Another weekend is in our collective rear view mirror, how did you do this weekend? After having something something scheduled every weekend since January, it was nice to sleep in and not be anywhere. Saturday, I picked up the shop and looked through some books for ideas on the layout refresh that I will do later this summer and gathered my DCC items. Sunday I spent most of the morning going through my items to list on ebay and doing some inventory of items that will enter the paint shop. I finished the afternoon by getting my B&M GP9 ready for DCC. I painted this locomotive back in 2003 or 04 so the frame was non DCC compatible. Rather than fool with the frame, I just bought a new Atlas GP9 that has the new scale speed motor and a frame that accepts a decoder. I swapped out the truck frames and fuel tank and carefully installed the Digitrax DN163A4. Today I'll see if did things right when I get it on the programing track. So how about you? What did you do this weekend? Train shows, track work, DCC? Whatever you did, let us know. We'll come back here on Friday the 5th and do it all over again. Until then have a happy short work week and... Happy 4th! ​High Greens!
With a full-weekend visit from daughter Annie, I didn't get much done on the trains. We bought her a nice adult bicycle, and spent Sunday teaching her how to ride with cleated clip-on pedals and a zillion gears that actually shift. She's going to do a triathlon in a couple of months, so she's in training. She's a strong swimmer, so she should do OK. Serious biking is new to her. I did get 5 more cars equipped with painted and weathered trucks and metal wheels. The sixth one I worked on has narrower trucks and the wheels won't fit. It's a junker caboose, Life-like or something. I cut some roadbed for the siding to the Railway Express depot, but that was the extent of my layout work.
I picked up a roll of Woodland Scenics foam roadbed at Chuck's on Saturday, with plans to clean off my layout and start laying track. Unfortunately, it's been a very hot weekend and my apartment doesn't have air conditioning so I didn't do much besides try to stay cool. It's supposed to cool off after the Fourth, so I hope that I can get that done this coming weekend. Having bought an Athearn Challenger has gotten me inspired to get working on the layout again. I can't wait!
