Super's Mod's, Customs, Layout's & Video's 👍

[Super]

Finally got around to finishing the Bedford Water Tower's flashing red LED light. You can't see the flashing in a still pictures below of course. Our next project is...Video's... Hurray. Have some ideas and I will have to do some experimentation on editing and sound so I think it should be fun It will also be fun for my Grandson as they will be uploaded to YouTube and he can direct all his friends to it and show off.

Had to do some modifications to the Bedford Water Tower. I removed the interior tube that runs from the ground to under the tank and replaced it with a little larger aluminum tube that has an larger inside diameter than the original thick walled plastic tubing. Power comes from a covered 9 volt battery holder with an on/off switch. I ran this wiring to the outer edges of the layout for ease of use. We like how it came out, check out the pictures.......but before that....


We have a new addition to the layout...an Awesome new, animated, lighted, Amtrak Billboard. We love it. You can't see the full affect in the pictures so I added a GIF at the bottom from the manufacturer so you can see one of the many chasing features on this amazing item. There is like 15 to 20 chasing patterns to scroll through. We did do some modifications though. First we obtained a small black plastic box/case and installed the little circuit board in it. With a couple of drilled holes the on/off switch and the scroll button can be accessed from the outside of box. We leave this on off switch on because the other modification was to replace the open 3 AAA battery holder with a covered 3 AA battery holder with on/off switch built in. Like the Bedford Tower we extended this to the outside of the layout for easy access. This thing is genius. The part that does the lighting is only paper thin...how does that work? What do you think?

We are excited to show you the videos so you can see all the lighting affects on our layout for you to enjoy. Hopefully a video will do everything justice.

[Ucwepn]

Fantastic as always Super!

[thehsvdude]

absolutely Love that layout

[Super]

Thanks guys.

I think I like designing, adding, coming up with new ideas, implementing those ideas and engineering the layout more than actually running the trains. . My Grandson is the train engineer in our family. He loves creating different, long, freight trains. I think his longest is about 23 cars without incidence in our flat straight test track.

Hi Super,

Thanks for watching my videos.

My soldering iron is a cheap Weller I've had since electronics class at school. It still goes strong for a 20+ year old iron. I filed the tip into a finer point to help with smaller soldering jobs. The solder is just basic flux core fine solder I've had since my RC buggy club racing days in the early 1990's.

Your layout is fantastic, so much detail but still keeping with the Tomy Plastic train set concept. I wish I could leave a track setup and keep adding to it and building ideas into it.

Keep up the great work.

[Super]

Thanks Toys_Trains-Things

One of the reasons I like playing with these Tomy type trains is that they don't take themselves seriously and by that I mean scale is not all that important. Take for instance the Tomy Town, Hypercity kids/people, really not to scale with the trains and building nor are the trains with the accessories. Add the ease of use and the ability to change and rework the layout easily amounts to much fun. Plus these things are durable and hard to damage. Certainly a lot different that the serious HO or other scale builders. Don't think they would be setting up crash em ups with their expensive trains and beautiful scenery.

Thanks for the info on your soldering iron. I had a cheap one that didn't last a couple months. They don't make things like they use too. I just picked up a dual wattage soldering station from Radio Shack and I hope it works easier for me and is a better unit.

[Super]

We have been upgrading the layout the past few weeks and there are some minor changes and a big one that should be very noticeable...can you see it? I have been waiting to make these changes before doing the videos so there is no excuse now....

What a great layout! Fantastic! If I had to describe it, I'd call it Hyper-City! This is what TOMY was thinking of!

As for new things? There are appear to be a number if changes, have you always had grey risers? And do you have some grey elevated sections now too? Anyway it really is great, unfortunately all my layouts are dismantle-able it would be great to have a dedicated room!

[Super]

Bingo...you got it Tramp

Besides a few design changes to fix some engineering flaws, replacing some red bridges with blue and using a lot of gray track, we have replaced all the yellow risers with light gray ones. From a visual standpoint I thought the yellow was way to dominate in the layout as there were so many. I wanted the risers to disappear and not take the eye away from the trains. I think we achieved that with the use of all gray. What do you all think. Here are some before and after pictures. None of this could have been accomplished without the help I received here about Yahoo Japan. None of these additions are ever found on Ebay, at least here in the States.


BEFORE




AFTER

Yeah I agree, so much better with grey risers, it makes it all about the track, the yellow never really matched with the colour scheme, it just sort of contrasted but the grey just blends in so well it does make it all about the track!