So Anyway..........

[Anonymous]

I'm pleased to say that the yard is laid and this afternoon, after church, I get to test the track and see if it is laid right. I got to check the uncoupler magnets under the track and the cars uncouple with out a hitch (pun). Now the fun begins, but the wiring won't take longer then about three to four hours. With DCC it is a piece of cake.

DT & DICKIEE:

Thanks for the condoulances (SP). She had the stroke June 18, 2003 and was in the intensive care unit for eleven days. When they were going to discharge us three weeks later, I ask "why are you discharging us when she isn't walking?" Their answer was "70% of the people that have a stroke as bad as hers, don't survive, and she'll never walk again." One year later we are walking with a quadra cane for about 50' to 60' and then she has to sit and rest. I've got her mind and personallty and I'm happy with her. I've learned how to cook wash and clean because for forty years of marriage I never did anything except boil water for tea and butter toast.

Have a blessed day and remember SANTA FE ALL THE WAY

Bob

[trainfan1221]

Been checking some trackwork and breaking in some new cars. Took a short reprieve myself, but its time to get back to business.

[BRAKIE]

Well Dan,I actually got some work done on my N Scale industrial switching layout today....[:D] I got the holding yard in and two industrial spurs laid...[:D]

[AggroJones]

.....I've got more flex track laid on the two lower traveling lines. I'm now in the track testing stage. Pushing and pulling trains back and forth using my most sensitive locomotive (FEF-3) to find where the problems are. To me, this is the most frustrating part of constuction. Mysterious derailments. [banghead] All this tweeking and tuning is no fun. [:(]

[Anonymous]

Let's see....

Painted a house and hired a babysitter for the 3 boys. I guess I did a good job since it sold in 6 days!!! [:D]

While cleaning out a closet I found a library book and 3 pieces of Atlas flex track. I think the previous owner left them.

Other than that the time is spent fixing things sent to the RIP track by the 0-5-0 skyhooks on Grandpas 4'X8' layout.

Now to afford and find a house to begin a layout.

DT

Also Tefffy/Bob sorry to hear about your wife.

[dickiee]

To Teffy:

I am VERY sorry to hear of your wife's difficulty. I hope she is able to fully recover. I follow your posts with great interest. You and I seem to be always on the same page. You are a lot younger than I am but I won't hold that against you (I'm 66). We both returned to Model railroading after an absence of about 20 yrs. I have finally gotten my RR room completed and am ready to start building a test track. I have a layout drawn up and ordered turnouts today, but Im sure there will be a long wait for them. I bought a Digitrax system (wireless Super Chief). I read where you were looking for assistance with a turntable kit. Sorry, I have no help for you. My plan is to purchase a Walther's turntable as soon as they are available, supposedly in Sept. I scratch built a turntable 20 yrs. ago but was not able to save it. It was an interesting and fun experience but I would rather not go through all that work again, plus I never got it to operate automatically. I, too, am over 100 miles from the nearest hobby store so I have to do everything by mail. Again, I really enjoy your posts and am very interested in following your progress. Hang in there, buddy! Santa Fe All the Way. (I'm interested in UP)
dickiee

[Anonymous]

Last weekend I got the sheet cork laid for the yard and when I was laying the throat I messed up on of the switches and as luck would have it, it was the last switch in the cabinet. I had to have the hobby shop mail it out to me (he's 108 miles away). While waiting for it to come in I decided to save some money and use sand as a filler on the curved part of the yard, since it'll be covered with ballast no one will know what the filler is. I spent all evening drying out and sifting the sand that Wally World said was dry and sifted (ha ha ha). The next evening I laid some sand and then read the new Scale Rails that came in from the NMRA. Last night I put the rest of the sand down and I went home at lunch time and the sand is dry and level with the cork so tonight I'll start laying the six tracks in the yard. I'm interested in buying a Custom Model Railroad turntable but I don't know anything about them. I've built a Diamond Scale and I don't feel like going through that again. With a little luck I should have the yard laid by Sunday night.

To Joe G.

It's nice to know that someone besides me likes building Bowser locomotives. I just wi***hat they had some without the bellpaire firebox besides the 2-10-2. I tried filling it off but I filed through the casting. I have their mountain, decapod, and a mike built and running with my private road decals. Five more of their locos are in the boxes waiting. They may still be waiting when I'm pushing up daisys, since I'm 65. The "old lady" is running but with no paint, monkey motion, or decoder but it looks good to me.

Well it's time to go home and see what I can accompli***onight. The wife had an incapacitating stroke so I get to cook the meals. But after dinner it's MY time.

