Tunnel Portals

My latest project is a tunnel portal. I want to get the first tunnel closed up so that I can start shaping the mountain. 

I'm using Woodland Scenics Timber Tunnel Portals for the first of 4 tunnels.  I'm not sure what I will use for future tunnels. I'll decided later. 

The portals are plaster cast with pretty good detail.  There is some flash that needs to be filed off, but overall there is little prep work.  

I chose to use Woodland Scenics paint for this project.  You can use just about any paint that works on plaster.  I wanted to use Burnt Umber.  Its reddish brown in color.  Its a bit more expensive than the traditional acrylic paints you can buy in craft stores, but even with hundreds of color choices at Michaels, I still couldn't find a good brown.

Here is the almost finished product.  I still need to add some detail colors and weathering, which I will do with some paint and a bit of chalk.

  

I also painted the sides of the roadbed in the tunnel.  I used a latex paint.  Nutmeg is the color.  When it dries, I will ballast the track and start closing up the tunnel.  

Tunnels and Train Stations

I've been spending more and more time on the layout lately.  It's coming along, but its also a bit behind schedule. I had planned on building two module frames a month, which means I should now have 6 built, but I only have 4.  I guess I'll try to get two more built this month.  

This is the main passenger station for the Twin Lakes & Western Scenic RR.  I'm working on the last few details including:  windows, doors, real clocks for the clock tower, and interior / exterior lighting. I also need to do a bit of weathering to the roof.  

This is looking down module 2 and module 1.  I extended the main road onto module 2, which creates a RR crossing seen at the bottom of the pic. To the left, on the near side of the tracks, will be a drive in movie theater.  Farther down on the left will be a KFC, McDonalds, Taco Bell and a Shell Station.  Some sort of small light industry will fill the area on the right side of the road.

I painted the roof piece of the tunnel.

The walls of the tunnel are painted black. I've used dark grey in the past, but this time I want it to be dark in the tunnel. Now I need to paint the roadbed and rails, then ballast before closing up the tunnel.

Looking uphill through the tunnel site.  

Tunnel Work

This week I spent most of my time gluing track and new roadbed down. I also focused on building up some of the base scenery around the first tunnel. 

Three 18 volt batteries act as weights on the track while the glue dries.  This is module #3 as the highline heads up the grade.

Module #4 track risers are in the process of being glued into place and roadbed I have begun laying roadbed. 

The base of the first tunnel is complete, sort of.  The top pieces are not glued in place yet, since I will need complete the inside of the tunnel. I use wood glue and 3" sheet rock screws to build up the pink foam sections.  I find that the wood glue gives a strong bond and is fairly inexpensive.  The screws are have a course thread and help hold the pieces tightly together. Most of the screws stay in the foam, but some will be pulled as I start carving the foam.  I will paint the inside of the tunnel dark grey or black and will probably ballast the track all the way through since its a short tunnel.  Once I complete those tasks, I can close up the tunnel permanently.  

Here is the view from the downhill side of the tunnel.  

The mountain looks pretty square and 'blocky' right now, but after some carving, painting, rock casts, turf and trees, it will look pretty good.  Stay tuned and watch the transformation.  

Here is a view of module #1 from inside the layout.  Brandon, my son, has been busy playing around with building layouts that fit nicely.  This is the look we like the most so far.  The train station will have platforms extending left and right from the main building. The main street buildings are pretty much where they will be placed.  The building on the far side of the tracks is The Toy Factory, where I work in 'real' life.  It sits on the front of the layout because it will have a full lighted interior.  

Long Weekend

I had an extra long weekend due to the Memorial Day holiday.  Well sort of.  I had Thursday, Friday and Saturday off, then worked Sunday, and had Monday off. I took advantage of this time to get a big project done, one that I have been putting off. 

On Friday morning I picked up my cargo trailer, unloaded all the train gear that was stored inside, then loaded up the Fiat for summer storage.  I did get rid of most of my old layout two years ago, but I still had a lot of setup gear, including racks for transporting the modules, floor mats to keep our feet fresh during long days in expo halls, and 4 modules still in my possession.  

This dreaded swap project only took about 3 hours, far less than I anticipated and much easier.  I was even able to push the little Fiat up the ramp and into the trailer all by myself.  So, now it will sit in the trailer until fall or winter when I will make the train/Fiat swap again and work on the car.

Giovanni, our 1959 Fiat 600 fits inside my cargo trailer with room to spare.

It turns out that the swapping part of the project which I was dreading was the easiest part of all.  Rearranging the garage and getting the new modules setup was much more work.  How does our garage attract so much random crap??  I heard a comedian talking about how we Americans have drive nice cars, only to park them in the driveway because our garages are full of crap we need to hold on to.  

On Saturday I was finally able to setup all four of the new modules and begin making some progress again.  

