NTS&B Merry Christmas 2014

Another year has passed, and the layout has not progressed much again this year.  Had shoulder surgery at end of Feb to fix ice skating injuries, and still can't do much.  Mainly been working on scenery and Bigville, since that's about all I can do.   We did a recent trip to Callaway Gardens for the lights.   Here are a few pictures.  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

NTS&B Fifth Piedmont Pilgrimage Open House

My fifth Piedmont Pilgrimage turned out to be just as enjoyable as my other ones.  I had 5 full time 'helpers' (Wayne C, Roger & Sherry, Bob P, and Les) , and a couple club members came over.  All told, we had 62 people including ourselves, which is a record.  We picked up at least 1 new family for the club.

As usual, the weeks before, I worked my tail off trying to get last minute finishing touches in, mainly on Bigville Bank and Mis-Trust.  All buttons that did not have an override at the control panels  were painted red.  The rest was just general cleanup.

Form what I could tell, everyone seemed to have a good time

NTS&B Bigville Bank and Mis-Trust building completed

The third and final Bigville building is compete and installed.  May have to add some more detail to the inside later.   Here are some pictures of the initial concept and finished product.

 Paper napkin inartistic artists concept drawing

 Finished building

 Finished building lit up

Bigville

 RR-Track rendition of Bigville

NTS&B Daffy Duck to the rescue-new Bigville building started

Finally started the new Bigville skyscraper (tentative name is Bigville Bank and MisTrust).  Building is being made out of Plexiglass, and will be approximately 15" wide by 17" deep by 28" tall, with another 2" tall penthouse on top.  I knew plexiglass is a pain to work with.  After I got it cut out (which is what I thought the hardest part was going to be), I tried to remove the protective paper from the plexiglass so I could start what I thought would be the second challenge (getting glue to hold the pieces together).  The plexiglass I used was quite old, so the paper would NOT come off.  After working over 1/2 hour, I managed to get about a 6x6 square done.   I then went to the manufacture web site, and they suggested to soak the paper with a product made by Duron. Duron is now out of business,  so after numerous phone calls decided that was a dead end.  I then called Home Depot, and they suggested a plastic paint scraper or another piece of plexiglass which should not the scratch plexiglass if used carefully.  That worked a little better than nothing, but was still almost impossible to get the paper off, and left much of the glue on the plexiglass.

I finally had the idea to try heat to soften it up.  I found my very shy Daffy Duck hair dryer (he must be shy, because he kept hiding under towels in the back of the linen closet, and Kathy said she didn't put him there).   The heat worked great on all but the most stubborn parts.  I then discovered rubbing alcohol worked fairly well on those parts.   All in all, it took about most of my spare time for 3 days (and 2 very sore thumbs), to get the paper off 5 pieces.

Here's Daffy at work, along with some progress pictures.

 Daffy to the rescue !!

 First attempt at gluing sides (took 3 more tries before I finally got it to hold)

 Penthouse fabricated and painted, but not complete.

No that's not magic.  There's a stealth building under that penthouse.

NTS&B Mainline Yard Track Controls Finalized

The mainline yard power switches were put in place temporarily a couple years ago.  I finally got time to finalize the controls, and add switch track buttons for the turnouts on the existing end of the yard.  Here are a couple pictures of the results, and one before the changes.

All track power switches are now on when positioned to the right. Switch track buttons are laid out in order of the turnouts, with a track diagram in white.  Future switches will be on the right when rest of yard is completed.

The area where the switches are is quite dark, so I added LED lighting with a separate toggle switch (Upper right side of enclosure). I now also have additional storage for smoke fluid.

Temporary yard tracks power wiring under layout before finalization.

Final yard tracks power wiring. Additional wires will be added on top row when other end of yard is completed and wired in.

NTS&B All roads lead to Jo Ann's

Finally got the road crossing laid in, the lines added, and Jo Ann's lighting installed.  Could not believe how long it took to finish the roads.  Here are a couple pictures of the progress.

