Pacific South Eastern Railway

[Wiredup]

Ive done a bit of work today, mostly making mountains and forming the terrain... So far things are looking like they will work out this time... I'm keeping the grades at a max of 2% for the main line, and so far everything falls into that. The Branch still has a 4% grade however... Which is fine. However even the branch may see a change, depends on what I try to do with the mainline... I dunno if I'll keep the original pair of Y's on each end of the main, or if I'll somehow make it a large loop, which I don't think would be as much fun...

Anyways, here's the photos!





The first step was to make the tunnel for the lower part of the main line. I've messed with quite a few ideas in the past, but I never really came across anything I liked and was useable. So Decided to take 2 inch thick extruded foam and carve my tunnel out of it. Seems to have worked, and there is enough clearance in the curves for my passenger cars to get by.

Now... theres a lot of scenery to put on top, so how I do I access the tunnel? Well we will see if this will work in practice once the glue dries, but in theory I should be able to lift it off. I put a 1/2" thick piece of foam over my tunneled section and cut it to shape. Then I used brass tubing to make alignment pegs for the top section.





So far it works well with the 1/2" thick section... but then it was time to build up the rest of it. I'll have to let the glue dry before I start moving it around. But as you can see I haven't even laid the track for the tunnel yet, so I gotta get under there somehow anyways!







And thats that for the exciting stuff!

More on Sunday is the plan.

[Wiredup]

Most of the progress on the layout today came from the ME bridge assembly... <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.the-gauge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=804">viewtopic.php?f=16&t=804</a><!-- l -->



But while picking up this kit I also picked up the Dayton Machine Co. I mentioned earlier...



AND ITS LIGHTED!!! From the factory! I like it, its pretty cool.




However, unlike other Cornerstone 'built up' kits, this one is not weathered and just looks like a plastic toy! I'm not happy at all about that, and will be painting this thing at first chance...then I'll be weathering it!

[LynnB]

Your right it is kinda plasticy looking, but they do daint up nicely.Boy what kind of lite bulb did you use?

[Wiredup]

Your right it is kinda plasticy looking, but they do daint up nicely.Boy what kind of lite bulb did you use?

Believe it or not it's the stock bulb! Looks like just a tiny old-school style bulb that you may find in your car's maplight. Not an LED or anything.




PS here's the finished bridge!!! (aside from rust detail/weathering)

[Wiredup]

Not a whole heck of a lot done today, considering it was an extra day off work I really thought I'd get more done.

Learned lesson of the day:
Recycling flex track that has been glued down is a royal PAIN in the butt. The glue seeps into the ties and makes it near impossible for certain areas of the track to flex without the rails coming loose from the ties. A pretty big disappointment. So I got about 2/3's of the one mainline section completed. And while the glue was drying I started mapping out the upper main line section and doing some scenicing...

Results?



Heres how the bridge(s) will be aligned when everything is set and done. There is some bridge sag there, so I might need to either buy another one of these ME bridge kits, or scratch build my own tower.



Scenic design is not my strong suit right now... But that is what I came up with so far.

Can one use drywalling mud in those woodland scenic rock molds with adequate results?

[LynnB]

Thanks for the tip on the liting.
Yep very rarely will flex track come back up if its been ballasted down, if its white glued soaking with water does the job.

[Wiredup]

Gonna do one last push on my railroad before summer... I gotta come up with $2000 for holidays this year (guess where my tax check is going?!) so I won't have much left to work on the layout.

So far in my budget I have allocated funds to purcahse 4 of the Rapido passenger cars (2 coaches, 2 sleepers) and I got one more Walthers coach on hold, as well as a Kato SD40, and a sound decoder. This will eat up a quick $500 for me, so I have about $100 left in funds for the railroad this summer.

I'm curious what one would do?

Should I:
- Buy a couple more structure kits (I'm thinking the Wood Land scenics structure kit thats to be used with the big kit thing....) and build my town(s)?
- Scenic a good portion of the layout?
- upgrade a couple of my locos to DCC (I currently have a DC Shay, RS11, Pacific, and Hudson on the bench)
- Finish my branch line and passenger terminal (requires quite a few switches and station platforms)
- Buy another locomotive (Kato Mikado, Life-like F7A/B, Kato RDC)?
- Buy some coal hopper shortie cars

[LiveSteamer]

Luke the layout is coming along nicely. Can't wait to see more.

[tetters]

Paint the inside of your building a flat black. That will block the light from coming through the walls.

[Wiredup]

Paint the inside of your building a flat black. That will block the light from coming through the walls.

good call! I'll be doing that ASAP

[Wiredup]

Luke the layout is coming along nicely. Can't wait to see more.

thanks for the thumps up!

[Wiredup]

I've done a bit of work since my last update, and even more to come in Thursday's update once I get some the final pieces of track laid and some wiring done.

did he say final pieces of track?

yes, yes he did... but what I mean by that is, the final pieces of track to complete the main line run.



As we can see here, the bridge is now in place and tracked! Oh happy day..



In fact, it's so tracked now that it actually goes around in a loop and is attached to something! Technically my trains can now make a full mainline run! But I still need to get some track laid at the passenger terminal before I can consider myself happy... one piece of flex left...better use it wisely!

Some photos of the yard:













Looks like it will be a busy place! I just need to recognition some decoders for some of my locomotives now...


Speaking of locomotives...









Nothing really special, just a few close ups... I plan on doing a close up of every loco in the near future though.



In other news, we had our first derailment the other day... I thought my single F7A was doing incredibly well getting up a 2% grade with 26 freight cars... until I noticed that this happened:




Done for now! More coming soon...

[Herc Driver]

Those are some great looking steamers! I like the terrain level changes...should be really interesting when everything's done. Really nice bridgework too!

[Wiredup]

Those are some great looking steamers! I like the terrain level changes...should be really interesting when everything's done. Really nice bridgework too!

Thanks a bunch!


I love my steamers... I just wish they would run reliably...

[Wiredup]

Wow, this is going to be a big update!!! including a pair of videos!

Please, any ideas on how to make this a better layout during your viewing would be gladly appreciated... this is my first layout of this size... let alone with anything more than track, or anything in N scale!

So....without further adieu, on with the show!

This is the photo tour:























So this is following the main line... as you can see almost all the track is laid... how reliable is the track? Well wait till you view the videos


Here's some close up photos that show off a bit more of the layout's branch line area:









And of course an update wouldn't be compete without a ground level shot of some big steam!





So here's some videos....

First, Daylight Special navigating the layout with a nice grouping of passenger cars.

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Second, the Union Pacific Challenger decides to try the layout...and fails!

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So I guess I got some things to fix up here eh?