The Olympian Road

06/03/2026

Working on presentation last night with the installation of these drapes. Instead of building walls, just using curtains to help shape the layout room and seperate off some utilitarian areas of the basement helps create a nice finished appearance and almost looks like a stage for the railroad.

The best part about the curtains is that they can remain open the majority of the time to allow circulation in the basement which is important for humidity, heating/cooling, etc.

In a week or so we hope to be back working on the layout proper as more modeling time will be available in June and July.

Question for the other model railroads: how do you create the best presentation of your layout?

05/26/2026

Hello everyone! Its been entirely too long since we have had an update for the railroad...

FIRST -- Thank you for almot 400 followers on Facebook! We so deeply appreciate the support as you like follow and comment. We hope you find the content enjoyable!

This month (May) has been very slow progress here as its been incredibly busy in the "real world" and the time and money has not been available for many projects to get done. One thing that has gotten underway is the benchwork for the port city and the shelf for the tracks to run behind the crew lounge couch and connect with the layout. A drop down bridge will be constructed in front of the panel. Hoping for more more progress to be done during the month of June!

There are many projects to be done, but chief among them is finding more followers on YouTube! Currently we have 20 followers and we need 50 in order to stream live. If you could please help us get there, I would deeply appreciate it!

As always, thank you for every like, follow, and comment! See you soon!

05/12/2026

Incredible! 🎉 Thank you so much for over 300 followers on Facebook! Never would have imagined that this page could grow this fast, but very pleased to see the community that there is here.

Next request: please follow us on YouTube! We currently have 20 subscribers but we need 50 to go live! It is our hope that we will have a weekly livestream and a monthly long form video going forward. In July, we are planning our first shakedown session before scenery goes in next winter. Those shakedown sessions are hopeful to be live streamed, but ONLY if we can get 50 followers to convince YouTube to allow us to stream!

Thank you all so much! We hope to have more updates soon!

05/08/2026

Some new arrivals to the island as yesterday these HO SD40-2s were unboxed and tested on the line.

These chassis will be used as the base for our custom engines based on the WP&Y DL535E (both older and newer versions). Compared to the Whitcomb, these are quite light and will need weights added as they are rebuilt into On30.

The test run went well, aside from soem turnouts being jumped due to lack of weight and the turnout motors not yet being installed. Excited to see how these improve as they are created.

05/04/2026

A busy weekend here on the Olympian as the bridge across the falls has been temporarily installed, the car yard in Artem has been finished as have changes to the mine tracks. The most exciting thing has been the arrival of eight covered hoppers for use on the line.

These covered hoppers are S-Helper Services 1/64 models ans are amazing quality. Thier size works perfectly with the 50-Ton Whitcomb and I am ready to get the remaining S scale rolling stock for conversion. The only thing is changing coupler heights and replacing bogies. Spacers need added to cut down on the leaning of the cars as the On30 bogies do not fit perfectly onto the cars. More things to come!

05/02/2026

Our second YouTube video is now up! This video officially starts our "Motive Power Series" with the introduction of the 50-Ton Whitcombs that faithfully serve the line! A bit of unboxing, some operations, and some cannon history for these engines which were the "10 Class" for the Olympian.

Be sure to follow all our pages to stay up to date as we hope to post videos at least twice a month going forward!

https://youtu.be/squedvcftvI?si=Qq_jprV71n1NtT3v

1 like. "50-Ton Whitcomb | Motive Power Series"

05/01/2026

The bridge over the falls was constructed tonight and its refreshing to see the two halves of the layout connected.

The kit is from Faller and it has been painted using a chalk texture paint charcoal color. Once the paint is mostly right it will dry fit on the layout and track will be added to hopefully run a train over the whole line for the first time. Hopefully with the track connected, the power will be consistent on the one half, as last time electrical was checked, the trains kept stopping.

Rolling stock has also been ordered. A fleet of covered hoppers from S-Helper Services that will be converted to On30. More is planned to be ordered as soon as possible... then will begin the task of painting and decaling.

04/29/2026

Its been a productive evening here on the Olympia as the hammer was again brought out and track was pryed ofd the layout and changes were made.

A short industry siding has been eliminated to make room for a 3 track car yard next to the engine shed. The mine loading tracks were also changed. In this new setup, hoppers will be loaded underneath a large conveyer dump that will take the uranium ore from the mine shaft to the cars. In total, 8 cars should be able to load at the mine at one time and around 15 cars can be stored in the yard.

Additional turnouts and flex track will need ordered to complete the new track plan... but in the mean time some work has begun on research for kitbashing future rolling stock. A search has begun for S scale rolling stock to be converted to On30. A 40' S scale boxcar would equal a 30' On30 boxcar. If you have any advice on kitbashing or converting from S scale, let us know!