Visiting Rob Caves' Layout, Joel's Cabinet, Train Store, Fullerton, Seattle Dreamin'

Yesterday Joel Morse, Mark Lestico and I did a fun train day together.  The day started out at 8am with tearing out a large wall of cabinets at Joel's to make way for a railroad expansion...er...I mean new cabinets for the honey.  She's gonna love 'em too because they are going to be an NYO&W gray color.  Well, white gets dirty ya know so these will not show dirt or dust, thus less cleaning...right honey!  Unfortunately I was so busy doing demo I forgot to take pix!

From there we drove up to Rob Cave's layout, about 25 miles away, to visit his layout for the first time. Nice layout that is built in an old 2-car garage.  The layout is floor to ceiling with 5 levels...that I recall. My favorite part of the layout is the LAUPT model and track arrangement.  Here is a link to a video of traffic in and out of LAUPT.  I like how it is time-lapsed.

Rob Caves' LAUPT Video - Time-lapse

Here are some photos of Rob's layout.

Jim on the left and Rob Caves on the right in teal.

The three trouble makers, from left to right, Joel, Mark, and me.

Rob likes to run lots of modern passenger trains.  He has several versions of the new (thinking positively) trains that will eventually be running between the Los Angeles area and Las Vegas.

With the Los Angeles "River" in the background, this is the throat to LAUPT, featured on the above mentioned video.

LAUPT itself.  Beautiful model of the station and tracks.

A model of the San Diego Depot on Rob's layout.

How could I not take a pic of the Kenny RR Supply company!

A shot of a UP freight crossing one of the bridges on the upper level.

Thank you for the hospitality Rob!

At Rob's we ran a few trains and then we were off to lunch.  Since we were so close to Pasadena, we stopped at the Whistle Stop.  Unfortunately for them, we were just browsers.

We left the train store and drove about another 25 miles to the Fullerton Depot where we sat and watched trains.  Well, we were supposed to watch trains.  In the hour+ that we were there we only saw two Metrolink trains!  What's going on BNSF???  I'm sure you've seen your share of Metrolink trains so I didn't even turn the camera one.  I'm sure one day I'll wish I took those photos!

We talked about operating on other model RR's.  Of course I had to bring up Jim Younkins and this Mud Bay and Southern:
Jim Younkins MB&S pix & info

Jim Younkins MB&S Video

And then there is Al Frasch and his BNSF railroad:
Al's layout pix & info
Al's BNSF video

If we took a weekend trip up to Seattle, we could operate on two of the very best model railroads in the country...and of course visit some good Seattle model RR buddies too!  We talked about a trip in May or September.  Hmmmm...  Anyone else interested?

Back to reality, by about 3:30 we all were wishing we had somewhere to nap so we decided to call it a day.

A fun day it was!
Frank

Major changes to the yard throat

Major changes are coming soon to the north end of Bakersfield!

The layout was designed for use with Peco track and curved turnouts and much of the current layout was from a previous layout using Peco track.  About a year after this layout was started, Atlas came out with their track.  All Peco track laid was removed and replaced with Atlas, with one exception.  That exception has always annoyed me and plagued the layout with trouble.  Those were the10 curved Peco turnouts that could not be removed due to the track arrangement.  There is always an issue with the turnouts or one caused by the turnouts.  I've threatened for years that I was going to remove those, and they still remain.  When Atlas announced curved turnouts I was thrilled.  In disappointment, the radii on them was way too tight to be a fit for what I needed to have.

My friend Mike Stoner from Sedona, AZ, master track hand-layer, will be coming at the end of April to remove and replace all Peco turnouts with his own hand-laid turnouts!  Mike is an excellent modeler and an amazing track layer.  He laid all of the track on his railroad and the last time he was here he replaced on of the Peco curved turnouts with an awesome hand-laid turnout, which you will see in the last photo.  The first photo shows the area to be changed and the following photos show details, with some notes included for Mike so he can prepare for this major job.

This is the overall area that will be changed, from the steam loco, moving to the right about 2 feet or so.

Two of the curved turnouts that need to be replaced.  These photos were taken from left to right.  All numbers on the blue tape show the turnout number to use when throwing the crossover in that location.  (Mike...the plywood in this area is 1/4" thick, however about where the crack is on the right, the plywood is 1/2".  There is cork roadbed over the plywood.  The red dot is where the next turnout starts.)

3 more Peco's to replace.  The white labels are the BDL detection number for that section of track for detection to JMRI purposes.  (Mike, the previous photo is to the left of the red dot.  The bottom right turnout is in the bottom left of the photo below.)

Three more Peco's to replace.

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This photo is in Goshen Jct. and are two more Peco's that need to be replaced.  (Mike, these are on 3/8" plywood and cork roadbed.)

This is a photo of the turnout Mike made about 2 years ago that works flawlessly!

