Scattered Thoughts . . .

W hile Lukey and Kenzie were spending the week with us, Lukey got in plenty of time running trains on the garden railroad...  the Kenzington Gardens Railroad.  As I've mentioned in previous blog entries about this little garden railroad, we control the trains via Bluetooth and the power is supplied by a battery in each train.  There is no need for power in the rails which makes things far easier. It can get a bit complicated running multiple trains at once by yourself but Lukey is now able to control two trains at the same time using his iPhone.  And, he was even shooting photos while running both trains at one point! I don't know if I've ever shared a photo showing the entire garden railroad so I shot one photo showing almost all of it (below).  The only thing missing in the photo is the curve on the right side of the frame that brings the trains back around the bend to the train station on the front side of the garden railroad.  This is very small for a b...

I accomplished a bit more work on the bridge yesterday and then shot a few photos. I decided to add an on-off switch for the grade crossing signals rather than using the on-off switch on the battery packs.  Adding this on-off switch provides far easier access.  Actually, I decided to do the same for the street lamps also.  In this photo, below, you can see the new weather-proof push button switch for the grade crossing signals (the black button next to the big red button).  The red button is used to activate the grade crossing signals...  push and hold to activate... I installed both grade crossing signals.  Routing the wiring was a bit difficult for this front signal though.  It required a few holes and a 12" long drill bit! The street lamps are in place temporarily to see how they will look.  I think they'll work just fine where they are placed in this photo.  The bulbs and the tops of the lamps are not installed yet.  This was just t...

I managed to "pave" the new girder bridge on our little garden railroad and it is looking pretty good! I did one small section at a time.  First, I applied a rather thin coat (but not too thin) of waterproof exterior construction adhesive on a small section of the roadway.  I applied the adhesive thick enough to completely obscure the wood base.  Then I sprinkled fine sand over the adhesive.  Then I carefully pat the sand down with my hand...  then carefully and lightly brushed the sand until it was even...  then again carefully pat it down with my hand.  Then I would move on to the next section.   The idea of using the waterproof exterior construction adhesive was two-fold...  First, I wanted to make sure the sand would stay in place in widely varying weather conditions.  Next, I wanted the adhesive to act as a sort of sealing coat protecting the wood underneath.   Here is a photo looking straight down the roadway and acr...