Oh my lord, progress!

I went to my LHS this morning to get some more wire for the lighting rig, and ended up leaving with a load of plastruct and this little beauty:



Some really nice detail on this compared to my older Bachmann freight stock. I'm impressed.

The plastruct has already been put to good use in the lumber yard, and the forklifts have been placed to see how they'll look.


Another overhead shot:


The wiring has finally been finished and I've 'tested' it out

With the exception of one dirty point blade causing stalling, everything is fine. That's a considerable worry off my shoulder!

I'm uploading a video to YouTube for later.

Video as promised!

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Yesterday I spent some time getting the frame for the lighting screwed into place. Lighting shall be tackled this weekend I hope.

I've also DCC fitted my U25B but it's shorting out so I need to look into that some more later.

Need to finish the work on the remaining detailing first though so the U Boat will have to wait.

Progress report!

With less than a week to go I'm rapidly running out of time to get the layout complete. Thankfully most of the hard work is done, all that is left to do is to add a fascia to the layout and get the lighting sorted, along with making a few cassettes.

I have a few secondary jobs to do, like DCC fitting a couple of locos, but I'm not too worried, as I have 4 DCC locos ready and should be picking up a 5th on the day. That's more than enough to run the layout with.

At any rate - pictures!

First of all, the almost complete scrap yard and team track, starting with the now blended board join:


The drum shredder:


The scrap baler:


The scrap heap (glue still drying):


The scrap yard Quonset hut and the team track loading dock:


The team track tank car unloading spot:




And now the exit to the fiddle yard - I've added a LOT of foliage here to blend into the backscene:





Next the warehouse:



I'll need to add roof detailing eventually, but for now it's done.


The factory:


The water tower (almost done now):


CSX 18 idling in the lumber yard:


The bayou:


And an overall view of the layout:


Lots to be done still, but I'm crossing those small jobs off the list at breakneck pace!

Nice work! I enjoyed the video which provides a great overall look ayt your layout.

It would match Tyson's layout as an industry part. The the relaxed rural atmosphere and the mostly green colors are very similar.

Very quick update for now. I spent 15 minutes before work this morning making a container for the team track.

Now I am home it is now glued in position:

Quick update for now; the backbone of my fleet have been weathered and given a coat of acrylic varnish to seal them.

Atlas SD-24



Kato AC4400cw



Kato SD70MAC



Deadline approaching rapidly!

So tonight I managed to get all the wood cut and sanded for the remainder of the layout; fascia and cassettes. Hopefully I'll get some time tomorrow to screw it all together.

Then the fascia will need painting, the cassettes will need track and wiring sorting and then the layout will be essentially complete.

Then I'll just have to spend some time playing trains.

Hard work will pay off and I'll have my first actual model railroad.

Good times.

Before work this morning I decided to get the cassettes assembled; I must have looked like a real weirdo screwing pieces of wood together out of the boot(trunk) of my car!

At any rate, I only managed to get two done before the battery charge ran out on my electric screwdriver. Ah well - at least I'll have something to do tomorrow morning before work!

Anyways... cassettes!

Nice locos.

Cheers! The photos are showing areas of the weathering that will need touching up, but I can do that after the show.

Two more cassettes assembled this morning before work.

The jobs list has decreased now to...

Attach the fascia
Fit the lighting
Lay track in the cassettes
Figure out and implement a method of quickly and easily powering the cassettes
Paint the fascia
Paint the one corner of the backscene I somehow missed when painting them initially.
Play trains.

Shouldn't take too long.

Final update before the exhibition tomorrow!

Layout is pretty much done:



Now I'm just getting a few little jobs done and playing trains.

I was going to fit the fascia to the layout today but discovered that I can't get the module to connect up if the fascia is there due to the angles involved - as such I'll be passing on that for the show tomorrow, and will figure something out at a later date.

I'll be lining the front of the layout with information sheets and such instead - shouldn't look TOO bad - I hope!

As I don't know the layout of the venue exactly, I'm not leaving anything to chance in terms of wayward stock falling to the floor, so I've built, fitted and tested some rail bumpers on each of the sidings. The cassette will have something a little more... crude!




Simply made from I beam and cylindrical plastruct, with a long length of brass bead-artists' wire down the center. I've run a loco into it at speed step 13 just to be sure - rock solid!

Not a lot to do now except to disassemble everything and load up the car, but for now it's time to sit back with a beer and chill out!

Nicely done !