Covering the helix continues

Covering the helix  was partially done a year ago, but a good amount was still exposed, and that exposed area was the first thing visitors saw when entering the room.

Not a pretty site!

This past week, David James -- readers of this blog are well aware of what he means to the P&LE -- stopped by on his way home to Brecksville, Ohio, from a meeting in Kansas City, and completion of the coverup was started. The first phase is the addition of 3/4" plywood on the end, and then the stacking of the pink insulation foam comes next.

David James building up the foam covering. Yes, there is a helix under there.

Basic foam work complete.

Next steps are to cover the pink foam with Sculptamold, paint, ground cover (dirt, various shades of green, course and fine turf), and trees ... lots and lots of trees. The dirt will come from a woods close by, the turf is a Woodland Scenics product, and the trees are Scenic Express SuperTrees. I'm off to a "dollar" store to purchase bowls, sheet trays, spatula, etc., since I've been warned about pirating such items from the kitchen. Check back in a couple of weeks; the goal is to be complete by then.

Let there be light ...

It's been well over a year since I've posted on this site; not much work has been done on the P≤  what has been done did not lend itself to photography ... or even reporting, for that matter. But, I'm getting back to the railroad and expect to report progress here with some regularity. Here's the first in what is planned to be noteworthy advances.

I have long agonized over how to light the lower level of my two deck railroad. In January this year, an American Flyer modeler named Gary Brandenberger of St. Louis presented a clinic to the Gateway Division monthly meeting regarding the use of LED lights for many modeling applications. One was the use of  LED strip lights. SHAZAM! I thought. Further discussions with Gary led to me purchasing three 10-meter long strips of Daylight White lights by ABI through Ebay and we (primarily David James of Brecksville, Ohio) got them installed this weekend. The three strips, about 32 feet long, were sufficient to light the approximately 100 linear feat of the lower deck. I should note the three strips cost a total of about $90, and took less than two hours to install.

This is the staging yard with the room darkened with the exception of the new strip lights.

The lights come with self-adhesive backing, and although some suggest reinforcing that with a glue of some sort, they seem to be holding well without. My railroad is open grid, built with 2 x 8 sections. The strip lights are attached to the bottom of the 1 x 4s.

The strips are the white light seen in the top third on the photo.

The above photos are with the room lights turned off to better show the lighting provided. The following photo is with the room lights turned on, which will be the normal lighting when running the railroad.

We also hung a couple of helicopters "flying" over Howard Mountain to honor a friend and a grandson, but photos will have to wait until more scenery work is done to the mountain later this week. There's a lot of work to be done on the railroad, but the lighting issue is solved.