Jonathan's Layout #3

[Terry Toenges]

It looks great so far. I love it!

[jonathan]

Thanks, Terry.

Started crawling under the layout.  Procrastinating on the stall tracks, but I did play with some lighting, just to get started.

Almost out of warm/white LEDs. Still have a gross of blue/white. Decided to use some blue/whites in the roundhouse:

DSC_0540_01 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

I wired these in parallel. It's more work, but I think it will be easier to correct a problem in the long run:

DSC_0541 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

A few structures got wired up, too:

DSC_0544 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

OK. Gotta Psych myself up to start wiring stall tracks.  There are 12 of 'em and each one has an on/off switch.  Lots of wires to string back an forth.  No fun holding a soldering iron over your head and keeping it steady.  Alright, positive thoughts...

Regards,

Jonathan

[Ken Huck]

Amazing !  Lights make all the difference.  If you ever get a whole bunch of buildings, or and
apartment building, consider using Christmas tree lights. 

Thanks for the pics.

Ken

[jonathan]

Thanks, Ken.

A long time ago,  I ordered A LOT of LEDs and resistors from China--dirt cheap.  Two layouts later, and I still have some.  There's 27 resistors left, perhaps a dozen warm/white LEDs and a bunch of blue/white.  Used up all the SMDs.  Was the most economical way to do lights... albeit a bit labor intensive.

Regards,

Jonathan

[Grumpy468]

Very nice wiring skills, nice and clean. What does it look like at night?

[jonathan]

Thanks!

Sheldon,

Not ready for night shots, yet.

The end of the layout is against the basement back door, and it's daylight out:

DSC_0549 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

Also, taking advantage of the daylight to work on wiring under the layout.  I've got some lights, and all the stall tracks wired.  I like the cacophony of wiring that appears when working around a roundhouse:

DSC_0550 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

Making progress on the control panel:

DSC_0551 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

Making good progress on the area.  It will take a while longer.  As soon as I get all the lights working, I'll make a night shot.

For now here's a few more shots:

DSC_0548_01 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

DSC_0547_01 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

DSC_0546_01 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

Regards,

Jonathan

[OLDERTIMER]

WOW!!...  All those locos peering of those stalls!  Looks wonderful, Jon, Paul

[Grumpy468]

Wow that looks nice. Intense and tedious, i love it.

[jonathan]

Thanks, Gents!

Regards,

Jonathan

[RAM]

Well I started to say, great you put the locomotives in the roundhouse right, but then I went on down.  Oh well 50% what the heck.

[jonathan]

Yes. Yes. I know.  It's just that I spent so much time on the front of my locomotives; jewels in class lights and so on--I like looking at 'em. 

Regards,

Jonathan

[jonathan]

Preliminary night shots:

DSC_0558 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

DSC_0557_01 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

DSC_0556 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

DSC_0555 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

The roof isn't secured to the roundhouse right now, but:

DSC_0554_01 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

Regards,

Jonathan

[jonathan]

Little burned out on modeling. Time to take a break and do some assessment with some photos.

Putting in a chain link fence behind the roundhouse, to separate the edge of a town.

I soldered some 0.025 phosphor bronze wire together for a frame:

DSC_0559_01 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

Added the tool (sp?):

DSC_0560 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

Then a little paint and rust--then planted the fence.  The gates swing open. I'll put some sort of backdrop behind the "edge of town" structures, to represent a town of some kind:

DSC_0540_02 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

I had a lot of leftover ballast, of a few colors and sizes... which I put down up to the level of the ties.  I then covered that with brown ballast up on the rails, as high as I thought reasonable for running model trains.  Here, you can see the leftover ballast:

DSC_0549_01 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

Building a laser cut yard office:

DSC_0537_02 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

Installed some more fascia.  I'm using a really old Bachmann controller to power the turntable.  The Spectrum controller runs the stall tracks:

DSC_0536_01 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

And a few shots of other stuff:

DSC_0550_01 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

DSC_0548_02 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

DSC_0547_02 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

DSC_0545_01 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

DSC_0544_01 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

DSC_0538_01 by Jon Vogel, on Flickr

Regards,

Jonathan

[Grumpy468]

Love the fence idea. What are you using as mesh for the chainlink? Also your lites look amazing.

[Ken Huck]

Those night shots are fantastic !  Kind of forget it's 1/87 scale.
I would've never thought of using tulle (asked my wife how to spell) for the chain link.
Do you go to your local dress shop to buy the stuff or what ?  I used regular 'screen'
material once, but it's a little out of scale for HO.

Thanks for all the pics.

Ken