​​​​​​​Let's see if this works . . . . .

• What do you do on a Rainy Thursday?

• Times Flies when you're . . . .

• A little blinky-dinky

• Bridging Bufkin's Bayou

Well if you are home with a sick 5 year old, you try a new scenery technique!

Over the last several months I've been following and watching Luke Towan's Boulder Creek Railroad vidoes on YouTube.  He recently did one on HO hay bales and since I need some hay bales for my N scale layout, I decided to see how they scaled out.  I gathered my materials, poured some coffee, and ran the video again to make sure I knew what I was doing.

Living, raising kids, and going through job transitions.  And yet I  managed to do a little work - just forgot to document it here.  I have too many blogs . . . . but here's the stuff you missed. 

Moving on, I have new ROW - mostly to accommodate the above ground needs of the family.  It has meant redoing the basement and refiguring out how to make a minimal wood shop and a model railroad work in the same space.

Taking a break from track work (!) I decided to install some working grade crossing signals. Looks like I'll have to scratch build the one for Highway 61 (as described elsewhere), but I had this one in a $15 Bag-O-Details I bought last year off flea-bay:

Model South Louisiana and you almost have to have a creosote pile bridge somewhere.  I decided to put on in between the Baton Rouge KCS Yard and the Exxon North Baton Rouge Refinery.  There are a couple of smaller pile bridges along that route in real life, but this will eventually be a full blown bayou, complete with cypress trees and Spanish moss.  And, cause I'm just that guy, it's named for my good friend Robert Bufkin (and old Navy man) who insisted in rather salty language that I needed a D__n Bayou on my layout somewhere.

Finally back in the train saddle!

First up are a couple of rescued and partially rehabbed Ortner hoppers:

So now that all the benchwork is largely complete, I am working to tie in a switching yard that I inherited from a good friend.  This yard will be a stand in for the KCS Baton Rouge yard, and replaces the two track fiddle yard I had in this location.  And yes, all the stuff of the filing cabinet stays - the household COO has mandated it's continued storage.  I plan to put a small plywood shelf over teh yard with some under cabinet lights to help se ethe end of the yard:

The BRS welcomed 3 new pieces of rolling stock this week:

Gonna have to work on the first two - clearly one of these things is not like the other.

The shop foreman also had an engaging discussion with one of his guys about when the track work crossing Bufkin's Bayou will be finished:

So here we are, just starting the Second Annual MRH Memorial Day to Labor Day Challenge.  You can find the opening thread here.  SIne I jumped in last year, I decided to do it again this year.  Being a good, government employed process guy, I looked over last year's thread.  Here's what I planned to do then:

Wednesday afternoon and thursday were family time - eating, playing, eating more. Friday I had to work (!) but managed to watch my LSU Tigers win against Arkansas, going 10-2 for the year and retaining the coveted Boot trophy. Sadly, Auburn didn't help me out on Saturday, loosing embarrassingly to Alabama. So now I have to lean on Georgia (bleh) in hope of a Sugar Bowl bid with Bama down in flames.

So Saturday before football I got several major jobs done off the Honey Do List, which meant I could do some serious track laying on Sunday.