John's Alaska Railroad HO Scale Layout

April 5, 2023

The track hadn't received a good cleaning in quite some time so John sent two heritage units out with the CMX car. The above video shows the MOW train passing by the Whittier Depot.	John painted last week's Liquid Nails work at Portage Depot.	Rick test fit the bridge decking and did some minor filing. It is now ready for paint.

Rick did the Liquid Nails work south of TwentyMile bridge. Now all that remains is the area just west of North Pole Refinery.

April 12, 2023

Rick built a custom HO scale flat car designed to carry his GoPro camera. The above video shows it on the mainline passing the Anchorage yard. Rick discovered the flat car is too light and needs weight added.	John painted last week's Liquid Nails work south of TwentyMile Bridge.	During train night John added foliage and flocking on the swing gate's main line.

Rick continued his Liquid Nails work south of TwentyMile bridge and through the curve leading into the Double Crossover.	Rick also used Liquid Nails along the main line south of Anchorage and into the Double Crossover. This completes all the areas requiring Liquid Nails. Done!	The crane inside the Anchorage Diesel Shop came loose so Rick reapplied glue and used clamps to hold it in place until dry.

April 19, 2023

During last week's train night, Rick's flat car with GoPro camera kept derailing. At home Rick discovered the wheels were out of gauge. He created the above tool to move the wheels along the axle to bring it into gauge.	Rick built this GoPro flat car.	John painted last week's Liquid Nails application.

Now all the Liquid Nails areas have been painted. It looked like crap, but will disappear when scenery is applied.	Rick used Liquid Nails to fill in the remaining areas. All Liquid Nails work is now finished!	Rick spent over an hour running his GoPro flat car around the track and also filmed numerous meets. Next week's train night report will include these videos.

April 26, 2023

Now that all the Liquid Nails work is finished, John puts black paint over last week's work. The months long Liquid Nails work is finally complete!	Our Foreman has an ulcer on his right eye. The eye specialist did a diamond eye burr debridement and sent him home on antibiotics and pain medication. He is definitely out of sorts tonight.	Now that construction work is over, it is time to play. Rick spent his evening videotaping trains using his GoPro video camera. He tried to run four trains at a time and capture a video of their meets.

Here are last week's videos: First, a video of a meet with F7 #1512 pulling a passenger train at the Double Track subdivision. Warning: these videos are 1080p resolution, are large in file size and may load slowly.	For this video Rick's GoPro is positioned at the Portage siding and captures F7 #1512 pulling a passenger train.	The GoPro is on the mainline at the north Anchorage yard switch and encounters GP40 #3015 a freight train into the yard.

This super cool video captures rolling through a middle siding in the Anchorage yard and then running the entire layout.	This video captures a complete five minute run around the entire layout.	John captures a short video of Rick running his GoPro flat car along the mainline.

Feel free to contact me at john@alaskarails.org
Page created 9/4/17 and last updated 5/12/23