Menu

Show posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Show posts Menu

Topics - Onewolf

#1
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Wednesday - Feb 5 2025
February 05, 2025, 08:16:35 AM
Mornin' all,

I have been very busy with real work.

I am starting to work on the steel brackets I use to support the middle level around the center platform.  I have been waiting for an order of drill bits. My previous drill bit(s) gave out on the first of the 23 brackets so I was stuck waiting. 

I am looking for another 1 or 2 Atlas Classic RSD-4/5 in Utah Railway livery. Utah Railway is the secondary railroad on my Ogden & Cache Valley layout. I have 2 of them currently (301, 302) but Atlas made a 300 and an unnumbered model. I have an auto Ebay search for Utah Railway and about a month ago it popped up with a print/art of Utah Railway RSDs running a coal load.  So I bought it and got it framed.  Picked up the framed print yesterday.  It works well with my prior Union Pacific print in the model workshop.

Unfortunately there is a lot of reflection on the glass because of the very bright shop lights I have in the model workshop.

20250205_044843.jpg

20250205_044933.jpg
#2
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Wed - Jan 22 2025
January 22, 2025, 07:44:45 AM
Good Morning All,

6 degrees here this morning.  57 in the basement this morning.  I may have to talk to some HVAC guys about getting heat/air in the basement. More concerned about humidity long term, but 57 is a bit cool for working.  :)

Yesterday I received (finally) 6 sound decoders I had ordered in late December.  The local UPS location was a black hole for over a week.  Tracking status would indicate parcels had arrived in Athens TN and then NOTHING for over a week.

Hope you all have a great day!

Doug
#3
Happy New Years Eve!

I built more benchwork yesterday. That theme will be repeated for the next 2-3+ months.  :)

I'm planning to take it easy today.  Maybe build wall support beams to replace the temporary legs, and then I can move all the 'stuff' back under the new benchwork.

Hope you all have a great New Year's Eve!

Doug

20241231_082300.jpg
#4
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Sunday - Dec 29 2024
December 29, 2024, 06:35:42 AM
Mornin' gents,

Making some progress on the benchwork.  For those that say I am making great progress I would point out that building benchwork goes (relatively) very fast. It's like framing a house, that goes very fast, but everything after that slows down a lot.  For instance my house build took less than 2 weeks to install the main 16x6 support beam, install the floor trusses, frame the main floor, and install the roof trusses and roof decking.

And I have a LOT of benchwork to build. I plan to build all the benchwork before I start laying any track.  I would guess at least another 2-3 months of benchwork building.

As a bonus, today I am primary on call SME. This just means I need to monitor phone, email, and chat such that I can be online assisting backline support within 30 minutes.

Hope you all have a great Sunday!

Doug


This is where it steps up from the 36" elevation lower return loop/staging to the 40" lower level height.

20241229_061538.jpg

20241229_061601.jpg

The cut off pile is growing....
20241229_062015.jpg

The sub-roadbed for the upper return loop above the helix. 
20241229_061910.jpg
#5
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Saturday - Dec 28 2024
December 28, 2024, 08:35:08 AM
Howdy,

Yesterday was not overly productive on the layout building, but I got the helix support columns built/installed.  Now I need to install the 2x6 beams across the top of the helix support columns, and then install the 3/4 upper return loop sub-roadbed to stabilize the whole thing. Since I made a trip to Lowes for joist hangers I decided to go ahead and buy the wire needed for the main track power bus runs (500ft each of red/black 12ga solid core) and layout lighting power bus (500ft each of yellow/orange 12ga stranded).

I'm hoping to finish the basic helix support structure today. Building the actual helix is many months off.

Doug

20241228_081243.jpg

20241227_154425.jpg
#6
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Friday - Dec 27 2024
December 27, 2024, 07:14:09 AM
Good morning,

I am continuing to work on the center platform infrastructure.  Yesterday I built steps to get up/down from the center platform.  And I installed 1/4 Luan sheathing along the stud wall as you enter the layout room. It helps stabilize the stud walls. Eventually I will install the lower sections, caulk them, and then paint them the room wall color.

Going to work on the helix support columns today.

Hope y'all have a great day.

Doug

20241226_134133.jpg

20241225_113654.jpg
#7
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Wednesday - Dec 11 2024
December 11, 2024, 07:59:57 AM
Good Morning,

It's a chilly breezy rainy snurffly morning here.  36 degrees and dropping.

Yesterday I decided to revisit the new 2 level layout design because the stacked return loops were causing me engineering and aesthetic issues.  I decided to revisit the 3 level mushroom design and I think I got the design refined so it works well.  The lower level is a 40" nominal elevation, the middle level is at 60", and the upper level inside the mushroom is at 80". There is a 100 ft long nolix on the middle level that climbs from 60" to 80" with 1.6% grade.  The center platform floor is at 28" elevation which provides a relative elevation of 52" for the upper level (80" - 28"). The mainline run from the lower return loop to the upper return loop is about 525 ft and the track climbs from 36" to 80".

