Remaking of the Ridley Keystone & Mountain
(02-23-2022, 01:54 PM)cn nutbar Wrote: Hi Tom---I've been following your progress from the start---great work all around.I'm curious about those yellow supports/spacers that you have been using during construction to keep walls square---are they available for sale ?

Here they are. Bachmann lists them for $75 on their website but I got them at Midwest Model Railroad.
https://midwestmodelrr.com/product/bac39009/
Tom
Silence is golden but Duct tape is silver
Ridley Keystone & Mountain Railroad
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Thanks folks.

Working on the coal trestle ramp and getting things ready for ballasting.

Add a layer of plaster to the ramp

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After drying sand the plaster.

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You can see some of the track weathering.

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Weathered Third Track at the station.

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Painting the ramp and surrounding pink foam.

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A test train. I know its boxcars not hoppers but that is what I had at easy reach.

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Starting the track laying on the ramp

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I painted the base for the coal yard concrete

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Tom
Silence is golden but Duct tape is silver
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I added some patches and cracks to the "concrete" yard. I also used an Xacto knife to cut expansion joints in the concrete. You can't see them too well in these shots.

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Next I used a Raw Umber wash to weather the concrete. You can see the expansion joints better in these photos

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Using the leftover wall sections from the ramp I created the wall behind the coal trestle.

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A couple of pics with the buildings and the wall

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Next I will paint and weather the wall sections and attach them to the layout. While the walls are drying I will attach the coal trestle and the track to the trestle. I need to figure out something to help create the piles under the trestle. I plan on having coal, gravel, and sand.
Tom
Silence is golden but Duct tape is silver
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I had another good weekend.

I got the track attached to the ramp and the coal trestle and weathered the track.

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I painted and weathered the back wall pieces and attached them to the layout.

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I began adding coal, gravel (ballast), and sand to make piles.

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At this point I realized the walls needed some kind of backing. I shaped a couple of 2 inch foam pieces from the old layout for this purpose and attached them. Not only will they provide support for the walls I will be able to add scenery above the walls.

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Tom
Silence is golden but Duct tape is silver
Ridley Keystone & Mountain Railroad
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I finished the piles under the trestle.

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Added some leftover coal and gravel to the top of the trestle.

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Began ballasting

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Painted the foam behind the walls

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Next will be more ballasting and placing ground cover on the ramp and above the walls.
Tom
Silence is golden but Duct tape is silver
Ridley Keystone & Mountain Railroad
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I started to add some green

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The office building is now in place

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Next is placing the shed

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Added the fence on the shed side of the yard.

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Fence on the office building side of the yard

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Front of O. L. King & Sons

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The coal company and yard is basically done. I need to add details such as bags of this and that. Maybe add some lumber piles. At some point I will introduce the Little Plastic People to Mr. King and sons. I need to rumage through my stash of detail parts.

After taking the photos I noticed a few things. Extra glue on the fence in the front by the office building. I removed what I could. Looks like a good place for some weeds and/or foliage. I need to do something at the end of the block behind the coal trestle wall. It ends to abruptly. Something should be added to transition it more into the ramp.

Next will be some decaling of the Golden Valley Canning Company and then onto the 2022 Challenge.
Tom
Silence is golden but Duct tape is silver
Ridley Keystone & Mountain Railroad
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Lookin' good, Tom! Applause Applause Applause 

Wayne
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Thanks Wayne!

I added some more greenery at the coal yard.

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Added decals to the Golden Valley Canning Company and some weathering.

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The Boiler House

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Tom
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Tom the layout is looking great. Keep up the awesome work my friend.
Matt
I can smell a steam post ten blocks away and when I do clear the tracks because the steam express will be hi ballin through
http://cambriaindiana.weebly.com/
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Thanks for the encouraging words.

I am in the process of adding rail joiner feeders and connecting them to the bus lines. Thus far I have the bus line for the inside track westside of the layout ran. I have dropped five feeds on the inside track and plan to add one more. However, in order to add the next group of feeders I needed to lay the roadbed and track. I added switches to the outside track for the future extension.

This is what it looks like..

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The plan is to keep adding feeders and connecting them to the bus lines. I have a circuit breaker to add the bus lines. I plan to have six blocks, two for each track.
Tom
Silence is golden but Duct tape is silver
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For this update there are not many photos as most of it takes place under the layout.

