I haven't worked on my layout for a while but I have been doing some research on it and ordering some stuff for it.

First, my layout is basewd on the New York Connecting Railroad and the connecting tracks that run from Bay Ridge to it. These tracks now belong to the  New York and Atlantic Railroad from what I understand. They used toi belon to the Long Island Railroad but that Raiilroad is now part of the MTA in New York andf only handles passenger operations. The Lomg Island used to handle freight but that operations i now under NY & A control and has been since the late 1990s. So what has this to do with my layout you might ask? Well this is what I have been researching using Google. One can pinpoint an address and access an aerial view of that area ao I hae been trying to follow the line from Bay Ridge through Brooklyn and into Queens. The problem is that it is easy to lose the tracks as they go underground in several locations and can't be followed everywhere even though a god part of teh line run in a trench through parts of Brooklyn. I know this since I was fascinated b part of this line used run past Brooklyn College when I went there from 1967-1971. It wasn't well used but f one was patient you could see a train or two.But I wasn't into model railroading back then.

My youngest son got married last month and moved into an apartment n East 17th Street in Brooklyn. Now the connection of this to my layout is that he lives next to same cut that New York and Atlantic trains sometimes run which is located between Avenue H and Avenue I. WEll I had occassion to go to that loaction last Thursday so I took the opportunity to go look into the cut and what I saw was facsinating. There is track there and while it isn't used too often, it is still used. However, from the width of the cut and teh appearance of the ground it appears that ther was once a second track there. It was probably taken up at some between 1960 and 1980 when traffuc was not anywhere near it was when the line saw many 100 car train lengths lie it did between 1918 and 1950. However I can't find when that happened in my research.

The second thing I have done is to look for some clear plastic that I could use as glazing on a modification to a Model Power buiding I am going to use on the layout. I found it oddly enough on eBay and it is o its way here as I write this.  I know many don't like eBay but it is often a good lace to find stuff to use on your layout. It is also nice place shop since you don't nee to use your vehicle and expend any money on gasoline.

The third thing I've done is to order some stuff from Fast Tracks that will help me lay track on the layout. Tim Warris has developed some wooden tools for use with flex track that will allow you to establish curves of a standard radius for use on your layout. These look great and the demos on his website (he is one of thew sponsors of MRH so you can click on his sponsor box to get to his website) are simply facsinating. I haven't gotten these yet but I will write about them when I do.

So this is what has been happening since my last posting.

Irv