Prep for TOMA Phase Two

While work has continued on the basement to train room transition, I have also continued with planning and preparation on phase two of the TOMA approach to the 4th Subdivision. I gave a brief introduction to my thinking in an earlier post. To the right in the drawing above will be a new section with a cut and fill as well as a pair of turnouts. On the left, based on modules brought from Meadville, will be "Ferndale Jct." the interchange with the Great Northern mainline and the interchange yard. Over the past few days, I have given serious thought to having the two turnouts (entrance to the yard and yard lead) in the new section be signaled as an interlocking plant. If that plan develops, it will be a whole other series of posts!

Painting the foundation wall behind its location was a first step in preparing for the Ferndale Jct. addition as well as a first step in the continuing improvement of the appearance of the basement. A five inch roller seems to be the best for covering the foamed stone foundation, followed by stippling with a three inch brush. I still have one section of wall to paint, with the corner behind the well water tank appearing to potentially be particularly tricky. I need to pick up a short wooden handle for the roller. I may need to convince my wife to wedge herself behind the tank for painting the far corner. 

While the new section with the cut and fill is still just in conceptual planning phase, I have been working on the modules making up the Ferndale Jct. yard and interchange. So far, I have been removing track, ballast, and scenery from areas that will require a change in track location. Ballast, cork, and track attached with white glue or scenery cement are fairly easy to remove after soaking with isopropyl alcohol. Sculptamold is a little harder to remove, but comes off with some moderate effort with a chisel and a painter's 5-in-1 tool. As I think I mentioned in an earlier post, ground goop is like concrete; it requires chiseling with a hammer. After the rough removal, I have been going over the area with an orbital sander. I think I am at the point that I can place these modules temporarily in place to finalize the measurements and sketch the benchwork plans for the new section. 

In addition to the prep work for TOMA Phase Two, I have been working on cleaning and organizing the basement. Just a couple of days ago, I removed the last patch of nails and cobwebs from furring strips over what I had set up as the agent's or dispatcher's two years ago. It may be where I set up operations on the Ingleton shelf; we will see. I do need to keep plowing through with the painting and organizing. Cleaner, tidier, and brighter all are a draw down to the train room. 

Ingleton Revisited

One intended consequence of having the electrical work finally finished and making headway in cleaning up and organizing the basement will be bringing the Ingleton shelf back to life. Honestly, it has fuctioned more like a junk drawer than a small switching layout since work started on the 4th Subdivision nearly four years ago, mainly due to my removing the command station for use on the larger railroad. Last summer I picked up an NCE Power Cab system with the possibility of revitalizing Ingleton in mind. 

With the electrical work completed, the Ingleton shelf has power and a ceiling receptacle for lighting; I can move forward again here.While my initial main focus moving forward will be on upgrading the basement into an inviting train room, Ingleton will again be in play. One role will be as a practice plank, experimenting with some new scenery techniques. Another role will be in switching practice, whether as an Inglenook puzzle or as a few spots to switch at the edge of a yard a few decades before my railroad set in 1954.

Checklist:

• Fascia
• NCE Power Cab install
• Scenery
• Rolling Stock
• Additional buildings
• Valance

Basement to Trainroom Updates

Our electrician came by this past week and finally finished all the upgrades. These include:

1.  Six LED lights for basic basement lighting  mounted in three bays of the basement with separate switches for each bay.  
2. Eight plug in receptacles installed in the ceiling for train lighting as the layout grows. The switch in the center of this photo is for the train lighting. 
3. The glowing "UFO" appearing nightlight (which can also be in full light mode) controlled by a switch at the top of the stairs. 
4.  Not seen in any of this post's photos are the new circuits to my paint booth, the sump pump, and the dehumidifier. 
5. Several other upgrades and repairs finalized the electrical work.

 Between his parent's health issues as well as mine in the fall, it took months to actuallly get four days worth of work finished. Still, it is very motivating to have it finished. Yesterday, my wife and I took the four older florescent tube fixtures that had been removed and five contractor bags of ceiling tile, out of commision wiring, and other rubbish to the dump. The general basement clean up is underway, but a lot remains to be done. 

Today, while organizing what needs to be moved to the garage, I took the edge banding and miscellaneous screws and nails out of the plywood deck of the former "bar." I had been thinking that I could use it as part of the TOMA phase four "blob." In my planning it will have a 30" radius. Placing the cleaned plywood on sawhorses, in the planned location, I sketched out  the radius. In double checking the marked piece with my scale plan, it appeared to fit. Since it was all laid out, I went ahead and cut it. Phase four is quite a ways away, but I am reassured that my plan is working, and I can store this reclaimed piece of plywood for that future day. 

I still have a lot to do before I move onto construction of the phase two TOMA modules mentioned in my last post or my plan to reenergize the Ingleton shelf. The cleaning and organizing that I have been doing as well as having bright lighting make a huge difference in terms of keeping the motivation going. While at the big box store yesterday I picked up some concrete hydraulic leak repair mix to attempt my floor levee creation along the French Drain canal. I will also want to paint the foam insulation on the foundation walls in the last portion of the basement before extending the railroad into it. I may also try painting the basement floor. Even before those tasks, I should rework the shelving and paint storage in the laundry area of the basement. 

Staying on Track: Updates and TOMA Phase Two

Over a week ago, our electrician was able to spend a couple of days working with us. Several projects have been completed and most are at least started. Hopefully he will be able to finish up next week. One of the new general lighting fixtures in the basement is seen in this photo. He has all six of the hard-wired LEDs installed. He has all the boxes roughed in for the railroad lighting and the wire strung for those as well, but those receptacles or any of the switches are not in. I have been removing the detritus left over from the ceiling tile removal (some tiles were removed by the previous owners and I just completed removal of the balance). I have most of the nails and tile bits removed, with about one more session needed on the ladder to finish. You can see the nails and tile bits on the furring strips in the photo taken before I removed them in that section.

The rolling stock and buildings remain packed up, and the completed benchwork is under tarps while drilling, hammering, and removal continue overhead. The general lighting is much brighter, and I am making some headway in cleaning up after our messy work as well as visualizing what the future train room might look like. We have numerous bags of debris to move out of the basement, but with our recent 18 inches of snow and weeks of below freezing temperatures, we have been slow moving it out to the garage to store until the township's "spring-cleaning event" aka free junk gathering. Once the electrical work is done, I want to paint the remaining basement walls including where the planned phase two of my TOMA plans will be located. 

I have been sketching out some ideas for the phase two segment. In the sketch, the right segment will be a new module, mainly focusing on scenery, including a cut and fill. I am thinking that the benchwork will be grid framing with cookie cutter plywood as the subroadbed. The middle section will be a module that I brought from Meadville, although it will have some additions and changes. For example I am adding a runaround, and what was the front will be the back. 

On the planning sketch, I have added a two foot square addition to the left, basically to keep a linear standard with the yard tracks here as long as my Nooksack passing track. This addition utilizes a corner module brought from Meadville seen in this photo. As a corner module with scenery, I found that I needed to clear it down to the plywood base. I made several discoveries or observations in doing so. Cork and ballast applied with white glue can be removed by saturating with isopropyl alcohol and prying with a painter's 5 in 1 tool or heavy putty knife. Sculptamold is also fairly easily scraped off. Ground Goop, on the other hand, is difficult to remove, requiring heavy chiseling and sanding.

I have been spending time in the basement most days. While on one hand, a lot of it is infrastructure work rather than modeling, on the other hand, many of the work days have been significantly more that just a few minutes. The condition of the basement has been a major gumption trap for quite some time, and I see a light at the end of that tunnel.