NTS&B M&M Home

Last year my daughter gave me some M&M people for the layout. They appear to have been off a sting of Christmas lights. Although it may take a while, I always try to incorporate gifts form the kids into the layout.  At the time, I had an idea of making them a 'home' next to the Underground Lego Station.  I forgot about it until this weekend, when I was working on some other wiring in that area.  Here's a couple pictures of the results.  Although their room is quite big, the door is small so its' heard to see them all in it from 1 angle.  The room is lit by a push button controlled light, which makes the yellow M&M appear to be wearing stripes,  Still need to put the door casing on to finish it up.

NTS&B Spring Section Controls

Worked most of last weekend setting up the switch track and track power controls for the Outside 2 loops in the Spring section.  The big toggle switches over the transformer are used to select the ZW power, or the 1 extra Remote Track Power Controller that can be used for debugging track problems, or just running a train remotely.  A similar module was created for the Subway when I first started out, bit this one is much simpler to create and hang.   Eventually (hopefully in the near future), the Subway one will be replaced, and one will be added to the Heliz/Winter loops also. Here are some pics of the control panel, and the latest overall layout.

NTS&B Spring Power Stations

I finally got time to build a couple new power stations for the 'spring' section. Actually, the one on the right is for the 2 outside loops.  The one on the left will be for the center most loop, and the newly planned ceiling loop that will be above it.   It took most of the 4 day weekend to get them painted, assembles, and placed.  

NTS&B Rolling Stock Paint Scheme Started

A couple years ago, I  picked up a couple box car shells with the idea of someday coming up with a color scheme for the NTS&B rolling stock.  Also, a while back, I screwed up and made my depressed center flat car, which I had been using for my digital camera, into a permanent TV Camera car.   The depressed center cars work great for the digital camera, since they sit lower than a regular flat, so you see more of the buildings instead of just the roofs.  Since the depressed center cars seem to carry a premium price, I recently picked up a plastic ($1) and a long metal ($2) car (no trucks), so I purchased wheel sets for them while in York.  Since these cars needed painting, I decided to come up with the paint scheme and paint all of them now..  2 9020 flat cars that I paid $2 each for donated their trucks for the box cars, and I still need to find doors for them, which will be painted red.  After that I will have to make some decals with the NTS&B logos.   Below are the results so far

  3 of the new 4 cars

The plastic depressed center car

One of the 2 box cars painted, still needing doors

Metal Depressed Center Flat Car.  After I put it together, I discovered that the car was sitting higher than a normal flat car.  It had extra height where the trucks mounted, so I ended up trimming almost 1/4 inch of them. The center now sits slightly lower than a normal flat. I had also purchased 2 trucks with long shank couplers, since the coupler mounting pint was in father than normal.  They turned out to be too long for the car, but were the perfect length for my wooden test car, so these trucks were used on that.. The trucks from the  6017 caboose (see previous post) fit perfectly on this car (maybe a smidgen short, but not a problem).

The other box car, still needing doors

The long metal car, with the camera.  Notice the camera has plenty of room, but still sits a little high

The plastic car sits lower, but the camera has to be on an angle.  Note, the last 2 pictures were taken in a mirror, since I only have one digital camera.

NTS&B Caboose/Search Light Project cars

While at the York Spring Eastern Division TCA show in April, I picked up a broken, filthy 2357 caboose for $2 to use the trucks on another project car (depressed center flat car) I had going..  Then  I found a short spotlight load, that looked like it would fit perfectly on a caboose frame, do decided to use the caboose frame for that, and bought a couple extra trucks for the flat car. .  When I got it home, the caboose chassis cleaned up so good, that I decided to use it on a nice 6017 caboose.I had (unlit) that Jen had bought me for a birthday present, then use the unlit chassis for the search light. Now the 6017 is lit, has a smokestack, chimney,  ladder, windows, and tool boxes, and looks sharp

After several missteps, I finally came up with the right combination of trucks and power picks for the search light.  The 6017 had plastic trucks, so the power pickups I had purchased wouldn't work.  I purchased some modern power pickups, and discovered they wouldn't work on the 1960s model caboose trucks. I then swapped the trucks with a 9020 flat car, and discovered that had plastic wheels.  I finally discovered that I had a set that would work on my wooden clearance checker car, so robbed them for the searchlight. Here it is, finally finished and lit up.  The searchlight looks a little funny being so short, bu should go really well with the rest of my snow train

NTS&B BIg Snow of 2012

We had a surprise late spring big snow storm in March on the NTS&B this year (actually, sheet rock dust). We have to vacuum every train and part of the layout now, because the dust is very abrasive. So far we've spent about 10 hours with the vacuums, and probably have another 5 or 6 to go. Some pictures below on a part that we haven't cleaned yet.

NTS&B more subway work

Its been a slow layout year so far. I've been concentrating on getting the other half of the basement ready to finish. I thought I finally had a weekend to play, so I decided to try to finish the subway level. Got all my tools out, cut 3 pieces, and then unexpectedly had to quit that day to get back going on the other side. I started at the Bigville Station, and was working my away around to the big Lionel Arch Bridge. Here is what I finished so far. I also put some maintenance lights in, but haven't had a chance to wire them up yet.

NTS&B Merry Christmas 2011

Another year has passed, and the layout has not progressed much. I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and Happy and safe New Years.

This years pictures are from the Lights Of Life, again.

NTS&B 2011 Piedmont Pilgrimage Open House

This was my second Piedmont Pilgrimage open house. Everything went well, with only minor problems. I had one or 2 accessories and 1 passenger car that decided to give problems, but that was about all. We only had 47 people total this year (including 5 'workers'), as opposed to 52 last year, and had a few repeats from last year. It was loads of fun watching the expressions on the kids faces (even the big ones). Note for next year-Put goody tables in garage instead of on back patio.

This year I also had three visiting trains. John R brought his Illinois Central GP-9 which had not been run in something like 25 years (I had a lot going on, so my facts may be a little off). He also brought a kit car that he built and some scratch built loads that he had never seen run. Unfortunately, I just realized I didn't get any pictures of this very nice train.

Wayne C. brought a Williams E8 Bright Red Texas Special AA set with 4 - 18 inch passenger cars. Boy was she pretty. This one was my personal favorite, since I really like colorful passenger trains.

The star of the show was Wayne's Lionel Spirit of 1776 set produced in pieces from 1974 to 1976, that had never even been taken out of the boxes (yes folks, a brand new still in the box 37 year old train). The set included the U36B Seaboard Coast Line Engine, Caboose, and 13 cars (one for each of the original 13 colonies). Since the engine only has a single motor, it didn't have enough traction to pull all of the cars up the helix, so we double headed my engine to go with it. Here is what it looked like, and a short movie going down the helix.

NTS&B Jamaica Station Update

Most of the time when I ask someone if they noticed the Jamaica Station, they say no and immediately start looking at the top of the layout (I kid you not, even X New Yorkers). I decided to add a platform at the front edge of the station, to try to get people to notice it easier.