Definitely looks cozy and comfy.

Layout looks very good.

Here are some 'fly over' shots of the "canyon country" part of the railroad. That brings me to an interesting comment made by a dear friend whos' background and education is engineering; he said and I quote, "KYLE, actually this is NOT a 'MODEL' railroad; because it does not recreate nor replicate any actual railroad either now nor from the past. Ergo, it is in actuality a MINIATURE RAILROAD in every sense; using models of prototype equipment." So friends, that being said, and given his knowledge and expertise, I wholeheartedly agree. SOOOOOO, from now on and henceforth I shall refer to the BCRR as a miniature railroad. And now I shall have another BEER, and toast the BLACKROCK CANYON MINIATURE RAILROAD........


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OK, here are a couple of shots taken by my buddy Mark W/his smartphone. The first was taken while we were running a couple of trains after the first layer of black wash added to all the 'drainage' spots and areas that would be 'wet'. Hope it shows up. The second one was just a cool shot of the Blackrock freight run headed back up to Blackrock,

The next step will be the first few bits of high lighting the canyon wall's surfaces.

I'll try to get a few shots of that process also.

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Here is just the canyon after the black washes.

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You have some really dramatic mountain scenery!

Thanx Tyson, that's so appreciated. Sometimes I'm working away at this thing and don't realize that someone else only sees it in pictures, and only once in a while. So this is what the canyon looks like so far; looking in from about 3 feet off the floor; and from 7 feet up looking straight down

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I don't know why the middle picture came out so big; I sized the same as the others??????? OH WELL hope ya'll like 'em. Awhile back some one visiting said to his buddy as they were watching the trains run, "this is so publishable; someone should shoot it and submit it". I don't know anything about that stuff and never even considered it to be in that class. I guess maybe someday someone in that field might think it worthy, but as long as it's fun I'm good.

Keep having fun Kyle.

Looks great.

Looking good, Kyle. I think your middle picture is larger because it's vertical format; you shrank its small dimension where you shrank the others' large dimension.

Thanks James, I've gone back and resized the resized photo as per your kind instructions and "presto" we have what I wanted in the first place! Thanx again so much; I know so little about computers, any and all help is always welcome.

Wow it's November! Well the other day I was running the trains and enjoying how smoothly they travel around the layout from one end to the other; back and forth from Grizzly to Ft. Compton and thought to myself "man those KATO turnouts sure worked out great, no muss no fuss, just smooth spring loaded performance." Then I realized that that might be something worth posting; how I modified the KATO turnouts to look as much like the rest of the trackwork as possible without messing up the smooth spring action of the turnout. Well here's what I did...I added grade crossing planks to one of them and positioned it in the grade crossing at beginning of the reversing loop;.....On the next turnout I 'ground down' some of the ties(leave the first tie, grind down the next 2, leave the next one, grind down 2, etc. etc. etc.) and then carefully paint the turnout to match the ballast on the railroad, and simply paint in one tie in the areas where two were removed. This will give you the correct spacing. If the turnout is RIGHT OUT FRONT AND CENTER like one I have in a particularly noticeable spot, You can go back and add paper thin strips of wood cut to fit the tops of the ties that you painted in. This might seem like a lot of 'work' just to make things "look right"; but when I was finished and realized how smoothly the the turnouts and auto reversing units worked, and how well the turnouts looked and blended in I was glad I invested the effort and time...... Whadda ya think?

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Great layout sir!

Philip

:up:

It’s a wonderful thing when turnouts work like like they are supposed to. And they do look good.

Mike

Thanx Phillip,

Thanx Tyson,

Thanx Michael,

I've been busy with 'around the house' stuff and haven't checked in. It's really great when someone offers a critique, comment, or suggestion. The KATO automatic turnouts came out really well and enabled me and Mark to have options when "playing with the trains". The railroad was designed to be both operational, and continuous. Although I don't have any type of set protocols for operating the railroad, I do enjoy making up trains at Blackrock and Grizzly; then hauling the consists to their stops, and picking up what's there and transferring it to wherever it's supposed to go. No paperwork or other type of system is used for any type of car assignments, that's too much like having a JOB for my taste; after all I am retired. But, I also really enjoy just watching a train run from Grizzly, across the layout to Ft. Compton and back via automatic reversing loops which takes about 5 to 7 minutes. This is what we'll do once we can have an 'open house' again. So once again thanx for stopping by ...