Superior & Seattle Railroad Build (Volume 2) Started 2/25/17

[S&S RR]

My next four builds are in the holding area.  FSM kits, Fox Run, Sewall's, Swakhammer's, and G. Wilikers in that order. It's good to have a plan.  Now let's see if I stick to it.

Great choices! Will definitely be watching.

Vince


Thank you for following along. We will see if I can do justice to these great kits.

[S&S RR]

John,

Hey, my friend. At least you can make a decision. I haven't even gotten that far as yet.

Tom

Tom


I love this photograph - I'm not the only one that needs to expand my layout to make room for all the red, yellow, white, green, and a few other color boxes that I've collected over the years. I'm currently going through the process of finding a home on the layout for each one of the kits that I have bought.

[sdrees]

Looks like your not going anywhere soon.  Those kits will keep you busy for a while.  I guess no fishing this summer.

[vinceg]

John,

Hey, my friend. At least you can make a decision. I haven't even gotten that far as yet.

Tom

Tom


I love this photograph - I'm not the only one that needs to expand my layout to make room for all the red, yellow, white, green, and a few other color boxes that I've collected over the years. I'm currently going through the process of finding a home on the layout for each one of the kits that I have bought.

Haha! You guys are making me feel better. It's an insidious yet sweet disease, no? I am too embarassed to publish my own stockpile. Fortunately, I only recently discovered Sierra West, Bar Mills, and FOS Scale. Else it would be lots "worse!"

[S&S RR]

Looks like your not going anywhere soon.  Those kits will keep you busy for a while.  I guess no fishing this summer.

Steve

I take my modeling with me on my fishing boat.     I have a portable workbench that I use at the cabin and out on the boat.   

[S&S RR]

John,

Hey, my friend. At least you can make a decision. I haven't even gotten that far as yet.

Tom

Tom


I love this photograph - I'm not the only one that needs to expand my layout to make room for all the red, yellow, white, green, and a few other color boxes that I've collected over the years. I'm currently going through the process of finding a home on the layout for each one of the kits that I have bought.

Haha! You guys are making me feel better. It's an insidious yet sweet disease, no? I am too embarassed to publish my own stockpile. Fortunately, I only recently discovered Sierra West, Bar Mills, and FOS Scale. Else it would be lots "worse!"

Vince


There are a number of us here on the forum that are a little embarrassed about how many kits we have to build. My
answer to those that ask how much I have invested in my layout, is that it cost about the same as 20 years of golfing.  I gave up golf when I no longer need to play to maintain business relationships and have been putting all the money I saved into the layout.   I sure enjoy model building a lot more than I enjoyed golf. 

[ACL1504]

John,

I agree about the golf and the cost. Although upon retirement from Law Enforcement I worked at a golf course, I got free golf at all local courses. What it did cost me was 5-6 hours an outing of my time. Time, I figured 8 years ago, could be spent on railroad modeling and kit building. I haven't looked back or taken any mulligans.

I'm better stocked than the local Hobby Shop after 50+ years of kit buying and collecting. I realize I'll never get to all the kits I have to build, even with Reading Bob's help.

On the other hand, I can't bring myself to get rid of the kits I won't build either. Yes, as I told my Babe, "I'm a bit of a hoarder".

Tom

[S&S RR]

John,

I agree about the golf and the cost. Although upon retirement from Law Enforcement I worked at a golf course, I got free golf at all local courses. What it did cost me was 5-6 hours an outing of my time. Time, I figured 8 years ago, could be spent on railroad modeling and kit building. I haven't looked back or taken any mulligans.

I'm better stocked than the local Hobby Shop after 50+ years of kit buying and collecting. I realize I'll never get to all the kits I have to build, even with Reading Bob's help.

On the other hand, I can't bring myself to get rid of the kits I won't build either. Yes, as I told my Babe, "I'm a bit of a hoarder".

Tom

Tom


I have the same problem.  Last count, I had 55 yellow boxes, 8 red boxes, and most of the the SWSM releases.  I also bought the seaside releases of Doug Foscale's, a number of the bar mills releases and one or two kits from each of the other kit manufactures that caught my eye. I must be somewhere close to the 200 mark. One of my design projects is to figure out where each of my current kits will be places on the layout. I'm sure that some of them will not find a home and be sold. I'm also sure that many of the kits will be used as a box full of parts or combined and the end product will be a very kit bashed structure.


I also have an expansion planned for the layout but it is many years off. I will complete the current layout space before going through the wall or removing the wall  The new area will be 90 % scratch built if my current plan holds.

[S&S RR]

Today, I completed the LED wiring for the interior of the Locomotive Works. I'm using Slim's LightBite articles as a guide for this so I thought I would explain my application using his terminology.  Slim uses a bookcase analogy to explain his wiring technique.

[S&S RR]

I'm using an 18 volt power supply and setup the interior lighting of the Locomotive works as three shelves in the bookcase using Slim's analogy. Here is a picture of the shelves when they were on my workbench.





The one closest to us is the short 3 shop lamp shelf.  The one farther away has 5-  5mm flood LED's and will be installed in the locomotive repair area over the inspection pits. I need clearance for the crane in this area so shop lights would not work.

[S&S RR]

Here is a picture of the lighting installed in the Locomotive works.  I decided to add the current limiters into the circuit right in the beams. Here you can see three book shelves - the wiring will run through the drain pipes for the roof down underneath the build to a drawer which will house the connections and the switches that will control the lighting.





The wires and wood supports will be painted black, now that I have an assembly picture so that will not be visible in the finished model.

[S&S RR]

The next step was to cut the hole in the facia for the wire connection box.

[S&S RR]

[S&S RR]

Fast Forward.  I built the little drawer, painted it black and installed the switches.

[S&S RR]

The purpose of making this a drawer is to make expansion and maintenance, easy.  This junction box will house all the connections for all the structures in the Eagles Nest Yard. The LED's will be controlled by seven switches.


Switch 1) Inside Locomotive Works Lights
Switch 2) Outside Locomotive Works Lights
Switch 3) Outside Scrap Yard Lights
Switch 4) Roundhouse Lights
Switch 5) Future Builds
Switch 6) Future Builds
Switch 7) Future Builds


There is plenty of space and power supply capacity for future expansion in this area. I will also be talking to Slim about some sound affects.