October, 2017: Long Time, No Work

We decided to take the summer off and came back to it in early September.  We had started working on the three center panels that would complete our layout in the spring but they had been sitting all summer.  We are now a month into our new phase of the build.

The first panel is mostly just scenery, with a dirt road and a couple of small buildings and a little rugged terrain.  This panel is now nearing completion, with additional trees in the process of being put together.

The center panel has just started construction.  We decided to put a craggy hill in this one and it is in the middle of being carved with the hot wire knife.  The jigsaw puzzle it required to fit what were essentially scraps together was quite interesting but it seems to have worked.

The final panel has a lake in it, connecting the stream coming down the mountain with the stream passing the farm and under the trestle.  Putting the lacquer on this layer by layer has been a very long process that might take as much as another couple of months to complete.  We had discussed this lake early in the build and it's great to be able to make it happen.

So we are back to our Saturday morning routine.  We have also been running and testing the trains but, honestly, we are far less interested in that aspect of the layout than we are in the creative process.

Mina County 2017: A New Build

We've more or less finished the layout, troubleshot the tracks with all of our trains and completely rewired and organized our power and switches.  What else is there to do?  Well, there is that 2'X6' hole in the middle we use to work from.  We put in supporting rails and got three 2'X2' squares of plywood on which we will glue 1" foam and make modular, removable scenery panels!!!!

Here is the first panel, test-fit.















We also toyed with ideas for a painted backdrop and have engineered a removable panel system to rim the outside of the layout.  The substrate is luan plywood and I've already primed the first two sheets and will start painting this coming weekend.

 The first one will go here.

Stay tuned for the evolution of these two projects!

February 25th, 2017: POV video from the layout!!!!

OK, so I bought one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HEG3VG2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

And set it up on one of our flat cars.  I put it in front of a Kato EMD SD40 loco and let it run.  I started it on track 2 and let it run half its course to the switch that connects it with track 5.  There it did the inbound and outbound loop around track 5.  The loco was set for 30% speed but we lowered it to 25%.  Next time I will run the whole layout at a speed of 10.  This was a good first run!

Testing Our Locomotives: February 11th, 2017

So, the build is complete and we have rewired the entire layout, soldering all connections and optimizing our switch control panel.  We found some track problems with two SD70 locos we purchased...the front end of these locos rides so close to the track that any defect was immediately detectable.  We also had to carve some tunnels wider to account for the longer trains and we had to pull one section of track entirely and straighten out a kink in the railwork.  It worked like a charm.  Now we are testing each of our six locomotives, with and without rolling stock, to make sure they run smoothly on all five tracks and transfer smoothly at each switching point.  Yesterday we tested our very first engine, a Kato AT-SF EMD-F7A diesel engine designated 304.  We also purchased an identical engine designated 315 but it always had an annoying wobble to it.  Taking it to the Kato people at the Springfield Train show two weeks ago revealed the cause, misaligned wheels on the front truck.  So we have it on an abandoned track with some cheap partially damaged rolling stock we picked up on the cheap at the show.

The upshot of the test is that engine 304 performed spectacularly on all tracks and switches and handled the cars behind it at a speed of 30% like a champ.  Less than 30% and the ride gets a bit jerky but 30% is a good speed for this engine on this layout.  Next up is an EMD-F3A, an SD40, an SD-45 and two SD70a's.  All in good time.