and in positions that could be relatively easy to repair once back in place. John was kind enough to ask if I could assist in this so who was I to say no.
     There is several spots that needed attention. The end of the Winfield / Red Rock peninsular, The centre of the Ponca / Hackney peninsular on both sides of course, the join where Perry now meets Flynn again and the melding of Guthrie to the Udall section between the grain elevators of Udall and the bridge over the Wichita River. Apart from this there is a few areas that received some minor damage when the modules were taken through the upstairs window and considering the length of these modules that is to be expected.
    Armed with some blue foam, a nice sharp knife and a tube of no more gaps I set to to see how we would go.

    Here is a few snaps of the areas going through repair. By the way John had already completed the repairs to the track-work so scenery was all that remains in these areas.

This is at Perry. 13 inches was added here to make the walkway between Flynn and Hackney that much wider.

This is the Perry Red Rock corner. This section was removed so we could cut it from the wall. It fit back quite well. All that is left is some paint and ground cover along with some fresh water ( you know the sort).

The inside repair between Red Rock and Ponca. Hope the road repair crew can do a good job.

The outside repair opposite the one above. This is between Hackney and Winfield.

The corner at the far end of Winfield as you approach Udall.

About 6 inches was added here so the Udall peninsular could rest along the wall. This gave a huge improvement to the track geometry between this and the town of Guthrie in the next room and gained more room between Winfield and Udall.

Work in progress at the intersection of Guthrie to the mainline of Udall.

 Filling in the gap at the duck-under that leads into the old town of Guthrie.

    Whilst I was cracking on with this John was busily cutting the slots in the sub road bed for the installation of the 15 stall roundhouse. Not an easy task with the layout 55 inches off the ground.

Over the Christmas break John has been adding sub-road bed to the sections between Augusta and Augusta East and Augusta East and his new open staging Newton / Flynn. (one day I will add all the new town names as soon as I can remember them all) sorry John.

Here's a few pics.

     And finally this is where the section that was single track attached to the wall behind Guthrie and beside Hackney in the old layout. This will now most likely be the mainline for the Santa Fe between Augusta and Udall. It is planned to have a new yard built for MOPAC in the front and just a tad lower. This will then be an interchange between the SF at Augusta and run through (with trackage rights by joining the SF main at Udall) and Udall on its way to Guthrie. It could even have its own dispatcher if the cards fall correctly and wouldn't that be fun LOL.

So this brings everything happening right up to date. Stay up to date by following the progress.
Regards to all.
Rod.

Lots more done

Assembly well underway

    I spent a few solid days getting the very BIG roundhouse almost completely assembled so I could move it off the kitchen table and over to Johns for final assembly.
    Fitting the front doors and door frames was not as daunting as first thought just needed to ensure that none of the liquid solvent got into the door pivot pins in the floor and top of the door frame.
    I also sprayed the outside of all roof sections with flat black and underneath surface primer grey and then a dusting of Racing White like the walls.
    Once these had dried I attached the chimneys and smoke deflectors outside and inside the rear roof sections. I then glued all of the center sections of the roof in place on both sections of the model to help stiffen it up for ease of moving it to Johns house.
    And this is how both sections look just before they were taken to Johns on Saturday afternoon.        Final assembly by joining the two halves will be done once the pit holes are machined in the layout sub-roadbed so the roundhouse will sit flat into it.

A couple of pics

    Next is the full assembly once the above mentioned ground work is completed. A big build in many ways so hopefully it looks okay once completed.

Until the next project.
Regards
Rod.

More on this BIG roundhouse

More painting and preparation done.

    I have steadily been painting the window frames for this roundhouse and decided to paint the insides also. I have been using Modelflex Tuscan brown which looks  a good match for the trim on the AT&SF photos that we have been using for reference. I have deliberately left the centre window frames in grey ( after spraying them with a dull flat grey from a Tamiya Rattle can) as this is how they look in the pics also.
    I think they all look okay.
    The next step was to install the kit supplied window glass. I used the kit stuff on all of the rear wall sections however raided my wife's scrap-booking supplies and found to my surprise a self adhesive very thin sheet of clear plastic. Wow how cool is this stuff for windows. I carefully cut out the size for all of the side wall windows and just placed it in position and with a small amount of pressure voila it stuck firm. Very happy as you cannot see and edges to the glass like the kit supplied would look like. It hard to see it in my ordinary pics below but it does look good.
    Some more weathering to the outside of the two side walls plus some clear green and old white paint applied to make it look like some small panes of glass have been broken and replaced with a substitute.
   Next step is to start to add the side and rear walls and trusses so that should be fun.

