Missouri, Kansas, & Texas Railroad along the Missouri River by Cathead - 1/87 (HO) scale - model railroad with steamboat

[Canute]

I'm with Richard's vote. The tape is quicker to lay out, but it will dry out and curl (been there). Your module looks great.

[kgstakes]

Looks like it's coming along really well.  Your turnout controls, their not tortoise switch machines, so what brand are they?  Are they servos?  Seen them but never used them.  I use Caboose Industries manual switch stand for my switching layout.  Backdrop looks great too.  Bet you can't wait to get trains running 🙂.

 

Keep up the great work and look forward to more!!

Edited June 16 by kgstakes

[Cathead]

7 hours ago, Rik Thistle said:

The electrical snippers give everthing scale....I didn't realise the scenery was smaller than I thought....very impressive.

I hadn't really thought about whether or not I was providing a sense of scale. Glad that happened by accident! The whole scene is 11 feet long if that helps people, with a depth of about 2 feet from fascia to backdrop.

Edited June 16 by Cathead

[Cathead]

3 hours ago, Canute said:

I'm with Richard's vote. The tape is quicker to lay out, but it will dry out and curl (been there). Your module looks great.

My leaning was also the painted version, both for permanence and appearance (I think the thicker lines look a little child-like and overdone). As Rik said, harder to get right in the first place but worth it in the long run. And I could always paint wider stripes but I like the thin ones.

 

2 hours ago, kgstakes said:

Looks like it's coming along really well.  Your turnout controls, their not tortoise switch machines, so what brand are they?  Are they servos?  Seen them but never used them.  I use Caboose Industries manual switch stand for my switching layout.  Backdrop looks great too.  Bet you can't wait to get trains running 🙂.

I'm using the turnout control system made by Walthers. I've used the Caboose manual throws before but I'm not a big fan of their out-of-scale appearance and I just felt they weren't entirely reliable. Plus, the fascia controls give operators a better sense of how routes are lined, potentially avoiding mistakes. Especially on something with a through-running mainline as opposed to a switching layout where the manual controls make more sense.

 

I should note that the backdrop still isn't done, I need to do some additional sky painting. But I do like how the background hills and bluffs came out.

[Cathead]

Yesterday featured a landmark occurrence: the first movement of a train on this project:

 

OK, fine, it was just a quick electrical test of the first bits of track laid. But it was still a very exciting moment! This locomotive is sound-equipped, and the huffing of exhaust along with a triumphant whistle blast brought Mrs. Cathead in to see what was going on. Here's a broader view:

I really hate doing electrical work, it's easily my least favorite thing about model railroading. But it needs to be done so I'm doing it. I already showed the turnout controls; another step was to install the panels where locomotive throttles plug in. These involve drilling out rough holes in the fascia to accomodate the circuitry behind these panels, them screwing them in place. You'll also notice that the left-hand track diagram is now painted instead of taped, as agreed on by the community.

 

I then installed throttle holsters as well. So now the front-facing part of the electrical work is done, and it's time to start doing all the fiddly under-layout wiring along with additional tracklaying. I've already found something I need to troubleshoot and hope I can figure out. Did I mention that I hate electrical work? But the good news is that it directly leads to some really fun stuff (operating trains). 

 

A few more status shots. It really is starting to look "official" with the fascia infrastructure near completion.

And one final shot down the tracks:

Edited 18 hours ago by Cathead

[Keith Black]

55 minutes ago, Cathead said:

This locomotive is sound-equipped, and the huffing of exhaust along with a triumphant whistle blast brought Mrs. Cathead in to see what was going on.

It's really coming together well, Eric. At some point I hope we'll get an audio clip. 

[Cathead]

I continued on track-laying and wiring for part of today. Here's what the wiring under the two west-end turnouts looks like. It's not as scary or chaotic as it seems, like wires are actually neatly bundled together and nothing's soldered, meaning it's easy to adjust if needed. Thick black and red wires are the bus wires that carry main track power, smaller wires branching off from them carry power to individual track feeders, and yellow/brown/orange wires are the control wires for the turnouts. This is by far the most complicated section because of the turnouts and the throttle panel.

Here's a detail of track laying. I lay a thin smear of glue down on the roadbed, then use these nifty metal track spacers to set consistent curves or straight runs; these hold the flexible track in the right shape while I use a few small spikes to hold the track down until the glue dries.

 

And the really cool news is that the track-laying and wiring are all done! After a small amount of trouble-shooting, everything appears to work smoothly and I can operate all across the layout. It's super-exciting. In celebration, here are some broader context shots with more trains staged for appearance.

 

It's so cool to reach this stage. It'll be back to scenery for a while now, but I can actually run trains!

 

5 hours ago, Keith Black said:

It's really coming together well, Eric. At some point I hope we'll get an audio clip. 

 

I don't think we can upload video or audio clips directly to MSW, and I don't really want to start posting layout stuff to third-party sites like YouTube. So I'm not sure if I can do that. I do agree I'd love you all to see and hear the actual operation, it adds so much. I'll give this some thought, there may be a solution down the road.

 

Thanks to all of you for helping me get to this point!

 

EDIT: I forgot to add this image, which is a first rough take on recreating the historic photo that inspired this whole project. Pretty cool!

The actual location of the real shot is actually west of the tunnel (layout left), so it'll appear if/when I extend this to the next module. The layout shot is actually along the bluffs in the background of the historic shot, just east (layout right) of Rocheport. But it's close enough!

Edited 11 hours ago by Cathead

[kgstakes]

Looking great!!  Love DCC and sound locomotives!!

 

 Keep up the great work!!