NTS&B Tunnel liners complete

Have been working on tunnel liners (dividers) under the Winter, Mainline, and Spring layers so that you couldn't see all the way through the layout and so trains would actually disappear when they went into a tunnel. I used a variety of material which included: 1) the hardboard back off an old book shelf, 2) a corrugated plastic sign, 3) blue Styrofoam sheeting,  and 4) stacked blue Styrofoam shaped like  rock layers.  The problem with all of these attempts is that they must be painted, and the backing is rigid which is hard to bend and install and makes it impossible to get to a derailed train if both sides of the tracks have the lining.   I have also seen molded Styrofoam and painted paper used as liners, which share the same access problem as the liners I used.

I recently stumbled on a good alternative (for me) at Hobby Lobby that is flexible, cheap, and fast and easy to install.  The product is 60 inch wide blotchy gray felt, about $6 per yard.   The label on the felt said that the material was flammable,  but when tested with a cigarette lighter it melted like nylon rope.   Felt is slightly sticky when held against plywood, so holds itself in place for stapling (which came in handy when working with only 1 good arm).  It is also fairly heavy, so it blocks out most light under the layout, and stays in place pretty well.  I stapled the material only at the top so the bottom could be easily move in case a derailment occur.  Here are some pictures of the finished product.

          Felt between top and lower left layers, stacked Styrofoam on right between the bottom 2 layers

 Felt is easily curved to follow track contour by stapling on top

Felt between top 2 layers, stacked Styrofoam between the bottom 2

NTS&B 2nd attempt at scenery

Since I cant do much else right now, I decided to take the last month and 1/2 and make another attempt at scenery.   This time, I tried using styrofoam to build the basic shape, covered that with plaster cloth, then covered that with Hydrocal to make it stronger.  I primed them all with gray primer, then added paint of various colors to try to make them go from snow (Winter level), to spring (bottom level).   They were made to be easily removable, to allow access to the tracks at the back of the layout.  I also made up the tunnel portals.   Wiring for the tunnel signals and Jo-Ann's still has to be accomplished, but cant be done until I'm able to crawl under the layout again.   Here's a few pictures of the 3 modules at various stages.

 Module behind Jo-Ann's.  Structure and stone work is all made out of blue foam board

 Second module covered in Plaster Cloth and primed

Third module with final coat of  Hydrocal and painted

Third module completed with trees, ground foam, and animals

Second module completed

Jo-Ann's module completed

NTS&B Bigville Passenger Access

This is the first progress on the layout this year.  Had my main shoulder operated on about a month ago and have been working with only 1 hand, so this took about a month instead of a couple days.  Had to adjust some of the track for clearances, which was really fun with 1 good arm.

The overhead lights under Bigville are made from an LED Christmas light string.  When I get use of my other arm, I may drop them down an inch or so, so that the electrical stuff behind them is not so visible. The stairs were from an overhead pedestrian bridge that was in pieces that I purchased a few years ago.

 View of Bigville City hall and passenger access

 Close up of stairs and lights.

 Night Scene with Williams Southern Crescent Limited at the station.

NTS&B Catastrophy narrowly averted

The local news helicopter was busily taking pictures of the work being done on the City Hall air conditioning unit, when it drifted too close to the work zone and got tangled up in the crane cables.  The weight of the helicopter almost caused the crane to topple over.  Fortunately the boom on the crane ended up resting on City hall and even though it was precariously balanced on only 2 wheels, the crane manged to hold the helicopter while rescue workers struggled under the highly dangerous  conditions.   Miraculously, no injuries were reported.

NTS&B New Helicopter Car

My trusty PicooZ Helicopter that my son got me years ago gave up the ghost, so I decided to create a new one this year.  This time, I started out with a $15 Propel Chrome Flyer from JC Penny's.  The helicopter runs way too fast, so I added some wait on the tail end.  Even with that, when I put in the front wheel stop like the previous flat car version, the helicopter wanted to stand on its nose during taking off instead of leaving the car.  I ended up putting stops in from of the wheels in the center section, which solved the problem.  I used carpenter glue on all of the stacked up 'ties', then hot glued them to the car. Here are some pictures of the old and new versions in case you want to build your own:

 Original version. Stops in front of helicopter.

New version. Stops in back of helicopter. Rest of design about the same as the original. The rubber band on tail is to keep the nose up a little to slow it down.  Still seems trickier to fly than original.

Front view

The 2 Helicopter cars together.