Railroads and Ice Cream in HO-Scale
…but always fail forward. Otherwise known as improvement through iteration. Or so I hope. With the backdrop on the transload & IML Containers side of the peninsula finished, and a day trip to Le Mars last week, I decided to play around with some photo backdrops. Needless to say (and not unsurprisingly) it didn’t work…
Read moreI have been looking for an excuse to put one of the upcoming Prairie Shadows Trenton Works 5250 cu. ft. covered hoppers on the layout. Previously, I knew some 5250 cu ft Trenton Works hoppers did show up in Le Mars, but couldn’t get a road name/number from the photos. After a trip Scott Thornton…
Read moreAfter some careful consideration, the thought of using one continuous piece of vinyl turned out to be less than desirable. While it would provide a nice, consistent surface, I just couldn’t figure out a way to install it reliably. The cove base adhesive, which does have some give and allows the vinyl to be repositioned…
Read moreOne of the tasks I put off initially, but has been looming recently, is how to handle the backdrop, especially on the peninsula. It needs to be fairly thin, but also self-supporting. I considered building a “wall” using 1×4 boards laid flat, but while working on another project the week between Christmas and New Years…
Read moreAfter seeing all the boxcars in Le Mars, I got thinking about starting to build out the roster for the layout. This last weekend at Trainfest was a good time to start hunting. While hanging out in the Spring Creek Model Trains booth, promoting our Iowa Scaled Engineering products, I took some time to browse…
Read moreAbout a week ago, as I was browsing Google Maps to check the orientation of one of the derails, a pleasant surprise appeared. New aerial views of Le Mars! Of special note, is the new track at the transload: They are using that new track to store tank cars of, presumably, tallow or other meat…
Read moreWhile trying to decide which Fast Tracks PointForm tool to buy to make the split-point derails, I ended up comparing the various Fast Tracks turnout templates from #6 to #12. In the previous post on this topic, I determined that the #8 had the correct divergence for the prototype. But I was still curious how…
Read moreOne of the interesting aspects of Le Mars is all the split-point derails: My original plan was to model these by cutting down a standard Walthers turnout and removing the frog. Unfortunately, the Walthers turnouts diverge too quickly, so a little more work will be needed. Since I don’t have on-the-ground measurements, I am relying…
Read moreOver the last few weeks, track laying has been taking place. I am using the new Walthers Code 83 track and turnouts. This is nice looking track (at least to me, coming from the land of N-scale) and appears to be sufficiently robust without compromising too much on the fine detail. I think Walthers did…
Read moreAlthough I could rely on finger-flick turnouts, especially since the Walthers Code 83 turnouts have a snap-action on the points, I want to try something different. One of the products in development over at Iowa Scaled Engineering is a 3D printed key switch. Originally intended for the relaunch of our timelock circuit, I wanted to…
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