Module 1 (top of pic) and module 2.  This will be the 16 foot side of the layout, so there will be two more modules beyond module 1.  So far, module 1 will be home to the train depot, several old town buildings, and The Toy Factory.  I also plan on adding a modern Shell gas station from Summit Customcuts, and a drive in diner of some sort.  The balsa wood road that runs up and down on module 1, will continue on module 2 and climb up for a RR crossing at the bottom of the pic (where the 18v battery is being used to hold down the rail while the glue dries)

This pic is from module 2 looking towards module 4.  As you can see, there are a few storage sidings and a passing track for the mainline on the left, and the mainline on the right continues to climb up to 4 inches in height.  Right now I'm thinking there will be some sort of light industry where the tape measure is sitting in the middle of the pic. 

Here is a closer pic of module 4.  The lower mainline and its passing track continue around to the left, as does the high line. The high line will be in a tunnel at this point.  A small mountain will fill the corner of the this module.  A working chair lift will run from the left side of the module to the top of the mountain on the right corner.  Visitors will also be able to look into a cutaway of the mountain on the right side.  They will see some sort of a mine or cave scene.  We plan to create a Z scale mine train that runs a loop into the mine for 'tourists'.  Module 4 will lead into module 5, which will be a 12" wide duck under bridge, making it easier for us to get inside the layout.  (On the top left you can see a side of one of my transport racks and stacks of legs from my old layout...anyone need a bunch of 36" 1x1's?) 

This is a closeup of module 3.  There are two sidings at the top, a passing track, a mainline and an industry siding at the bottom of the pic.  Not seen just below the bottom of the pic is the high line.  This siding at the bottom has a little stub to the right for a car or two, or a switcher to sit.  To the left, it runs down to module 2 and the light industry I spoke about above.  

Building Modules

I began building new modules in March of this year.  These new modular layout will be a bit smaller, 12 x 16 ft vs the old one at 16 x 16 ft.  The new layout plan allows for 100 ft of mainline track in this space, much more than the old one.  

The old layout was a 'race track' setup with two tracks running around the outer perimeter, allowing me to run two trains at once, going the same or opposite directions, for hours at a time during shows.  

This new layout has a 100 ft mainline that allows for one train to run around and around if I desired, but also has several passing sidings for two way operation.  The new plan also has many many more options for sidings and industries.  

Module 1

One of the goals of the new modules was to make them much lighter than the heavy old ones.  The old ones were 4 x 3 foot, built with 1 x 6 frames and 5/8" plywood tops.  This provided a very sturdy and strong setup, but heavy.  My new modules are 4 x 2.5 ft in size, with 1 x 4 framing.  I am using 2" pink insulation board for the top.  It is cut to sit inside the frame.  I installed 4 1 x 1 supports across the bottom for support, then ran sheet rock screws into the foam from above.  I put a large washer on each screw to help hold the foam down flat,.  The screws are counter sunk into the foam about a 1/4 inch so that they don't interfere with anything I build on the layout.  

This is module 1 and 2 together. Module 1 will be where the town starts.  Heading out of town will take you to module 2, the corner module.  

You can see that the track on the right side begins to climb up a 3% grade.  I am using Woodland Scenics 3% Incline.  Its light and can be glued in place with no math or calculating of inclines.  Once the inclines are glued in place, you lay your roadbed and track.  Its that simple.  

Module 1 will be the home of the Twin Lakes and Western Scenic Railroad Depot.  This is a Oregon Rail Supply.  I bought it intending to use it for an amusement park I've dreamed about building.  This particular kit is modeled after the Menominee Falls Depot in Wisconsin.  It was the depot that inspired Walt Disney's Disneyland Station.  

By the way, those are a short set of Electrotren Talgo from Spain.  I have a set of 13 cars for that train.  My son Brandon was using them to test the curves on the layout., as seen in the picture below.  

Modules 1, 2, and 3 are built.  The mainline on the left gains a siding just at the base of the curve.  

The flat piece of wood laying on top of the module is a piece of balsa wood.  I have used this wood, with great success, for roads and streets.  I've received quite a bit of feedback on how realistic my roads look.  I will talk about the process at a later date.  For now, the wood was being used to figure out where my main road is going to be.  

This is a closer, but messy look, at modules 2 and 3. The incline on the right hand track climbs at 3% to 4" in height.  It will then level out until it reaches the opposite side of the layout.  

In this photo you can see the mainline on the left with its passing siding (to the left) and two stub sidings at the end of module 3.  There is also a siding that comes off the main back towards the middle of the picture.  

In this picture you can see that I am using cork to raise the area where the train station will sit.  It needs to match the height of the rails.  Batteries from my cordless tools make great weights while the glue is drying. 

Two roads have been glued down.  The main road running parallel to the mainline and train station will actually circle most of the layout.  It will run around the layout for a future project, a digital Faller car system. that we plan to install someday.   The balsa wood glues down nicely to the ties and is flush with the rails.  I plan to use a commercial crossing pad kit from Summit Customcuts for the inside of the rails.

