Grandkids, guests and some progress: In-ko-pah RR

[Ray Dunakin]

This has a been a fun week so far. Two of our grandkids are visiting from TX, so I haven't had much time to work on the layout. Yesterday the girls helped out for a while, with the 8 year old breaking rocks and the 5 year old spreading ballast. And of course, they got to run the train a bit too.

This morning I had a couple hours free and was able to do some more work on the cliffs at the upper east end of the layout. This was one of the first areas I built and did not look as good as the rest of the layout, so ever since our open house I've been redoing it. Removed a few of the old rocks and put in a lot of new rocks, creating three mine tunnels and some much more interesting and realistic cliffs. Also incorporated some pockets of soil for small cacti and succulents.

Then a couple guys from our club came by to see the layout. So I got a chance to talk trains and show off the layout a little bit, which is always fun.

I've also completed a small ore bin which will be part of a mine high on the cliffs near the west end of the layout. Next I need to build a foundation for it, and then build the headframe and eventually the hoist house.

When the "revised" cliffs are finished at the east end, I'll scratchbuild a couple structures to go with the mines there, plus a mine tram, ore chutes, and other details.

I still have to finish adding a rock facade to the retaining wall, and have to build several trestles before I can get the lower level track put in. The two biggest trestles will cross the western canyon on the mid-level. One of these will be about 12 feet long.