Jacobs' Landing Light Railway in On18

[Philip]

Are you running link and pin couplers?

[Larry C]

Greg thank you; I do like the style.

Philip yes I'll be using link & pin couplers. The company that I'm buying my diesel and cars from
makes the l&p to fit into the coupler pockets. I also made a tool years ago to couple and uncouple
the cars with.

[Bernd]

Larry,

I heard a little diesel engine running and had to come over and see what was making all that noise. 

I use the Kato 11-103 chassis' in mine. I think they are closely the same type of drive.

The 11-103:



The electric boxcabs.



Bernd

[Philip]

Ah ha, I know Keith Wiseman, Dylan Lambert, Foot Hill Model Works and now Carrol Creek. The ones lambert offered were magnetic jobs (rare earth) type and no fuss with the pins. Larry (aka Big Lars used them on his 18 stuff I think...might have been On30 mini's....

Cool Beans!

[Larry C]

Bernd thanks for stopping by. I remember seeing your boxcars before but didn't realize they
were powered by Kato's N series. Yes they are similar but the 11-109's are a little more compact
and thinner; but they do run extremely well.

Philip it seems the more I learn about On18 the more retailers I hear about. Cool video by the way, thanks for sharing.

[Larry C]

Since this was to be a self contained layout, yesterday I cut three 12 inch panels that the backdrop would be attached to. Of course being ply from Home Depot it was little warped as usual. Added two corner supports to being everything back in line with some small real life NBW's. Also I cut some 3 inch wide plywood and hot glued them across the back corners to give the backdrop a more rounded look for a better visual effect.

Spent a few hours this afternoon getting the new backdrop in place and I don't mind telling you what PITA that was. I messed up the right side so when I tried to remove it I could see it was going to tear being just paper. At that point I left it and did the rest of the backdrop which gave me a good sized piece left over. Long story short, I ended up cutting out the offending piece and replaced it with what was left. It really didn't turn out to bad even with having to do a fix.



This is the end I messed up as you can see by the sudden change in the drawing. Between the scenery material and making some tall trees I'll be able to make the seam disappear; or at least hide it.



This is of course the other end which came out very well. Where the top track is located I cut a hole in the plywood then taped the piece on the back, holding the piece I cut out, so if I ever want to add a fiddle track/yard or add another micro onto it then the exit/enter point is already done. I thought that would be much easier to make the hole while I was constructing the backdrop substructure.

Also you'll notice I have the layout all wired up and the diesel runs flawlessly. I also made a way to hide the wiring so it won't be seen but more on that later. I have started some terra forming as well so the front of the layout isn't just a straight line.

Now that this is all set it's time to move onto the fun stuff. I'll probably start on the left side and work my way to the right with scratch building structures and also adding the scenery as I go. So far this project has been a lot of fun as I'm starting to see my vision coming to life. As always thanks for stopping by and for your great comments and/or suggestions.

[Rick]

Larry, nice looking backdrop.
You can always plant some tall trees where the right side backdrop doesn't match.

[Larry C]

Rick thank you. That was my thoughts as well with maybe a cluster of 3 very tall trees
with some boulders around them.

[friscomike]

Howdy Larry,

The Landing base looks terrific.  Congrats on the critter build success. I'm looking forward to the structures.

Have fun,
mike

[PRR Modeler]

Larry great progress on your layout.

[ACL1504]

Larry,

This is coming together nicely. 

I used Trackside Scenery backdrops and they were not easy to put up so I understand the PITA efforts.

Tom

[Jerry]

Larry great backdrop.

Your really off to a good start.

Jerry

[Larry C]

Mike thank you. The structures will be starting soon.

Curt thank you so much.

Tom thanks. I think the problem was attaching the backdrop to the wood; used a spray adhesive
so you didn't have much time to make any adjustments. In the future I won't be using spray
adhesive; I'm just happy I was able to repair the problem.

Jerry thank you; much appreciated.

[Larry C]

The work crew's been in and did some terraforming:



My main objective is to break up the straight line looking at the front of the layout so when I add the front facia it'll NOT be straight across but add more visual interest with different levels.

I'm treating this micro the same as I would a full sized layout; the only difference things need to be smaller and more compact like this dry washed out area. Covered the area with Elmer's glue then used a layer of green ground foam followed be a layer of dirt fixed in place with a mixture of 50/50 water to glue. Once dried then I added some very small stones, weeds, and a small piece of log.





In my previous post I mentioned having wired up the layout using 2 pairs of wires with track connectors attached and soldered to the inside of the tracks. Now I needed a way to hide the connectors. Grabbed 2 pieces of pink foam and hollowed out the bottom to accept the wires then used my pocket knife to carve and make the foam rounded. Also I cut a tiny bit of foam so it would fit over the rails. Once that was finished I used the same process as I described above to cover up the foam. The one in the front of the layout will give me the rise I'm looking for on the facia.



Here's the last area to be terraformed so far. Just a simple log with a piece of foam core behind it then covered with scenery material as previously mentioned. I did purchase a container of lightweight Hydrocol to use with my rock molds, bought in the late 70's, to cast various rocks to be placed around the layout. I do have an area in mind in the fore ground for the rocks to help with the front elevations.

Next will be to do a combination of casting/painting rocks along with building my first structure. As always thanks for stopping by for a look-see and for your comments and/or suggestions.

[kyle creel]

WOW Larry C. !!!!!!!!!! Now we're talkin'.  The crew's been busy indeed.  It looks like a superb start to what will be a seriously cool RR...........thanx for the inspiration, the terra firma is looking gooooooooooood !!!!!!!! Keep it up....

KYLE CREEL
G&D Ry.