As many of you know, I conduct a weekly thread over in the Weekly and Special section entitled, Weekend Modeling Plans and Weekend Modeling Accomplishments If you have never contributed to either weekly thread, head on over each Friday and Monday morning and read, get inspired and post. I shared recently that it would be a fun idea to share what you want to accomplish in model railroading for the 2014 year so why not? Tell us what goals you have, be it home layout or module work, club work, even railfaning, whatever you want to do and accomplish throughout 2014. I'll get started: My main goal is to continue work on my B&M N scale layout, formally a 6X3 foot table, now a linear around the walls layout comprised of two 18"X 4' modules. To construct with a fellow model railroader and friend, a total of eight 18"X4' modules depicting the Galesburg Illinois Galesburg Division, circa 1960's. We plan to have track and basic scenery finished in time for Galesburg RR Days in June of 2014. Paint up 1 HO and 1 N scale ES44DC locomotives in the CB&Q Blackbird scheme to be donated and raffled at Galesburg RR Days. Proceeds will go to the Carl Sandburg College Foundation. Detail and paint B&M GP38-2 #200, the Bicentennial engine. Finish the three T-Trak modules that make up Maywood Station of Maywood NJ. Learn more about DCC Get Jessica, my Railfan Jeep Wrangler, more items and a paint job for railfaning in the summer of 2014. Join the CB&Q Historical Society and go to one of their Spring or Fall meets. Detail and paint some more CB&Q motors (locomotives). Kitbash an Atlas caboose into a CB&Q Waycar. Go to more shows to run my T-Trak modules and free-mo CB&Q module. So there you have it, short bullet points as to what I want to get done this coming year. I'm off to a good start with the first two. Now it's your turn, let us know what it is you want to get done this New Year!
Clear away enough of the family history stuff in my alleged train room, organize and send it off to a historical archive, so I can get back to building the layout. Other train-related resolutions, plan, objectives and wishes are secondary to building the layout.
What I should consider is locking the front door, unplugging the phone, computer, etc. Then spend that freed up time model railroading! This probably follows along with the same resolution daydreams of so many folks, about diets, etc...
Good idea Jim, During the past year, I built a new 10 ft x 20 ft train room in back of my garage, tore down my old layout in the spare bedroom of the house and moved all my train stuff out to the new room. I just finished up re-painting the old room. I have a plan for a new around the walls layout in the new train room, and have set up my work bench and a nice shelf test layout with Kato Unitrak above the work bench. So for 2014 these are my goals: Install additional cabinets in the new train room to get more stuff put away. Build the last 2 drawers for my 10 drawer train cabinet that I started in 1997. Total capacity when completed will be 770 standard Micro-Trains boxes. Build the bench work for the section of the new layout that will be above the main staging yard. Start and complete the main staging yard for the new staging yard. Start and complete the helix that connects the main staging yard to the first section of the layout. ( First time building a helix ) Finish rebuilding my “Hot Springs Junction” Ntrak / AsiaNrail module that started in fall 2012 but got stalled by the building of the new train room. Install DCC decoders in all of my own remaining locomotives that don’t have them. My list is short, so I think these goals are reasonable considering all of the traveling, attending train shows, and house maintenance projects that will also happen in the new year. Progress on all of these goals will get posted on my blogs, links below. It will be interesting to look back a year from now and see how many of these thing actually got done. Brad Myers Peninsula Ntrak / AsiaNrail My Blogs: http://www.n-scale-dcc.blogspot.com/ http://www.palisadecanyonrr.blogspot.com/ http://tokyo-in-nscale.blogspot.com/
some excellent resolutions, mine is to build my new HO layout -River-Harbor-Belt-Line including structures so it becomes a fully operational switching layout
My model RR goals for 2014 are as follows: 1-finish my minor remodel so I can reclaim my train room. 2-finish the lumber mill scene that I built on my club layout 3-Start and hopefully finish NPs Lester depot for my friend Keith Lyons 4-(AND MOST IMPORTANT ON MY LIST) Enjoy more model railroading time with my son. Happy New Year and Happy Railroading Ryan
Goals for 2014: 1. Construct 6.5' x 24' extension to rear of garage. a. Remove Holly Tree b. Move firewood pile 2. "Finish" layout building. (Carpet, lights, baseboard heat, etc) 3. Begin bench work for the new CC&CI Little Kanawha Division. Sent from my LG-P930 using Tapatalk 2
Ken, My plan is to use the NPRHA 2 story depot kit for the basis of Lester. I will then use the telegraphers office windows out of the AMB NP depot kit as well as some other windows to complete the project. I will have to chop up the 2 kits to make Lester. Hopefully when I am all said and done I will have enough left over to make Martin for Keith as well. Stay tuned in NSR for an article on this kitbash. Ryan
Some great resolutions so far. Not too late to ad more. I'm working on resolution #1 today with my day off. Got a good feeling for 2014!
Clear out some of the clutter that is hindering layout construction Work on some weak spots in the floor of the layout room Makethe layout room more comfortable (not so hot in the summer, not so cold in the winter- right now it is closed off from the rest of the house) Learn how to install DCC in certain of my locomotives, so I can increase the fleet. And not just the DCC-ready plug-n-play units, the ones I need to hardwire. In between all this, take down the dead maple tree out back, install new wood fence panels, finish removing the collapsed house trailer the previous owner left when he died, repaint the house, make repairs on the roof.....................
I have yet another fun filled year in store, but being in college and taking classes online, I have little time to be modeling. That said, I have some goals for the new year: Build more trees for the snow scene and Crescent Build the house overlooking the tracks at Crescent Install some details along the ROW (signal shacks, signals, detectors, ROW junk) Finish Samson de Grande kitbash (250T big hook, the only one D&RGW owned of that size) Finish Wilson McCarthy business car kitbash (renamed Kansas in later years) Finish 3 GP40 repaints I think that will keep my busy with my limited time available for the whole year.
Everyone has great resolutions. Please post about your plans in the Layout Party thread and get some support to start making your hopes/dreams come true. Inertia keeps us from accomplishing anything...and participation in the Layout Party can be a wonderful source of extra "push" to get you moving for the rest of the year. As part of the Layout Party, I'm finishing four new staging areas on my lower level and preparing for an open house in mid-February. After that, I'll be focusing my efforts on implementing my 2014 Resolution to hold monthly operating sessions.
Work through the back log of projects that I have promised for other folks. Then I can get down to finishing up all the half finished back burner projects of my own. And of course I will probably come up with many more new projects to distract me from finishing all the other stuff listed.
To start working on my layout again. Between having a new house built, and the subsequent move, I haven't touched the layout in months. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If lucky, I'll manage to get the HCD clean, and hopefully get the remaining track I need. One I have that done, I should be able to get started on building. Have most of my track and my plan. Just gotta get remaining items and get some motivation!! Maybe get the G Scale farther along.