You can see that I am playing around with a few of the buildings I have.  I sold 90% of the buildings I've used before, planning to start over with new building and fresh ideas.  I will use the buildings that I didn't sell, or kept because they were favorites.  The building on the left is The Toy Factory, a model I built for the place that I work.  Its a Walther's Cornerstone kit that looks very similar to the real Toy Factory building. I plan to have a full and lighted interior, since it will probably sit right where it is on the edge of the viewing side of the layout.  

This is our Fiat 600.  If you want to read more about it, you can go to:  Giovanni Drives Again .  The reason I bring it up is because I am rebuilding it.  Its taken 2 1/2 years to strip it down and I'm still not done.  The problem is, right now I am focused on model trains and the car is in my way.  I hope to pull my cargo trailer out of storage very soon, pull all the module racks out of it and put the car in the trailer for the summer.  That's the plan.  

Rejoining the Corvallis Society of Model Engineers.

In January we began dusting off our collection of trains and stated visiting the Corvallis Society of Model Engineers.  The first visit was during a work night.  We saw some familiar faces and met quite a few new members. 

The club has become fairly organized with its work and operation nights.  Operation nights are on the 1st, 3rd and 5th (if there is one) Wednesday nights.  The other nights are work nights.  

The first week I ran one of my nicest trains, the Milwaukee Road Hiawatha consist.  I think I bought this train from Walthers in 2008 or 2009, right before we moved to Italy.  Its a great running train with DCC sound and lighted cars.  I started adding interior details (paint, passengers, etc)  to the last couple of cars, but still have more to do.  

The Milwaukee F7's on the CSME layout between Albany and Corvallis

Another view of the consist coming around the corner.  You can see that rock work has been completed in some area, but not ballasting.

A log train passes by, heading towards Albany.

The Hiawatha heads out of Corvallis and heads towards Philomath....not something that would happen in real life!

Coming around the corner, ready to cross a creek.  The black sections on the track are where bridges will eventually be built.

Heading through one of several tunnels on the layout, this one between Corvallis and Philomath.

On the west end of Philomath the route begins to climb, through tunnels and around a helix, to Blodgett and eventually all the way to Toledo.  

A few weeks later I ran my BNSF CSDPU coal consist around the layout.  Since then Brandon and I have run almost all of our trains around the layout, checking to see that they still run after being boxed up for over 2 years.  

This is the first scene on the layout that has been completed, the waterfront in Toledo.  It was well detailed by Doug, one of the CSME members. 

The scene includes working lights and waterfront wharf sounds.  

The level of detail is amazing.  I consider myself a good modeler, but this is a level I wish to reach someday.

After several months of membership and operation nights, this past week I returned to running my Hiawatha again.  This is it as it sits on the siding waiting to descend from Blodgett to Philomath.  

I must say that the new layout runs pretty flawlessly.  The track work is well done, making it nice to run for a whole evening with little or no interruptions due to derailments.  

It's been fun being part of a club again.  The only area that is lacking for me is finding something I can work on.  I want to work on the layout, but haven't been inspired with any ideas yet.  To make matters worse, most of my thoughts center around the building of my new modular layout.  More about that on my next post.  

Twin Lakes & Western Model Railroad - Reincarnated

I am back into model railroading and building a new layout.  I've built many layouts over the years, but for some reason, Twin Lakes & Western has been my recycled name for the last three.  The first was a 16x16 foot modular layout that I built soon after my son was born.  I think he was about 1 year and  6 months old when we ran our first train around the layout.

Then, in 2009, we moved to Italy.  I had become a bit tired of model railroading, so it was a welcome break.  I kept my layout stored inside the trailer I used to haul it around.  When we returned, I decided to sell off the modules and build a home layout.  I was given permission, by my family, to build a layout in the 'guest' room.  I began work within weeks of returning to the States.  This would become the new Twin Lakes & Western Railroad.  Well, that only lasted less than a year before I decided I didn't like it and tore it down.  Not only did I tear it down, but I sold almost everything I had:  scenery, buildings, details, etc.  The only thing I kept were the trains.

I was able to keep the room, which is now my room for creating mosaics (a different blog) and for whatever else I wanted to do.

This past winter I began to think about model trains again.  Then, in January I decided to see if my son Brandon was interested in visiting the Corvallis Society of Model Engineers.  I had been a part of that club for almost 10 years, two of which I served as president.  Well, we visited and ended up paying 6 months of dues to renew our membership.

After a month or two of running our trains at the club, we decided we would enjoy going to model train shows again, so we began building a new modular layout.

So, here I am blogging about the building of our new layout.  I hope you will find it interesting.  We are trying some new construction methods, so it will be interesting to us as well.