Today it's 16 days since I left the army, and today I can celebrate the start up on construction.

 After a 8-year hiatus I am back into the hobby of Model Railroading. I just got done cleaning out my side of the garage when my eight-year old kindly asked if I could set up the railroad. It's my first layout -- roughly a double loop on a 4x8 sheet of plywood. The legs had long since been removed and the wiring was in a shambles. But lo and behold I was able to get trains running by the end of the day! (He was quite excited). Now I feel myself being pulled (and hopefully pulling my son along with me) back into the fun of model railroading. 

I have just completed installing a base for my water feature. Its 1/4" plywood supported on the edge of the facia and by risers attached to joists at six points. I sealed it with gloss medium which needs sanding again. Learning point- install bases for water feature BEFORE installing facia! This was a real pain the butt.

 I did a guest spot on the Model Rail Cast show blogcast this week. While I've done interviews, and been involved with making videos before, the amount of "post production" work that has to be done never ceases to amaze me.  Ryan Anderson, host of the show, said actually recording the show was a little like making sausage - the end result sure tastes good but seeing the process up close can be a little disturbing.

Working on models and layouts is a little like making sausage - 

Hello everyone, I am Bruce and I collect and operate trains of many scales and gauges. My Favorite Scale is S also known as 3/16th scale or 1:64th. There is not a whole lot to choose from in S as there is in O and HO but it is the perfect size inbetween Ho and O and there is more coming out everyday, S is a true scratchbuilders scale for those who shy away from the tinplate Flyer trains, I like trains period I have N, some Ho, S, On30, O and G trains. My first perment layout is going to be O gauge mostly.

I'll be handling the prototype modeling column for MRH - and we have all kinds of interesting, exciting topics in the hopper  . . . but first I have this problem. I have to finish an N scale layout, and an associated book, for Kalmbach.  This should be a case of "model only what the camera can see" but I'm actually enjoying building this stupid thing enough that I don't want to "fake it" - plus I may try to sell it rather than pitch it in the dumpster.

Here's a run down on this thing -

N scale

I have found as I progress on my practice layout that I spend at least as much time and money developing a work shop that facilitates the hobby as I do on the actual hobby itself. Recently I have started to find my work bench completely overwhelmed with Jars. While I do have some shelving, I wanted something that would be easy to access while I work without taking up a lot of space. I hit on the idea of suspending a vertical paint rack from the exposed joists in my work area.

I build my latest turnouts similiar to Joe with Central Valley tie strips.

Now I model the rail joints. I cut with a saw the top of the rail.

You see at the blank spot only the rail head is cut.

With a finished track and joint bars:

 This summer N scale modelers from around the world set up the world's biggest layout in Louisville, KY. The Derby City Express, as it was called, featured a layout of staggering proportions. The exact details can be found here, http://web.mac.com/pauljdowns/2008_N_Scale_Convention/Home.html , but the numbers that I heard at the show were about 700 modules, spread across 50,000 square feet with roughly 100 scale miles of mainline. A run around the layout took about 3 hours.