BD Kaiserslautern

Moving.......

2009-01-25T11:18:00.003-05:00

No not me, just the blog and website. Turns out that sometime towards the end of December, my website disappeared. It was previously hosted by TimeWarner as part of our Roadrunner account. Not sure exactly what happened but the site is no longer there. Fortunately I did have a back up of the photos and pages on my computer so I could recreate it.

Since I initially developed the website, I've also gained web space courtesy of Apple at me.com. Using that webspace to host my site is much easier, given I use an iMac at home with Apple's software. The tight integration of iPhoto, iWeb and Me.com make it a lot easier to build and update the site. This also includes blogging features.

Sooo, after this post you'll have to travel to my new site and blog for future updates. I've back loaded some of last years posts to the blog as well.

Sorry for the inconvience to those of you linked to this blog, but the time and effort I save using the iWeb and blogging at the new site mean more time for working on the railroad......

New Blog Location: Building BD Kaiserslautern

New Web Site: BundesDirecktion Kaiserslautern

Neuhemsbach comes to life

2008-11-29T20:39:00.010-05:00

With several days off for Thanksgiving, and relatives visiting who can keep an eye on Benjamin, it was time to head to the basement and start some serious scenery work. As you can see in the attached photos, Neuhemsbach is the scene of my most recent work.

Using a foam cutting tool I picked up at the November show, I carved away to make some sloping fields south of Neuhemsbach and just north of it as well. Using scrap foam, cardboard strips and hot glue, I then built some hills to the north of Neuhemsbach and worked on

the road overpass between Neuhemsbach and Enkenbach.

The strips were then covered with plaster wrap to give a nice rolling hill effect. After the plaster had dried, I painted everything with a latex brown paint for the "dirt".

I've also started on some of the buildings. The partially complete structure is Walther's Cornerstone series "Farmer's Co-op Rural Grain Elevator".

I've painted it gray and it looks like a good representation of the Raiffeisen Lagerhaus at Neuhemsbach.

Been awhile

2008-11-29T20:25:00.005-05:00

Sorry it's been awhile since I've posted. Things have been busy and as happens with most blogs, I've fallen behind.

In September, the local ETE group displayed our modules at the NMRA regional convention. Some interest from fellow modelers, but no new members.

Also with the NMRA convention, I assisted the folks at CNYMRRC with one of their operating sessions. Had a lot of fun with that, especially as some of the folks who came to operate, really knew their stuff. After several other meetings with CNYMRRC, I've been voted in a full member. Although they are HO and definitely not European, I enjoy the company of the members and the monthly operating sessions are a lot of fun. I've been able to both run trains over the line and was tapped to be a yard master for 2 sessions.

As the months rolled by, October saw a meeting of the ETE folks here at my house. The layout was operating nicely. I was able to demonstrate the automation enabled by TrainController . We ran some of my trains as well as a few guest runs, including some Dutch coaches and an all sleeper train.

November of course means the Central New York Train Show at the state fairgrounds in Syracuse. The ETE group was there in force with our expanded modular layout, including the debut of the Hauptbahnhof module.

Of course all this on top of work and keeping up with home projects left little time for working on the layout. However, a long holiday weekend gives some opportunity for scenery work - the next post...........

Backdrop Painting

2008-08-11T16:51:00.015-04:00

Have been busy with house projects and Benjamin, but found some time to work on the layout backdrop. After talking with my Mom about mixing colors, went to the local craft shop to pickup a color wheel. While I was there I also picked up a few more acrylics and a book on mixing colors. Fooled around for a few weeks mixing different colors and practicing on some scrap ceiling panels. Finally this past week got enough courage to tackle the "real thing" (although it's easy to fix any mistakes - just paint over it!).

Using the color mixing book as I guide, I found some colors close to the Woodlands Scenic foliage colors I'll be using. According to some on-line articles as well as an acrylic painting book, adding some blue or purple to the color helps to make it look further away. The color wheel also helped with fading colors so they don't catch the eye quite so much.

The main colors I used were permanent light green, phthalocyanine green, and yellow. These were mixed with some cadmium red, purple and sometimes the sky blue latex of the sky. I wrote done the combinations that I liked so I can remix them as the layout grows. If you are painting your own backdrop, experiment with small amounts of color to find mixes that work well for the area you are modeling and the scenery materials you will be using.

