Tear down to renew.

A bit off the side sir?

I've gained a fair bit of layout space on the opposite side to here but I also wanted to thin this area out for better access to the big mining corner to your right. 

The woodwork looks dicey but it is actually very solid and I will put a decent fascia here.

I'll put Dan's garage back here later

Easier access to Furlow's Mining

And so it goes.

The wall

Room Room Plan (not to scale) baseboard area in blue

This dead corner will become railroad!

The woodwork won't win any prizes but it's solid as a rock

Support for rock wall

Roughing out the frame, I'm recycling whatever timber I can.

The big gap, waiting on plaster of paris to arrive and be moulded.

Plenty of breaks and gaps to be filled.

And so to the end, or is it the beginning??

 Demolition day..........

A few pictures of the final moments. Hopefully a better and more interesting C&S will emerge over the next few months.  If I'm going to build during the summer I'm going to get one of those small window mounted air con thingys. The mining wall will remain as is, albeit extended along the wall toward the sloping ceiling.

Where the mountain will be moved to followed by more rairoad real estate.

This will be hacked in half and folded back along the wall, not forgetting to trim the top for the sloping ceiling. Much judicious joining will be required.

Chaos reigns

The mountain in the corner will remain

I will slice the top from the town and drop down to the next level here.

The baseboard opposite will become a tad narrower and the new one in front of the well will become wider to allow for better operating potential.

Death of a river

Some still remains

The Pond rises again....

Sid the snake in Olson's spring

At the end of my old Olson's diorama, which is too long to go on the layout without some re-engineering, there was a rock and a small pool with a tiny green snake swimming in it. That snake took a bit of making and painting so I didn't want to lose him. I managed to break the pool away from the diorama without mishap and I decided to find a new home for it. There was a bit of room under the cliff so I plastered it in place, added a couple of new rock castings and more plaster, then paint and scenic dressing that's still a work in progress.

The pond rescued.Sid the snake will re-appear soon.
Note the wrecked bicycle dumped in the water, kids eh?

Landscaping starts

Not too bad a job matching the rock colour after about 5 years!
More shrubs, flowers and bushes will follow along with a duck or two.

Sid the snake swims again.

There's a little green snake swimmin' in the water, a little green snake doin' what he oughter. With apologies to Danny Kaye!

 Lighting panel and the Great Mine Siding Disaster!

Lighting panel with switches fitted ready for wiring - room for expansion too.

The switch panel will be placed on the side of the layout, just under the open tunnel beneath the town. It will control various building lights and eventually street lamps, if I can find some suitable period style ones. There'll be a stack of wiring to do so it'll be back under the layout for a bit, oh deep joy................

Doh!!

When I relaid the track that feeds the mine tipple, I did it by eye.  Oh dear, that was a mistake. When I came to put the bunker under the mine tipple it needed to sit right where the new track was laid..... Fortunately I had a spare yard of unused track lying around and surprisingly, taking out the existing track from the switch to the cliff and relaying a new section went very smoothly. The new track is now aligned properly and I've ballasted it and now have to wait for it to dry. Could have been worse!

The problem!

Digging out the track

Track pulled out, probably won't use that bit again!

New section went straight into the existing fishplates and then they were soldered to the rails.

Feeder wires replaced

Glue applied and now we weight. Geddit?

Trying out a location, don't think this will stay here

Ballast in and drying overnight. Job done. Phew!

Building Works Progress

I've been working on installing lighting in my buildings, where possible and am making good progress. Here is one I really like. I had a cast metal hurricane lamp that I was able to drill with a 1mm bit and put in a fibre optic line to a 3 volt bulb. Pretty good result, I think.

Rita's Little Shack gets a front porch hurricane lamp

An LED added to an internal wall which will end up back in the stucture!

Lighting and new roof for the engineering shed

 

Abandoned mine tramway reinstated

The abandoned charcoal burning kiln goes back home

Some views of the new building layout for Cuspidor Yard

I think this is a pretty reasonable arrangement of the structures I have to hand and an improvement over the previous one. Lots more to do.

 First Official Video (mercifully short!)

Some cheeky "under the covers shots!!!!

My woodworking skills on show to the world.

Here are a couple of rare views of the nether regions of Cuspidor.  Note the inspired carpentry that props up mountains! Gasp at the intricate engineering that supports the turntable. Marvel at the network of electrical connections. Some things just ain't made to be seen, but here we are - Cuspidor, warts and all for your delight!

The turntable, yes it works!

Points and turntable switch panel - the candid view...

More superb joinery and inspired wiring.

Trains run again in Cuspidor

Movement on the railroad at last

Trains are actually running on the Cuspidor and Southern under power from my new fangled digital control unit. I shall upload video content now that I've got to grips with a better way to upload video files. Watch this space.

Anyhow the railroad finally works and the DCC control is much better than I expected. Even better, no track wiring or re-wiring was required, thank goodness. (There's a lot to be said for a simple system!)  Money well spent and a perfect Christmas present from me to me (not forgetting from the boss to me either)! Now if only she wanted another Blackstone loco for her main pressie...... No, that would be pushing the old envelope too far even for me. I may be forced to buy her something non-railroad related just to keep her on side!

I've got the newer, bigger points switch panel installed (see below) and rewired after much cussing and happy time spent on the floor under the layout and it's working properly, although one of the brand new switch machines decided to pack up after half a dozen goes. Luckily I had a spare on hand. Can't beat good old electronics made in the glorious people's prison of China.......

The massive control panel is needed to accommodate all four switch machines and the turntable direction changeover switch. The panel to the right fronts the power source for the switches, it has a stupidly tiny led to indicate when it is charged and ready to be used so I fabricated this panel with a little green see-through slot which amplifies the light amazingly well.

Turn, Turn, Turn!

The big news concerns the Cuspidor yard turntable. It is now wired to the track via a DPDT switch and is working nicely, so trains can turn around and run in both directions, as and when required.  I fitted two Campbell's water barrels to the deck which cunningly double as fire safety and handles for rotating the TT. It will be an armstrong TT for the conceivable future. 

I was going to install a couple of pushing handles for my HO staff to use when I get too tired. Then I thought "What if I find some suitably arcane materials in my engineering treasures drawer? I may even be able to fabricate a loco-steam drive to save their tiny aching backs". If ever there was a benign railroad magnate, I reckon I qualify. Well, needless to say, I managed to cobble up what looks to me like an astonishingly convincing piece of apparatus, complete with connecting hose so that some pressure from somewhere on the loco can be used to power it and rotate the turntable. Job done!

The ingenious use of fire barrels to act as turning handles and the new "Barrymatic" steam powered turntable er, turner....

Upgraded Loco Maintainance Shop

In between times, I have installed lighting and a new roof on the loco repair shed and that will soon put in an appearance on the turntable lead. Head of Engineering Clyde McTwitter still cusses the day the turntable was installed on the shed siding so turning locos have to run through his engineering works just to turn around but sadly it uses the only space that was available to the company and he just has to lump it!

Note the new roof being clamped while it is being glued in position. I may patent this genius construction method. If Colorado was in the hurricane zone I might be tempted to leave it as it is!

Testing the new lighting

Hmm there may be some light leaks to attend to

Future Operation issues

Now that we are up and running better than ever before and I have a couple of potential operators in AJ and Bella, I need to work out where auto uncoupling would be helpful. I just ordered some Neodymium magnets to make my own Kadee type uncouplers and will no doubt spend much happy time sorting that all out. The prospect of excavating several bits of track fills me with dread but it will be a necessary evil. I have some off-layout testing to do first though, just to make sure they work.

From the bottom of my treasure chest, arrrr!!

 Time to add another loco to the roster.

Several years ago I purchased a Roundhouse kit for a two-truck shay. I opened the box, looked inside and hastily put it away.  After a while I had another look and thank goodness with some foresight (not one of my usual traits), I bought the NSWL upgrade kits for the drive train.

Yesterday I pulled out the box and took a deep breath. Quick as a flash I realised that I only had the original 5 pole motor. Blast! Tonight, though I bagged a new old-stock Sagami can motor for £25 on Ebay and it's on its way. That should help with the drive train issues, although I still expect it to be a bit of work to get it up to snuff and eventually fitted with a decoder. That will happen in time as I'm now waiting for my new dcc controller to arrive and provide hours of fun trying to make head or tail of that.

I've started fettling the components and have undercoated the metal chassis and boiler and next up is the cab and bunker and assorted other bits. That's for tomorrow. 

Here is a couple of pics of the work so far and to do.....................

I've also just purchased a dpdt switch so I can energise the turntable in two directions. That should lessen the number of derailments in Cuspidor yard and am about to embark upon a major illumination onslaught to brighten those long winter evenings that the residents dread so much. 

To that end, I bought a large bag of smallish, low power LEDs and will be installing them progressively in or outside as many buildings as I can. I intend to have a selection of lighting scenarios so that the whole valley doesn't just explode into light when I throw a switch. I look forward to making lots of very small tinfoil lampshades and getting my fingers superglued together. Happy Days!