Winter Layout Party, week 1

This week was a busy week: we got Christmas, Santa Claus brought lots of new toys for our kids, we got our youngest with chickenpox...  But I was able to do little work on the layout. Onto the photos!

I made the hill base with carboard strips

Then I covered the cardboard web with 2" wide masking tape

Here is the location where the foam board hills will be. Before actually stacking layers of foam board I have to take care of the track. I need to add ballast and weathering.

Merry Christmas!

Winter Layout Party, week 0

As I wrote in a previous post, I picked up a project for the traditional Layout Party at Trainboard.com.
I will add background hills in the Callender area, to hide the staging trackage and to disguise the sharp, unrealistic horseshoe curve (15" radius).
Next step will be using both cardboard boxes strips and stacked foam board pieces to build up the hills.

Here is a shot of the whole area

December 19th Op Session

With a very light attendance, we were able to have fun running trains again. After the last operating session in September I revised the timetable and the traffic pattern. I feel this time all went smooth.

We ran 4 manifests and 2 locals (turns). Stop with boring description, onto the photos!


Enzo with the Guadalupe Local, switching cars in Callender

Alex, just north of Surf with the Lompoc Local

Me (behind the camera), switching the Guadalupe team track

Some more photos:

More scenery around Callender

The Layout Design Discussion forum on Trainboard.com organized a Layout Party. This means I and several other modelers have to pick a project and try to accomplish it in 8 weeks, starting from December, 20th.
Weekly updates will be posted on the proper Trainboard.com forum thread, and hopefully many modelers will take part and show their work.

The project I will accomplish is adding more scenery base and some grass to the area north of callender. Here is where I will start from:

Some hills made of styrofoam will hide the otherwise unrealistic horseshoe curve, partially hiding the tight radius. Next comes the cardboard strips hills that will hide the grade down to the staging yard.
Weekly updates will be available both here and on Trainboard.com.