Initially I used a dark green to paint the distance hills. Using a pencil, I lightly traced the top of the hills onto the sky painted backdrop. I then brushed on the dark green. Lots of brush stokes showed up as you can seen in the picture.

This is the area south of Enkenbach where the railroad will run under the Autobahn. I thought I might need to put on another coat to cover the brush strokes, but also thought the color variation might help with creating a light and shadow effect so I pushed on.

Using a toned down yellow, I added a few fields on the hills and then moved on to trees.

I mixed up three different colors of green for the trees. Using a flat brush with just a touch of paint, I jabbed the brush onto the backdrop along the ridge line. This gives what I think is a good impression of a distant tree, with some sky showing through the branches. Below the ridge I used a larger brush in the same manner, but with more clumps per tree. After putting on one color, I went back and added the other colors. You should wait for the first color to dry or you risk the colors blending together and creating a new color, rather than distinct patches of each color (different trees).

I have a few more areas to put the final colors on and then it will be done. As I add the foreground scenery, I might also experiment with gluing some foliage directly to the backdrop to represent not so distant trees. It looks ok on the test ceiling tiles, but we'll see.

The other photos show the area around Neuhemsbach. I added a short train pulled by my new V100 to see how it will all pull together.

(Btw - the V100 and coaches will be updated to Era IV with decals in the near future.)

2008-06-20T19:23:00.009-04:00

Worked on a few more things this week, in between taking care of Benjamin :)

One of the turnouts in the Langmeil staging area was given me some trouble. I'm using PECO electrofrog turnouts. These rely on the point rail making good contact with the stock rail to carry the current through the frog. Occasionally this doesn't work like it should and trains will stall on the switch. The fix was to solder a wire to the closure rail. This was then attached to the power bus through an Atlas snap switch. The snap switch is hooked to the same DS64 as the turnout so the correct polarity current is routed to the frog. Not a difficult fix, but I could see where this could be a problem with a hard to reach turnout. Will keep that in mind and be proactive and wire all the turnouts in the Kaiserslautern staging yard in advance - just to be safe.

Also been spending time on the computer with paperwork and operations stuff. Previously I posted about timetables based on ideas from FREMO and Werner Falkenbach's website on Schmalspurbahnen. Using these ideas I've worked up some station information sheets (based on the FREMO standard) and some car cards for freight switching.

I've also been interested in freight switching and over the years have played with many different systems including switch lists, car cards, and computerized options. I've decided on using car cards based on those shown on Werner Falkenbach's site, but modified slightly. At first I was looking at the Fremo style cards with waybills, but decided that N scale was just to small for reading reporting marks, especially if I weather cars. There is also a lot of information on the standard Fremo card that doesn't apply to N scale and isn't needed on a home layout. By having a card that only identifies the car type, and car of the type in the train can be used making switching a little easier as well. The cards are in German to keep a touch of authenticity. I added a picture of the car type to the card. I'd like to be able to operate with friends and family and not everyone will be familiar with the standard Wagengattung letters. The cards are laid out in Excel and formated so each one fits on a standard business card. I printed them out using Avery's business card stock. You can see some examples here.

I did adopt the station information sheets (Bahnhofdatenblatt) from Fremo practices. These provide a nice overview of each station, the switch and track numbering, and where the various industries are located. Having reviewed a bunch of these, I was also able to get some good information on the various loads each industry would receive and ship as well as the type of freight cars used. This help a lot in completing the car cards. An example of Enkenbach is here.

Backdrop

2008-06-12T18:27:00.008-04:00

Well with the track down and wired, it's time to move on to scenery. This is my favorite part of model railroading as it brings everything to life! I have a vision of how things should look, hopefully it well work out that way.

First step is to get a backdrop up so the layout looks like it is only a slice of the world we are seeing. The closest I've ever gotten to doing a backdrop before was placing some MZZ cutouts on blue poster board back when I was building a shelf layout (just out of college.) With this a more permanent layout, I wanted a better looking backdrop.

