The East Baton Rouge Parish Department of Public Works (Mount Rainier Division) acquired several new pieces of equipment this week, thanks to a government/military surplus auction (the Laurel Valley and Ponderosa Northern cars are custom paint/letters for two friend's N Scale Layouts):

After getting the oil out of my clothes, and finishing a lengthy list of piled Honey-Do's (!) I got back to layout work.  I FINALLY  got out the benchwork I got off Craigslist last Spring (surplussed by a local On30 modeler who was retiring to his boat), and started re-sawing it for the remaining two benchwork segments:

Those of you following my work last year will note that I haven't gotten nearly as far as I had hoped.  The good news is I've had fun along the way, and tried some new things.

While its good to spend time letting folks know about all the modeling we're doing, it's also good to take a break and look at how someone else has done it.   I did just that this past weekend, with a trip up the line to the N-scale NYS&A of Todd Treaster.  Todd hosts open houses through out the year, and this was the first one I had the chance to attend.

Coming in the basement door, the yard sits off to the right - and what a yard it is:

Over at the Railwire, we got an informal challenge this week to all build, in our respective scales, this:

The powers that be surmised it to be a track bridge that would allow loading of a box car on an adjacent, unseen track.

A couple of weeks ago, I sent Coxy a note asking for a new post on his blog.  He's weathering rolling stock right and left, and I was really liking his flickr pics.  Being the gentlemen he is, he tagged me, and asked for an update.  So here it is.

MRH colleagues:

While this site is a great family for trading ideas and experiences about model railroading, we wouldn't have this great hobby if it were not for the real thing.  So when there is a problem on the prototype, we often take notice.  In that vein, I hope you will all permit me to diverge for just a second to talk about today's crash.

During the Memorial Day weekend, I actually managed to get a few things done on section 1 of the layout.  The biggest accomplishment was completing the DCC standard wiring.  The power bus is 12 ga. stranded copper in red and green insulation.  Feeders are 18 ga. solid copper wire soldered to rail joiners.  The power bus is connected through the section to two terminal strips (one on each end).  Connections are made with suitcase connectors, and all rail joints are soldered to improve connectivity.

Following the "completion" of my latest scratchbuilding project (see Update #9), I have started to get back to work on the layout.  Since I'm running a lot of diapering actions, and mowing the lawn, doing the dishes, etc, I'm trying to keep the work simple and small.

I installed the first two of my Humpyard Purveyance Switch controllers: