Prototype scenery

I took this picture early this morning of a norwegian class 69 railcar set on it's way from Arendal to Rise on the Arendal line. The picture was taken just some hundred meters from the station Rise where the Grimstad Line ended, and it shows the kind of scenery I will try to replicate on my layout.

More mountain work

After the foam had dried thoroughly over night, it was very easy (and fun) to start making the basic shape of the hill.

Then I added more foam to the top of the hill.

And for fun, I had to test fit one of the two wonderful small signals for Rykene. They are scratchbuilt for me by modeling friend Jon Einar Vistad.

A foam mountain

For my basic scenery I'm trying out a new technique with styrofoam covered with insulation foam. This stuff expands to 3 times it's initial size when it's dry. After it's dry I'll cut away the excess and add rock castings.

Scenery test

I've laid out some styrofoam sheets to get an idea how things will look when entering the layout room. I have to try to figure out a way to visually seperate the two lines going very close to eachother here to avoid it feeling like the same place. It doesn't look right like the way it is now I think...

A water spout for Grimstad

Today I've built a water spout for Grimstad. It's from a kit I sell in my model railroad shop; www.togbutikken.no. Well actually it's not really available yet, but it'll be ready very soon.

Grimstad didn't have a water tower, so this water spout is the only means to refill water for the steam locomotives. The prototype picture is from another station in Norway; Hønefoss. As you see there are still a few details missing, and I also need to get the correct decals for the signs on the top of the thing. The chain is from Weinert.

Finally some scenery!

After scrapping the old Grimstad modules, I have no scenery at all on the Grimstad Line. So today I started adding some cuts and rock faces on the end of the peninsula which is the place you'll first see when you enter my train room. I use plaster castings combined with plaster cloth bought from the local pharmacy. Much cheaper than the Woodland Scenics one :)

The first Fremo-meet!

This weekend my local model railroad club; AMJK (Arendal Modelljernbaneklubb) held our annual meeting in Arendal, and Grimstad was a part of the large layout! Here are a few pictures.

Here's a Skd206 on the module i built to place outside of Grimstad. This module is only used for meets and also has the entrance signal for Grimstad.

Grimstad in action for the first time! Everything went smoothly with no technical problems whatsoever!
The first station master; Morten Jacobsen

Svein Rasmussen controlling the station.

Overview of a part of the layout.

Turntable

The Fleischmann-turntable from the old Grimstad has now been moved to the new. This'll have to do until I can find the guts to make my own.

Grimstad operational!

After a couple of weeks of boring and tedious work with wiring and stuff, I could finally run the first train on the newly built Grimstad station module. And everything seems to work like it should - strangely enough...

Controlled chaos. I've never done the wiring on a module all by myself, and I was surprised to experience how much work it really is.

Every single length of tracks has it's own set of wires to ensure maximum reliability. Rail joiners have a tendency to stop working after a couple of years, but now this shouldn't be a problem.

Yours truly driving the first test-train :)

I still have to install the turntable and the track leading to it. That will be tonight's task.

Wiring

Every single piece of track gets it's own wire to erradicate problems with railjoiners that doesn't conduct properly after a while.

An easy and simple way to connect all the wires is to use a piece of track. An old piece of code100 flextrack does the trick. Looks neat too :)