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Rio Grande Dan's blog

Ballast color test and code 55 Narrow Gauge ME Track
It's been a while since I posted anything on my RGS RR and NowI'n working on some ballast I have made from soil and ballast fron the actually RGS in Colorado. Here are a few photos of a mocked up area on my RR:


Catching the Spamers before they get too far on MRH
I love MRH forums for the simple reason that people trying to Advertise here for free by starting a blog as a cover for their products last about 20 minutes and admin gets a dozen e-mails reporting them and then they are gone forever. I like that every member here looks out for the forums and as soon as some dork tries to place a hidden add on the forums they are reported and bam they are gone gone gone.

Computer Hard Drive complete failure
My Computer has 3 Hard drives in it Drive C 250 GB, Drive D 1Tera Byte & Drive E 260 GB used as Virtual Ram which allows My computer to Run at super High Speed.
Well My drive "C" was my Photo and book File and had all my model Railroading and MRH magazine files as well as My e-mail and everything that I had for Model Railroading.

CMT an MRH Sponsoring Advertiser
A couple days ago I registered with one of our Sponsoring Advertisers "CMT Model Trains". Apparently I put (.com) at the end of my e-mail address and it should be (.net) and Steve at CMT went out of his way to call me at my home yesterday and left me a message explaining that he had tried numerous times to E-mail me with the information I had requested and that the address I had given him wouldn't work and he kept having his E-mail returned as un-deliverable and left me his phone number to call him directly.

Beyond The Homa Sote yard
Now that I have the Yard layout set I've been putting the 4% Narrow Gauge Main line grade out of Ridgway toward Placerville and Telluride using the cookie cutter style baseboard. I have about 40 feet of baseboard installed so far and My wife went to bed so I had to quit cutting and screwing the baseboard down and decided to glue down some cork roadbed in place. Usually I use wood glue to attach the Cork roadbed and I have 3 or 4 tubes of Caulking type tubes of liquid nails so I Tried it. It is so much less messy than any other adhesive I've ever used before.

Hobby Shop Day
I was on a hobby shops Trek yesterday "317miles round trip" 8 Model Railroad specialties Shops in 9&1/2 Hours. A few of the Items I was looking for were decoders for 2ea 2-8-0 C-16 & 2ea 2-8-0 C-19 D&RGW light steam engines Soundtraxx DSD-101LC Decoders for them & the RGS Galloping Goose #5 DCC/Sound card Tsunami TSU-1000 DCC w/Sound and 5 ea 0.78X1.56X0.31 Oval Speakers for all 5 engines and 14 differently numbered new Rolling stock by Blackstone in HOn3 as well as numerous accessories and books and DVD's.

A Happy Thanksgiving to All the world from the USA
While sitting in my Train room this Morning I realized today is Thanksgiving in America. I know other countries have similar celebrations but for U.S. citizens it's our end of harvest season party and is celebrated on the last Thursday of November. It was actually started before America was called The United States By the early settlers and the Native American Indians coming together with that years Harvest grown by the settlers and the wild Game the natives brought to a feast celebrating Peace of the two peoples.

RGS Roundhouse Wall Molds Photos part II
Here are all the Molds I'll be using to cast my walls for my HOn3 Rio Grande Southern Roundhouse and I built 1 of the 6 interior Roof supports with scale lumber 12X12 up rights and 45 degree supports and 2X12 that will have nut and bolt castings added later as well as the 4X12's used for the base supports around each of the legs. Also The Base which will have the top of the pit area still to be cut out. see Photos below


Scratch Building The Ridgway Roundhouse and Turntable for MY Rio Grande Southern RR
Hello again MRH readers its October 4th 2009.
For the past 6 months I have searched for a High Quality Craftsman Model of the Ridgway Roundhouse for my Rio Grande Southern Railroad and have been unsuccessful! what I do have are Exact scale Drawings of most of every structure on the Rio Grande Southern so I decided it's scratch building time.
So far I have laid out the base of the 7 stall roundhouse and the three brick walls on the ends. Now you ask why are there three ends?

Spikeing down the track wireing the Turnouts and jumping up and down with JOY
September 2nd, 2009- Temp in Layout room 1 a cool 70 Degrees.