Ironhorse

Hey everyone it’s been a long time. Sorry I have not posted in a very long time, went through a rough patch with my health and just didn’t have any drive to do any model railroading, doing a lot better now. Now for the part I hate to tell you guys, Iron horse Rambles is no more. I have decided to move up to a larger scale which now is easier for me to work with. Up until the last day when I dismantled the layout, it worked great. HO/OO scale is awesome to work with outdoors and this is a great community to work with. I sold off most of my HO stuff to help finance my work in O scale outdoors. I would not have undertaken this move if it wasn’t for this wonderful forum giving me the confidence to do smaller scales outdoors. My new layout is on the ground and as usual I am trying new ways of doing roadbed and other stuff but still incorporating other people’s ideas in what I hope will be a new and exciting adventure in outdoor model railroading. If it is okay, I would like to ask for advice of you all from time to time even though I will now be working in the wrong scale. If anyone would like to stop by my new blog, 2 Rail O Scale in The Great Outdoors https://oscaleoutdoors.blogspot.com/ I would love to hear from you. I just started this blog and it is a work in progress. Mick if it is okay I would like to list your site as a Link on my blog. I think some of my ideas will still work for the smaller scales. You all have been great and I would like to hear from you all soon. Robert, aka IronHorseRambles

Tony it was already built up by someone else and rather poorly at that I have been rehabbing it,I probably have about 6 hours total time in it so far, still a very rough piece. I thought about using a couple of that very kit for a kit bashing project. The Sydney kit is very cool. My plan last Sunday for Father's day was to do just that, but again the weather played a factor, instead of rain it was scorching hot day almost a 100 degrees F with high humidity, stayed inside, sigh

I thought I would list some links on a couple of New York Central Union stations to show the flavor of what I am trying to capture with the Bonn Station on my layout. http://gino.cdfw.net/_railpage/TandS/troy.html''>http://gino.cdfw.net/_railpage/TandS/troy.html'>http://gino.cdfw.net/_railpage/TandS/troy.html http://www.libraryweb.org/rochimag/architecture/LostRochester/NYCRR/NYCRR.html''>http://www.libraryweb.org/rochimag/architecture/LostRochester/NYCRR/NYCRR.html'>http://www.libraryweb.org/rochimag/architecture/LostRochester/NYCRR/NYCRR.html Best Regards

This is how it looks so far, still need to attach the roofs and do a bunch of other repair and other misc. stuff. [image]3532[/image][image]3534[/image] [image]3535[/image] Tomorrow is Father’s day and weather permitting I am hoping to set the station out on the layout take pictures and run some trains. Take Care Everyone.

I had to remove all the windows and take sections of the building apart to try and straighten the platforms out, still a long way to go but it's looking better [image]3523[/image][image]3524[/image] The picture to the right shows where I had to repair a missing chunk of stairs with styrene. [image]3526[/image][image]3525[/image] Next Post: looking a lot better

Hello all, here is some before pictures of my very sad looking Bonn station that I purchased very cheap on evilbay. I wanted a big Union Style station for the layout and thought I could Americanize the Bonn station enough to make a passing example. [image]3519[/image] [image]3518[/image] [image]3517[/image] [image]3516[/image] None of the platforms matched up, glue and paint everywhere and it is only half a building, but will work nicely as a prop for my layout until I get a chance build something for it. [image]3515[/image] [image]3514[/image] [image]3513[/image] Next Post Plat forms straightened.

Tony looking forward to seeing the full train running, looking good.

Doublecee your pictures are very nice and I love your locomotives.