I actually started on this before starting any benchwork. Just before putting up the benchwork I taped the drywall seems and sanded them to make a smooth surface along the entire area the benchwork for phase 1 would go. I then painted the wall from the benchwork height to the ceiling with a blue paint (Valspar brand, color: Skywriter, flat - from the local Lowes.) This was put on with a roller and seemed to have lots of streaks, but dried without any. Afterwards, I've read several articles on painting backdrops and the recommend using both a white color and the blue and blending them so that the color closer to the benchwork is fainter and thus looks farther away. You can see this if you look at the sky outside, it's whiter and fainter towards the horizon.

Having done that prep work ahead of time, this week I started on the rest of the backdrop. Over the last few months I've been reading articles in my collection of Model Railroader magazines to get a feel for what needed to be done. I also called on my local artist expert for some advice. My mom has been painting and drawing since she was in school and so it was natural for me to turn to her for advice. From talking to her and reading in MR, it seemed the the easiest paints to use would be acrylics. Mom gave me a link to order from (Cheap Joe's Art Stuff) and ideas on the colors to get (white, black, ultramarine blue, some greens, burnt sienna, burnt umber, and a gold for fields). I purchased the Liquitex basics brand as they came in tubes and were fairly inexpensive. I went for the 8 oz tubes since I'll be painting a lot before the layouts finished.

So on to painting clouds. Having spent several weeks looking a clouds, reading Scenery Step by Step article in the latest (June 2008) issue of MR on painting clouds, I was ready to jump in. First I praticed a painting a few on a spare 1'x1' ceiling tile I had laying around. Having gained confidence (and Mom's approval), I jumped into the "real" thing today. Using white, ultramarine, and black I painted some clouds behind Neuhemsbach and over the autobahn scene (south of Enkenbach.) I also used a wide brush to paint some white on the backdrop and then a clean wash cloth to smear it almost off to give the effect of thin clouds. It helps to have a few photos around for reference.

I'm not sure what I think so far, but with acrylics I can paint over and try again if I don't like it. Let me know what you think!

Passing Time

2008-06-04T17:02:00.011-04:00

Been quite awhile since I posted any updates. Not much more has been done on the layout. My time has been focused on preparing for other events - my first born arrived on May 29th!

Time with the layout has been in short spurts. I've been playing with schedules in TrainController and learning more about the vast possibilities it offers for controlling the layout. Installed a few more ceiling tiles to protect the layout from dust and dirt from above. Sketched up some scenery ideas and purchased a few kits for buildings. Also just some general running of trains.

The current planned projects are to work on painting the backdrop, scenery for the Autobahn area between Enkenbach and Hochspeyer, and work on building kits (Heger und Müller Eisenwerk, the Raiffeisen lagerhaus in Neuhemsbach).

I'll try and get some updates on these in the next few days as time allows. First will probably be the backdrop painting which my Mom is helping with (she is an accomplished artist).

A Milepost

2008-03-17T20:54:00.005-04:00

or should that be kilometer post? Either way it marks an accomplishment. Was busy laying more track over the past few weeks, especially this weekend. And finally this evening the last section of the mainline for KBS 650 is complete! A solid line of rail now runs from Kaiserlautern staging, into Enkenbach, onto Neuhemsbach and into and back out of Langmeil staging.

For now it is just the mainline, the spurs and passing siding in Neuhembach are just cleared roadbed and only 1 of the planned 4 staging tracks in Langmeil, but just a soon as I can connect up the track feeder wires I can really let the trains run!

Have sketched a few more scenery ideas onto the foam. Even broke down and bought some Woodland Scenics poplar trees so I can figure out how to build my own.

If I can get things wired up ok by this weekend, I'll try and post some pictures and maybe a video as well.

Oh yeah - Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

2008-02-28T21:30:00.002-05:00

Just a quick follow-up on my last post. Contacted Digitrax about possible repairs to the DS-64s and they said to send them back to see if they could be repaired. As the repair cost is only $20.00 each, I figured it was worth a try.....

Well Digitrax couldn't repair them, but since they were still under warranty (I sent a copy of the receipt with them), Digitrax replaced all 3 units..... for FREE!

Kudos to Digitrax for excellent customer service. The units should be back in operation this weekend - with the correct connections for AC power this time!

DC vs AC = Poooof

2008-02-12T18:43:00.000-05:00

Well they say sometimes you have to learn things the hard way!

