Another weekend is almost upon us, what shall we do? Trains of course! After weeks of doing nothing but work and planes, I can rest easy knowing that the latest issue of the magazine is at the printers and starting today have a long weekend of trains in front of me. Starting off today, I called in a "Mental Health" day and decided to go railfanning with my good friend Brian. This is the same guy that fans the BNSF C&I and Chilli subs with me in the spring and summer. This time we will be railfanning the NS and CSX in and around Decatur IL. Later tonight, another good friend comes in to start off the weekend on building a special CB&Q inspired project for the 2014 Galesburg RR Days show. We'll be hard at it from Friday night getting supplies till Sunday afternoon when we hope to have most if not all of the main line in N scale down. Of course other train activities will ensue I'm sure. Overall a good restful weekend before my work schedule takes over again. So how about you? What new or current projects do you have planned? Let us know, with a picture or two. We'll meet back here on Monday the 28th and see how we all did. Until then, have a happy and safe weekend and... ​High Greens!
Well my weekend (mon-wed) went very well. I finished my fascia an got it painted. Put up and painted the backdrop divider on my peninsula as well. I built a few more structures and my son built one as well. This next weekend for me I will start by purchasing the necessary supplies to work on the transferring of the track plan. To start the wire for my main power bus and install it. Finish the swing extension for the peninsula/mine area. And of course continue building the stack of structure kits. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free
Well I started packing up cars and filling up boxes with various items and labeling them. I have about 15 of 40 locomotives boxed up, I am missing a lot of boxes that some of my cars and locomotives came in. Don't ask me how I lost them in a 4'x10' room. So why am I packing? My wife and I decided that we don't have enough room for our "stuff" and we need a walk-in closet for storage. The closets in each bedroom are modest at best. We don't have a huge house, its a 1300 sf 3BR/1BA ranch with no basement so space is at a premium with tiny closets. We're planning on a second child in our home in 1-2 years so the office will have to go somewhere out of that spare bedroom. Where is the logical place for extra storage? Of course, where the layout is! This hasn't been as painful as I thought it might be, mostly constributed to the fact that the limited nature of space available (4'x10' closet!) and the frustration of lack of accessibility probably doomed the layout from the beginning. So I've been think a LOT about alternative locations to move layout to. I could build a nice 6'x24' addition onto the back of the garage, this would allow for a heck of a switching layout. I could build an 8x10 or 8x12' storage building. However, either option could cost $1000 just to get into the building. Any new structure will need heat and a/c and that brings along a new set of headaches in terms of running electric to the structure, etc... I don't have $1000 to throw at a hobby expense. That would be irresponsible since we're just getting by on my income as it is. Our long-term plan is to move into a larger home (with basement) and with more land in 5 years. After child #2, we will be out-growing our current house. At that point: A) Room for layout, B) Wife back to work so bills are A-ok, and C) My 6-mo son will be old enough to contribute, appreciate and enjoy running trains (with suprvision, of course). So here, goes: "...The Gulf & Ohio Midland has filed with the ICC for abandonment of the Little Kanawha Sub effective October 22, 1967 (2013). MP 0.33 (B&O Jct. @ Ravenswood) to MP 117.65 (O.O.S. B&O Jct. @ Gassaway) including the Leading Creek Branch to Troy, WV and the Burning Springs Secondary. The G&OM plans to have all equipment off properties by 10/31, but no plans for rights of way removal..." But wait! I have been watching some bulk auction on ebay for used flextrack, thinking about running a narrow shelf layout around three walls of the garage (uninsulated) just to have something running. Run my "not so nice" equipment (Athearn BB, bachmann) on it while the good stuff stays in the house covered and wrapped. I'm nuts, oh well.
I'll be making slow progress on the tannery, but I have a number of boxcar kits that I need to start working on. Just for a change of pace, I may go with the rolling stock first. We're going to have nice weather, so I should look around for what needs to be spray painted outside, too. Pat, may your next layout make you glad you had to tear down this one.
I will be probably looking at removing the old DCC decoder from the Kato SD40 I bought last weekend and restoring it to its former DC glory. I have another identical unit that I'll use as a model to restore the wiring.
