I have not looked back at other reports to see where I left off, so some of these may repeat what was covered before.
I actually sorted through boxes that was once in the train room, seeing what can be disposed of, what can be concentrated, and what can go elsewhere. I got rid of two trash bags worth of papers that were dumped into boxes and stowed away, to get them out of sight. In the process, I have emptied a whole bunch of boxes that won't have to go back into the train room closet. None of the boxes were completely full
I have gotten to the point where I am digging through the bins and boxes of train stuff. Consolidating is making a difference in being able to find materials later.
I have come to the conclusion that I might not have to purchase anything else again for the railroad. Well, I might need some trees, but they can be made from scratch with little problems and actually look like trees. I have a library of train magazines that tell all about how that can be done using different materials for different kinds of trees.
One thing we needed were momentary switches for the Atlas Snap Action turnouts we use. The yard extension turnouts are all operated manually right now, reaching over the cars and moving the lever on the switch motor. Atlas Snap track switch motors have that great option of moving them manually.
I had purchased a couple of the momentary switches and they were more expensive than I wanted to spend. I was not sure if I wanted to buy any more. These buttons are designed that, you slide the button over to the other position, then push down and it sends the signal for the turnout to move in that direction. These can be used with other devices that call for momentary application of power. While digging through my stuff, I found a bunch of them, with wires and screws. We may need a couple more, but won't worry about that now. I will know when we get to that point. It was fun to find those.
I have gathered some empty coffee containers from at work. I emptied a bin in my sorting, and filled several of those containers with little lost parts details. None of them are full yet, but I have enough people for the layout. I have some little soldiers that I can modify and paint if needed, plus some civilians in various poses. I also have chickens, horses and cows, among my collection.
I have loads of trucks and quite a few scale sized cars. I had found out that with various toys, whether it be animals, or vehicles, They tend to make them with the same amount of material. It is like they are made by weight. One simply has to measure the animals of a set to find the ones that are of the right scale. Elephants, cows and dogs are the same size, so one simply measures them. For one project, the elephant would be the right size, for another project, the dog might be. One simply measure to see what fits. Of course, I am working at 1/8th inch equals a foot, scale, so toy animals are not going to fit my railroad unless they are made for it.
With Hot wheels, Match Box and other similar car toys, I had found that they essentially use the same wheel base and same sized tires. It turned out that their big trucks are roughly the right size for what I am doing. They won't survive someone with a scale rule, but they are close enough to pass muster at a glance, and a hell of a lot cheaper than actual scale vehicles available at hobby stores.
Many Die-Cast cars are the right size too. I had gotten some actual scale cars, just the body shell with the wheels, and then got some Die-cast cars that were also the same style and they were very acceptable in size.
I am not a purist and am quite satisfied with ACCEPTABLE, and not worry about perfect. Of course, the modelers among us can take these cars, and make interiors, add details, paint them, and make them look even closer to real, and they are still cheaper than the scale stuff since many of those modelers would modify the commercial pieces anyway. That was another aspect of the hobby I was aiming for when I had started building structures. I was not skilled enough at that time to actually take the plunge.
I have a couple boxes of regular, well-worn non-scale cars. I guess I will store them until my grandnephew is old enough to play with them. I had accumulated them in my search for the right scale trucks, and got them from my brother’s kids when they went on to other interests.
I have run across a whole lot of tools and parts. I am concentrating them in one general area. That brings me up to something I do not remember if I reported.
Previously I had brought into the train room, two small two-drawer units to hold spare train stuff, mostly broken or retired railroad cars. A few weeks back, I got an idea. I dragged out a dresser out of my bed room, that I was not using. It had some water damage from a leak and I just ignored it.
I got that in place in the train room, moved the contents of the other two units into it. The two bottom drawers are holding what the two other units held and there is plenty more room if I stack things. I still have two more drawers to fill. I have not decided what would be best in there, so I have held off.
I could not put the dresser against the wall, because of a wing wall of the closet and the leg of the railroad layout. I also could not put it underneath the railroad as we are really trying to keep that clear for some work we have planned.
Years ago, I got hold of some material called GATERFOAM, which is foam with wood fiber veneer sandwiching it. It is used in the graphics industry, such as for court cases, as backing for pictures.
I took some of the GATERFOAM and screwed the sheets to the top of the dresser so it spans back to the wall. this gives me sort of a work bench along with the storage below. I have some plastic sheeting somewhere but have not found the roll. I will attach that over the top, to protect against spills.
In the dresser, there was a section with a side swinging door. I think it was for holding pants or something like that. I filled that with almost all the barges we have made for the layout.
The barges are simply two by sixes, with wood along the top edge to act like rails, two tracks down the center, and blocks at one end that was to have couplers on them to help hold the cars in place when the barges are moved.
Our plan was to rotate the barges so we can have a good mix of cars, none of the cars would sit in storage, or sit on the layout forever, and give us another operation, loading and unloading barges.
I stacked the barges, up on end, into the space in the dresser and they all fit, except for two extra long barges my brother had made.
This gets them out of sight, out of the way, and still easily accessible.
BTW, the two drawer sets are in my bedroom and being used now. Great decision.
In sorting through stuff, I have found detail parts my brother purchased to add to engines, rolling stock, around the layout. I have found many building structure kits, a few have not been built yet. I have enough bridge piers to do most of my layout raised up (I hate hills on the railroad so I will never use them). I have one set still in the box. I then have what looks like three more sets I stacked together in a small box. They are all together now. I am also finding pieces here and there in my digging through other boxes and adding them to the set when I can.
I still have more boxes to dig through. and check out some other bins to see what they have and what might be consolidated. I am making headway.
One problem with this project is that things I think we will need in the near future, gets stacked on top the railroad. it is now a mess. Eventually, I will have everything where they belong. I might not be able to put my hands directly on something I need, I will have a better chance of finding them, or knowing quickly that I don't have them.
I have purchased some items for the railroad over the past two months. I had gone to a model railroad swap meet and picked up some left hand and right hand switch motors for the atlas switches. A set of five each. Mom had purchased a big roll of flux core electrical solder at a yard sale and my brother had me make a spool out of wood, something quick and rough, and we wound about fifteen feet of the solder onto my spool so we can now solder wire on the layout. The soldier I had, needed a flux as it was solid core, and I have not run across the bottle of liquid flux my brother was using. I also got some speaker wire at a yard sale, along with purchasing a small spool of wire. These are to connect the switches to the turnouts.
I drew the control panel for the switch yard, with the momentary buttons drawn to scale. I gave the pictures to my brother and he was going to make it out of sheet metal.
I do drawings for a living and have a similar version of the program at home. The drawing part is easy for me.
Switch-yard control panel graphic
with the Atlas Snap Action switches drawn to scale. t
All of this adds up to getting a step closer to having the railroad operating. The big thing is to get things sorted, collated, and in place. It takes time.
Because of all this, I have, been working on the railroad.
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