Car Paint Shop and Tincup Trackwork

Whoa, it's been a week since my last blog post.  Well in that time I've been doing some work on that Microtrains reefer that keeps showing up in all my test photos.  I decided on going with a classic D&RGW/Rio Grande paint job for it, consisting of the "grande gold" sides and brown everything else.

Here it is fresh out of the paint shops.  I've got some decals ready which will be going on it soon.  I also ordered some clear sheets of waterslide decal paper and plan to attempt the first Rio✰Chama decals.

I've also been working on the layout as well (as you'd imagine).

There is a chain of work waiting at the moment....

• Before I extend the mainline any farther I need to install the bolts between sections
• Before I install the section bolts I need to finish painting the backdrop
• Before I paint the backdrop I need to prime the back drop
• Before I prime the backdrop I need to finish installing the lighting so the backdrop isn't' in the dark when I'm working on it
• Before I install the lighting I need to figure out how the electrical for the second half is going to work, and how I can possible have a separate switch for layout lighting.

So needless to say there's a long list of work to be done before the mainline progresses farther.  Because of that my focus has been on getting Tincup up and running.

I finished building up the approach for the turntable.  After this photo everything was sanded down nice and flat (and level).

I added the remaining strips on the spline roadbed for the siding coming into town. 

Lesson:  This is too many strips for spline roadbed.  I should have used plywood here.

Lesson #2:  When you have that much spline, it take some significant effort to machine it down to be level where it meets the plywood.  This was about 30-45 minutes of work with a combination of files and a palm sander.

In any case things are looking good.  Here's a few shots of the track coming into Tincup (right before I started putting the roadbed down).