I can't wait until this project is finally done!  Thanks in advance Mike!

Building Mock-ups and Signage

This evening I added additional building foot prints in addition to adding signage to some of the building mock-ups Joel built.  Here are some photos.  They are crude but they are better than open space on the layout!

I've also been working on the JMRI ops program adding information to the Locations, etc.  It's actually quite fun working on that too.

San Joaquin Valley RR shop in Fresno - This is a kit building and I just added the SJVRR sign.

Recognize the name and product?

Valley Organics sign added to a structure Joel made.

Named after a friend that is a house painter and has helped with doing backdrop painting.

No structure yet but made a sign anyway.

Nutrius Vitamin Company in Fresno

The large Railex facility.  This is about 2/3 of the building.

Named after a friend named Chan and he is certainly nut.  Fits with the central valley produce theme.  LOL

No structure yet but got the sign down.  Named after Mark Lestico who has helped quite a bit with the RR.

That's all folks!

Work Bench Updates

Well, I didn't get as much done on the railroad today, as I would have liked.  However, I did complete the update to the work bench.  The work bench is located in the Traffic Center (staging) area.  The bench was already there.  I added the two sections of peg board to the right of the bench and added hooks and a parts box.  I had installed peg board in front of the work area a while ago but just recently added hooks and hung all the Micro-Trains/Kadee coupler stuff on the board.  Well that eliminates some boxes and makes things easier to find.  I donated all the coupler stuff I didn't need anymore to a friend.

In the photo it looks darker than it really is.  Lower level lighting will go in soon for the lower level and this will light the peg board on the right.  I'm using a type of rope light that I found at my local electronics store.  It's very bright and will work great for the lower level.

Here are two photos of the work area.  The upper level staging is above the bench and the lower level staging is bench height.  The programming track is just in front of the bench and the work surface is glass.  Under the lower level are roll-outs with drawers.  The left two have tools and misc and the other 5 hold trains.  (only 2 of the other 5 are shown in the photo on the right)

   

All Locos in JMRI

Last night I was able to get all the locos into JMRI Ops.  It was a time challenge as I had to do one by one.  Today I need to check to see if all the speed table info transferred over...fingers crossed!

I also added and updated a few layout Locations in JMRI to facilitate running.  When Joel ran the first train, a few "glitches" popped up and I will spend some time on those this week.  Nothing major, just things like "only switch this industry from this track going that direction" type stuff.  It's kind of fun tweaking the system.

Ok, more later!

A good day of progress today with Joel Morse.

Joel tackled a few more wheel sets...his favorite job!  And most importantly he build some mock-up buildings.  Specifically for the Railex facility and then 3 smaller buildings for smaller industries.  See photos below.

 The Railex facility has three tracks that service the building so that's what I built.  My tracks hold 6                      cars each for an 18 car train.

The master at work.  He was able to bang out a building in about 45 minutes.

                                Finished!

Architect and WORLD FAMOUS builder Joel Morse with his work.

         Trackside view of the new buildings.

While Joel was doing that I was researching industries for the RR.  A couple weeks ago when I was going to Joel's house I saw a great industry on Terminal Island called SA Recycling.  Finally I found a destination for the junk yard in Calwa!  Well, while I was doing research today it turns out that the Calwa facility is actually SA Recycling too.  What luck!

Also while Joel was doing the buildings, I did more set up on the JMRI Ops program finishing a test train.  Once I was done, Joel ran the very first train on a switch list!  That was exciting.  Of course I need to some tweaking to the program and this first run was just to learn about what needed to be done.  The program is pretty cool and if you haven't tried it, I recommend it so far.  And of course, every industry that the program sent cars to had some hick-up like no turnout throw or a tortoise that wasn't yet connected.  Very suspicious!

   Joel with the first train and the first switch list!

               All cars moved to destination.

I also refined the Traffic Center route table that Dave Waterstreet created and hung up copies to use.  To throw the turnouts I am using old DT100 and DT300 throttles because not every operator will be using a DT400 and you can't throw turnouts with the UT4R.

Traffic Center routing chart temporarily hung until I'm sure it's what I want.

Using DT100's and DT300's for turnout routing in the Traffic Center and on both ends of Bakersfield.

I will spend some time working on refining the JMRI Ops program and adding control to all turnouts that don't have it over the next couple weeks.  The next get together will be with Joel at his place on the 30th.

A tornado blows through Colton!

A tornado named Princess blew through the Colton railroad yard on March 14th knocking over a large number of railcars and causing a lot of damage. Railroad officials say they should have it cleaned up in about two days and have things back in working order by the end of the weekend.  Here is a picture of the damages and as you can see, numerous railcars have been damaged.

Ah...we were able to catch up to the tornado and it looks like she is all pooped out from playing with the trains!

Joel Morse comes over tomorrow and we're going to work on a number of projects.  If you're interested in coming by to help out, just lemme know.