What once seemed like an unattainable dream to me is about to become reality. Tonight I made a couple of clicks of the mouse and set my hobby budget back a pretty penny but an order of a Walthers 90 foot DCC turntable is now placed and should be here within a few days.  I've wanted a turntable since I first saw an Atlas one on a friends older brothers layout when I was a kid.  I've had a few too, after a fashion. There was the aforementioned Atlas one, albeit an N scale version. It was noisy as all get out and took forever to rotate around what with stopping at every position it has along the way.  Then there was a couple of Walthers N scale  TT's but not the new reliable ones with indexing.  No, these were the older and very frustrating line tracks  by eye type and they took the patience of Jobe to get working reliably.  I'd seen the Diamond scale offerings over the years and also seen the ads for the NY railway supply PTC units but they all seemed unattainable to me. Even when the newer Walthers built ups came out they seemed unattainable because of my limited hobby budget.  Anyway, I'm now in HO scale to stay and when I saw the empty space on the front of my latest layout plan, I thought to myself... " that looks like I could squeeze a TT  in there, heck I'll scratchbuild a manual one"  Well, first of all I found out right quick  that you can't exactly just squeeze a TT in anywhere and second of all, I knew deep down pushing a TT around with my finger wasn't exactly going to satisfy me.   So after much consultation with the railroad CFO who also happens to be my lovely wife, a way was found for me to have the Walthers built up TT that I REALLY wanted. Now I just had to figure out a way to make it and the other engine service structures fit.  No biggie....."I'll just add some width to that end of the shelf".... But wait, "now it's not a shelf exactly anymore and being able to someday move the layout intact is going out the window" Still haven't completely finalized all that but I have a vision in my mind where the piece of benchwork that  holds the TT and roundhouse will be able to be separated from the  rest of the layout when and if  the day comes that my wife and I realize our dream of someday building a new house here on our land. Oh yeah, did I mention  a roundhouse?  Got that, a three stall version for my birthday, in anticipation of getting the TT.  I mean why have a TT without a roundhouse?  But wait, with a roundhouse and TT, don't you need a coaling tower and a water tower too ? Walthers wood coaling tower is now also on the way with the TT and just for kicks and an extra $3.49 there is a water column in the package. I have yet to decide if I'm actually going to have the water tank right at trackside with it's own spout or  if I'm going to use the column and model the tank off to one side somewhere but I figured for no more than it cost, I'd better get the column just in case.  Anyway, enough rambling......can you tell how excited I'm getting?

Regards,

Michael