Trains Running in November

Video of my trains actually running on my layout! :)

Friday Night Layout Tour - "I'm going to keep this to 10 minutes"

Man...I made this last week, but I've been too busy to post it here! hehehehe   That kind of a week.

Video update:




And, a new addition to the fleet - Kato 10-1418 Series M250 Super Rail Cargo (New Design Container) Basic Set (Four Car) with another set to follow shortly. I want to get the add-on cars for this guy.

Ok...back to work!

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The slow burn of layout creation continues

The busy Dad got a little time to play around with the layout this weekend. This time I focused on the Harbor and Temple hillsides and the tram loop. Yes, the tram loop finally got some love! :)

VIDEO

So, I wanted a little more height to the temple hill. Nothing TOO crazy, but a little more. I wanted to get some more area for trees and the like, so I'm going to do away with the parking area and have the whole hill be the temple space. There will be a parking area at the base and people will be able to walk up a ramp or switchback path to get to the temple.

The overall height is where I want it now. I just need to get things level and even before I lock it down and plaster.  I also want to make sure my little elevator idea is going to work in the space. (Mentioned at the bottom of this post...  http://n-rail.blogspot.com/2017/08/another-layout-revamp-again-for-better.html )

I'm also not 100% on the water area in the harbor. I might break out my boats to make sure that there is room if I make the water portion smaller. I don't want things to be cluttered and I liked the way the fishing boats looked in the previous version. We'll see.

 I'm also looking forward to trying my Photoshop background project. Before I work with the plaster and all, I'd dial in the background, replacing the blue that I have up now with a planned and finessed Photoshop created background. This background would be tuned to line up with the areas that are currently on my layout. Roads, the ocean, fields and trees would line up with the modules and a nice, faded back view of distant mountains will be seen. I'll do the same thing in the Shizuka city section. Seeing as I do motion graphics and design for a living, I'm hoping that I'll be able to pull things together! hehehehe  The size is going to be interesting at 12 feet, but I am going to see if I can work in sections. I also need to check on printing costs.

And finally, I went back to a longer tram loop that will go through the whole of Soyokaze Old Town and Soyokaze Village. I think this will add a little more visual interest when the buildings are flowed back into the scene - the tram passing between and behind buildings as is makes its way. 

Again, not rushing is both challenging and rewarding. I'm just making sure I continue to more forward. For a minute there, I was going so slow that I was actually stopped. I would stand and stare at the layout and just be baffled about what to do next, so I'd end up just walking away. It seems like things are at a slow and steady pace now.

I need to make sure the track is level and make sure I take the time needed to clean up the mess left from the previous layout before moving ahead. While some areas will be fine, others need to be scraped and cleaned before I can re-work the scenery and track. This is proving to be a pain - the glue I used is REALLY good...and not coming off very well. hehehehe  Live and learn.

Planning where things are going is going to be a biggie as well. I need to see where roads will go, where buildings may be, and how the whole of them interact with the track. All of which I love doing! :) 

Thanks for reading!

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July 14th Update: "One small step..."

I've been making a little progress, but work has been madness of late.

I managed to get some elevations dialed in. I need to plan next steps.

VIDEO UPDATE

N•RAIL Layout - Rev 03 Overview

I had a request for seeing what the whole layout plan was. Since I didn't actually design it on the computer, I just ended up freehand drawing up the overall layout so people could have an idea of what it looks like.

The main layout setup is very similar to my old layout.

Click for larger view

The bottom corner of the layout space (where the station is) will be another mountain / hill area. The elevated areas will be the cool, hillside track I wanted to get in.

Images of the layout space

 

STATION - middle right side of layout drawing

STATION - middle right side of layout drawing

 Lots of fun switching!

FACTORY - top of photo

The tram track loop will be street running. I'll have to research how to make that happen. :)

The tram loop back through Soyokaze

The elevated track area

Track leading to bridge area

BRIDGE - Left side of layout drawing

SOYOKAZE HARBOR - top area of photo

So, after playing around with this setup some more, I'm really thinking I'm set on the layout overall.  I have many of the things I've watched on my new rev. The play-ability of the layout makes this layout so much more fun than what I had. I have some challenges coming up, but they will be a lot of fun to work through.

