ShawnG said:kazoospec said:In reply to drsmooth :
Hahahaha. I was afraid it might look a bit too phallic, so I'm happy to get Monza jokes. I fully expected one of you jokers to label it the Pennsylvania Erie Norfolk Illinois Southern Rail Road.
Thanks, I've been trying to come up with a name!
I was planning to call the trolley line the "Surface Level Urban Transport"
Probably a sign I spent too much of my life watching these guys:
ShawnG said:kazoospec said:In reply to drsmooth :
Hahahaha. I was afraid it might look a bit too phallic, so I'm happy to get Monza jokes. I fully expected one of you jokers to label it the Pennsylvania Erie Norfolk Illinois Southern Rail Road.
Thanks, I've been trying to come up with a name!
I was planning to call the trolley line the "Surface Level Urban Transport"
I'd have gone with the Detroit, Ishpeming, Chicago & Kankakee
This arrived today compliments of my dad. 
Today, we found a used train store in a neighboring town. They had a great selection and super friendly staff. One of them "talked trains" with Kazookid2 for quite a while. I'm afraid this will ultimately cost us quite a bit of money. I also worked on assembling the train station for several hours. The layout itself is covered up until we get the half-bath finished in the basement.
Kazookid2 ended up with one of these:
Probably not "period correct" for our railroad, but he liked it and it was under $15, so I'm calling it a win.
Very cool man.
Glad to see someone took the time to talk with him. Lots of people in any hobby seem to complain about the lack of new people but then never take the time to bring in new people.
Leave the rivet counting to someone else. An SD70 pulling a wooden 40ft boxcar? Cool. There are no rules but what you make. 
Winding up the anoraks is half the fun.
Eh, who knows? Maybe such a thing happened. Did you not see the 1890s wooden caboose in Burlington Northern paint that I posted in the one thread? Railroading has a lot of "never say never" moments. Or say its part of a heritage fleet train or something
In reply to NickD :
Yeah, we're not "collectors" nor are we trying to be ultra-accurate with anything. We were just looking for something cool to roll around the layout. He wanted a boxcar, wanted a CN and thought this was one was cool, probably because the doors open, but who cares? Our railroad will be largely "theoretical" anyway, if for no other reason than our limited skillset and knowledge base.
Are you guys interested in weathering any of your equipment? When I was 10, I had heaps of fun making cars look used and old.
Canada... We use things until there's nothing left of them. The railroads are probably no different.
I never understood why Americans loved army surplus so much until someone explained the differences in the way our two militaries operate.
If the Canadian military doesn't want it anymore, you can be sure that you don't want it either.
In reply to Appleseed :
Probably not going to be doing too much weathering. (As a "reformed" scale modeler, this makes me somewhat sad . . . probably my best scale creation was a A-1 Skyraider that was absolutely filthy) I asked my son about weathering and graffitti on the way to the train show the other day. To a kid with ASD, the idea that you would make something dirty or simulate vandalism makes no sense at all, so our railroad will probably be all shiny, pristine and respectable.
kazoospec said:In reply to Appleseed :
shiny, pristine and respectable.
Sounds like a railroad name right there.
Congrats on establishing the S,P & R.
ShawnG said:Winding up the anoraks is half the fun.
When I was in the N-Trak club we regularly ran a "train of wrong-ness" just to pizz off those people. It was usually a modern locomotive with a caboose on the end and WWII box cars. I had a dream of painting some steam locomotive in Penn Central green with a consist of double stack containers interspersed with civil war era passenger cars.
You could often see the rivet counters muttering under their breath.
We also had a 'heavy load' flat car with a giant real metal rivet strapped to it.
kazoospec said:In reply to Appleseed :
Probably not going to be doing too much weathering. (As a "reformed" scale modeler, this makes me somewhat sad . . . probably my best scale creation was a A-1 Skyraider that was absolutely filthy) I asked my son about weathering and graffitti on the way to the train show the other day. To a kid with ASD, the idea that you would make something dirty or simulate vandalism makes no sense at all, so our railroad will probably be all shiny, pristine and respectable.
