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Here's another pic of me down by the lake -- pulled the other car up (yeah, I have a few sportsters) and then walked down to the lake for a moment of peace. My quiet was quickly interrupted by the local UP rambling down the track. Must be 7:00pm. Right on time. :)

Val, et al, We'll be using the Woodlands Scenics water effects. I had thought to paint the plywood base, blending the colors lighter to darker as you indicate, then pour the Woodland Scenics "water" over the entire area. I thought I would place the rocks directly on the plywood bed after I...

We finished the ground coverage around the left side of the lake. :thumb: We also extended the road to the edge of the layout, sanded it, painted it, etc. Brought the ground cover up to and around the road area. Now all we need to do is plant some trees in the area. We tried to simulate a...

We run trains almost every day. :D Even though we have so much to do on our layout, it is really important to see how the train looks moving through the layout. We're running DCC, so another reason for running the train every day is to make sure that we haven't messed anything up with our...

:confused: Val, just one more note -- what probably threw you off is seeing the rocks in the lake area. I simply have placed them there to give the perspective of what the rocks would look like having been tumbled down the embankment into the water. Probably done by that bulldozer at the...

Man, is that guy ever going to get a job. Just sits around all day! ;) ;) :D :cool:

One last post of the same area with the mighty UP diesel entering the bridge. (I'm having a bit of trouble getting everything in focus in these pictures :rolleyes: -- seems the digital wants to focus on the loco and blur everything else. Can't say I blame the camera. ;) At least you can...

Ok. Here are a couple more pictures of the lake embankment. We painted the bank, then put our "rocks" all along the edge, then added more ground cover. We haven't landscaped the areas beyond the lake bank, so you can still see the blue foam, but all in good time. :) The second picture is an...

Val, Thanks for the tips on the water -- we'll need them shortly. :D You can't tell from the pictures, but the blue you see is simply drafting tape that I have placed over the plywood while we are working on the bank of the lake. Once we have finished the embankment, we'll be ready to pull up...

By the way, the use of plaster like this is certainly not our new idea -- several posts on the-gauge reference and discuss it. This is just our interpretation of it and extension of the concept. Want to give credit where credit is due. :D

TW, I'm beginning to see that many of the most rewarding things on our layout are the ones that we scratch build or just figure out from our own imaginations. Scrap parts abound in our garage that I would never have thought had a place on our railroad. You've got to have the rail and the...

TW, Your layout is looking great. :thumb: I appreciate your comment on ours. This is a wonderful hobby and for the first time in a long time I have found a group of folks that are interested in what we do, encourage us, teach us, and don't judge us. When you think about that, it is...

Then we painted the raw bank (foam) with the same yellow ochre, put some of the rocks into the bank surface with foam tack glue, then "landscaped" the area with WS soil and fine turf. You can also see where we are going to have some rocks that have fallen into the water once we get that poured...

Here's some work just starting up around what will be the lake. I took some leftover plaster that I used around the gravel works area and once it dried, I broke it up into various size pieces. I then took some Yellow Ochre paint, diluted it with a lot of water, put the paint in a baggie with...

TW20. Looking GREAT ! :wave: Glad to see your new thread. We'll look forward to watching your progress. :thumb: You've come quite a way from the first pics you posted of your track laid out on your carpeted floor. :thumb: You should be very proud of your accomplishments.

And then on down the rail. As you can see from these pictures I was able to get really close to the track. The rumble of those engines shook the whole ground. One of the Engineers waved nicely as he went past, I might add.:wave:

Now here was a real treat. This Norfolk Southern locomotive was simply beautiful. :thumb: Haven't seen this one here before. Here it is on its way, then a closer view.

Went out this beautiful morning to see what I could see -- wow, :eek: what a lot of traffic on the rail. I shot a few pictures that I thought I would post up here for all to enjoy. I know I certainly did. :) Here's a shot of BNSF heading out of the yard and then a close-up as it went by.

Who Dat, We replaced all of our HO scale couplers with Kadee #5's. These seem to be prototypical and the standard coupler replacement. You can buy them in bags of 10 or 20 pair. We have not had any problems with these -- replaced them on all rolling stock and engines.

OOOPS....:oops: Sorry -- Self policing here. :eek: I just did a search on the operations site and found the sticky with info on books to read on operations. :eek: :eek: I'll check these out. Any other suggestions besides these? You'd think I'd have figured out by now to search first...