The End Of The Line

"Hey Gringo...you never finished my hacienda!"
- Peppy

Alas, compadres, the Penoles layout is as done as it will ever be. Thanks to all that furnished comments. There are some minor things that can be tweaked, but overall it is a solid design.

Hopefully one of you seniors will pick it up and build it some day. If you do, please send me pictures to post here and let me know if you need any help.

I'm off to design other railroads. On my docket...

1. Top Secret
2. The B&O Version 2
3. David's Layout

You will be able to see the Blogs for theses soon...except Top Secret may remain that way. Keep up with my other projects on my regular blog:

http://modelrailroadersnotebook.blogspot.com/

So long and happy modeling!

Oh, don't forget to keep track of my layout...
http://swamplayout.blogspot.com/

Thanks! Enjoy!

Finished Track Plan

Finished drawings are listed on the left of the Blog screen. I'm very interested in getting your comments before I call this complete. Thanks! Scottgperry@comcast.net.


Final overall track plan.

Benchwork drawing.


Track and Grade detail.

Structures.

Finished The Track Plan! Ole!

"It is a good thing to finish anything but a bottle."
- Pedro

Alas, Seniors! I have finished the design. She is ready for critique, which basically means that some bozo will tell me that it needs to be built in N scale. No matter, a lot of good ideas come from critiques.

I drew in the El Diablo trestle. This should make for a nice little isolated scene.


The Durango tunnel was changed to tunnel tracks and named.
The compound trestle bridge over Mapimi is now called the Grande Puente (great bridge).

The large suspension bridge is now drawn in, called Puente Colgante.

The electrical blocks for the reversing loop are now marked and noted.

The rest of the structures are now installed at Ojeulo. I've added a cook house, the shacks, the office and the guard house.


The town of Mapimi is now populated with a house for Peppy, the water tower and oil tank, a retaining wall for the steep hill and a fancy adobe engine house. There is also a railroad office.

In East Mapimi we now have the important warehouse, oil distributor, the smelter ored dump with office and Pedro's palace. I've also added the towers for the suspension bridge. Very crowded indeed.
I broke out a separate drawing for the shadow box. It now contains the depot for lime loading, Rose's Cantina, water tower and oil, and homes for the Rojos and Baxters.
Excellent! Now I'll set up the main plans in a separate box on the blog and invite the folks from the LDSIG to take a look. The On30 folks too.

Please post comments or email them to me at scottgperry@comcast.net. Thanks

Not So Quick On The Draw...

"When at first you don't succeed, drown your sorrows in tequila!"
- Pedro

After tremendous outcry from the people, I have been told that I WILL finish the Penoles layout design. They are holding my child as ransom. Ok...you win. I'll keep working on it.


After messing with the swamp layout (http://swamplayout.blogspot.com/) I decided to go clean up the shop. There was my mess from the last adobe building #2. Yuck
I used a glue stick to hold the drawing template to the wood for cutting. It works well with little mess!

You can see here where I cut out the boards for Adobe #2. I then coated them all with Spackle and let them dry. When I came back they were completely warped! Crap! Project two down the drain.
Adobe #1 still is winning, but I don't like it at all. I'm going to try more ideas.

Moth Balls

"You know the smell of moth balls? Say, how did you get their tiny little legs apart?"
- Peppy

It's official. The Penoles Mining Railroad is being moth balled. I like the way its going, but its not meeting the criteria I need for the raffle layout. Also, another group has bid on the raffle layout, so we most likely won't get the chance to build this one.

Oh well....we'll keep it on ice for a while.

Meantime...more work on the Swamp!

http://swamplayout.blogspot.com/

Finish? Shrink? or Discontinue

"The road less traveled should be the one that goes to the Police station."
- Pedro

A puzzlement...

The Penoles Mine layout doesn't meet the raffle layout criteria. She is too big. Too long. Too complicated. Too many scratchbuilt structures. Too bad.

I have some options...

Complete the Penoles and send it in to a magazine to publish for someone else to build.

Shrink it and remove 50% of the structures and make it the raffle layout.

Stop working on it and start something else.


I'll ponder this. You ponder it, too. Post a comment when you can.

Raffle Layout Review

"I like perfection! I even married a perfect idiot!"
- Pedro

We discussed the Penoles layout as a raffle layout tonight at the NCI meeting ( see the swamp blog at http://swamplayout.blogspot.com/ ) and decided it has a few issues.

One, its a bit larger than it should be.
Two, it is a bit complicated to build.
Three, most of the structures have to be scratch built.

HOWEVER...

It has fantastic curb appeal, which sells tickets.

Also, it would look fantastic in Mike's store.

Worst case, it winds up in a magazine.