I plan to pin and tack all my raised areas, get he track steady and working properly, then I'm going to play with it a while to make sure I'm still digging the setup before doing anything else. That way I can change things if needed. 

Comments welcome! Let me know if I may have missed an opportunity or if I've created something that might be an issue in the future!  

CHEERS! 
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Slowing down. Breathing. Taking my time.

 I've been making a real effort to slow....slow...SLOW down in this remodel process. There are many times where I get excited and want to keep pushing forward on completing something, but then I take a step back and think, "Wait - you're not doing that. That's not the plan. You're taking your time and making sure things are working like you want them to BEFORE moving forward." 

It's been working.






Yesterday, I was working and when lunch came around I thought, "I'm going to run to Berkeley Ace Hardware and snag that Woodland Scenics grade kit!" Then I thought a moment and reminded myself of the plan and forced myself not to go. Later that day after work, I played around with some options and found out that I actually changed the plan to something I liked more which opened up a whole other set of things I got to check off my WANTS list! I was really happy about that.

So....I'm moving slowly and thinking things through as I go. Whew.

My progress thus far.....

VIDEO

The new SHIZUKA area will allow for the same number of buildings, I believe. It's also at an angle, so it will not have the same blocky fel as the other setup had. 

I went with a raised track idea instead of trying to bring the track down again and I'm loving the idea. It gets me my raised track, auto tunnels, and another hillside - and on my WANTS list. So basically, the track heads up higher in the harbor area, then stays up high around the back of the layout, then comes back down into the yard and station areas.

A new hillside area will be in the bare plywood area

New tunnel areas for roadways will be a ton of fun...and another WANT taken care of.  The road will go under the tracks, then up into the new hillside area.

A new, functional yard area. I have spots for three yard area tasks - the shipping area, Factory area, and another area TBD where another industry can go. And best yet, the freight and high speed trains will share the same track, so I'll be able to run my freight around finally!

Shipping spur - the black area in the photo below - will be like it was last time for the most part. I may tweak this a bit more to get a loading ramp in the space as well. I'll play with it.

Again, a big shout out to Tom Barbalet from the MODEL RAIL RADIO PODCAST. He chatted to me about what I might gain from changing up my layout and it was a huge help in making the decision. I'm VERY happy with what I've gained from starting over here. It's made me really happy.

It's fantastic having a community of model railroaders to talk to about these sorts of things. There were many people on the Model Rail Radio and N Scale Model Trains Facebook groups that gave great input after I made the choice.

NRail Video Updae for the End of April

I did another little update video to talk through progress and it's one of those, "Hmm....I actually got a good amount of items going here," moments. It's funny what you can get snuck in doing a few minutes here and there. That idea about getting some time in every day even if it's just 10 or 15 minutes seems to be paying off. Little things like track cleaning can be done when I'm work calls, as well. There's really not a lot of thinking that needs to be done when you're cleaning track. It helps me focus on my calls.

It's also interesting to see close up shots of the layout. You can see how much dust and spider web accumulation there is. I looked at these photos and said, "Wow...I really need to start doing some dusting." :)

This station was moved down from the upstairs Soyokaze River shelf layout - that thing was a dust magnet up in a guest room with sheets and blankets being used a lot. Interesting.


The little iPhone update below.

People and tracks and planning - OH MY!

And music for today's post - PINK MARTINI and SAORI YUKI :)


 I have several irons in the fire, as usual. It's looking like I might have a generous amount of hobby time next weekend, so I'm making sure I have a solid game plan in place so I don't find myself staring at the layout blankly for an hour like I did last weekend. heh


•• FREIGHT LINE ••

I'm still milling over trying to get my freight line and high speed rail line merged so I can run a long freight train around in a full loop. There are a few options, but I'm not sure my current structure will be able to support it. I can see if working if I was doing the wiring myself - soldering power to tracks, but I'm going with the standard KATO power setup and...that's limiting.

So, gave thought to making something happen in the switching area of the yard throat. (center towards the top) I'd place a left switch in the area and connect to the spot right in front of the EVA 500 in the shot below. (purple train) I can see this working.

I also gave thought to a double crossover in the center of the image below. I think that would work well, but I'd have to do a lot of track re-configuring.