Jennie was off to Cleveland for the weekend courtesy of a Continental Airlines travel special ($99 round trip), so a whole weekend to work on the layout. Time to move on to laying track for Neuhemsbach.

But first let's wire up the rest of the switches for Enkenbach to their DS 64 controllers. Knowing that I will have a lot of these and the power supply I had wired up to this point only puts out 1500 milliamps, I purchased a 5 amp power supply to wire into the bus supplying power to the DS 64s. No problem, cut the bus line, wire in a terminal block and then attach the new power supply - a quick 5 minute job. Turn on the power and....

Now as a European modeler you would think things like the difference between DC power and AC power would be something I would notice right away. Ok maybe working in N scale give me an excuse, but still. There are three different places you can supply power to a DS 64. Using the modular power plug, to the track A and B terminals, or to the AUX 1 and AUX 2 terminals. I had wired mine via the AUX 1 and AUX 2 terminals, to the accessory bus (black and blue wires). Ok so far. Except that the old power supply was 12-15 volts DC and the new power supply was 15 VAC........

Snap, crackle, pop and what is that smell!!!! Oh no, quickly turn off the power. Yep, three fried DS 64s. Stream of not so nice words and frantically look at the DS 64 instructions again. Seems there are two places that you can feed AC or DC power and 1 place that will only take DC power. You guessed - AUX 1 and AUX 2 are for DC power only!

Tried hooking the old DC power supply back up but no go. No nice green power light, nothing at all when I try to switch the turnouts. :(

Quick email to Digitrax Tech support and the verdict is...... send them in for repair. Might be covered by warranty, might cost me $20 each to fix. Well at least that's cheaper than all new ones.

Really killed the mood for anymore railroading on Saturday. By Sunday I did venture back in and laid the foam base for the rest of the layout to Langmeil and some roadbed through Neuhemsbach. Even laid the flex track up to the first switch in Neuhemsbach. Sketched a few scenery ideas onto the foam and called it a weekend.

Enkenbach

2008-01-23T21:35:00.001-05:00

Well the holidays were busy with the usual family stuff but still managed to get some work done on the layout. Got some scenery stuff and some tools for Christmas. Have been laying track in Enkenbach and playing with TrainController mostly. Only 3 switches left and all the track in Enkenbach will have been laid and wired up. Still need to hook up about 1/2 the switches to their respective DS64s. Also played around with the Viessmann signals. Was able to drill a mounting hole in the foam using a forstner bit and hand twisting it to keep from tearing up the foam. Had some trouble with the Viessmann decoders so in frustration hooked one of the form signals up to a DS64 and it work great. This will give me more flexibility as each output of the DS64 can be given it's own address rather than having to be sequential like with the Viessmann decoders.

No photos today, but a brief attempt at a video. The TEE train arrives in Enkenbach from Kaiserslautern and the exit signal changes to let the Eilzug to Hochspeyer depart. Sorry about the focus, need to play with the video camera a little more!

Running Trains

2007-11-25T17:12:00.000-05:00

Had family over for the Thanksgiving holiday and my nephew Conor was anxious to see "Uncle Tommy's Trains". Did managed to get temporay wiring up for the staging loops, so were able to get some trains running! This first "operating session" was not much but we did have fun. We ran a BR 50 with two silverfish coaches and a BR 103 with three TEE coaches. We were only able to run them from staging into Enkenbach and then reverse out back to staging, but everything ran smoothly for the most part. With Conor running the throttle, I forgot to make sure the switches were always aligned so we had a collision with the TEE running into the rear of the silver fish and a ran through a few misaligned switches putting cars on the ground. By the end communications were better and things were running well. Unfortunately, in the excitement of it all forgot to get pictures :(

Conor requested that I have more track laid by their next visit so we could really run trains. Using that as an excuse, I went to work on Friday and Saturday finishing the switches for the south end of Enkenbach. The only thing left on that end is the siding for the Gesellschaft. Ran a few trains into Enkenbach to check track lengths etc and played around laying out the switches for the north end of town. Since I needed more space between tracks for signals then was planned for, the switching complexes also take up a little more room. The end result is Enkenbach being slightly longer than planned which will move Neuhemsbach down and possibly make the space needed for Langmeil to tight - we'll see what creative ideas I can come up with.

