First scenery delivery

Been a busy month. My youngest graduated from high school and has just left for boot camp in CA to become a Marine. Its weird to have all 4 of my children out of public school and starting there young lives. After making a couple of purchase from both Arizona Rock and Scenic Express I have some scenery supplies.

Now with some supplies in hand, scenery shall now commence. Not sure how far this shall take me but I have a feeling not very far.

My latest accusition

On a trip to Ft Worth stopped by one of the Local Hobby shops to get some supplies. After talking about my layout to them they said that they had one of the latest FWWR engines. I was under the assumption that Athearn had done the graphics incorrectly. But low and behold they had done them write. So after working out a deal I purchased this:

Now if Athearn could only get the details rite it would be fantastic. Only things that I need to add are Tsunami, couplers, replace the cab , nose, battery box's, and other misc details.  Well maybe I will get to this soon and get it off the self.

As for the layout working on drawing up building plans so construction can begin and scenery started.

April Changes

Well been a busy month but not as much done as I had hoped. I got the backdrop finished and painted, FINALLY.

I've run some trains and ran into a couple of Operating problems with my yard and after looking at some photos that I had taken I decided to move the peninsula that RTP was on. Here is a photo of the prototype:

Here is what I have done so far:

By moving the peninsula this opened up area aisle  so that I could add bench work for Bunge Oil. So here is the beginning bench work addition.

This addition will give me the room to better represent this industry. The tank unloading tracks will move a couple of inches to the right so the area between the siding has some room, trying to compress the area I had made the tracks too close together this new space will be much better. I will also be able to model the storage tanks and the building better as shown:

Tulsa 2012

Been busy but not on the layout. On March 23, I went to Tulsa OK for the Layout Design & Operations Weekend. Thia is the second OPP till you drop event I have ever been to, rewarding and now motivated to get things going on my layout. I'm tired, but had a blast. On Friday night I operated on Jim Senese's Kansas City Railway. Jim's interest is urban railroading in KS. The KCT represents 4-1/2 miles of railroads in the West and East Bottoms of Kansas City. We ran in two man crews for about 3 hrs. Saturday was the Design Workshops all day including 2 presentations by Lance Mindheim. As a bonus Lance used my plan in his Designing a switching Layout presentation, He is one of many who help me with the plan and I thank him. Saturday night Opp session was at Sammy Carlile's Hereford Sub. I meet Sammy couple of years ago at the MCPM Meet in KS and have become friends. Sammy's layout is a double deck layout in his garage. Its Santa Fe mainline from Amarillo, Tx west to Clovis, NM. Also at his house was a few other friends so we all had a great time. Sunday morning operated at Tom Fausser's Central New Jersey & Lehigh Valley. This layout is set in Hoboken / Jersey City New Jersey. His layout uses car floats and is heavy industry. I had a great time and everybody was very warm and friendly. Looking forward to getting things running again at home.

The following weekend the wife and I traveled to Collage Station for Parents Day. My daughter is a junior at A&M and is also in the Aggie Band. The highlight of the trip was when she got here senior boots. At the band banquet she also received an award for most outstanding Junior.  Cant believe it was a little over 3 years ago she was graduating from high school and next year she will be graduating from collage. Time flies when you have kids.

Roadtrip

This past weekend had to run to Ft Worth for a NMRA meeting and had a chance to run by the FWWR Hodge Yard for a photo opp. Last December I heard that the FWWR had purchased 3,  GP40-2's from NRE. I caught the first one last December at Hodge Yard, FWWR 2020. This unit is ex NREX 4631, originally SCL 1536 a GP40.

Saturday I caught the second one FWWR 2021. This unit is ex RMPX 6407, originally DTI 407.

From what I understand these three units will be repainted into FWWR color's in the spring. As per the usual these units will receive names but I have no idea what they will be. Would like to recreate these units for the layout with this current paint scheme, I like the uniqueness of the schemes.

Also while at the yard heard a horn blow and relized that they were creating a train and got some overhead shots of  2001 and 2002.

After the meeting was over I went by Everman to get some more phots of Mrs Bairs Warehouse and take a look at this structure so I can start building it. Hope to start this weekend. Also had the Granson in town and was able to run some trains with him. Overall it was a great weekend

Mrs Bairds Redo

This past weekend spent time Redoing the Mrs Bairds Warehouse. When I first installed this industry I thought I had a vision on what I wanted to do, but I was wrong, so I tore out this industry and started over. Here are some photos of the prototype:

So this past weekend I have started on redoing this area and this is what I've done so far:

Created the structure out of foam core to help get an idea on how large this structure will be and basic footprint with docking area. May decrease height of building but not sure what it is suppose to be went be, estimated height from above pictures. Roadbed is in place and track need to be reinstalled. Basic scenery started with ditch's cut out

January's Work

Well been slow work on the railroad for January. Still doing track wiring, did I mention on how much I hate wiring. The results are that I was able to run some trains here is a picture of the Everman Park Yard:

Here is one of my stock Athearn GP50's too bad this loco needs to be fixed detailing wise, but it runs, YYAAA!

Also working on the seams to the backdrop so I will be able to be painted soon and get things started on coming to life. Completed upper valence and lighting is finished. Now need to get some lighting in the center of the room and things will be great.

Happy New Year to everybody. Spent the New Years weekend working on the layout and was able to run the first train, FINALLY. Now working on the electronics for the yard, prepping the backdrop for paint, finishing applying the drop feeds for the buss. After getting all the gremlins out and the track work complete will proceed with painting the track and start the scenery phase, YAAAAA.