Personal journal (editorial or commentary)
Paint Rack For My Workshop
I have found as I progress on my practice layout that I spend at least as much time and money developing a work shop that facilitates the hobby as I do on the actual hobby itself. Recently I have started to find my work bench completely overwhelmed with Jars. While I do have some shelving, I wanted something that would be easy to access while I work without taking up a lot of space. I hit on the idea of suspending a vertical paint rack from the exposed joists in my work area.
oNeTRAK at the world's biggest layout, Louisville, KY 2008
This summer N scale modelers from around the world set up the world's biggest layout in Louisville, KY. The Derby City Express, as it was called, featured a layout of staggering proportions. The exact details can be found here, http://web.mac.com/pauljdowns/2008_N_Scale_Convention/Home.html , but the numbers that I heard at the show were about 700 modules, spread across 50,000 square feet with roughly 100 scale miles of mainline. A run around the layout took about 3 hours.
Building MPEX 5000
I recently purchased a Proto 2000 SD45 from Mike Rose ( http://www.mrhobby.com ), that was project started by Brian Banna. I'm not sure what Brian was planning for the unit but he had removed all the paint from the shell, except for the cab and underframe.
In any case, I had started carving up an Genesis SD70M cab a few months back, planning to build an MK5000C or MPEX 5000. The combination of the two, just made the deal sweeter, add to that the upcoming (less then a week!) Western Prototype Modelers meet (WPM), I started my work...
The prototype:
Google Book Search for Railroad Data
I recently discovered that Google is making books that are in the public domain available online. This may not be "new" but its new to me. I recently got hits on two when I was searching for info on prototype bridge tie size and spacing:
Google Earth strikes again!
As I'm planning out the Roseburg area, Google Earth just keeps making itself ever more useful.
Even though it's not structures per se, I also need to finish the sky and backdrop behind Roseburg - and I've been looking at Google Earth's fly down and look around in 3D capability. Using some screen captures, I built this panoramic view of the Roseburg backdrop using Google Earth:
Introducing my 3x5 "practice" layout
I am currently in the process of building a 3x5 test layout. The givens reflect things that I wanted to cover to prepare myself for the next layout. In some cases, I did things in a way less suitable for a small layout in order to prepare myself for the next layout.
Givens:
Link to my blog
Rather than blog here AND on my own, I created a personal BLOG a while back, http://www.trainfanatic.blogspot.com. I hope you'll come & check it out. As always, I'm looking for comments/feedback. Please post on the blog & not here, as I won't be checking this page at all... thanks!
R/,
Norm
Using Google Earth to plan the structures in Roseburg
Here's a video demonstrating how I use Google Earth to study the prototype structure layout in Roseburg, Oregon and to plan the structure placement on my model of Roseburg. Click the image below to play the video.
Enjoy! Google Earth is simply amazing - video's the only way to really demonstrate it effectively!
By the way, this is an example of the rich media content we hope to regularly include in Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine.
If you're saying you prefer a paper magazine to reading a magazine on a computer, then you don't really understand MRH.
First of all, MRH is free - and next it's an interactive magazine. I like to say if a still image is worth a thousand words, then rich media is worth a million words. Many of the MRH articles will have rich media material - and that's only possible because the magazine has been designed from the ground up to be easy and entertaining to read on a computer. All totally free. Click to subscribe for free.
Video playback problems? Try playing this video from our mirror site.
Or download a copy (18MB) and play it back locally.
Roseburg yard area structures - the Plan
The area highlighted in yellow below represents the area of my layout plan that I'm focusing on. I've noted the various structures in my plan for this area. Zoom in to the larger image and study the various structures and their labels. I'll speak more to each specific structure in future posts to this blog.
Click image to enlarge
GWR downunder
HI..
Well after a long time modeling the PRR and the Frisco I decided to try my hand at building a GWR branchline. I have been collecting mainlly loco and rolling stock plus the track parts but still no layout plan.Stuart in OZ
>> Posts index
Navigation
Journals/Blogs
Recent Blog posts: