Welcome back everyone. First, thank you everyone for the well wishes, it must have worked because finally around Sunday afternoon, things started feeling better. Reading the Friday thread reminded me of why I have enjoyed being the instigator of both the Modeling Plans and Modeling Accomplishments threads all these years. In a small way, I get to know all of you, and not in just what railroad you model, what era or scale, but significant life milestones. Graduations, marriages, anniversary's, retirements and yes even the passing of loved ones. It's an important window into what makes us human and something I feel is so lacking in today's instant gratification of social media. So, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to ride along, if you will, on the many aspects of your life. My only regret is that I fear I will never have the opportunity to meet you all in person and talk life, trains and history over a hot cup of Earl Grey. It will however be my goal to put as many names to a face, or screen avatar as possible while I inhabit this planet. Friday after posting the thread, I went back to bed and proceeded to sleep a full 10 hours. Saturday was more of the same until coming around the corner on Sunday. No train work, just lots of couch time. So how about you? What did you get done? Let us know. We'll come back again on Friday the 16th to start up a brand-new weekend. Also don't forget, Wednesday the 14th is Valentines Day, so treat your loved ones right and make the day special. Until Friday, have a good week, be safe, stay healthy and as always... High Greens!
@Jim Wiggin - Glad you are feeling better!! Happy Monday to Y'all -- I made some decent progress on my H12-44's Factory details removed - holes filled. Frame modified and decoder installed in the AT&SF unit. Some grab iron holes have been drilled. I also completed my friends Lackawanna F3's - Repaint and decoder in one and decoder swap in the other (A BLI unit) Y'all have a great week, Wolf
Good morning and happy "wet" North Carolina rainy morning to all! @Jim Wiggin - Glad your getting better. This weekend on the modeling front got most of what I wanted to do. Managed to get the long walls of the LCL upper 2 stories done and painted outdoors on Saturday. While set up for outdoors, I got 130 trees painted and coated w/ ground foam and flock. Sunday it rained here so the outdoor painting got postponed. I did though manage to get the acrylic sheet drilled and mounted on the north end of the layout. Also straightened up in both the workshop and the train room which I wanted to do. The other thing I did was grab the hotel kitbash I started last year and glued the side and main wall together as well as adequately braced the back w/ styrene. Did not however have to time go through my F7's and make the decoder list. Perhaps during the week?? Have a great week all. Here's a shot of the acrylic guard I put in as well as the building progress:
Happy Monday! Glad to hear you are feeling better Jim! Seems like the weekend just flew by yet again. I was/am feeling a tad under the weather but still managed to get quite a bit done. Guess it helped keep my mind off the feeling bad part. Friday evening, I was pleased to find the package I was expecting Saturday actually showed up in Friday’s mail. After dinner, I spent some time working on a Lego style Big Boy kit as planned. Then went to bed early. Saturday, I was up early so headed to the train room, made coffee and spent a little time on line. Then I turned my attention to the fascia project. Made some good progress before I had to stop and go do errands. That took longer than expected but mainly due to me just dragging. Spend a little more time back at the layout during the afternoon and happy to say I finished up the core parts of my new fascia project. All that’s left are a few cosmetic parts. I wasn’t up to grilling so the wife whipped up some home-made soup that really hit the spot. Then I finished up the Big Boy kit while watching a movie. Sunday was filled with a lot of sitting and thinking about what next. Did organize a pen holder on my work bench that seems to have accumulated more than it should hold. Installed metal wheels on 4 cars, and started a new load project. No additional work on the fascia project since it was raining out and the next couple of things to do require some sawing and I try to never do that indoors. Overall, a productive weekend even though it really doesn’t feel like it was. Hope you all have a great week!
On Friday I found and fixed a couple bugs in the Nexxt Gateway during testing of a couple of my On30 locos. One of my 2-8-0 locos is running a bit rough and the motor is a bit loud, I think that with a deep clean and relubrication it might be in decent shape but the decoder it came with leaves plenty to be desired. The 4-6-0 loco that I tested has a bit more weight to it than the 2-8-0 loco and runs reasonably well, it has a chain hanging from the underside of the tender that I need to repair as it came off when I was putting it on the rails for testing. Saturday my day started early with leaving the house around 7:15AM with frost everywhere, arrived in San Jose CA to visit with the CCC On30 club and to visit with the NMRA PCR Coast Division. We were successful in demoing and testing of the Nexxt Gateway on the part of their modular layout via their DCC power box (MRC Prodigy Advance2 base unit and NCE WiFi unit in a single box). They were working on various modules that day to prep for the coming shows, I'll be visiting them again at the end of the month at the show and possibly running some sort of equipment on their layout. After the visit with the CCC I got back on the road and went to Sacramento CA for the NMRA PCR Sierra division meeting where I gave a quick recap on the Amherst show and shared the Nexxt system with them. During the meeting I heard from one of the people who maintains the 15in gauge Orland, Newville and Pacific railroad at the Glenn county fairgrounds, my grandfather built a caboose for them and dedicated it in my grandmother's memory. I have most of his design plans from that build, he used the RGS 0401 caboose as the design base for the caboose. I'm going to head up there for the county fair in May (or late April) to get some pictures and go for a ride on the train. Sunday I didn't get anything train related done other than sending a couple emails with some feedback notes on the Nexxt Throttle from the visits on Saturday. Small but beneficial changes to the enclosure to make it a bit more ergonomical. Also glad to hear you are feeling better @Jim Wiggin
I'm glad to hear that you're doing better @Jim Wiggin. Friday, once again, was mostly dedicated to doing homework, but I did also start some work on another conversion of my 1970's collection or rolling stock. This week, it was a Riverossi snow plow. New metal wheels, knuckle coupler (with a little frame modification and a shim), and a lot of extra weight. Saturday, was a bit more homework, a little more work on the snow plow, and a start on a flat car load that I've had in mind made from some printer ink cartridge scraps and a couple gears salvaged from a trashed USB/battery powered light. Sunday was Scout Sunday at church with attendance and participation of Troop 50 (boys), Troop 50 (girls), and Pack 50. Attendance was quite good with all of our scouts and many parents and other family visiting. After church was lunch and then out to the Sebring Model Railroad Club, where we talked a lot but didn't get much work done. The evening was spent mostly watching Gilligan's Island and NCIS on television but also included hot out of the oven, fresh-baked, homemade, sourdough bread. Mmmmm. Still no news from Cleveland Clinic from last week's testing. Hopefully, we will hear something today. After that, it's a matter of Cleveland's schedule as well as our son navigating an astonishingly long list of Army red tape. Hopefully, this will get scheduled in March, but April is now a real possibility, too.
I sort of missed the entire weekend using the computer or doing any modeling. Friday started off with taking my wife to Physical Therapy very early in the morning, then back home pickup the dog and take her to the vet so she could have her teeth cleaned and a couple of teeth pulled. Went home for a rest and then back to the vet later in the afternoon to pick the dog up. Then that evening went to bowing where we managed to win 7 points even with one of our good bowlers missing (his dog got skunked and clawed by said skunk and had to leave before he even got a chance to throw the ball). Saturday, went to the club and ran trains for a while, steamer needs a little work, was running rough since the last time I used it, instead added a couple of F7's to haul the train. Later left for Toledo to attend my nephews 50th birthday celebration. Sunday, did the laundry and rested up after a tiring weekend, but I did manage to complete a Bowser Covered Hopper kit, an Intermountain PS1 boxcar kit and paint both of those along with the RBL I have been working on. Earlier in the week I added the end detail to the RBL consisting of a ladders, walkover platform, hand grab and uncoupling levers. Rick Jesionowski
I puttered and painted and prepared a bit of my 'N-Scale' Kato-track for sale. The game was fun with my wife and step-daughter. I choose the 'Chiefs' because of their logo was similar to a bomber I made for a game I play and because of the bright red uniforms.
