Recent content by SVJim

I finally got my four cars for my freight car fleet built. The three boxcars are Westerfield kits and the flat car is a Tichy Trains kit. Next I need to paint and decal them then I need to get the couplers for them. I now have four boxcars and three flatcars for my fleet. Will post more as I...

Hit a major milestone today. I got the last shipment of track on Friday and today I completed all the track work for this section of the layout. The Rapid City portion of the layout is wired up temporarily so I can run some trains. Next up I need to finish building four freight car kits for...

A little more progress while I’m waiting to purchase the last track. The log pond is almost completely plastered and I’ve started scratch building one of the three Warren Lamb Lumber company buildings.

I've gotten busy on my new layout. This portion of the layout will represent the western portion of Rapid City on the Rapid City, Black Hills, and Western (RCBH&W) railroad. This is were the RCBH&W met the Chicago and North Western (C&NW) Railroad. The was a large lumber mill (the Warren-Lamb...

Well I suffered a major setback. The curves were too sharp 12.5" and no matter how well I soldered the joiners the locomotive (2-6-0) would not make it around the curves without derailing. SO I dismantled that section of the layout, for now, and will start with the terminus point on the layout...

Well I goofed up when I purchased my track for the layout. I didn't make sure I ordered the same turnouts that I used in the XtrackCad program. Because of this I have altered the track plan one one time to fit the layout and the turnouts. This latest rendition does give me a small runaround...

Progress on the first bridge.

I look forward to seeing your progress as well.

Just received all the track for the layout today and I've started to build the three small wooden bridges. Will post pictures as I make progress this weekend. Thanks for checking out the thread.

I have actually gone a different direction for my model railroad and am modeling a small railroad in South Dakota. The Rapid City, Black Hills and Western. It fits my needs better and I have access to getting to the area on a semi regular basis. Thank you for the information and I hope...

I've decided to drop one of the front center sidings to bring it more in line with the actual prototype. Here's the new slightly modified plan.

Since it’s the black hills, ponderosa pine trees are the dominant tree. As I wait for the cork I’ve started building my trees. Here are some photos of a couple of finished trees and others in various stages of work

Thanks for the kind comments. So far I’ve managed to get the bench work built, the track plan transferred to the bench work, and have just finished putting camper tape down for under the cork roadbed.

I have finally settled on a setting for my new layout. I am going to loosely model the Rapid City, Black Hills and Western (RCBH&W) Railroad from Rapid City, SD to Mystic, SD. The RCBH&W followed the rapid creek from Rapid City up into the Black Hills where it connected to the CB&Q at Mystic...

Having decided (with input) that the train elevator is not a good idea. I have decided to focus my layout to be based loosely on the town of Houghton, Michigan and the dock area. I have included a small yard at the dock area where the copper ingots are unloaded off the train and loaded onto...