Sticky stuff and rocks.

That's right! I finally decided to start ballasting. I also took out some bits of scenery to make things a little more believable. Instead of having a flat cut along my main street next to the tracks, I cut some of the cardboard away so I can have a slope going down and also some room to ballast that part of the track when I get there. I should have taken before pics to show the difference, but I think some of my previous pics may show what I'm talking about. If so I will post before, during, and after pics when I post more updates. We also had our first train crash here on the WyCo Western. An act of Babby knocked an Amtrak superliner train and some well cars from a BNSF double stack train off the rails. (Then my girlfriend not paying attention and leaning over the track took out some more)

Updates for the sake of updates...

I have been pretty busy with homework and job apps so I haven't done much work on the layout. I did finally glue down the lamp posts so my "zoning committee" would be happy. I also took the corner turret building off and am currently repainting it since I never really liked the pea-green color it was before. I'm also in communications with an awesome modeler and all around AWESOME human being by the name of Jason Smith (aka Superturbine), and he will be turning my Kato GS4 into an FEF-3 and numbered UP 844 to go with my UP passenger equipment and provide for one heck of a surprise for my little boy! So, other than getting a few pics of my latest kitbashing project posted, thats about all for now! I'm hoping that the next time I update I will have some pictures and maybe a video for you guys.

Roundhouse construction complete.

I have both of my three stall roundhouses built and in place as well as the track wired in and tested. Now all that's left to do is tack down the tracks. Here are a few pics of the roundhouse/turntable complete with locomotives. Our Chief of Transportation (my 4 year old) insisted that Thomas be included in the group photo as well. He is leaning a bit in the pic, but once I get the tracks all tacked down that shouldn't be an issue anymore.

Fun with the camera.

This week I spent a little time playing with the settings on my camera and randomly screwing off and I managed to get a few really cool pics. I decided it would only be polite to share them with everyone! Here for your viewing pleasure are a few of my favorites. The first two are on my layout and are of my BN coal train and everyone's favorite little tank engine. The other two were taken at the Union Pacific depot in LaSalle, CO. Enjoy!

Changes to the layout are going smoothly...almost.

The turntable and the first of two three-stall roundhouses are in place and the holes are drilled through the table for the wiring, but the wires need to be soldered to the rails in an odd way to allow the track sections to fit correctly. It's not that big of a deal, just a tad annoying. When the wiring issue is solved, it should all go in smoothly and not be an issue. Here are a few pics of the area and how it will look with the roundhouses in place. There will be another storage track right next to the section of Kato Unitrack that is next to the completed roundhouse and both tracks will be used for storing a few cars and maybe an engine. The bit of Unitrack that is already in place will eventually be wired as a program track.

P.S. The base to the second roundhouse section is only there to check clearance in the cut out sections of cardboard and to show where it will be placed. It has not been tacked down yet. 

This is a pretty neat video.

My little boy loves it and calls it his train song. The song is Long Black Train by Josh Turner and it was set to some video of a Big Boy from one of the train sim games. This is not mine, and would like to give credit to BigBoyCarlos for making this neat video.

Proposed changes to the track plan. Good idea or not?

Hi all! There has been a few interesting additions to the WyCo Western's real estate portfolio recently including a three stall roundhouse. I have proposed a change to the town's planning and zoning committee (AKA my girlfriend) and it has been decided that a turntable and roundhouse would possibly be a bad idea. So this of course means I'm probably going to do it anyway because it means I will have a new toy to play with. So, here is my proposal for the change in the track plan. I am going to take out the switch and the two tracks that would have led to the small engine shed I originally intended to put on there and in its place I will have a roundhouse and seven tracks coming off of it. I want to have three going into the roundhouse as well as three more already in place with wiring run to and holes drilled in case another roundhouse is acquired as well as an exterior track that will eventually be wired to a nifty little gizmo that NCE makes to control a program track. Without further ado, here is a look at before and after images of what my plan for this will look like. Also, please forgive my MS Paint quality graphics on some of the lines. No one ever accused me of being an artist! =)

Before

After

Here is also a link to the NCE item I mentioned earlier in the post: NCE Auto SW

It automatically shuts down all main lines while in program track mode to prevent any other locos from accidentally being programmed. This will also save me from having to take ALL my engines off the track when I want to program something. 

Layout Update!

In trying to get caught up to current, I will go ahead and post my latest video. This was posted on YouTube a few weeks ago, and has been quite popular thus far. Hopefully my next few videos will be as well!

Time for a happy dance!

I spent a while working on my boxcar last night and decided that I need a break from it so I started looking up some stuff for the others I want to work on in the near future (Art Lockman, Howard Fogg, etc...) and found that I not only already have the perfect baggage car to turn into the Art Lockman, but I also have some extra parts that could very easily make my Howard Fogg project go even smoother and look better than my original plan. I love it when things work out in my favor. ^_^

Kitbashing projects and wish lists...

One of the things I would like to accomplish is replicating the excursion train that is pulled behind the UP steam locomotives and maybe even get the correct locos to pull them as well. So far about all I have is a dozen Kato and Walther's smoothside passenger cars. I am working on fixing that however. One of the projects I have taken on is to kitbash the boxcar UPP 9336. It was a fast freight boxcar and about the closest thing I could find was a Kato Amtrak MHC. Since they don't have the correct doors I decided some cutting was in order. I found an Atlas 53' Evans DPD box on a clearance rack for about $6.00 and it quickly became a donor. I cut the doors out of it, then cut them down to fit the hole in the side of my Kato car. I then applied some paint and am working on the decals. Decals are an extreme PITA and the stripes are the hardest part. However, I think it looks pretty alright so far. I still need to find the right trucks for it and finish up the decal work. Some touch up paint wouldn't hurt either.

Scenery begins!!

When coming up with a layout for my town, I knew that an entirely flat surface would be kinda boring. To combat this I decided to raise a section by a few scale feet to add a little interest. I also knew that I wanted a majority of the rest of the ground to be raised to track level for different reasons. To accomplish this in a uniform manner, I used USPS flat rate boxes that I had lying around (and a few I may have "liberated" just for this reason). They work wonderfully and can cover a lot of space quite easily. I then decided to start building my town on the elevated section and this album shows just how I did it.

***PLEASE NOTE: THIS WAS MY FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH PHOTOBUCKET AND THE ALBUM UPLOADED BACKWARDS. PLEASE START WITH THE LAST PICTURE IN THE ALBUM AND WORK IN REVERSE ORDER!!!***

How I made my Main St.!