Last night I added additional feeders to both the inside and outside tracks and connected them to the appropriate bus lines. There are six sets of feeders on each track. I also used plastic rail joiners to separate the tacks. I wired the two bus lines to a circuit breaker that can accommodate six blocks. I then wire the circuit breaker to the power pack. With the wiring done I fired up the power pack on DC and ran some trains successfully. I then switched the power pack to DCC and tested it successfully.

Tonight I hooked up the NEC Power Cab DCC Starter Set my daughter gave for Christmas. It took me about 10 minutes to get everything done and then I ran some trains.

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I ran the loco around the layout and tested the lights, bell, and horn. I guess I can now say my layout is DCC capable.

I still need to learn a good bit about the cab controller. I will be going over the manual the next few days. I guess I will need to start looking at DCC boards for my non DCC locos.

I still have more electrical work to do. I want to add more feeders to the inside and outside tracks. I then want to divide them into two blocks each. I also need to wire and isolate the thrid track.
Tom
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NCE, VERY NICE!, Tom Applause I have MRC Prodigy Advance, wish I would have went with something better now, but it has worked for many years for me so i'm not changing now Misngth .

DCC is a deep well to fall into, like myself, I know you too have many engines, I have a little more then half converted, the rest I just left. I made my Dads layouts, and my current on able to run both DC and DCC with a flip of four switches, doing that I feel saved me a lot of headaches, JUST MY OPINION. Well thats my two cents on that matter Misngth . 

ALWAYS GREAT to see your progress Tom Applause Icon_e_biggrin .
[Image: sig2.jpg]-Deano
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(04-08-2022, 05:32 AM)UP SD40-2 Wrote: DCC is a deep well to fall into, like myself, I know you too have many engines, I have a little more then half converted, the rest I just left. I made my Dads layouts, and my current on able to run both DC and DCC with a flip of four switches, doing that I feel saved me a lot of headaches, JUST MY OPINION. Well thats my two cents on that matter Misngth . 

Deano thanks.

I am curious on how you switch from DC to DCC. I am thinking of going the same route.
Tom
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Tom, run your buss wires all under the layout just as you would for DCC, NOW, you have your DCC power pack lines, positive, and ground, put a toggle switch on the pos, and one on the neg, now place a wire from those to the pos buss wire under your layout, and the neg to the neg buss wire under the layout. NOW, do the exact same thing to you pos and neg wires coming from your DC power pack. 

NOW, when you want to run DCC, flip the pos and neg toggle switches on for your DCC, BE SURE TO TURN OFF THE DC TOGGLE SWITCHES, you would do the same exact thing for your DC power pack if you want to run DC.

ONE OTHER IMPORTANT THING, ANY TRACK that is holding an engine MUST BE "BLOCKED", what I mean is be sure to put plastic rail joiner in on pos wire on the engine holding tracks, or I just simply cut each pos rail on a holding track to stop power, put a toggle switch on each holding track so you can turn the power on and off depending on if the engine is DCC or DC, FREIGHT CARS DONT COUNT, they dont have power so tracks just holding freight cars need not to have toggles, IE yard tracks or industries. 

Might seem like a lot to do, but think about this, you only have to do it once, and now you dont have to DCC every single engine you have, saving you money Icon_e_biggrin  . Lets face it, there are engines I love to run a lot, then there are engines I love, but honestly dont run that often, if you have a lot of engines, like myself, its 100x cheaper to do as I have. I DCC the engines I run the most.

HOWEVER, if your running DCC operated switches, DCC operated signals, or things of the like, simply disregard everything I wrote above and consider it time lost that you'll never get back Misngth Icon_lol  . 

Hope this helps Icon_cool
[Image: sig2.jpg]-Deano
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(04-08-2022, 03:02 PM)UP SD40-2 Wrote: Tom, run your buss wires all under the layout just as you would for DCC, NOW, you have your DCC power pack lines, positive, and ground, put a toggle switch on the pos, and one on the neg, now place a wire from those to the pos buss wire under your layout, and the neg to the neg buss wire under the layout. NOW, do the exact same thing to you pos and neg wires coming from your DC power pack. 

NOW, when you want to run DCC, flip the pos and neg toggle switches on for your DCC, BE SURE TO TURN OFF THE DC TOGGLE SWITCHES, you would do the same exact thing for your DC power pack if you want to run DC.

Deano thanks. It took me a couple times rereading but I finally understand. Me and electricity do not get along.

A question I have is what kind of toggle switch did you use? There are a million of them listed on websites. Also are you able to take a photo or two of the toggles?

Thanks
Tom
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