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Rehab My Railroad: Episode 3
Melissa is a lucky individual to get mugged this episode. If Chuck gets a “Form C” published, he can spike those turnouts and get rolling. They do it on the real thing too sometimes. It was great of Drew to donate his hair dryer to the cause. Model railroading and food always go together. Thanks to their attention to detail, Cody and David always do great work. Come on out to Arizona, those blue skies are true about 350 days a year.
Why did David replace the cross over switches with the same switches?
I covered my electrical panel with hardboard painted as sky and affixed it with Velcro, an easy removal any time I need to.
Don’t you find that the liquid fire starter leaves a funny taste on the food? A chimney fire starter is the way to go.
I like the part on the turnout replacements they looked great and thank you for the video’s too.
Can’t wait for Episode 4 of Rehab My Railroad! Watching David install those Tortoise (Turtle) switch machines will help me install them on my railroad.
Sorry, should have added this question in:
Chuck, what are your thoughts on soldering your rail joints for better electrical continuity? I know there are many factors, especially environmental such as humidity and temperature. Depending on the situation, warpage and breakage can occur, just like on the real ribbon rail.
This is a great series! You guys are hilarious!! Thanks for the track plan.
HI Chuck, what is your top three favorite industries on your layout?
Great segment folks, fun to watch and a lot of good rehab ideas. A question for Jenny and Ben, how wide should the aisle ways be on model railroad layouts too accommodate film crews 
looks pretty narrow for a camera tripod in there
Thanks for the question Gus
I like to have at least 3’ to 4’ of aisle space, at least that’s what we have to work with on the MR&T. That allows space for camera, lighting, talent, and crew. Ceiling height is a huge factor as well. The more you have the easier the layout is to light.
Picked up some nice tips today. If you take some dried tan/brown clay and work it into the black paint, once it is dry, it will give the blacktop that nice sun weathered look. Over the years Model Railroader has made three movies on model railroading. You should add those to MR video plus.
Another first-rtae video! I need to install a cross over and watching David made me want to go out and start hacking away at the mainline. By the way, another answer to the question about “why is the sky blue” is simply - it looks more pleasant than a gray cloudy sky. Yes, it seems that the sky is often overcast (especially about the time I want to take train pictures) but the blue sky is more pleasing to the eye and it creates a “nicer” environment. This can be important when the majority of US model railroads are built in a basement and viewed under artificial light.
In answer to John’s question from below,
Yes, the replacement turnouts are also Atlas code 100, however, they are newer and built better than the old ones (which had been used before in another layout). I was able to make all of the wiring modifications to the new turnouts at the workbench before Chuck painted them and we installed them on the layout. In the spirit of recycle/reuse, I could probably have made the old turnouts work, and in fact, I cut some footage from the episode where I discussed that option with Chuck - but the old turnouts would have required quite a bit of cleanup to be serviceable again, and I wanted to make sure that we only did this project once!
Thanks for the note, and best wishes on your layout.
David
Hi, this is Neville from PA and UK again.
Unlike Michael with his lucky 350 days of blue skies in Arizona, The north west of England and north Wales probably only had 15 days a year with blue skies all day. Add to this that in midwinter, we were lucky to 6 hours of daylight with probably no sun, and steady rain or a Scorch mist. I do NOT intend to build in a ‘mister’, as used in the produce sections of supermarkets - that would taking realism too far!
I am really enjoying these videos All of you have lots of good information and I ma learning from each of you Trying to build a shelf layout 10’ x 2 ’ and see lots to lookout for when getting started
Thanks
Mike
This is a fun series… Great to see you guys help us work through old technology iand wear issues…
David, why didn’t you cut the track sections staggered?? If I remember you mentioned it in an earlier video you said don’t cut track right across from each other…
Ooooo, fun! Turtle races and watching paint dry.
All kidding aside, this is a most informative series. Not everything is done perfectly on the first hop out of the box. Some time things need to be done over because of unforeseen problems or outright mistakes. Showing how to effect a ‘do over’ to achieve the initial or altered desired end is quite informative.
I will watch to see how you get ‘juice’ to the frog.
Good job.
I am really enjoying this series! I have been working on my own version of the Virginian and have come across issues with the turn outs and will now look at this with a new perspective given this episode. Chuck how did you get started in model railroading?
I really wish the camera work was a lot better showing the areas jumpers go on turnouts. An exacto knife was used to point out where solder goes but the turnout was turned away from the camera completely blocking where the jumpers and solder should go.