Photos of the south end of Enkenbach:

Books and Signals

2007-11-16T22:11:00.000-05:00

Picked up a new book on railroads in the Pfalz from a message I saw posted on Drescheibe online . The book is "Von der Ludwigsbahn zum Integralen Taktfahrplan - 160 Jahre Eisenbahnverkehr in der Pfalz" by Fritz Engbarth and put out by Zweckverband SPNV Rheinland-Pfalz Süd. I emailed them about sending cash to purchase it since at 10 Euro's the fees for a bank transfer (about $40 US) makes such a purchase unreasonable. To my surprise they wrote back and said that after considering it, they decided to just send me a copy for free! The book is about 6"x 9" in size, but has 127 pages. It is chock full of photos (both black and white) from the 1890's to present day. Included are many photos of Enkenbach, Hochspeyer, Weidenthal and Neustadt - a wonderful reference for my modeling.

Also finally got my order from Reynauld's that was placed back in August. All the semaphore signals from Viessmann that I ordered and the digital controllers came. This should be enough signals for the south end of Enkenbach. Along with the long delay in delivery was another shock - a significant increase in the price as the dollar has dropped substantially since August when this was budgeted. Given the poor communication with me about the order, the significant delivery delay and the increased costs, I think all my future purchases will be from German vendors (most likely LokShop).

No photos today, but have finished laying all the track for the staging loop. Ran a BR103 and some passenger cars to test and had to "adjust" one of the Atlas switches to put it in gauge and stop the derailments on the diverging route. Wiring is just temporary - still need to put in the detection module and DS64 controller for the switches. Hopefully can run trains for guests on Thanksgiving. Who knows, if I keep at this rate might have to have the ETE folks over in January to see the completed phase I track work!

Train Show, Tracks and Wiring

2007-11-11T12:05:00.001-05:00

Well the train show last weekend went off well. We (ETE-CNY) wound up in the same spot as last years, but with the modular layout it felt a bit cramped. Hopefully next year we can get more room. The layout it self was a hit. The modules ran the mix from well detailed to bare bones, but the trains were able to run. Ran solid both days with a mixture of mostly German stock from Era III and IV. Unfortunately Peter's DR Diesel unit overheated and melted the front journal box! Charlie has a small loop of Thomas stuff that drew in the kids, and Peter's excellent card buildings were a hit with other modelers.

With the train show over I can get down to some serious work on the layout (hopefully!). Laid a bit more track, starting with "Kaiserslautern" temporary staging. Roadbed is down, switches laid out and wiring planned. The approach tracks are down and should be able to finish today or tomorrow (long weekend for Veterans Day).

Also been working on the wiring. Built a small shelf under the staging to hold the digitrax command station (I will also be able to put a short programing track near the staging so this is a good location). Hooked up the wiring and ran a loconet cable out to a newly installed UP-5 access point for Enkenbach. Printed up a new customized faceplate for the UP-5. The throttle pocket is from MicroMark - Jen got me a bunch or them for my birthday.

Wiring, automation and general putzing

2007-10-24T21:08:00.000-04:00

Well a little more progress as the module for the train show is finished (ok acceptable for now, I'll keep adding more details). Took Monday off work this week as a birthday present to me and spent some time on the layout.

Wired up the BDL168 detector board. This was not as difficult as I was expecting. You first have to solder wires to the 44 pin header. I ran these wires to terminal strips and attached the whole thing to a piece of 1/4" plywood. This was attached under the layout with a hinge so it's easy to work on, but can fold up out of the way when not needed. Attached feeders from the few sections of track laid and powered up the detector section. Only had 1 set of feeders miswired and that was quickly fixed. The detector sections checked out ok with digitrax's little testing device, so I hooked up the computer and fired up TrainController (TC). Sure enough the connections worked. Put my BR 103 on the tracks, played around with TC and in no time had the engine shuttling back and forth automatically under computer control - this is definitely going to be great when more of the layout is running.

Also played around with track layout for temporary staging. I'm going to hook up the two lines leaving Enkenbach (for Kaiserslautern and Hochspeyer) with a return loop and 3 staging tracks. This will fit fine on a 4ft x 3 ft module that I can move around as the layout grows. With push-pull trains and the railcars, 3 staging sections should support the operations on KBS 650 just fine.