Option three is running something off the high speed rail area on the right side of the image below, through where my shipping area is currently, then connecting up to the freight area there. I'd need to relocate the shipping spot and loose some other items I have grown to love, so I'm not sure this really is an option at all.

I've been playing around with moving things around on the freight side and it's still fun. And, honestly, I have friends who simply plop various trains onto the layout and run them as the desire strikes, so I COULD just build a freight train on the high speed line, run it around, then switch it back from time to time. If I buy more high speed trains, I'll be doing that anyway. I only have two spots for trains to "park" at the moment anyway, so...with three trains now, I'll have to start doing this anyway.

Food for thought.

•• PEOPLE ••

I finally purchased two bunches of these cheap, Chinese figures after coming to the realization that I'll be able to do some painting touch-ups to make them look less uniform as needed. I've done it recently and it is simple and quick. It's a nice option instead of having to paint the WHOLE figure from scratch and the results are fine - especially since most of them will be used for crowds or mid-ground and background areas anyway.

$13 for 100 figures. 1/150

I finally spent a moment placing some people on plastic for the back station area. This was a good option for the space. I didn't have to remove the whole platform to work on it. I just dropped the completed plastic groups onto the platform once I was done. Worked like a charm! And, it's looking WAY better with some people on the platform. It was SO barren before. I might end up removing the overhead or adding lighting so I can see the figures a bit better, but that's off in the future.

 

Ah....better. :)

The plastic bases were also handy for re-positioning the figures so that they looked right when I shot them. I was able to slip them around into position and get them looking like I wanted them to with ease. In theory, I'll also be able to snatch them if need be for use elsewhere if I want to have more people in a scene I'm shooting. I doubt this will happen too often, however. They are really difficult to get to back there! hehehe


•• GUNDAM DISPLAY ••

On a fun note, I stumbled onto this and I think it will feature somewhere on my layout. A Gundam display. I think it will make a fun scene for sure.

 

I'd have people taking photos, the guard chain, and items like that in the scene. I have a TON of 1/144 scale Gundam figures that I'll be able to swap in and out of the scene. It's going to make a fun addition.

IN OTHER NEWS

Sadly, my Kaiju monster project stalled and fizzled. I purchased the clay and did a little build while on vacation a month or so ago, but eye was eyeballing the size and I wasn't thinking through the whole of the process, so what I was left with was a monster design that I found interesting, but that was far too large for what I had in mind for the layout. I wanted something subtle and small and ended up with something that was far too large to be subtle. So, I've tabled that project for now.

I still have sidewalks on the brain for Shizuka. I'm using the Kato Unitram plates for 75% of the city area and they include sidewalks, but I still have several areas that need sidewalks. I purchased some heavy card stock that I'm going to experiment with, but I may save that and purchase some 1.5mm styrene sheets instead. I'll have to play around with the stock to see if it will work. It's relatively cheap, but I'm not 100% on the height.

I also noticed that there are areas in the area of Shizuka that isn't plastic plates that I have VERY tight street areas between the buildings. I might have to address this and give some breathing room to the areas. I'll have some small streets there for sure. It's prototypical. However, when the sidewalks area added, some of them will be so tight that I'd have trouble driving my Toyota Yaris down them without scraping the sides! hehehehe

I still need to take measurements for the area I want to build a parking area for - the bare plywood spot to the right side of the image on the left. Initially, I was going to purchase another KATO parking lot - I have one and it's a fun little kit. However, as with my little truck rental spot, it seemed silly to purchase something that's basically a large, flat space to park cars. hehehe

So, I'm just going to wing it - especially since it's in the back...behind buildings and barely visible. LOTS of room to make mistakes and still have it come out great.

KATO's Park and Parking combo kit.

I also plan on including little parking areas a viewer can find here and there. They have these little parking areas that are adorable. hehehe  Like this one I found on Jeffrey Friedl's blog.

Again, a relatively easy scratch-build, I would imagine.








I also plan on a few vending machine areas as well.Tucked away in little spots on the layout.

 


I'm already off to a good start on vending machines thanks to SANTA SAN and his Sankei gift pack I was sent a few years back! :) I have two more packs of these to build yet.

I think that's all for now. Of course, there are MANY other items I'm making an effort to sort out, but these are top of mind at the moment. 

Happy modeling, All! 

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