Have a blessed day and REMEMBER SANTA FE ALL THE WAY
Bob

[Junctionfan]

I have been waiting for out mainline to be finnished so I can see how my auto max cars run. It looks like it may be some time though. I am a little impatience, but I suppose if you want to do it right it takes time.

[Anonymous]

I'm too busy working two jobs (15 hours a day plus travel time).

I'm working on building 2 Baldwin DT6-6-20s for a guy at the hobby shop.
Then another guy wants me to build him an HO scale CNS&M Edison Court station, and South Upton Tower (RMC, 1985 - cover photo).

Who knows when I'll actually get to the layout?

[krump]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dharmon

Pink and purple....I think I'd go with light pink walls and light purple trim if it has to be done...light as you can get away with

[dragenrider]

Let me see, I started ballasting my spur track to the coal mine, converted a couple of cars to Buddhism...I mean metal wheels, swapped chassis and shells, trying to fine tune a couple of engines. (didn't work!)

My project this weekend is to fini***he mine track, install a bridge and work on some more backdrop mountains. All this inter spaced with periods of sitting inside my refrigerator to cool off! [xx(] It's the dog days of summer!

[vsmith]

Lets see...

I shifted my entire yard 2 inches to the left so I could accomodate a new frieght station (Thank the Gods I hadnt ballasted yet!)

Work continues on several structures, recently finished two facade buildings, started 3 others, and got 1 resin building glued together.

Kitbashing 2 switchers into a couple of funky critters.

Just whatever looks like it needs to be worked on. Not working too hard on my layout. Too dang HOT out here and still have a mess of house projects to finish first...

[Hawks05]

unlike all the married people i'm a teenager so doing house work like that isn't really in my vocab yet. i have helped with some little projects here and there. well not really. i've been super busy with baseball all summer. my school plays summer ball instead of the normal spring so a lot of my days are spent outside playing ball. usually anywhere from 2 to 6 hours a day depending on if its a game and where we have to go. tomorrow is sectionals and if we win 2 games there we are off to State so that should be exciting.

monday i made the decision that it was time to start looking at my trains again. i went to the hobby store yesterday and picked up 4 kits to work on. i also picked up a Atlas RTR centerflow hopper but one of the things on the bottom, pardon my lack of knowledge, where the grain or what not would come out has broken off. also you can hear the weight and other things rattling around inside so i might have to try and fix that. i'm not to good with fragile things like that so i'll probably end up breaking something.

i also need to start working some more once baseball is done so i can start paying for my car again and start spending money on railroad stuff. should be a fun rest of the summer.

[dharmon]

QUOTE: Originally posted by krump

the kids are visiting at my sisters... and my honeydew list includes levelling a spot on the yard for the 18 ft diameter pool we just bought... think we've almost got it done, assisted by some extra sand. The kids are gonna love it - and since it's 4 ft deep I'm sure we'll all cool off now and then. bought the little guy (age 5) a Spiderman swim gear setup - mask, flippers, gloves... what a riot!
oh yeah the kids also want their rooms painted - Spiderman theme for the 5 yr old, and our girls share a room so they want purple, and light pink (someone,... please, TELL ME THAT THIS CAN WORK - yikes, what have I gotten into??? - I need help here !!!) - that said, it brings me back to the days in grade 9 when myself, and 4 of my best friends formed a club called The RSPPP... "The Royal Society for the PREVENTION of PINK and PURPLE" - I kid you not !
That was then, this is now - my two daughters each have a favourite colour - you guessed it, one loves Pink, the other Purple - Circle of Life thing I guess, and a major backfire.
cheers,[8D][8D][8D]

Well....when we bought our house a little of a year ago, it was most assuredly a fixer-upper...it had been a rent house for years and the last owner did absolutley the bare minimum bandaid patches to everything....anyway, on of his teenagers painted her bedroom light blue. Spray painted the whole entire bedroom.....walls, trim, door ceiling.....blue. Repainting that room alone took almost as long as the rest of the house. I'd put a coat on there, then go paint somewhere else, then come back to it.....

Pink and purple....I think I'd go with light pink walls and light purple trim if it has to be done...light as you can get away with

[Fergmiester]

It's been a good month. I've just about finished the turntable bridge, just needs paint, handrails and a gear. I built a Blair line general store and a Branchline house. Pictures to follow.

[sparkingbolt]

I have been working on motorizing an O scale track crane. It powers the boom up and down, the hoist also, and swings 360 all day long. It just runs so sweetly! I am now on the final part, just adding decals and weathering. It isn't mine, I was hired. That's my official project.

But

I just aquired a whole slug of various HO items for myself on eBay, some have arrived some are still coming. One was a Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0 that was sold "like new" but was actually pretty abused. The seller wasn't a modeller, and didn't know. Anyway we struck a happy compromise, and I kept it. Got it running well too.

