Researching the turntable

In 1905, Pembroke had a 50’3″ turntable. Sadly it was removed in the 30’s when the passenger trains were run by a gas-electric, which was too long to fit on the turntable. So, we have no pictures of it, much less plans. From the 1908 GTR bridges and building book, we know it was almost […]

Installation Day!

This afternoon, I invited a bunch of good friends, Andrew, Scott, Ken, Julian as well as Margot and Patty over to help install the layout in the basement. I wasn’t quite as ready as I’d hoped to be, but with so many helpers, we managed to get it installed all the same. When we finished, […]

Clouds

Most of my railroad time this week was spent on painting the clouds. Like everything else, I got better at this as I went along, and so, I kind of did it about one and a half times. I roughed the clouds in on Sunday with some plain white paint, and they looked pretty flat […]

Constable it Ain’t

Tonight I painted a base layer for the clouds. They’re definitely going to take a second layer before the white covers over that hideous not-quite-gradient of blue that I put up there. As this is only the base layer, I didn’t bother with any shadows, and so, the clouds have no form yet. So, it […]

Base Cabinets Stained

This week, I made the face frames for the base cabinets, and I just finished staining them. I must say, despite Andrew’s warnings that it would not go well, I am impressed with the results. Here they are drying, or setting or whatever stain does: The stain is Old Masters Red Mahogany gel stain. I […]

More Switch Stand Refinements

Andrew and I got together the other day and finished up the switch stands for the north section. This resulted in yet more refinements to the design, as well as some creative problem-solving. The first refinement was Andrew’s suggestion to not tap the hole in the throw rod extension, but rather to use two nuts, […]

Well Now it Just Looks Like a Crappy Paint Job

Can you believe that I was so cocky as to claim that I thought I knew what I was doing when it came to painting a gradient on the sky? Yeah, me neither. Tonight I painted the second coat. It only really needed it because there were some thin areas up near the corners, and […]

Field Trip to Pembroke

Yesterday, I made the trip from Ottawa up to Pembroke to capture some measurements I didn’t get the last time I was there. The whole family (including my sister and her daughters) came for a trip to the Bonnechere Caves, which was a pretty cool cave system, guided by a theatrical and informative local boy, […]

Learning as I go: the Sky

It looks like the sky is going to want two coats, which is good because by the time I got to the bottom, my technique had become much better. My basic blue is “Utah Sky” (2065-40) from Benjamin Moore, but there is very little of the straight colour up there. As others have proposed before […]

South Base Cabinet

Now I’ve finished the second base cabinet carcase. It’s another massive piece of furniture, measuring almost five feet high by two feet by two feet. This cabinet is sized to take handily our 3-in-1 printer, and hopefully our laser printer as well on the upper shelves. Below waist height, it will have three drawers – […]