Bernhards Random Ramblings BACKUP

[ Emsingen posts ] Between Halloween "trick or treats" the freight shed gained lights. I installed one light above each freight door, which provides enough light for the respective ramps, too. Peek-a-boo from the forest to the station. "It was a dark and stormy night ..." Almost ready to install the segment on the layout again.

[ Emsingen posts ] I closed up the Emsingen station building today and installed the wiring for the street lights. Here's what the segment looks like at night. Next up: Lights for the freight shed, the outbuilding, and the office. I'll add some missing details and then move on to another piece of the puzzle.

Pascal didn't want to carve a traditional pumpkin and rather do something non-traditional. So he went for the emoji route. I think it turned out great!

[ Emsingen posts ] Between the cake adventures and other commitments --- like errrm, spending time with your kids ---I'm making very slow progress on the lights at Emsingen station. I used LEDcalc to figure out arrangement and proper resistor value for the Miniatronics N scale 1.5V bulbs with shades. I decided on 1.2V voltage drop across each light, at 30mA current, and 12V DC power supply voltage. With two strings of 3 lights in series this worked out to a 330Ohm resistor. The lights are a bit dim, and might look better with a 220Ohm resistor since 1.2V drop on a 1.5V bulb is really not that bright. However, this will work as a nice contrast with the modern lights on the street side of the station. I made a power distribution bar and will mount it inside the building so that it can be accessed easily, but is still hidden away. The Faller bulbs are rated 16V, but I run them with 12V to get a nice warm light for the detailed interiors and shining through the fake curtain paper ma...

Again, using a recipe from a cookbook, I made an apple cake. Slowly getting the hang of it. The kids complained about the raisins, but I liked them.

I asked Pascal yesterday what he'd like to eat for dinner today - "Anything but pasta." Hmmm, ok. Can you make it challenge? - "I want garlic prawns from the grill, and Baguette with garlic butter." Well, it's raining today, so I made garlic jumbo shrimps in the oven instead of on the grill. Both kids were happy with their dinner option today. "I should have made it harder."

Yes, it's a simple chocolate chip cake. But hey, it's only Wednesday.

[ Emsingen posts ] The Busch 4196 wall-mounted "Koffer" lamps are beautiful models of a standard street lamp design. The LED lights require current limiting resistors and Busch chose to use standard resistors soldered on the end of the magnet wire leads. Why they didn't use SMD resistors next to the LED is a mystery to me. Without thinking too much I drilled a hole in the wall of Emsingen station, that is big enough for the bulky resistor package to pass through. However, now there is not enough wall space left to securely mount the lamp over the opening. Arrrrgh! For the second lamp I'll cut the resistors off, drill only a tiny hole, and solder the resistors back on when the lamp is mounted properly.

The morning sun can work its magic to make even ugly buildings I despise look interesting. Metcalf Power Station in south San Jose. I'm still miffed that out of the dozen or so projects Calpine had planned 15 years ago, the one that got built before they went bankrupt was in our neighborhood. At least it's a gas fired plant.

[ Emsingen posts ] With basic weathering completed, I have started working on the street lights at Emsingen station.

Time for our family tradition to take photos of pumpkins and kids. Spina Farms is busy today, but thankfully most folks are in line for the various rides and attractions so we found a nice corner without crowds pretty easily.

I took a break from model railroading activities today, played taxi driver for most of the morning, and decided to try and make another  cake (or better "pie") creation in the afternoon. On the farmer's market this morning I had the choice between giant plums and giant pluots, and no prunes. The pluots tasted better, so we got them. ... and it was well received. Yes, that is the Emsingen station roof in the background.

[ Emsingen posts ] I talked about the Emsingen freight shed last week when I chopped off the infamous combustible goods ramp . In parallel with other projects I've been making progress on the freight shed and it's getting to the "good enough for now" state where it doesn't immediately jump out as being a mockup, nor being too detailed to make the area around it look bad. I started off with adding some black styrene behind one of the doors. I will add a little loading scene here at a later time. The track at the shed has a slight curve. I transferred the curve to the ramp by holding a pencil to a boxcar and mark the curve. You'll notice in the photos below that the shed and roof are square while the ramp edge has a slight curve to it. Yes, this is intentional. The idea with this shed is that the left half was originally built with the station, which is also why it matches in appearance. As freight and LCL traffic grew the shed was expanded, but this time they ...

[ Emsingen posts ] I considered various methods to make the crosswalk at Emsingen station, and was not sure at all which method would work. Standard German crosswalks are 3 - 4 meters wide, with 50 cm wide strips and gaps of 50 cm. The narrow style crosswalk uses 40 cm instead. Scaled down to HO, this works out to 5mm stripes every 1 cm. My strong preference was dry transfers, but I couldn't find any in 5mm widths. The widest is 2mm in the Woodland Scenics stripes set. Tamiya stripe tape was another alternative, but I only had 2mm width in white and the local hobby shop only stocked yellow 5 mm width masking tape. The Train Shop has 5 mm width in stock, but I went with Karen's suggestion: 5 mm white correction tape. Since I had no idea if and how this approach would work, I made a mock-up street on a scrap of plywood, spray painted gray, with cardboard sidewalks. The application is not super easy. The applicator occasionally rips the tape and you have to start over, but event...

Walking the Dog in the morning.

With the avalanche of propositions and candidates this time around I'm a happy permanent vote-by-mail voter. I take my time with a cup of coffee and do the research. Most of  the races for office were easy since I followed them for the last few months. Others I had to read up a bit more. Some of the propositions, however, left me stumped and required real work to decide which way I was going to go. I've made my marks. The ballot is in its envelope and will go into the mail tomorrow. I'm glad I'm done.

Finally.

I'm not known for my cooking or baking skills. Rightfully so. With that in mind it's shocking that I managed to bake a marble cake today, that not only mostly looks good and is edible, but even got praise from the kids. By the time I'm writing this, half of the cake is already eaten.

[ Emsingen posts ] This shot is impossible to do once the segment is installed in the layout. We're standing "in" the roundhouse and look North towards the freight shed. I took the Emsingen station segment outside to document the state after last night's green thumb action. This is obviously still very much a work in progress. Many details are missing. Especialy, the outbuilding and the freight shed are only partially finished. Another "impossible later" shot. We're in the backdrop looking East from the forest to the front of the station building The real grass acts as stand-in for the trees that will populate the hill to hide the descending main line to Talheim. Undergrowth and shrubs are already in place. Looking out of the window from the corner house in Emsingen towards the maintenance facility and the roundhouse south of the station.