So my buddy left me a canon vixia hrf 800 video camera and a tripod and a bag of stuff? Oh, and a quick start guide. Just enough to make me to turn a few more grey hairs to silver.

I have had several false starts at doing this. I opened up some loco's to see what I had to deal with and sort of lost interest. Mostly I lose interest as I am not certain of what I am doing and watching video's and reading the manuals doesn't seem to answer all my questions. I have a couple of Lok pilot decoders I just received. Those should be simple as I wont be changing the installed light boards.

I am getting ready for my second season of growing my own trees for my railroad. Last season I gave away most of my crop. This season I hope to use what I learned last season to grow a lot more larger and healthier plants.

I went to the Bemrrc Swap meet saturday and bought a few bridges and cars for the railroad. I also got 2 Atlas classic GP7's, new in the box. $30. each. I have been wanting a couple so I could not pass these up. I ordered some "torpedo tube" roof mounted air tanks and winterization hatches for them. Now I have to figure out a paint scheme for my home road and even worse I still don't have a name for the home road. So it may be awhile before I add much to this thread. Still buried in railroad building. These will also eventually get loksound decoders.

I am slowly winning the battle with the almost 120 degree corner. Location 30-13.   http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/27731

I plan to cover the masonite with white primer and then the top will be painted with sky blue. The first question is will the color behind the backdrop matter? I may only paint the top half of the masonite sky blue and leave the bottom white.

The last couple days I put in another 20 feet of benchwork. Another 10 will go in tomorrow. I am building it with "L" girder construction. Its just what I know and its is pretty easy to move or adjust cross members as the need arises. I also put the roadbed in the waterfront area that connects the lower and upper levels. My roadbed is either 1/2 homasote on 1/2 plywood or 2 pieces of 1/2 plywood sandwiched. On top of that is regular midwest cork. I learned about using caulk in these pages. I like that better than glue. And it holds the cork and the track just fine.

 I bought a Kato sd40-2 with Tsunami sound. The price for both was less than the cost of the loco so the decoder was basically free. I think the previous owner let it go so cheap as it had some problems. When placed on the track, the prime mover would start up but no other sounds and it would not move. Further investigation revealed the truck wires were loose in the spring clips and the band from the bottom motor lead was very loose. I did a reset but still problems. After playing with it, it would start up and then shut down and do nothing. oops! I broke something?

I have a couple sections of previously built benchwork that I want to finish the rear tracks before I bolt it to the wall. I sifted some play sand and the moment I put some down I realized the scale was wrong. Its closer to rip rap than ballast. Frustrating. I have agonized over the years about finding the correct color and texture of ballast. I have several bags of collected sand and several bags of WS ballast purchased about 20 years ago. The collected sand is much too fine.

I took some pics to show where we started

we had to take down a wall and do some rewiring.

I got back into the hobby and thought this time I would stay. Forget it! Designing a trackplan is always the same thing. Constant compromises. This doesn't fit, I will never be able to reach this! The room prep as too much work. My floor is cold. And everybody keeps outbidding me!

I am so buried in projects I can't see the day a train might actually get on the track. I give up! I am going to turn the railroad room into pool hall. I knew this would be too much work.