I began applying ballast on half the layout last month. Before adding ballast I added detail parts to the track, such as joint bars and turnout details. I like to detail turnouts but not to the point where the details will get wiped out by the first pass of a Bright Boy. Below is a view of the a part of the layout before I started laying down ballast.  I painted the sides of the sub roadbed black to keep any other colors from showing through the ballast just in case.  The dirt road at left has been installed and painted. The … Continue reading No. 39: Ballasting Sidings at Ackley

Remember slide film cameras? Last Saturday morning I drove over to Kaiserslautern to photograph a German 2-10-0 on display at the Kaiserslautern freight railroad shops.  I have had a lot of trouble finding the right time of day to photograph the engine because it never seems to be lit properly.  On Saturday the light was exceptional.  I spent 20 minutes cleaning up all the garbage in front of the engine and then shot about 25 photos. I used my new Canon digital SLR and tried shooting through the viewfinder for a change.  I never bothered to check the settings on the camera.  Turns out I … Continue reading No. 38: Ackley Depot Construction, Part 2

In an effort to gain a little more space for operations, I tried adding something I call a “bump out”. I saw a photo of such a “bump out” on Warner Clark’s Proto48 Nickel Plate layout in Indianapolis (seen below).  Warner has several of these extensions into the aisle to create space for structures or other features that–without the additional space–would’ve been off the layout.  Thanks Warner for the good idea. The photo below shows the area before I installed the bump out.  The track at the extreme left is the track being extended into the aisle.  That’s a beautiful, ice cold La Chouffe … Continue reading No. 37: The Bump Out (Ackley Layout)

I was e-mailing with Frank Hodina in early December and I mentioned to him that it was miserably foggy and cold and rainy here in Germany.  I had just been through Bastogne, Belgium a few weeks before and I said it would be a good time for a Winter Offensive on the layout. We both had an “LOL” moment and then I thought, hey, that’s not a bad idea. I talked to my wife about it and she approved my plan to take a few vacation days so I could start a Winter Offensive on the Ackley layout.  The objective was to finish up most of the big work on the … Continue reading No. 34: The Winter Offensive (on the Ackley Layout)

The Deutsches Museum While I was in Berlin in November I had a chance to visit the Deutsches Museum downtown along the River Spree. The museum is beautiful, clean, and well-lit and the exhibits are stunning.  There are many models throughout the museum, of ships, trains, vehicles, and other things. There are paper models on display that are over 300 years old.  There is a Dutch model ship on display that is about 250 years old. Whenever I see models in a museum, I always wonder who built them.  I wonder “Of all the models out there, why did the museum select this one for display?” … Continue reading No. 33: Painting Track on the Ackley Layout