Hopefully I can get some more track layed and wired this week and weekend. Jennie's folks are coming up to visit and my nephew Conor will also be in town for the train show. I'd like to be able to run some trains for them when they visit. If I do get some done, I'll try get some pics uploaded.

Operations and paperwork

2007-10-13T16:47:00.000-04:00

One aspect of model railroading I've always been interested in is operations. Every since reading Bruce Chubb's "How to OPERATE your model railroad" in high school, I've been fascinated with creating time tables and waybills for my model layouts. BD Kaiserslautern is no exception. Having several actual DB timetables has help me create a few for the layout. I've also gotten good ideas on operations from the FREMO site and more recently ideas from Werner Falkenbach's website on Schmalspurbahnen (especially the section Fahrbetrieb).

One advantage of creating paperwork and timetables is I don't have to be at the layout to work on trains! Working on timetables or train compositions during lunch makes a nice break from work.
Most of the work is still in progress and pretty rough at this point. But feel free to take a look at my most recent timetable and the Bahnhofsordnung for Enkenbach (they are in PDF form)

As always comments are welcome, so if you notice anything that can be done better (or more accurate) please let me know.

Other projects

2007-10-02T22:19:00.001-04:00

More layout progress has been on temporary hold as I've been working on my module for the CNY-ETE layout. We will be showing this publicly for the first time at the Central New York Model Train Fair on November 3-4th, so my modeling time has been spent getting things ready. We had a trial run this past Saturday and were able to get everything hooked up and trains running! Scenery and detail work still have some ways to go. If you are in the area, please stop by the show and say hi!

A few photos to share the work.

2007-08-19T07:31:00.000-04:00

Slowly been laying more track. Took last weekend (8/11-12) off to travel to EuroEast in Penn. for some inspiration. Saw some nice HO modules (Märklin based) and attended a few talks. Overall had mixed feelings, was hoping for a little more.

No pictures today, but some progress. Over last week have put down both approach tracks to Enkenbach, and the first 4 switches. All four switches had the Peco motors installed and wired to the DS64 decoder. Ran bus wire for the track (black and red) and power for the DS64s (blue and black) - this also provides power to throw the switches. Temporarily hooked up the DCS 100 command station and tested the switches - the all worked fine on the first try! Ran a temp hook up for track power and and successfully ran my BR 103 over the newly laid track.

Since things were going so well, grabbed the laptop and the Locobuffer interface and plugged it into the DCS 100 to give Train Controller a spin - and that also worked on the first try! Definitely got the excitement level up.

Also been planing some train consists for when the layout is operational. During my lunch breaks I've been working through my copy of MIBAs Zugbilding (4). This gives lots of examples of trains consists and explains how to read (and gives examples of) the DBs zugbildungsplan. Several of the examples are even trains from 1973-74 running over the routes I'm modeling.

Should be able to lay a little more track today and maybe some photos.

Track laying

2007-07-31T19:17:00.000-04:00

Started laying out the track plan and roadbed for Enkenbach.

First step was laying track center lines. I laid out the curves using a variation on the "bent stick" method. I used a fish tape (usually used in house wiring) as it gives a long thin metal piece. I anchored the ends with T pins and let it find a natural curve between points. This should give a good easement into and out of the curves.

Once the approach curves were drawn I put down the foam roadbed. I'm using Woodland Scenics foam roadbed and attaching it with foamboard adhesive. A single bead of adhesive along the track center line and then spread it thin with a either a putty knife or a Pampered Chef nylon pan scraper (these are about 2 1/2 inches square with a nice beveled edge and are great for spreading glue). The adhesive is tacky enough I didn't need pins to hold the roadbed in place, but still has plenty of working time to adjust if needed.

Curves from Enkenbach to Altenhof tunnel in front
and to Kaiserslautern (hidden staging) in back

After the curves were in place, I layed out some of the switch work using the Peco switches. It was at this point I realized I had moved everything 6 inches further "north" than the plans. Looking it over, I decided I would need the extra room for scenery between Enkenbach and the Altenhof tunnel so I've left it. If you look at the photo's you might also notice that Enkenbach is different from the original plan by being angled in relation to the aisle. I like that effect as well.