Edit to add: The center platform floor height is important because there is a 16x6 support beam for the main floor/trusses that drops to 105" elevation (the ceiling is 116").  105" - 28" = 77" clearance under the beam which is enough for me (70").  Really tall people may want to duck under the beam!

This design is very similar to my previous layout however slightly simplified.  (No upper level 'wings').

Can't wait to start building!

Doug
#8
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Monday - Nov 25 2024
November 25, 2024, 08:23:25 AM
Mornin' all,

It will be a nice short week for real work.  Company holiday Thur/Fri and I am taking off Wed.  My father and his companion should be arriving early afternoon.

I only got 86 + 70 bulbs planted this weekend and I have 100 Gladiola's to go.

Did a lot of house cleaning yesterday and Otis's 'glitter' killed the Shark vacuum.  I took it apart and cleaned all the fuzzy clogs and eventually it started working again.  Apparently the main motor has a thermal fuse that shuts it down if it gets too hot. 

Hope y'all have a nice Thanksgiving week!

Doug
#9
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Thursday - Nov 14 2024
November 14, 2024, 08:30:36 AM
A late morning for opening....

Been very busy with real work this week.  Yesterday I found out my position will survive the merger/acquisition which is scheduled to close in mid Dec.  Happy about that. I just need to make it another 3 years or so before I can retire. 

It was very windy and rainy overnight. Ugly gray day here today.

Doug
#10
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Monday - Nov 4 2024
November 04, 2024, 07:21:30 AM
Mornin' all,

Full week of real work for me. 

Trees out back are starting to get some good color.

Doug
#11
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Tuesday - October 15 2024
October 15, 2024, 07:55:28 AM
Good morning all,

A chilly start this morning. 37 degrees.  High of around 60 today.

Normal work day for me.

Still (slowly) working on cleaning/organizing the basement garage space.

That's all.

Doug
#12
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Wednesday - Oct 3 2024
October 02, 2024, 06:01:49 AM
Mornin' all,

It's a normal work day for me.

I got up early and carried a bunch of carpet tiles down to the basement this morning.  I have all the whole carpet tiles laid down and and now I have about 43 tiles to cut/place around the edge.

Hope y'all have a great day!

Doug
#13
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Tuesday - October 1 2024
October 01, 2024, 09:38:22 AM
Mornin' all,

It's October!  I have a full week of real work this week.

Slowly moving stuff from the uncarpeted side of the train layout room to the carpeted side.  It will feel like an accomplishment once I get the room done/carpeted.

Have a great day!

Doug

PS: Photo shows how the random carpet tiles have a variety of different backing material.
#14
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Monday - Sept 23 2024
September 23, 2024, 08:27:20 AM
Morning all,

It's a three day work for me.  I plan to drive down to Dalton GA on Thursday to pickup 1400 sq ft of 2 ft random carpet tiles for the train layout room floor.  I have been working on painting the 20 pieces of 16 ft baseboard trim.  It takes a while!

Hope y'all have a great week!

Doug
#15
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Wednesday - Sept 18 2024
September 18, 2024, 05:13:10 AM
Good morning,

I thought I would get things going early today.

Still waiting for the painters to start.

I did get the window casements in the train layout room trimmed yesterday.  There will be no casing trim around the outside edge of the window because the two levels of the layout benchwork will pass across the windows. 

Doug
#16
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Monday - Sept 16 2024
September 16, 2024, 06:22:28 AM
Good morning,

It's the start of a work week. 

The drywall guys finished last week, the paint was delivered on Saturday, and hopefully the painters do their thing thing this week. If the painters finish this week I plan to drive down to Dalton GA next week to pick up 1400 sq ft of 2ft random carpet tiles.  And install about 250 linear feet of baseboard.

Doug
#17
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Friday the 13th - Sept 2024
September 13, 2024, 06:13:24 AM
Morning all,

Another regular work day for me. Yesterday my manager informed us we should all take a couple days off by the end of September as 'comp' time for all the extra hours we put in during June/July/August.  So that was nice.

Drywall finishing crew made another pass. I think all they have left is to sand.  And then the priming/painting will be done.

Doug
#18
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Thursday - Sept 12 2024
September 12, 2024, 07:28:01 AM
Morning all,

Yet another regular work day here.  Drywall guys have not been here since Monday. Hopefully they show up and complete the drywall finishing by the end of the week.

My neighbors tiered raised garden bed project continues.  They've (contractor) been working on it since the beginning of April. I imagine it's costing them a lot $$$$.

Doug
#19
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Tuesday - September 3 2024
September 03, 2024, 07:34:45 AM
Mornin' All,

Woke up to a cooler morning today.  Looks like clouds and some rain this week and lower temps. Hurray.

I'm going to try and find out when the drywall hanging/finish crew is going to get started.

Otherwise a regular/short work week.

Doug

Got my nut/bolt gauge panel mounted yesterday.
#20
Baggage Car - Daily Chat / Wednesday - Aug 28 2024
August 28, 2024, 07:42:18 AM
Good morning all,

It's going to be another hot day here.  No sign of any rain until next week.

It will be a full day working the real job.

Hopefully the  basement drywall will be delivered today as schedule.

Doug
Powered by EzPortal