NTS&B New home for Roadrunner Shack

I didn’t have room at the end of the mainline for the Roadrunner Shack, and had this unused area underneath the mainline by the bay that I couldn't figure out what to do with.  I decided to move the 'Shack' there, and tried my hand at painting a typical cartoon type Roadrunner Scene where the Coyote paints a road and tunnel in the side of a mountain and the Roadrunner runs through it, but Wile W Coyote cant . As you can tell, I'm definitely not an artist, but I think it works OK.

NTS&B More work on mainline scenery

Now that I have the mainline tracks finalized, as much as they will ever be, I can resume work on some of the scenery items.  I had to move the Roadrunner Shack to a different area, and move the church to the opposite side of the road to have enough clearance for the big engines.  I was also finally to lay in the horse fence on the shop end of the layout since I had the big engines to check clearance with. Here are the pictures.

 

NTS&B Adding clearance on the mainlines for big steam

Bob P. brought over a Williams N&W #1218 2x6x6x4 which showed many clearance issues on the mainline.  It took much whittling of supports and platforms in the yard to pick up about 1/8 to 1/4 inch clearance between each siding.  I also had to create additional space on all of the curves so it would clear some 21 inch cars Bob also brought.  This involved stretching track joints to the max in some cases.  After all this work, he brought over a MTH 4x6x6x4 UP challenger, which was even bigger and created more problems.  It also had a extra piece on one side that stuck out an additional 1/4 inch, which made it even more (excuse the pun) challenging for clearance.  I then had to extend the approach to the 2 bridges so the engines would have a straighter entry.  I finally had to decide that there were limitations when running this engine (and others like it), that the other mainline could only run cars that are 15 inch maximum, and an adjacent track may have to be cleared in the yard.  The N&W engine, and all of my engines, had enough clearance to run 21 inch passenger cars on the adjacent track.  Here are some pictures of the engines and layout mods.

 N&W 1218.  Notice the overhang in the fron of the engine which tends to hit long cars on the adjacent tracks when the engine is on the inside curve. 

 The UP #3985 was bigger and had more overhang, plus an piece on the back of the engine that stuck out and additional 1/4 inch.

Took about 3/8 inches off the support columns for the upper level, and added an extra 1x2 on the outside to help support Bigville.   Also took about 1/2 inch off the passenger platform between the tracks. Since there are 7 tracks in the yard, all of the trimming netted only about 1/8 inch extra clearance between the tracks.

Along with trimming the other supports. the supports for the winter loop had to be trimmed also.  I ended up having to remover 1 complete support, but it didn't seem to effect the upper level.

The challenger took out part of my tunnel portal, so I trimmed it up the best I could.

NTS&B Dad made street lights added

When I was a kid, my dad made street light poles out of copper tubing and copper sheeting.  He used sockets from a string of series Christmas lights (Remember them?  They had smaller bulbs, and when one went out, they all went out).   For bulbs, he used NE45 110V Neon light bulbs, which at the time were commonly used in night lights. Here is what they look like.

NTS&B Mainline bridges replaced

During the Pilgrimage,  some helpers brought over very large stuff to run.  I discovered that the bridges were not tall enough for some modern scale rolling stock.  I decided to swap out the front bridge with a modern MTH bridge, and moved the Lionel silver one that Anthony gave me to the back.  I also added a blinking LED to the Lionel Bridge.  The MTH bridge was longer, which needed 1 less support, so it freed up some area for boats in the inlet. 

NTS&B Merry Christmas 2016

Another year has passed, and the layout has progressed quite a bit this year.  The autumn and raised areas are up and running with control panels, lights and accessory wiring completed.  As expected, nothing has been done since the Piedmont Pilgrimage, due to getting ready for the holidays.   We did do our annual trek to Lights Of Life, and took our Grandson this time.  Here are a couple pictures.

NTS&B Seventh Piedmont Pilgrimage

Our seventh Piedmont Pilgrimage continued to be just as enjoyable as my other ones. Thankfully, I had my usual 3 full time 'helpers' (Roger and Sherry B., and Bob P). All told, we had 85 people including ourselves, which is another record.  Fortunately they were spread fairly evenly over the 4 hour period, so it didn't seem to be overly crowded.  The weather was very nice, so I was surprised we had such good attendance.  I still haven't made it upstairs during the open houses to see how bad parking is.

As usual I worked my tail off for weeks before trying to get last minute finishing touches in, mainly on the mainline and raised section, as you can tell from previous blog entries.  I'm now up to running all 14 loops and the trolley, so I spent about 2 days oiling 27 trains and 30 engines. I am still having minor track issues on the switch tracks in the fall area, but most trains ran on each loop reliably.  I decided to run mostly F units.  I ran the Polar Express, Thomas, Tinsletown loop Christmas engine, and the LionChief 0x8x0, so the kids would have stuff that they are familiar with and could run.

During the open house, I kept having problems on the raised track with the Williams Pensy F3 that ran perfect last year.  I swapped it with an F unit from another track, and then had no more problems. Towards the end of the event,  the trolley ran through the bumper, so we had to shut it down. Bob maintained his perfect track record and had problems with both engines he brought over.  One ran fine until the screw came out of the front truck.  It only took about 20 minutes to find it. The other one wouldn't run at all.  The only other problem was 1 coupler let loose on the long freight train on the main line, and we had a major pileup when the engines came around and met the back of the train. 

From what I could tell, everyone seemed to have a good time.  I know I sure did.  Here's what the layout looked like the day of the Pilgrimage.

NTS&B A day at the beach

We’ve been working so hard getting ready for the Piedmont Pilgrimage coming up at the end of the month, we all decided to take a day at the beach to rest.  Here is the inlet area with more detail added, but still no water poured.

NTS&B Fall raised area roads and lights finished

Now that the mainline tracks are installed, I can finish the raised area roads and street lights.  Here are the results.

NTS&B Some new shelving

Kathy was concerned that I might have more trains than would fit on the layout, so I decided to ease her mind and build a display shelf at the end of the room to hold some of my extra stock.  The shelves are 5 feet wide, by 7 feet tall, by 4 inches deep.  The risers were notched for each shelf.  Each shelf was grooved to fit the wheels, instead of having to add track to the shelves.  I also notched and painted the leftover parts of the shelves and risers, so I can build another shelf under the layout when time and energy permits.

The plan is to be able to switch out from all F3's to steam, or some other combination.   I have the feeling that I may need more shelves to accomplish this though.  Here are the pictures.