Some pics below for reference.

Lots of sub assemblies sitting ready.
I would like to get this completed before Christmas so we'll see.
Rod

A Bit more progress

More painting of the Roundhouse.

    This is a very BIG roundhouse, so much to paint and detail so I had better get it right.
    Over the past few weeks I have been working on the interior and exterior of the walls along with painting and weathering all 13 trusses.
    As we are still renting it has been difficult to paint these items so when the spring sun came out for once a few weekends ago I took advantage of it and spray bombed the lot outside in the sun.
    A few coats of Tamiya Racing Car White ( its more of a light cream and the colour I was looking for) on the trusses and a few light passes of Tamiya Dark Red for all of the walls. These flashed of very quickly so I was able to get to work of dirtying up the trusses.
    As these are made to represent timber trusses I used the dry brush method and a variety of dark brown and light brown applied sparingly to just give them an aged look. They then received a spray of dullcote to flatten them down.
    The interior walls were next. Once these were dry I returned to my trusty bottle of Golden, Acrylic Titan Buff. This was kinda dry brushed all over the interior walls trying to keep the mortar lines free of any excess paint (the bricks in this kit are very small). This took two coats to get the colour I wanted.
     I am using these colours because the Santa Fe used to paint the interior of many of their roundhouse walls with a cream paint mixed on-site from powder.
    Next up was to apply vary sparingly a mix of Tamiya Panel line black and brown into the mortar lines. Hmmm that was somewhat painful and there is more to go. I also dry brushed some brown over the interior walls to get them a bit grubby followed by a bit of Pan Pastel, Brown, Grey and Black powders over the outside brickwork. 
    A fine brush to paint the concrete base flat grey on the lower portion of all the walls and the base of the windows and these are all about ready to fit into place.

    
     Windows, doors and roof to prepare then assembly.
Thanks for dropping by. Until next time.
Regards
Rod.

Its been a while

More work done
     Over a month gone by with no work on the Roundhouse for John. Well I do have a very good excuse as our eldest daughter got married up in Brisbane where she has resided for the past several years and of course I had to give her away. It was a great wedding too with a lot of laughter and good wishes all round. I was given these socks to wear by my daughter so just had to show them off.

           For those that cannot read them (and I am one) it says "Father of the Bride" very swish.

    We took advantage of our 1600 kilometer drive to Brisbane to include a holiday on the Gold Coast and stay with friends in Ipswich for a few days.
    Anyway enough of that.
    Since returning late last week I started to install all 15 tracks into the floor of the roundhouse. John and I discussed which glue would be the best and eventually came up with a clear product that has worked very nicely. It was difficult to apply sparingly however I managed to get a good small even coat on the lower flange of the rail and then it was an easy job to fit the rail in the base made easy by the forming of a groove in which to place the rail in the Walthers manufacturing process. Well done Walthers.
    Once the track was placed in the correct position I placed a heavy metal weight on the track to ensure it made good contact.  Next job was to clean of any glue that had seeped from under the rail to ensure that it would not only look correct but that it did not remain to foul on any of the fine loco wheels that will reside in the shed.
    So after all the rails had a touch up of Tamyia Nato Flat Black paint, rail heads cleaned of any paint, two pieces one of 8 and another of 7 are finished waiting for the roof trusses and walls to be applied.

   
   The trusses and walls need painting and weathering so that will be the next step.

   Its going to be a very BIG roundhouse once completed and should look good once installed.

More next time so thanks for stopping by.
Rod.

A roundhouse for the new SFRSD

The start of the build

    John is planning to add a 15 stall Walthers roundhouse to the Right hand end of Flynn to accommodate his beautiful roster of steam locomotives. The kit is one of the newer Walthers kits that comes as a 3 stall version with 3 stall add-on kits  that easily go together. So I asked if I could build this for him.
    Kits in hand I was off and running getting to work on the concrete floors. I decided to scribe concrete form lines in the supplied flooring along with scoring of cracks to show some age on each segment. I then gave each one a scrub with worn 600 wet and dry paper to remove any gloss along with any burs from the scoring process.
   Due the large footprint this roundhouse will have, I have made it in 2 sections one of 8 segments and the other 7.
   Here are just a few teasers showing the floors so far. No painting nor weathering as yet, that will come as soon as John has finished cutting all 15 lengths of rail to length and returned the floors and rail to me for painting.

    
     The kit comes complete with pits that will be installed after the track has be installed. Then it is on to the interior trusses.

Thanks for stopping by.
Rod.