Good video on basic bench work without a lot of expensive tools! You were wise to keep all your battery tools the same brand. 3/4" plywood is good for a permanent layout, I have modules, so I used 1/2". A couple of other useful additions to your tools are a 6" carpenters square, a set of pilot drills for regular wood screws. I find both of these a good addition to my bench work tools. I also do woodworking, and have other tools in my arsenal. If you have to rip plywood, I highly recommend a Kreg Rip Cut jig. It is as good as a table saw and costs about 50 bucks.
Hi. Detailing tracks is a very interesting part of modeling. At least for serious modelers. I like the fact that Micro Engineering is adding small detail parts with their turnouts. I'm only using their stuff for years. HO scale Code 70 and 55. But I think I will try the new Peco code 70 tracks for my next project. Very nice too. Trackage is to my point of view the basic AND the most important part of model railroading. The choice of tracks and turnouts, the way it's layed on, the electrification, the detailing, the painting (so many colors can be used) and the ballast (color and size) are so important. I think it's the most difficult thing to do on a layout out of making a solid and straight wood base to lay them properly. There are many ways to do it but not that many to get a realist result. It takes time to do it properly. Cause at the end, trains will run on them. If it's poorly done, issues will follow very quickly. It would be nice to get a close up view of your job when you're done. Keep on your good work.
Being from Idaho, Its cool to finally see someone building a layout based on an Idaho location, Sandpoint Idaho. I appreciate the detail you are putting into you're background painting. All too often I see that lacking in many layouts. I look forward to seeing how your progress. Keep up the great work.
It looks terrific and I appreciate your notes. Decades ago when I was younger and in my first era of productive in the hobby, weathering was something I thought I was good at. It’s funny as I come back into this same arena how those instincts aren’t present when I sit down to experiment. I love how this car you did turned out and it certainly motivates me to try again.
Hey, sorry! My last comment was made before I had watched your whole video! Again, I apologize. Just a qualification on my last comment: any car of that configuration can be used in grain service, as long as it’s a larger 3-bay car. One major commodity I left out for 2-bay cars was cement. Also, as an example of a combination outlet, I noticed that your model of SSW 70135 looked like one. Also, those UP 2-bay cars looked like they may have combo outlets. I’m not sure what commodities a 2-bay combo car with trough hatches is used for. Something heavy, most likely. Thanks again, I enjoyed your video!
Anything with a trough hatch on top and gravity outlets on the bottom can be used for grain loading. The round hatches are harder for most grain elevators to load. Elevators that can load round hatched cars are older and don’t load that many cars at a time. They do need gravity outlets since grain is unloaded through grates set into the ground. Gravity outlets are the most common type. A rule of thumb I’ve heard for Canadian cars, and I agree, that, “if it has trough hatches, it’s a grain car; if it has round hatches, it’s a potash car”. Of course, we’re talking large sized cars such as 3500 cubic feet (CF) for early Canadian cars to the 5400 CF modern cars. Larger cars are for such things as plastic pellets, resin, dried distillers grains ( bi-product of ethanol production), Hi-Sil (a finely ground sand) and other such ladings. Plastic and resin is shipped in large cars with pneumatic outlets. They are vee shaped and the point of the vee ends in a round pipe with a cover over it. Commodities such as malt and sugar are shipped in cars with combination gravity/ pneumatic outlets. They look like regular gravity outlets that have a pipe with a cover protruding out the side of the hopper. Sugar is also shipped in pressure differential cars that have a system of piping underneath the car. A myriad of loads are also shipped in these, such as clays, flour, starch, titanium dioxide, sand (also shipped in cars equipped with gravity outlets). Sand cars are smaller, since sand is heavy per cubic foot. Many other things are shipped in covered hoppers such as limestone, which is also shipped in gons or open hoppers, depending on the customer’s preference. Hope this helps! I have just scratched the surface, of course. Enjoyed this video as I am particularly fond of covered hoppers!
Its decided. I am going to attempt to paint my backdrop! I love the Bob Ross vibe to the video. My son and I took a Bob Ross class at an art supply store We came home with some awesome oil paintings of mountain scenes. Blew me away as I couldn't draw a decent stick figure before that! Great video series. Thanks so much!
I can lay perfect track, solder, wire, scratch build etc, But I can’t even draw a stick figure worth a damn. I am jealous of most model railroaders ( such as yourself) with their artistic ability. I definitely don’t have it.
WOW! I have some screen captures of your previous layout in my backdrop folder you've up'ed your skill set several levels. Thanks for not only taking the time to share it with us but showings us in easy to follow format. I can see some of the previous layouts DNA in this backdrop. Looking forward to the next vid.........