Never overweather equipment, you lose the realism 
No pics today, but I spent a good part of the day gluing down base foam, gluing down runners and dropping wires through the foam and table top. About halfway through the last part. Not a whole lot of fun, but it'll be good to get all the wires off the table top.
EDIT: Pic added: 
The crossover, road crossing and associate sensors, one pair of power leads and one of the siding switches are done. I still need to do the other switch, the signal power wire and two more power leads in the back. I'm telling myself I'm over halfway done, which I think is true, but just barely. The road crossing and sensors took a LOT of time since the crossing needs an access opening and there are four associated sensors, which have VERY delicate wiring. So far, everthing is testing out OK electrically on re-assembly. It's not fun, but strangely satisfying work.
Tonight, I got the last of the wires dropped, and, as a bonus, my friend dropped a second light fixture over the table. It looks SO MUCH better without wires running everywhere, and with the extra light, you can actually see the whole table. Of course, there are now wires running everywhere under the table. Sorting out the rat's nest under the table is next up. I've also got a bit of sanding to do on the runners down coming down off the bridge on the back side, and a bit more in the transition from one sheet of foam to the other. Otherwise, it's running much smoother than when it was running up and over the piles of wire. Then, we'll cut in the riverbed and glue down the second sheet of foam.
The only issue was the wires for the crossing gate, which are really, really small, and attached to very stubborn clips. Pretty sure I damaged at least one. It's still working right, but I'll probably need to replace one or two of the wires before gluing down the track.
Since I'm on "involuntary layoff" for most of the next week, hopefully, there will be more updates coming. Yesterday, I picked up a cheap Walther intermodal, since it was only $13 with containers. Unfortunately, it didn't play nice with the Microtrains trucks and couplers I bought. I spent a good part of the afternoon trying to figure out how to get it to stop wobbling and randomly depositing the containers trackside on one of my switchback curves. I eventually got it set up with some spacers between the trucks and the body and it rolls SMOOOOTH now. 
Then, I worked on our model of the local train station for a couple hours. I've got it "mocked up" right now, and it looks REALLY nice. Still need to weather it, detail it, build an interior, install lighting and do final assembly, but it's coming along well. I really like the looks of it on the layout and Kazookid2 is really pleased with it as well. 
That looks great!
Quality looks way better than the 3D printed stuff I've been looking at on eBay.
Over the last couple days, since everything is closed/canceled, I've had an ample supply of something that ordinarily I'm short on . . . time. So starting yesterday and finishing up today, I cut in a river, glued down the second half of the base, made 4 bridge supports (2 simple concrete and 2 "cut stone"), scratch-built a closed deck steel bridge and worked on the approaches to some of my risers trying to smooth them out. None of this is probably "aftermarket quality", but I've been using left over styrene foam and scratchbuilding supplies left over from my scale modeling days, so I've spent pretty close to $0.00. It's fun, but I've decided I'm really not good at being unoccupied. Gonna start painting trim and touching up the housepaint with Mrs. Kazoo.
Pic: 
Contrary to what your high school science teacher may have told you, when you're bored, rocks can be made in an afternoon. It was sort of fun (although I suspect it will stop being fun long before I've got it all done), and not super hard. The hardest part was actually making sure I got everything covered. This is especially important since "Owens Corning pink" does not occur in nature.
Still need to do a wash and drybrush to give them some depth.
Looking great! Keep it going!
Did a wash and drybrush tonight. It actually looks a little better "live" than in the photo. It's a little less "stark" than what you see here.
Tip: when I made rock walls for my buddy's mom's Lionel layout (yes!) I found taking a knife or chisel and gouging out chunks of pink insulation made a good start. Then I let the nose of a jigsaw blade (the triangular part without teeth) dance over the "rocks" at full speed. It snashed down parts or snagged and ripped out small pieces. Brown paint overall, black paint in the low spots, lighter brown drybrushed on the highlights. Ended up looking like granite.
Today's progress isn't as dramatic as yesterday's. Got the second tunnel entrance done. This one is "cut stone". Again, made out of scrap pink foam, so $0.00 invested.
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