November 28th, 2008

Almost a month since last update, I've been slackin' again! Actually, I've been doing alot of wiring, and that takes time with no visible results. Plus my job at the Post Office is getting to it's busiest time - Xmas. So I don't get alot of time for the railroad in November and December. But here is what we have so far. I finished painting the upper level backdrop around the June Lake siding area, and I started filling in the holes on the opposite side of the backdrop at the Mammoth area. I also experimented with some black cloth hanging down from the facia. I was not happy with how close it was to the walkway, so I'll end up building some supports for it to hang further back from the front. I've also been having problems with my handlaid turnouts in the staging yard throat due to what I'm guessing is humidity and temperature swings caused by the clothes washer and dryer. So with the exception of one turnout, they were torn up and replaced by some Atlas #7's, and this is where the wiring part comes in. I originally had all the staging tracks connected together, which made wiring it real easy. Since I've aquired quite a few sound locos, I needed to change the wiring to be able to cut the power to each staging track when not in use. So after moving and rewiring all the switch machines, I cut gaps in the rails and ran 10 separate buss lines down the length of the staging tracks, with on/off toggle switches mounted right behind the future dispatch desk. Now the dispatcher can turn on the power to a staging track when the train is ready to leave, and kill the power when the train has finished it's run, without having to sit and listen to a bunch of locos idiling. So anyhow, on to some pics!

I've filled and sanded all the holes and the backdrop is ready for paint.

More filling and sanding....

And a bit more filling and sanding.

Now we have paint! This picture makes it look brighter than it really is.

More blue! And this side of the train room is much brighter now.

This picture is more of how the blue color looks in real life. I must have had the camara on a bright setting for the other pics.

Here I've started filling the holes on the other side of the backdrop. The town of Mammoth will be located where the drills are sitting.

I also experimented with some black cloth around the bottom. I didn't like how close it was to the facia, so I'll have to build some supports so the cloth will hang further back from the front.

Problems with humidity and temperature with my handlaid turnouts arose, so I pulled them up.

In their place I put in some Atlas #7's.

Testing each track with a stack train. Here it's leaving track 1 and heading into the layout room.

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