Excellent, your trees look fantastic, I was able to convert the paint colours from first video you did , we have different stores in my area , Great video , need to watch this again
Matt getting back to you over the last week I purchased a OVR 6000 scrap gondola very nice car but as I was going through my normal checks I discovered it has aurora roller trucks and they do not accept tangent wheel set the trucks are very nice but like you I’d prefer .088 wheels so I miss spoke on that
I have several of the Walters Proto 2000 Southern Pacific auto racks. The are great cars for the money and run great. The only thing that they are really missing are the coupler cut bars and air hoses. You really can’t tell there not there. Maybe next time you can include the Atlas auto racks for review too.
Great review on the autoracks, Scaletrains have the most details, and Walter's is the best bang for your buck. Walters also run better on tight radius curves like 22 inch, which I use due to lack of space.
Love your layout and enjoyed hearing you on second session and around the layout podcast. A comment on sound, I have been lowering the volume of my decoders to give a scale sound dimension so that an operator hears the sound when they are following along with their train but others don’t hear it as much if they are on the other side of the room which supposedly miles away. Just subscribed (need to binge watch past videos - love the ops buddy idea, going to try it out), looking forward to more content.
Thanks for the update! It's good to be able to fit more Ops onto the layout and use the caboose. I model the era where cabooses were on every train. As far as more room, I went with a peninsula in the center of the room.
Great video - getting ready to go dcc with my 90 old locos ... flopping between NCE and Digitrax After 2 years what can you say about this EVOXD ? Appreciate your thoughts. Also - love the swing down panel - going to steal that idea- great job.
Another way to justify the caboose, is to say the run around is out of service. Could be track conditions, MOW equipment or even just another train parked for the time being. Just some food for thought, layouts looking good, keep the updates coming.
Fantastic video, and is very much appreciated. Please think about enabling your RU-vid "Thanks" button, so I can put some money in your tip jar, and especially for that idea about that panel switch for a programming track because it looks professionally done.
Matt, I love what you're doing with your layout, the scenery looks fantastic, especially the little tree covered rises / hills, and your simple wall mounted wood shelf supports are a great idea, as I'm having trouble finding properly braced metal ones in my area. Consequently, your shelf layout is very inspirational to me, since I'm in the beginning stages of planning my first layout. Question: What is the depth of the shelf during your introduction in the opening scene, i.e., the area behind you up to, and including the area in front of where the book is laying across the tracks (00:33-01:00)? * subscribed *
Nice work on the subwoofer! To filter the sound, you can purchase a crossover component from a stereo speaker supply house which will filter out the treble portion of the sound. Some of these are adjustable so that you can fine tune what frequencies are passed to the subwoofer. Wire the crossover inline between the decoder output and the subwoofer. I would expect that there would be digital ones available now that might be easier to control vs. the analog ones from years past. Thanks for posting! - Brian
Yes! Sourced all my dirt and ballast from the earth, the only thing I paid for was $4 per 30g bag of static grass (static applicator was $25) Bought switches from eBay in lots, but paid full price for flex track and ground throws.
Hi, Thanks for sharing your work with us. Strange cause I would say that I prefer B side over A side. Not a big fan of graffitis. But I honestly think that you've done a great job considering your modeling experience. Keep on your good work.
Great video! I treat my layout work sort of like a job but more of accomplishing goals for me, visitors and youtube content. In order for me to do what I want in filming, ab and c need to get done lol. I enjoy collection now more than ever, but I run everything. Taking a break is a necessity to refresh one's passion and drive to accomplish certain goals at a healthy pace to make it done the way we want something to look and be done right.
Great video! I was just discussing with the wife on much goes into this hobby. Planning, designing, woodwork, more track planning, wiring, lighting, electrical, scenery, painting…. such a mixer of skills and processes to be done. It’s such interesting hobby. Being the engineer minded, it’s quite fun to build and develop your ideas to reality. It’s excited when you complete a certain milestone like benchwork and then move on to track laying or to scenery or etc. I hear ya on it feeling like work, I too get overwhelmed on big tasks that need to be done… like wiring or something involving lots of repetitive steps. With my new 24’ long layout, I forced my self to keep it smaller and try to get it finish in a manageable time. On the note of rolling stock, I agree… is for some reason so fun to get a new car…lol, but I just sold 75+ cars and really focused my collection. Having a short line feel on my new layout is helping that. As you know, one of the hardest things about this hobby is getting locos and rolling stock that make sense to you layout, availability is so sporadic… which has lead to me buying to many random cars over the years…lol. Any who, keep the videos coming, I really enjoy them. Feel free to create a Podcast too, you speak very honest and easy to listen to. Cheers and happy modeling!