Between Mardi Gras, hosting the Superbowl party last night, and installing new stair treads and riser faces in my daughter's house, I got zippo done for the MRR. And I spent Wed-Friday down for the count with a stomach bug thingy that was not Covid. Two more days of King Cake season and then its back to work.
Good morning everyone, We have been having a few days of dry and somewhat sunny weather here, so I took the opportunity to rake up most of the debris remaining in the yard from the last storm, another is due by Wednesday. Got a good start on 2 sets of wiring for my friends new Ntrak modules but then realized I did not have some heat shrink I needed so got that ordered and will have to wait for it to arrive to finish. Then started a little hanging bracket for Digitrax Wifi and wireless throttle receivers being used on the Ntrak layout. This can hang anywhere on the skyboard up to 1/2 inch thick. They will be upside down so the Loconet and power cables can hang down. Need to get out a pickup some of the gray enamel to finish it and have it ready for the upcoming show. Then continued working with what I am going to run at the show. Cleaning wheels, checking couplers, etc. So had a full weekend here in the train room.
Mr. Wiggin, so glad for the good report. Decent progress is much better than no progress. Massive structures underway! Errands always take me longer than I expect. Amazing electronics report. That is one big snowplow! I think I see a covered hopper on the horizon. I like the Chiefs uniform colors too. Puff ball trees gonna' be amazing. Glad it was not covid. Train show bound! Earlier today I started laser cut file diagram "clean up". This is somewhat tedious but is a big help with crisp cut lines. Yesterday did a revisit to the train club just to say hi. Saturday was also a train club visit. After that I found myself at Sloss Furnace Park. They have a Frisco 2-8-2 on display near the front gate. I parked across the road and walked over to it. I then saw a sign that said, "No Climbing on Display" (or some such). I thought to myself, "Then why did I get out of the car?". Anyway, I did touch it some. It used to be at another location under a shed roof. Now it is on view next to an active railway just beyond the park fence. Cover is better but it sure looked great out in the open. Saturday afternoon saw the installation of two new autos on the module. At the near end of the freight house is a red roadster with a white roof. This belongs to Railroad Superintendent Oscar Edgefield. He is here "checking on operations". He has known these guys for years and wanted to show off the new car. In the distance by the Hamilton House Hotel is another new roadster. This one belongs to Miss Penelope Van Dyme who opted for a solid red color. She just left the depot after picking up an REA parcel. The cars are made from air-dry clay. A new material for me. If you look very closely at these cars, they look very crude. Trust me. They are. We will see if much gets done by Friday. I hope all remain or get healthy as needed. Have a great week.
Hey All, We had our NMRA luncheon for division 6 of the Lone Star Region this Saturday. A great time, but chewed up the middle of my day. I was not much up to home remodeling projects that required climbing in the attic, so I stuck to my New Year's resolution and worked on kits I HAVE rather than buying more. I pulled off of the "in-progress" (started, but not finished) bin, two Westerfield wood gondolas and a resin cast car that Dave Husman sent me more than a year ago from his P&R Wilmington and Northern. I made some good progress on one of the Westerfield kits as well as Dave's model. I hit a dead end on the latter when I did not have some queen posts and other details needed from Tichy (order is in). Maybe more progress next weekend, but I have a feeling I'll be up in the attic after procrastinating. Have a great week...see you on the other end... -Bob T.
My railroad accomplishments were non-existent this weekend. We were focused on moving our stored belongings from one location to another. We did take time for bacon-n-eggs Saturday morning. Sunday evening, we joined my brother's family for some burgers and sweet potato fries. Otherwise, it was moving boxes and totes down the stairs and into the SUV for the trip to their new home. Made solid progress! Stay safe,
I disappointed myself. How does that sound? I did no modeling, even though I really wanted to. Instead, I scanned a bit more of my NP paperwork. Found some other RR train orders on that auction site, which I won. And spent too much time e-chatting with a couple of friend about past railroading. Oh well. It did all fall into the general RR hobby category....