Among the other eBay stuff was a case lot of locomotive junk, (one mans treasure...) Which has significantly furthered some of my other wannado projects. Model RRing is alive and well this summer. Dan

[krump]

the kids are visiting at my sisters... and my honeydew list includes levelling a spot on the yard for the 18 ft diameter pool we just bought... think we've almost got it done, assisted by some extra sand. The kids are gonna love it - and since it's 4 ft deep I'm sure we'll all cool off now and then. bought the little guy (age 5) a Spiderman swim gear setup - mask, flippers, gloves... what a riot!
oh yeah the kids also want their rooms painted - Spiderman theme for the 5 yr old, and our girls share a room so they want purple, and light pink (someone,... please, TELL ME THAT THIS CAN WORK - yikes, what have I gotten into??? - I need help here !!!) - that said, it brings me back to the days in grade 9 when myself, and 4 of my best friends formed a club called The RSPPP... "The Royal Society for the PREVENTION of PINK and PURPLE" - I kid you not !
That was then, this is now - my two daughters each have a favourite colour - you guessed it, one loves Pink, the other Purple - Circle of Life thing I guess, and a major backfire.
cheers,[8D][8D][8D]

[cwclark]

well let's see...where (did) do i begin? since March..I've...build all my L girder benchwork, half the layout has sub roadbed ...half the lay out has track and turnouts layed...(so that's 24 turnouts, 16 tortoise machines in operation, an entire box of 100 -3' sections of flex track layed minus about 8 pieces, 4 boxes of cork road bed, one of 4 power pack s in, a control panel done...(sort of...got to wire it now for a second throttle and a walk around throttle )...a wye installed...(more switches, turnouts, and track laying)..oh..and a backdrop semi completed (with clouds)...yep!...been pretty busy!..i wonder what my wife has been doing these past few months?..her tahoe is always in the driveway!

[dharmon]

Well I took a couple of hours the last few evenings and just about finished up the CF7 I was working on. And since I had the airbrush out.......I dirtied up some of the locos that had been much too clean for too long. What a nice break from stucco, stone and 2x4s....this weekend's forecast isn't good though......currently looks like a strong chance of light to moderate tile, followed by occasional periods of paint.....so I better treasure the moment while I have it.....maybe I can get started on those SD40s.....

[Anonymous]

Last Friday I picked up a LARGE Z shaped N scale layout that's going to be used to help get Youth and adults in this area involved in model railroading.
The layout is in 4 pieces.
A 4' x 8' section, Two 3' x 6' sections and a 2' x 6' section.
This link shows a few photos of it.
http://www.the-gauge.com/showthread.php?t=10371

I've also been working on a couple of HO projects. Some photos are posted in this thread.
http://www.the-gauge.com/showthread.php?p=108734#post108734
My son and I have also been working on some bicycles and a Honda motorcycle we got at a moving sale for free.

[Anonymous]

Infrastructure,,,,yeah thats on my list too. It seems the little furballs have figured out how to breach the computer/train room door, and have been caught lounging on the workbench.[:(!] It wasnt really a door to start with, kinda more like a king sized baby gate. So off to Lowes I went for a slatted bifold door that fits like a glove. As soon I I get the finish stained to match, it will get hung. Better the door gets hung than one of the cats![}:)]
Then its back to the 3 brass caboose kits I've been working on (on and off) for the last 3 weeks. I'll be chanting,,,,
" I'll get them done,, I'll ge them done,,I'll get them done.." Sound familiar???

[dharmon]

Well it seems that most of our summers so far has been focused on infrastructure work..the infrastructure that houses the trains. I envy those of you that have been getting to work on the train stuff.

Jeremy..I understand the nicotine monkey..he and I tangle from time to time, and there's no easy answer. Particularly when working on projects.

Okay enough of the fun stuff. Been doing stucco work this evening and its time to clean up.......until tommorrow....second coat........ahh to get back to that CF7..

....oh yeah.....Railroading_Brit....thet multi strand wire thing for hoses sounds good...I just ripped some out of a wall......thanks

[Anonymous]

Well I've been staying away a little myself. I've been tinkering around the trainroom alittle but nothing too serious. Right now I'm in the process of eliminating a nicotine addiction. This is no time for working on an expensive model even though I am a big ball of sunshine right now[banghead][censored][B)]. Should be through the rough part soon. Thank God for Zyban!! After this is done I'll be back to work on the train room with more money to spend on trains[:D]. If my wife hasn't killed me before then.[:D]

Jeremy

[dickiee]

Thanks, Dan and all who have responded with their information about what they have been doing...It is most welcome to read!