I am with Tony that small creek with the water flowing looks awesome! Looks to me like there is going to be a whole lot of family fun in the near future. Best Regards

Hello all here is a few pics of the layout with all that rain we have been enjoying. [image]3520[/image] [image]3521[/image] [image]3522[/image] My next post will be on my Bonn Station project otherwise known as How to turn a sows ear into a purse. Best Regards

Tony there is no issues with the snow. The problem is due to the poor workmanship of a roofing contractor that put new roofing on the house two years ago due to hail damage, they messed up the flashing where the roof meets the soffit, unbeknownst to me water was leaking under the roofing and rotted the back porch plywood it started to leak with all the rain we have had and that's when I discovered the mess. I wanted to do the roof myself in the first place but the insurance company wouldn't let me. I try and do everything myself, it seems whenever I have someone else do a job it is never done right! Very Nice Tony Have a good weekend!

Hey Tony sorry I did not post sooner, I am having to do roof repairs on my back porch so have not had much time to work on the layout. the big problem I have had is every weekend I am off it rains and rains, I have not been able to start any ballast work yet but hopefully soon, when I do start I will be posting pictures. I did buy recently a very poorly built and cut in half lengthwise Faller Bonn station from evil bay for a very cheap price, every window smeared with glue and paint and the platforms very badly misaligned. Been rehabilitating it to use as a Union Station Backup until I can scratch build one, It has been a fun little project while waiting for the rain to stop. I will post some pictures of it soon, wish I had took pictures of it before I had started on it, it was very bad. That is a very cool train to tick off your wish list, I look forward to the video. Take Care

Hey Griff good to hear from you sorry I didn't post sooner, been snowed under with a ton of domestic stuff I have not been able to do due to the weather. Below are some links that you and everyone else may enjoy on the 1951 flood and how bad it hurt the railroads here in Kansas. http://ks.water.usgs.gov/1951-flood-photo-gallery''>http://ks.water.usgs.gov/1951-flood-photo-gallery'>http://ks.water.usgs.gov/1951-flood-photo-gallery http://ks.water.usgs.gov/historic-floods-of-kansas''>http://ks.water.usgs.gov/historic-floods-of-kansas'>http://ks.water.usgs.gov/historic-floods-of-kansas http://www.rypn.org/briefs/single.php?filename=090222200907.txt''>http://www.rypn.org/briefs/single.php?filename=090222200907.txt'>http://www.rypn.org/briefs/single.php?filename=090222200907.txt . I thought about the UV so when I was building the trees I sprayed them with a coat of UV resistant clear, also the adhesive I used to stick the foam on to the armatures was for outdoor use. It will be awhile before I plan to trust the test methods with the trees on the layout, but I am getting ready to use the foam roadbed, and ballast on the layout in a few weeks when I have everything caught up around the house. I know what you mean about being to busy, I hope to have more progress photos soon. I hope you will be able to get back at it real soon. Take Care

Hello everyone from a very soggy Kansas. I have not been able to do anything since my last post we have had over 8 inches of rain with more on the way possibly in the next few days, just in time for my ^%@#* weekend off. Toni every thing is looking good can't wait to see video of trains running. The rain should be outta here by next week I hope, then will have some progress to show. Take Care All

Okay everyone the last thing I was wanting to talk about is what I am doing to the surface of my foam board bench work. As you may recall I originally had rolled roofing on top of the foam but started to have problems with the rolled roofing buckling under the track due to temperature fluctuations. I had thought I could let the sections rolled roofing float on top of the bench work but boy was I wrong, you have to thoroughly glue it down and when it is done properly it works great. I decided to go a different route and pulled off all the roofing and let the track set on the foam board directly until I could decide what to do next. The direction I decided to go is to paint the foam board with latex paint with a heavy dose of silica sand mixed in for a heavy base coat on the foam board, my test panel has worked out great with this coating. The color of the paint I went with is called seal skin, I thought it looked close to a dirt color and with the rough texture the road bed sticks to it very well as well as well as the ballast and if I do have an issue with it, it should be easy to touchup. With the color and texture of the paint it should be very simple to blend in ground cover and other scenic stuff. [image]3452[/image] [image]3451[/image] [image]3450[/image] [image]3449[/image] Next post will be about future plans and any progress I might achieve before my next post. Now if it will stop *&%$#@!!! raining for a few days when I am off work. Take Care

