UP SD40-2's NEW Layout

[Charlie B]

Hi Deano, I really like those WSOR engines. We bought a GP7 that ran on the WSOR in 2003. All I did was changed the grey stripes on the front to yellow, and added the KJR lettering on the side.  I never got around to repainting it. It was the 752 and now works the Youngstown and Southeastern and I do get to see it occasionally. 
Here it is in Schenley, Pa 9/17/2003.    
Nice Aerotrain too. I put the taillights in mine, but they are operated by a battery. I used a 9 volt and 2 very small smd led's I have a switch under the car to turn them off but they would probably stay lit for 5 years without a switch. Charlie

[doctorwayne]

Great photos and great scenes, Deano...as usual.  

Wayne

[UP SD40-2]

Charlie, Thanks so much! , for posting that WSOR GP7, great pic!!  
I missed getting any shots of the cool old stuff WSOR ran, I started taking pictures while rail fanning just about the time WSOR decided to run only SD40-2's, GP38's and the 2 MP15's they have.
The very last neat engines they had that I got quite a few pics of was their SD20's, and I did get a few pics of them too, so glad I didnt miss out on them   .

Wayne, Thank you so much   , coming from you, that really means a lot, thank you   .

WELL, I took everything off of about a 10' section on the left side of the layout today, and decided to get to work on it since I cant fix my track as the hobby shops are not open. I need to get the left side going as I am tired of just taking pics on the same sections of my layout, time to get some new area's going to freshen things up a bit. When I laid my track down in that section, for some reason I didnt paint under it, so I took a black "wash" and just painted over everything, it got under the track quite good.
 

After the black wash had dried i painted the yard areas black, and where the towns edge will be I filled in a couple holes I had there and just painted everything brown. Once I figure out exactly where the roads are going I'll paint those areas gray. 


I really considered just taking that area and putting a farm in there, hey, I'm doing Wisconsin, you'd think I would have put a farm on the layout lol! I decided I would put an insinuated dairy farm area at the right back corner of the layout and by doing this I am able to keep the towns edge at the left side of the layout. It will have a furniture store, or something like that, and a courthouse with a small "park" in between them. Off to the right, across the street from the courthouse will be a residential house. A parking area will be by the tracks.


After the yard area dried I cleaned the track and kinda put that area back together to give me an idea as to how it will be. I plan on going to Farm&Fleet tomorrow, I am going to look for the black blasting shot Charlie had mentioned a few posts back, should work great in the yard area, looked good on Charlies layout.


After doing all the work I was going to on the layout today, I decided to run my SD40T-2's. I really like those tunnel motors, ran them a few times, point to point.






Till next time.....

[Steve]

"I am tired of just taking pics on the same sections of my layout"
Tell me about it brother 
That section is going to be nice! Looking forward to more progress  ......That Rio Grande is a real eye catcher!!!!!

[UP SD40-2]

Thanks so much Steve!  , I have another Rio Grande I'll post here too

Well, another Friday has came and went, been working four tens so it was just the dog and me today, god bless her, she's getting older now, her nose isnt shiny black anymore, its turning light brown, and her muzzle is going gray. She still has her winter coat on, man I need to comb her  . Shes got a double plush coat so she always has long thick hair, two seasons with her, shedding, and shedding profusely   .


Well, I got to work on the layout today! Ever have one of those days were everything is going right, your banging on all cylinders, its like nothing can stop you....well, that was NOT the case today  . It seemed like everything I touched on the layout today went to crap, I almost walked away from it today, but 3/4 of the way through it things finally got better. 

I have a broken large station that I had on Dads last layout, salvaged what I could and thought it would make a good courthouse, that took longer then I had planned to get together right, still have finishing touches to do but I got it to the point I think it will work. After that I weathered the corner building and started making the side walk. I had to add some styrene around the corner building to get it to look right, then add some under the steps so they were not floating in the air. I had some gray for the concrete but thought I should get some more, so I went to Walmart to get some and WOW, ALL, ALL THE PAINT WAS GONE!!! Well, there was about 6-8 bottles of brown but besides that, EVERY COLOR WAS GONE!! WOW!!! Anyways, heres the setup...


So I went back home empty handed and just used what I had, I think I have enough to finish it. I put one coat of paint on the sidewalks and the road areas, next I'll scribe each section on the sidewalk so after I put my last coat of paint on it and weather it the sections should show up good. I have a statue, a flag, some bushes and a couple park benches that will go nicely into the "park" area between the corner building and the courthouse. Perhaps I'll get to that still this weekend, we'll see. Heres where I am at now...


A couple pics, my other Rio Grande, its an SD50...


I posted this in the Weekly Photo Fun thread, its an SD38-2 & GP60, both are yard engines running a local...


Till next time....

[ezdays]

Just love your attention to details, always pleased to see what you've done.

[UP SD40-2]

Thanks so much Don, very kind of you, thank you  .

Well, Last week I left off with my progress on the towns edge ending up as far as this...


So the first thing I did this week was to cut the separate sidewalk sections into the styrene, then repainted it concrete again and weathered it, WOW, it worked out great, the weathering really made the cracks stand out. Like most things though, you can hardly tell from the pictures. It seems like I really have to over due things to make them show up good in pics, I made that mistake on my last layout, decided I'm not doing it on this one, so hopefully you guys will notice the little things at some time or another in different pics eventually. 

I then grassed in the courtyard park and went to town on doing all the road striping, man that took a long time to do. After finishing the striping, I weathered the Courthouse, then took to weathering the roads. SHEEEW, it dont seem like much writing it, but man I really accomplished a lot, well, I think I did anyways   . So, heres where I have ended up tonight, NOT FINISHED by a long shot, but further along none the less...