Adjusting the switches and measuring between the parallel tracks to make sure there is clearance for both platforms and signals. Also shifted a few switches slightly to avoid having them directly over benchwork cross beams so I'll be able to access the Peco switch machines from below. The foam roadbed was then laid along tracks 1,2,3,4 and 5.

A few photos along the edge for inspiration and things are slowly moving along........

Overview of the southern end of Enkenbach. The
photos along the front edge are of the real Enkenbach
for inspiration.

Closeup of Enkenbach. Gleis 1-5 from right to
left

Benchwork and Sky

2007-06-19T20:45:00.000-04:00

Plan for now is to have Enkenbach be phase I of the construction. I might go all the way to Neuhemsbach with KBS 650, not sure. Temporary return loops in place of Hochspeyer and Langmeil should let me get some trains running sooner rather than later.

As of now, I have the benchwork in place for Enkenbach. This is Sievers benchwork. Very easy to put together and good quality lumber. It rests on a 1x4s screwed into the wall joists on the back side and legs made of 2 1x4's about every 8 feet on the front. On top of this I'm using 2 inch foam as the scenery base/subroadbed.

Painted the backdrop tonight. The color is "Skywriter" from the Valspar brand at Lowe's. I like this light blue the best of all the chips I looked at. You can also see some of the light valances I'm installing as well. These are of 1/4" plywood painted flat black on the aisle side and ceiling white on the layout side. Hopefully this will keep the focus on the layout.

Future site of Enkenbach

View from room entrance

Closer look at Enkenbach site

Room Wiring done - on to benchwork

2007-06-08T20:58:00.000-04:00

The contractors finished wiring up the lights, much nicer to work now! There are two circuits, one for the lights and one for the outlets, each with a switch by the door. After it all was done found one minor problem. Purchased daylight fluorescent bulbs for the fixtures, but cannot locate them for the 36" lights, only the 24" and 48" ones. Will have to use trial and error to see which of the 36" bulbs will come the closest for color matching. Hopefully it won't be a major difference.

Started putting up some ceiling tiles. Most will have to be trimmed to fit so it will be a lot of cutting (damn heating runs). Also taped and finished some joints along the wall where the backdrop will be painted. And finally assembled some of the benchwork and trial fit a few pieces.

Lights up

2007-05-20T14:48:00.000-04:00

Well despite a cold this weekend, managed to get the rest of the lights up where I want them. The contract is signed for the electrician, I need to call tomorrow to let them know everything is a go. Hopefully they will be able to wire things up this week.... so next weekend, benchwork and ceiling planing.....

Light over Ludwigshafen Bw. This is the only part of either room that had a finished ceiling. You can also see some more of the heating ducts that have made planning challenging...

Track arrives

2007-05-11T21:19:00.000-04:00

Got estimates to do the wiring for the lights and power in the train room. Will sign the contract on Monday. Now just have to hang the rest of the lights! Will do some more of that tomorrow.

Also, all the track and digitrax equipment for Enkenbach has arrived. Doesn't look like much, but here it is all on the top shelf.

Construction Begins

2007-05-03T18:27:00.000-04:00

Construction is finally beginning. Trainmen only and Kaiserslautern Bw signs are on the door.

Lots of prep work needs to be done before any benchwork or track can be started.

First project is getting the lighting up. Once I get all the fixtures in place, the electrician will come and hookup everything up to the new circuits.

After the lighting, I can put up some ceiling to hide the ventilation ducts and keep the dust from upstairs off the layout.

Just a few shots to show how things are at this stage. Doesn’t look much like the Pfalzerwald!

Entrance to the train area

Door between the two rooms has been removed.
Still need to take down that short wall to the right of the door
otherwise Neuhemsbach will be split in two!

The “back room” where most of the layout will be.
The short module on the wall was for testing out layout heights.
That is where the Kaiserslautern/Mannheim staging will be.
The track in the foreground is my CNY-ETE bendtrack module under construction.

The rest of the back room. The board on the wall to the right is where Enkenbach will be.

The lighting is going up over Enkenbach. These are single bulb fluorescents,
there isn't enough room height for track lighting and these should generate less
heat. A valance will keep the light on the layout and not in the aisles (hopefully).