Hello all, on this post thought I would tell you about the ballast and glue I am going to use. A lot of you probably already know about using chicken grit for ballast, that’s right chicken grit for ballast except I am going to use what is called chick grit for baby chickens, it is made from granite chips it is smaller in size obviously but I still used a sieve to get a more consistent and smaller size, it still is a bit oversized but hey it is a good compromise, as they say close enough for government work. As for glue I went with Elmers Glue Pro Bond Advance, it seems to be working very well on the test panel, here is the web site on specs http://elmers.com/product/detail/E7503''>http://elmers.com/product/detail/E7503'>http://elmers.com/product/detail/E7503 What I did was mixed the glue half and half with water and put a couple of drops of dishwashing liquid into the concoction, the ballast has stayed on the test strip with no apparent weakening in all kinds of weather. I peeled a small part of the ballast off and the pieces I had seemed to have some flex to it. [image]3428[/image] [image]3448[/image] [image]3447[/image] [image]3446[/image] Next time I will talk about what I am coating the surface of my foam board bench work with. Take Care

We have been lucky so far with the tornados, I have to mow my weeds at the very least once a week, with all the rain we have been getting it's more like twice. I usually try and keep it pretty short so it looks nicer. the product is called Dow Sill Seal 3-1/2-in x 50-ft. As far as the trees go, part of them are woodland scenic metal armatures and part of them are plastic armatures from a Chinese company on ebay, I just slapped them together for test purposes, they have been out since early March. Yes and I will probably run them again this coming weekend between rain storms. From the looks of it you will be running trains in no time. Take Care

Hello everyone I am finally getting around to posting what I have been up to for a while, I have been researching and experimenting with different materials for making roadbed, ballast and surfacing for the top of my foam board deck on my layout. I had a test bed made out of a section of foam board and let it set out for the past several months, with the last few weeks the test bed survived in torrential down pours. I found a lot of excellent ideas while researching on the forum and it saved me a lot of time and has given me the direction on how to proceed, so a big thank you goes out to all my fellow members. I will probably list things in multiple posts. The first thing I want to tell everyone about is a possible cheap roadbed to put track on before ballasting .See pictures below, it comes in 50 foot rolls and cost about $6.00 and when you trim it to width you can probably get a least a 100 foot of road bed and as you can see in the pictures you can trim it with the bevels setting out a way from the track for ballast shoulders. It is very easy to cut, curves very easily and glues down on just about any surface with a foam friendly glue like liquid nails foam adhesive. [image]3445[/image] [image]3444[/image] [image]3443[/image] [image]3442[/image] [image]3426[/image] [image]3428[/image] Well that all for now, next time Ballast. Take Care Everyone

Tony your projects are looking good. Been busy dodging storms of late. I have also been busy testing products for my layout I will be posting real soon on my post with some of my results and maybe some ideas on ballast and roadbed. Take Care Robert

Tony it's looking good! Look forward to seeing some trains running. Take Care

Tony you have a beautiful yard, it makes mine look sick. so much potential for a huge layout. I look forward to your progress. I was busy Sat. & Sun cleaning storm damage, we lost a huge limb out of the Elm, it fell in the best place possible so nothing was damage, THANK GOD! I ran trains Sunday afternoon and had a great time with family. Take Care

Griff you are a funny man But wait a minute the fan out of the blow dryer and a...............

Tony the plants and trees are budding and the weeds are trying to take over the yard before anything else has a chance to come up, but not if I can help it. As far as my dog he stays inside the house with us, he is our daughters buddy and one of the family, plus he keeps a close watch on those 2 conniving cats we have, I swear they want to takeover the world. Tony you can walk on snow with out shoes but I wouldn't do it if it is very cold out or for very long, you could get frost bite and believe me it's not a pleasant experience. Take Care

Mick, must have been crazy, I know we are crazy mucking around with OO/HO scale trains out doors. Has Winter still have you in its grasp? Take Care

Tony the new plan and setup looks to be a WINNER! Can't wait to see more progress. Take Care