Father son project

[TrainNut]

Well, my four year old has shown great competency at operating some of my older N scale equipment on a simple Kato track loop. Butttttt, it was getting a little boring so good ol' dad got this crazy idea to spruce it up a little. We started out with a 2'4" square, heavy duty picture frame that I had laying around in the garage, brought it inside, threw the circle of track on and hooooahhhh, it fit! Off we went from there. After we layed down the inital couple layers of foam and scribbled some roads and a creek on it, he got out all of his Micro Machine cars and played on it like that for hours. Sooo, I figured if that's how it's going to be, we might as well incorporate that feature. It is now Micro Machine friendly. We have nice wide roads, and plenty of garages so each car has a home. While, it will be a little toy like (it's for a four year old), we do plan on finishing it off as realistically as we can. Check it out and check back every so often as I will post all progress pictures in this thread. :thumb:
We look forward to your comments!

 

[TrainNut]

& some more.... On the last one, you can kind of tell that I was trying to imitate a big rock bluff on the top of the hill but I put on too much black and the rocks came out kind of dark. I need to lighten them up a bit.

 

[Soul Embrace]

nice job........spending time him doing this will mean the world to him! also a good way to get him into model railroading.

good job keep up the good work!

 

[shaygetz]

Sweet:thumb: ---the road work looks great.

 

[Ray Marinaccio]

Great job.
My son and I built an N scale layout together years ago. It as a great experience for both of us and a huge step in getting him interested in the hobby.
We still have the layout and still work on it and operate it.
Keep up the good work.

 

[Ralph]

That's terrific!
Ralph

 

[umtrr-author]

What a great story! He'll always remember this.

 

[MasonJar]

Great work! :thumb: :thumb:

Andrew

 

[TrainNut]

Slowly but surely...

Well, we've made a little progress. Pretty much all of the plaster work is finished, the rocks, roads and terrain have all been painted. Now we are starting on some of the finer detail with grass, bushes, trees and creek detail to come next. My son found a diesel horn that he liked and so since it was kind of annoying inside of the tank shell, we took it out and recessed it inside of the mountain... much better. The last picture shows how we left part of the mountain removeable so as to be able to clean the track.

 

[CraigN]

Now that's a father and son project!!

Nice work!

Craig

 

[ezdays]

You of course have him signed up as an N scale member at Adobe Mountain by now...

That's really great, I wish I was into MRR when my kids were little. I had no idea that it would be a great way to bond and be something that we could all learn together. :thumb: :thumb:

 

[eightyeightfan1]

AHHHH......To be a kid again. Running an Amtrack frieght, and too young to hear it from the rivet counters.
Great job..Can't wait to see his next layout.

 

[Cadillac_SD9]

Very cool i wish i could have had that as a kid

 

[TrainNut]

Now we have a little grass and some rocks!

Well, as you can see, we have some grass now and some random rocks. We've been working on the creek bottom and are just about ready to add the resin. We still need a ton more bushes, some trees, and from looking at the pictures, it seems evident that I need to do something with the inside of the tunnel. We also plan on painting the roads a more consistent darker almost black color. The structures have jumped around but some of them have actually been glued down now. As usual, comments and questions are always welcomed!

 

[ezdays]

I love it, first-class cool... Keep going.:thumb: :thumb:

 

[MilesWestern]

my vote is with you for the best pizza layout is, for you. that's splendid!

....hmmm....perhaps we should have a pizza layout contest.... ezdays?

 

[ezdays]

my vote is with you for the best pizza layout is, for you. that's splendid!

....hmmm....perhaps we should have a pizza layout contest.... ezdays?

Hey why not, I love pizza, sausage, mushrooms, pepperoini, lots of cheeze....

announce1 announce1Huh, what's that you say? Oh geeze, not that kind of pizza? What other kind is there???? Sheesh, really???.... Uhhhh ops: ops: ops: ops:

sign1 sign1 sign1 sign1

Oh, OK, I got it straight now. Yeah, sounds like something anyone here can do even those that say they don't have any room for a layout yet. Gotta wait a bit though, we're into two photo contests and a kitbash and a scratchbuilt contest as well. This could be a good project for the holidays.

 

[umtrr-author]

I'm really enjoying your sharing of the progress of this layout!

Keep up the good work...

 

[TrainNut]

Update 7-23-06

It's been a little while but we finally got some more done. The road crew finally got off of their butts and layed the second coat of asphalt and the paint truck came out of the repair shop to lay down some real nice white lines. It rained real hard and suddenly all kinds of trees have popped up as well as lots of water in the creek. There is even a small pond that built up behind a recent rock slide on the slopes just below the rock bluff. Now if the ballasting crew would stop back by and put their finishing touches on the track, we'd be in business! There is still lots more to finish up but I think we can see the light at the end of the tunnel! & since we painted the inside of the tunnel black, it's easier to see the light in the tunnel! We still have to finish up all of the garage entrances, add some more stripes at the intersections and add some street lights. The real challenge has been to create this so that there are big enough corridors so that little hands aren't constantly breaking off trees as the cars careen around the roads.

 

[TrainNut]

& a few more. The creek turned out really neat but I just can't seem to get any good shots of it. something for next time I guess!