We have all seen them - Bachmann's Heavy duty flatcar was sold in almost every one of their larger sets sporting stakes and Logs.  They come in either red L&N livery or blue Great Northern livery.  Now, before you scoff at the car, hold it up next to a Bluebox Athearn Heavy Duty flat and you may notice they are very very similar to each other.  Very similar indeed!

I am quite happy to report that at this very moment, my test train has successfully run a couple laps on my layout, thus it now RUNS!

Trackplan:

So At first I was considering not having a backdrop of any sort and just playing on this real-estate of mine.

I then got to thinking and realized a backdrop is the best protection for the wall surface!!  And it will look better, too...

It dawned on me while I was taking my pictures that I really needed to consider getting better lights installed and Now while I had the chance.  So I did.

I prefer track lighting.  You can very quickly get as much or as little light in a scene as you wish, and with a simple adjustment put that light anywhere in the room.

I realized I wanted it installed flush to the wall, so I used a piece of my future fascia as a straightedge, temporarily pinning it in place.

I still contend that now, in this apartment, in my current time and place, a layout is not the most valuable use of my time.  However, int he course of a couple weeks I came across a couple shelves, just singular pieces, and before you know it I had shelves on two walls in my bedroom.  And the more I looked at them, the easier the layout thought became.

Then two more events happened.  First, I found a 6'x16" shelf.  Second, MRH threw up the $500 Getting Started Challenge.

So with my club layout area spruced up and the chores out of the way - those other projects I had on the burners, though there's a lot still on there! - I took a moment to relax with a little work...this has been in the works, while I plotted out my $500 layout...I've embellished upon the initial plan quite a bit, so we're a bit beyond the scope of the initial $500 "getting started" project.

I went ahead and put all the prior work in this blog here:

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/10350#comment-82787

I had a bit of an "oops" photo tonight, whereas my hand interfered a bit with a long exposure.

But as I look at it, though it does appear to be a hand, I realize this interference could be used to our advantage.

We've all seen the pictures with smoke, soot and dust added to the scene as an aftereffect by way of such tools as photoshop.  Me personally, I preferred photos back before photoshop - if there was smoke, it was either a prop IN the picture, or it was the result of combining negatives.

So as it may be, you may know I'm up to building a working model of a model in theory that would provide a lot of fun on a quick budget.

Today I needed curves for my narrow gauge test loop.  Now yes, I could buy a number of very nice aides from the market, but that would take 2-7 days to get here and cost at least $10.00 a piece.  I can get the wood for about $3.00 for a 4"x24" slab from my local shop within a stone's throw.

So, I was doing a nice happy search today for routine things and made this little discovery; the search bar is all screwed up.  Apparently, it's been screwing up more and more, lately, with this new search bar appearing in greater frequency.  New is better, of course, until you see that the option "search titles and descriptions" is no longer there next to the search frame.  I use this feature all the time,because you never know when the seller will put all the label data in the actual listing, but only use the words "Metal Train Locomotive" as thei

So I've been monkeying around with this project using it to learn how to better use my laser cutter.  Much progress has been made, as I climb each learning curve.

Yes, the project load here is lively!