Joey on Rails

Here is my latest trackplan. It is based on the Blue Creek Railroad and on plans from John Armstrong's Track Planning for Realistic Operation. I'm leaning towards the ??? becoming a dairy farm. I can drop off grain and empty tanks and leave with full tanks and empty grain cars. The green area is base level, the black area is at 2 inches and the yellow areas are 4% grades. Underneath the black area is a passing track and a hidden staging track. There is also room for expansion off the upper left and lower right

Here's a full picture of one of my track plan ideas. I think it would have been a pretty good plan, but maybe a bit boring to look at and operate. As you can see I got quite a ways into this one. It made it all the way into the trackbed laying phase. I did learn something though, cork roadbed is the way to go. I tried the Woodland Scenics foam roadbed, but it was much harder to work with than the cork.

Here's a picture of the extruded insulation foam being applied to the door. I cut the sheets until they were a rough fit, laid down the liquid nails, then weighed it down with books, clamps, and other heavy stuff. I ended up putting on four 1/2" sheets, but I think 2 sheets would have been enough.

I wish I could play the theme from Jaws on here. Check out the detail on this unit. It's a beauty.

Here's a picture of the benchwork for my model railroad. I'm using a 36"x80" hollow core door and plans taken directly from Marty McGuirk's book N Scale Model Railroading: Getting Started in the Hobby. The plans are pretty simple. You need a hollow core door (they come in various sizes, mine is the largest), four (4) 1x4 boards with the same length as the width of your door, some drywall screws, liquid nails, and some folding table legs. I got all of this stuff at Home Depot (the official home improvement warehouse of NASCAR), although just about any hardware store should be able to get these things for you. As for tools I used a tape measure, square ruler, pencil, caulk gun, and a drill.

First I sanded the door to rough up the primer paint. In hindsight I probably could have skipped this step. Next I laid everything out on the door and marked off lines with a pencil. Then I applied the liquid nails to the first 1x4. I would recommend using good quality wood for this step. I bought the cheapest they had and it warped and split during installation (it still worked though). I then lined up the 1x4 and screwed it down with the drywall screws. The screws should probably be about 5/8" from the edge and I drilled pilot holes to help prevent splitting. Once the 1x4s are in place, I installed the folding legs using the manufacturer's instructions. Then I turned it over and set it up.

The working time for this project was about an hour and a half, but if you cut out the sanding and have decent carpentry skills it will probably only take about half that much (or less).

I'm working on building a small layout in my apartment. Here's a picture of one of my locomotives and some cars. Most of my other locomotives are L&N. I do not think that the BN ever overlapped into L&N territory, but it will on my fictional little layout. I'll be trying to model the 1970s and 80s era. that is the time of my childhood and the time of my fondest memories of the railroad.

My first offical railfan picture, this is a unit (SSW 9683) I caught in Taylor, TX on July 13, 2005. I thought it was of interest because it was an unpatched Cotton Belt unit. It is amazing to see some of these old units out there that have managed to avoid the paint shop.