I am STILL building my "train" room in my pole barn. I had to completely re-work my wood shop in order to carve out a 15x15 space. This project has been on-going since last Thanksgiving and is starting to finally get close to being done. After being out of the hobby for approx. 20 yrs. I am in AWE of all the improvements that have been made. DCC was just in the designer stage when I left the hobby and by the look of the ads in MR I got back in just in time to enjoy all the new products. They say you can't take it with you so I am going to blow it all on the trains. The kids can get their own money. BLI, Lionel, Trix...bring it on.

Of course now that summer is here, the heat and my 66yr. old bones and muscles are not being very co-operative. I have to just put down the laminate floor and I will be able to start un-packing a dozen or so boxes of "old" railroad stuff and going through it to see if any of it is still salvagable. Meanwhile, back to the drawing board and plans for the "last" layout. This is FUN but my back hurts!!!!

dickiee

[joseph2]

On these hot days I enjoy going into the cool basement,drinking cold beer,building any kit handy,and reading old issues of Railroad Magazine.Later on this summer I would like to assemble a Bowser locomotive and watch the Shays at Cass,West Virginia.Joe G.

[Anonymous]

I've been adding a few scratchbuilt details to a Walthers Dash 8-40B that I picked up as a non-runner on eBay - fixed the fault and it now runs well, I've since added the anti-climb pilot that came in the box and fitted Kadees. Most recently, I've drilled holes in both pilots to take some fine wire - representing mulitple working cables. I found that single wires from a multi-core telephone cable are ideal for this - with the insulation on they make a good representation of the horizontal wire running just below frame level (not sure what purpose this serves, I just copied the arrangement seen in photos), and with the insulation stripped this wire makes good MU cables. I also have an Athearn Dash 9-44CW dummy in BNSF livery awaiting assembly, and have built the first (my LHS still has some of the kit versions) of a planned train of Walthers auto-carriers - the covered variety. I'm aiming at creating the consist shown here: www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=63825

[Anonymous]

Greg - your last paragraph above really hit home ! My home.

I too have stayed away from this Forum for the past week or so in the hopes that I'd come back to a peaceful and friendly place to talk trains and modeling, and the first two posts I make have to deal w/ how I'm fed up with all the garbage that is infitrating and polluting this forum lately. Go figure - there I go getting sucked right back in !

The past week or 52, I've been remodeling, re-landscaping, painting, plumbing, ducting, trimming, framing, wiring, one house to get it sold, and then my wife buys another one that "just needed some flowers, grass seed, and a little paint." Right. We weren't here but a month, when we maxed out the 10% off one-time newcomer discount from both Loew's and the big orange box store. Now I know why HD's stock is slowly rebounding! Here we go again, or should I more acurately state, "here I go again. . ."

At least the past two week I have been framing the basement for my wood shop and model railroad room - a luxury that I have never had, and have certainly earned, for all the 'honey-dos' that I have had to do all of the 23 years we've been married. (Shouldn't there be a 'honey-due' for guys, since they have a 'honey-do' for us?)

[Anonymous]

Dan, I can really empathize with you (empathize means "to suffer with".) LOL It's amazing how I have to not only work so hard to make the money, but to then have to work even harder after that hard earned money has been spent (at Home Depot, Lowe's, etc) doing major home projects including adding two rooms to the house - doing everything myself (framing, electrical, HVAC, drywalling, etc) but the carpeting, installing lawn sprinkler system and lawn, adding a patio, painting the house (inside and out), putting on a new roof on part of the house, major landscaping, etc ad nauseum (which means "to the point of disgust or getting sick)". Get this, we bought the house new and have only been in it for 11 years. I am unfortunate to have grown up in a family of contractors and to own the code books, and worse yet - to live 3,000 miles from my contractor brothers and cousins. So it has all been a team of one!! Now you know why I feel justified in spending as much as I have in this great hobby of ours. I feel I've more than earned it. LOL It's a wonder I have any time for the hobby. So I can really appreciate what you are saying. I go to work to get a vacation. Pardon my venting here, in an unusual sort of way! Thanks for listening.

Greg

PS - A word of advice to those who are about to get married - after the honeymoon, play dumb, ignorant, and incompetent with regards to anything mechanical or involving tools. Be all thumbs / have two let hands, claim a history of medical conditions in your family,etc. Otherwise, be prepared to learn to hate the likes of Home Depot.

[rayhippard]

Lucky for me that it rained Sunday. Went to Menards for blacktop driveway sealer and convinced wife that I should save gas by getting materials for new train room that my son and I are building in my garage. Size 14' x 18'. We put sealer in corner and got the walls done and the door installed. Sooooo--- I'd say a good day for workin' on the railroad !!! Now at work and doodleing layout designs. Great day to all.

Ray

GREAT NORTHEN LIVES ON !