Turntable lock: Rube would be proud

It’s been a bit of a battle, but I think I finally have the turntable lock control finished. The original plan called for a flexible shaft to drive the pin into the sockets around the turntable edge. However, when push came to shove (so to speak), I found that the shaft had to flex too […]

Turntable Crank

November is always a slow month for the trains in our house. It’s getting close to Christmas, and for the past eleven years, I’ve given photobooks that summarize the past year of the kids’ lives to all our family. I spend most of the month, therefore, editing and curating photos. Anyway, this morning, while the […]

4-4-0 Engine truck designs

You can tell I’m getting excited about a project when I start planning for it before the previous project is even complete. Oh, this will make it difficult to keep momentum on the turntable. This weekend we were over to Nanaimo for dinner with family, and so, I couldn’t really make progress on the turntable […]

Blackout Modelling

We had a good old blow this evening, which made cycling across the Lions Gate Bridge very interesting indeed and also knocked the power out. My Christmas project, which is consuming most of my spare time these days and seriously hampering progress on the layout, requires a computer and Internet. So, I took some […]

Dentistry on the Turntable Pit

Those who saw this turntable at the Vancouver Train Expo this weekend already know about the disaster that befell the pit wall when I was completing the scenery. That part of the MDF that was not sealed before was still not sealed, and the swelling was nothing short of hideous. At the show, I talked […]

Turntable Clinic at Vancouver Train Expo

Here is the presentation for my presentation at Vancouver Train Expo, Sunday, November 8 at 11.

A little scatter around the roundhouse

I’m getting ready to show the turntable at Vancouver Train Expo this weekend, and so, I spent some time between working on my presentation to glue down some more ballast, basically covering the board. The gravel is my usual mix of light grey sanded grout and Pembroke dirt. The cinders are made from “Charcoal” sanded […]

Finishing up the turntable tracks

Vancouver Train Expo is just a few days away, and as I’m speaking about turntables on Sunday, I’d better finish this one! Last night, I put the final touches on the tracks. I painted the PC board ties with acrylic paint. I really struggled to match the colour of the nearby ties. In the end, […]

Details on roundhouse tracks

The end of Daylight Savings Time yielded another marathon session of modelling this year. The overlap with Hallowe’en meant that I didn’t get quite as early a start as other years, but the extra hour was put to good use. Unfortunately, there is not much to show. I spent that hour – and a bunch […]

Turntable details completed

Thanks to my masking tape plan, it didn’t take too long to get the walkways back onto the turntable. The masking tape kept the boards in order so all I had to do when I was ready to re-install them was peel them off the masking tape one at a time, scrape and sand off […]