The siding track at the GERN facility is now in place from west turnout on. The East turnout will be installed soon.

I really like using the Latex Caulk for gluing down track. Once you lay down a thin layer of the stuff, it’s got good holding strength. It’ll hold down flex track on curves long enough for you to get everything just right before applying some weight for it’s final set-up. A few hours is good.

I also tested out installing a remote tortoise mount. It works pretty well. Trying to line up where to drill under 2″ of foam isn’t easy. As you can see, my drill head pushed down some foam, and even started to melt it. I’ll have to come up with some other way for the other turnouts.

But anyway, the contraption works using telfon tubing and piano to connect the tortoise to a remote actuator, when turns a thicker guide wire through a piece of brass tube. Once I got it installed it worked great. I was super happy and will plan on doing all my other lower level turnouts this way. No more drilling giant holes in the benchwork.

This weekend I got my new Digitrax BDL168 installed. The BDL168 is a occupancy detector unit for monitoring 16 blocks. This unit will work in conjunction with the Signal Logic programming for operating signals in the future.

All of my layout electronics will reside in one of my bookshelfs under the layout.

I first started by cutting 22 pieces of 20AWG gauge wire. I had some spools of Atlas’ wire so that’s what I used.

I then soldered all the “feeder” wires to the BDL168’s connector board. There’s 16-block wires, 4 DCC zones, 2 wires for a 12v supply, and 1 for the DCC Ground.

All of these feeders were then connected to some terminal strips. Larger 14AWG wire will run from these terminal strips to various points on the layout for block occupancy monitoring. I used a handheld label printer to print the labels.

After searching around for some concrete pillars in n-scale one day, I stumbled across this product from Monroe Models. It looked just like what was wanting, so I ordered a box from modeltrainstuff.com, along with the extension set to see how they looked.

UPS dropped them off today and I opened them right up and they’re perfect! All they need is a painting of concrete color and they’ll look even better I bet.

Â

So if you’re ever looking for some modern concrete pillars and/or abutments, check these out.

Today I got the first tortoise turnout switch machine installed on the lower level mainline. After putting down some track first using silicon latex, I marked out where the tortoise needed to go, cut out the foam, and then cut a whole in the benchwork for the tortoise.

Then using Liquid Nails projects, I glues in a piece of perf board from Radio Shack, with a channel cut out for the tortoise wire.

Once that setup, I got the track in place, attached a piece of industrial strength velco to the tortoise, exposed the sticky side and then guided it up the hole all lined.

in 24 hours the the sticky velco glue will setup strong and it’s not going anywhere. At least that’s the plan. The velco will enable me to remove the switch machine in case any failures occur.

Airbrushing - The greatest thing since sliced cheese. Well, almost. I bought a Paasche airbrush last year when a local hobby shop was closing on sale, and used it for the first time a few months ago. I instantly fell in love. I’ve gotten some awesome results on my structures built so far. However, I find that keeping the thing clean is a pain in the ass. The bottle tops are a pain to the clean, the little nozzle the paint flows through on the airbrush… pain. Color changing… pain. I just can’t seem to keep it working decently.

Sure, it’s probably something I’m doing wrong, but I’m not pro at this. So, I’ve been seeing some good things about Testor’s bottom of the barrel airbrush, the external mixing Aztek A220.

The main thing I like about this airbrush is that the there’s no paint flowing through the brush. It’s straight up from the bottle to the air flow. This makes color changes a snap, and cleaning simple. The bottles all come with caps too, so when you’re done you just pop a cap on the bottom and voila! No need to swap caps, clean tubes, or whatever (at least I hope so).

I’ve read the results you get from the A220 are good for doing structures and what not, and works just as well as my $70+ Paasche. If you wanna get into more detailed airbrushing, you’ll need something else for the job, but for $23 at Tower Hobbies, I figured I’d give it a shot for my structures.

I’ll post up some thoughts once I get it and give it a test drive.

This weekend I worked on laying down the roadbed and track on the lower level for the entryway into the helix. I’m waiting on my first order of Tortoise turnouts to arrive so I can finish up the turnout, then I’ll get pics online of all that.

In the meantime, here’s a video showing off an intermodal on the helix.

I sent an email yesterday to Tony’s Trains to check up on the ETA for Athearn’s N-Scale 4-8-8-4 (Big Boy) Steam engine. The reply was Athearn is expecting them February, 2008 now. Their original target was December, then January, now February. At least Tony’s doesn’t bill until the item ships.

In other news, in case you haven’t seen BLMA’s HO-Scale Cantilever Signal and their upcoming Dual-Head Pole Signal, go check ‘em out. IMO, they are probably the best looking signal I’ve seen on the planet. Only problem is, they’re HO! So I sent an email to BLMA saying that (planet bit and all) last night, and an hour or so later I got a reply from Craig Martyn, the man behind BLMA. Awesome.

Hi Shaun,

Thank you for the great note and kind words. We really appreciate hearing feedback as it helps motivate us to make additional products.
Coincidentally, I’m leaving for China this Saturday morning to visit with our factories. While there, we’re going to discuss the feasibility of
producing the Modern Cantilever Bridge in N along with the other signal products. While I can’t say exactly how things will go, we’ll do everything
we can to get something to market by the end of 2008. Because the Modern Cantilever bridge would be so fragile if done in plastic, we’re looking at
producing it as a RTR assembled brass model… more on this later.

Keep tabs on the website for future announcements and keep in touch!

Thanks Shaun!

Craig Martyn
BLMA Models
www.BLMAmodels.com

So here’s hoping things go well and we see some N-Scale signals later this year. *crosses fingers and toes*

Here’s the latest track plan for the lower level showing the most recent changes and what I currently have in mind.

Here’s the latest track plan for the lower level showing the most recent changes and what I currently have in mind.

 Me wants!

I’ve always liked the look of a single track bridge span, so I think may opt for going with this brass 150′ single track truss bridge from BLMA, instead of a double track span using a walter’s kit. While a wee pricey (retail is $225), it looks freaking fantastic. I’ll probably put a deck bridge on one side if space permits (and looks ok next to a brass bridge).

I also need to get the Track Plan updated so show the latest changes I’ve made to the lower level plan. I’ll work on that real soon.

Otherwise, progress has been going at a steady slow pace, which is good as I’m constantly tweaking things (see above) and making them “just….right”. I’m in the process of the laying mainline roadbed (and eventually track) for the lower level from the helix to where this bridge and river will go (about where Sunrise Mill is shown on the current plan).