Saturday Night

It's Saturday night and I've finished all the tasks that I targeted for completion by end of day Sunday.

1. The power cabinet shelves are in place -- screwed in for extra stability.
   
2. The re-wiring underneath the south end of the layout is complete. When I explained to my son what I planned to do -- essentially convert the wiring from the original wiring standard to the new standard he said "that will take a long time." In truth, it takes about half as long as it takes to wire a new section. The feeder wires above the layout are unchanged, unless I have to add extra pairs of feeders due to new gaps for the power district boundaries (I had to add one this time). I do need to increase the number of power terminals and rewire the power bus as a result, and the feeder wires below the layout need to be reconnected, relabeled, and for half of them, converted to a red wire.

In addition, Daniel has been very busy fixing all the "to be repaired" cars in the project boxes, as well as repairing couplers on a few locomotives. He's done this so well, and seems to enjoy it so much, that I plan to start him on some decoder installs next, then ease him into the more difficult domain of locomotive repair. If this continues we'll get far more done on the layout this winter than I had thought possible.

On the negative side I've found two new problems. One of the track repair areas has proven to still be iffy. It looks like that track will need to be removed and replaced entirely. I think I'll choose that as the starting point for my Sunday scenery project (more on that in a moment), so that I can address two tasks at once.

The other issue is that as I started cleaning the middle tier return loop in staging a feeder wire came loose. Simple in concept, but it's a hard-to-reach area.

However, with all that out of the way I have a relatively free day tomorrow to tackle train stuff. My plan is to try to figure a way to make the Peco code 55 track on the mainline look like modern track with concrete ties. A couple years ago I started this project and came pretty close. I used various model spray paints for the tie color, then added rust color for the rail sides and the tie anchors. Once done I added some dull coat and other weathering to make it look realistic. In the end all looked good except the ties. They tended to look too yellow and also the fake wood grain showed through.

Today I took some pictures of real concrete ties near our home. Here's an example:



Tomorrow I'm going to visit Home Depot and try to find a latex paint color that matches the concrete. Latex paint has a number of advantages. First, a quart costs as much as 3 or 4 tiny jars of model railroad paint from a hobby shop. Second, the latex creates a smooth coat over the surface, likely hiding things like the fake wood grain on ties. And if it is TOO thick, you can thin it with water.

This is just an experiment, but I have quite a few scenery books that suggest latex paint for a variety of projects, so it's worth a try.

There are other factors regarding the simulation of concrete ties, but I won't cover them today. My first goal will be just to get the surface looking correct.