I wonder whats going on here? (yes, that is a Wisconsin State Trooper car )


I have to finish the Courthouse, and for the life of me I cant find the park benches I had for the Courtyard Park, oh heck, TONS more to do, but that will have to be next weeks work  .

I ran my Fairbanks-Morse H 24-66 TM4 Demonstrator, point to point a few times today. I have two H24-44's, this one and a CNW, the CNW is an old Athearn BB, the TM4 has QSI sound and lighting effects, its SLAP AWESOME! (I still have TM3 in N scale)

Fun fact: FM TM3-4 were Demonstrators that were sent first to Union Pacific, the UP tested them out for a bit but passed on them, then the pair was sent to SP, the SP ended up buying both and painted them in the "bloody nose" paint scheme, they were then used for passenger service for years. 


Till next time...

[doctorwayne]

You've done a great job on that city scene, Deano.  The courthouse and parkette remind me of one in a town nearby, and the weathering on the streets is just right.

As for the Espee Train Masters, I recall reading about them in Trains magazine.  Apparently their ability to quickly get up to track speed was just what was needed for the commuter trains on which they operated.

Nice modelling, Deano!  

Wayne

[cn nutbar]

Deano---the courthouse is another excellent scene for your layout,your modelling skills and attention to detail are outstanding.I really like that Trainmaster---in Canada the Canadian Pacific had a huge roster especially in the western provinces but the Canadian National had only one of these locomotives on it's roster which is still active on the Leetown Division.

[Tyson Rayles]

That building complex is a real eye catcher!

[UP SD40-2]

Wayne, ED & Mike, thank you so much guys, really, Thank you  .

Both my wife and myself had off today, decided to smoke a couple pork butts and a HUGE pork loin  , OMG they are sooo good! When I smoke its low and slow, so I always do a lot to make it worth it. The Hickory and apple wood arnt cheap, and it takes hours to do it, so ya have to make it worth doing.


While I was smoking the meats I got some more work done on the layout. Well, I also worked on it 3 nights this week too, but it doesnt seem like much got done. I worked on about 11' of it, putting in some grass, ballasting the last section of the mainline, and started putting some cinders on a bit of the yard tracks. 

Like usual, I get an idea in my head and just start working on it, then after I have got a ways into it I realize I haven't taken any pics of what I have done  ...thus, I dont have much for before and after shots.  

I started to vacuum the top of the layout before I started to grass it, but ended up vacuuming up a couple police officers and a motorcycle, CRAP, well, I emptied the vacuum out onto a piece of cardboard to retrieve the stuff I had vacuumed up, as I did that I noticed I have a lot of grass in the vacuum, with some dirt and other small stuff, WOW, this looks like grass with trash in it....hey, I could use this around the downtown area! It worked out ok I think, we'll see how it ends up finished, at the least it saved me money on ground cover. 
 
As I was doing the residential house area across the street from the Court house, I decided I was going to totally redue the ground cover all around the GERN area, it just doesnt match the rest of the layout so I think I am going to add a little more green to that area, not a lot, but some, since the time the layout is modeled in is very early summer. Havent started the GERN "redue" yet, but it will be very soon. 

A couple ramdon pics of SOME of this weeks work, I am a bit further along then the pics shown, but everything has glue soup on it now so I didnt take a final shot of it.






NO train running this week, so I was looking through some of my old rail fanning pics I took and decided to post a couple, the first one I took in Rochelle, I think it was around 2012, or perhaps 2009? , cripes, not sure, but its an SD40T-2 snoot nose, the snoot nose SD40-2's are my all time favorite SD40-2's, and the UP had TONS of them. The second shot I took in S. Beloit, its a GP40-2, pretty darn sure it was in 2012...




Till next time....

[BR60103]

Deano
remember that the grass around the GERN factory will be 3% greener.

I always vacuum the layout with a piece of screen in the tube -- usually over the joint between the tool and the tube.

[UP SD40-2]

David, your right, it will be 3% greener  . Great Idea on the screen for the vacuum too! thanks!

OK, update to last nights post, now that the glue soup has dried up a little bit, was able to take a few pics  

NOW, i think about 97% of my layout has ground cover on it, there are only a couple small areas that still need it but the vast majority of the layout is covered!  Still have fences to put up, trees, bushes/shrubs, weeds, cinders and dirt on the siding tracks....ugh, so much left, not to mention the rail yard facilities, but non the less, a good milestone had been reached over the last week.


In this pic you can see I have started bringing in a little green into the GERN area, I think I am going to renovate some of the Town of Owen area too, thats to the right of GERN, not pictured. 


This pic brings so much joy to me!! What you are seeing here is the VERY LAST of the double mainlines FULLY BALLASTED!!  
OMG, I am so Happy! Did I ever mention how much I hate ballasting? Sure, I still have some ballasting with cinders in the yards and a bit on sidings to do, but thats nothing, much easier then doing the mainline. Also I added some grass between the mainline and first yard track.


So now, I am still a million miles away from being finished with anything, but it sure is nice looking at the layout now and not seeing bare wood  . 

This last pic here is the very first taken with an engine in the newly worked on area. I am pretty darn sure I have never taken a pic of this engine as long as I have had it, I bought it at a show years ago, its an Athearn BB, what got me thinking of this engine was Toms FA's he recently posted, I dont have any FA's, but I do have this PA, still need to put a coupler on the front, and the horns, but thats about it.


Till next time....

[doctorwayne]

All that ballast and ground cover certainly makes the layout look a lot more-finished, Deano.   

I have areas on the lower part of my layout that still need ballast and a lot more structures, too, before they look anywhere near "finished" and while most of the track on the upper level is ballasted, there's a lot more track yet to be layed there, and three towns yet to be built.

Wayne

[BR60103]

I'll repeat Youngs's Law here:
When you get the track all ballasted, your wife will convince you to move house.