Well fellow modelers, it's time for a change. As much as I like what I have in the layout room, I want to make things more accessible. To do that I needed to eliminate my wye, Spectre and a turntable. I still want my CP engines to service the Ghost River mainline/CP branch and my logging engines to work the logging branch.

Going to be visiting the Orlando and Melbourne area of Florida in April. Time has been set aside to visit Hobbytown USA in Melbourne and there may even be time for a bit of railfanning. Any  train watching suggestions, or member meets, would be greatly appreciated. Yah never know, I might just get tired of laying around on the sand drinking Corona.

Contact me offline if you would prefer not to answer in the thread.

Roy 

A lot has happened on the Ghost River Railway over the past few months. Lots of trees have been made and added to the layout, new industries added at Ghost River, new rolling stock and engines and a new Zephyr DCS51 which has allowed me to break the layout up into two districts. 

Guess I'm a bit over due for an update on the happenings around Ghost River.

Lots of progress has been made in the motive power department and in the scenery department. I received my decals from Rail Graphics last week and now have decals on all of my Ghost River steamers. Rolling stock is next. I've also just finished my two truck MDC Shay after working on it for the past year. It runs very well and is quite quiet for an MDC. Here's a picture of the little gaffer pulling into Camp 1 on my upper level. 

I've found that I enjoy building structures from scratch, starting with cutting my own scale wood. This cabin is an experiment to try out different techniques. Most of the wood I cut is either cedar, fir, or hemlock. I have been able to get sizes down to 6" using my bandsaw. For 2x4's and 2x6's I'm experimenting with strips of veneer which seems to be the right thickness. I'm also making shakes out of the veneer.

Finally, my annual maintenance session is complete. This started out when I began entering all of my equipment into the Easy Model Railroad inventory program. Improvements include painted rail, new turnout control panel, roundhouse power control panels, painted fascia, car card boxes/trays, additonal first generation CPR locomotives, more rolling stock and improvements to scenery and building placement. All track has now been treated with CRC 3-36, so I'll just have to see how well it works.

Below is a photo of the most recent additions to the Ghost River Rwy.

Both structures are scratchbuilt, including the ladder,  with scale wood cut in my shop. The only commercial items are the pulleys, the spout (a straw), bolt detail and the counterwights (spru). More service detail and a small cabin still need to be added to the scene. A wood burning Climax is the loco assigned to Camp 1, hence the need for the wood shed.

Roy

Finally, I get around to updating what's happening on the Ghost River. I've been busy adding lots of scenery, scratchbuilding some structures, generally goofing off and entering my inventory into Easy Model Railroader. The inventory was quite a challenge, but once I got onto the program things progessed easily over the period of a week or so. Loco pictures have been added and rolling stock is next.

I've finally solved, at least in a roundabout way, my camera /computer hardware problems and can upload pictures.

Like many other modellers who model mining and logging I wanted a MDC Climax on the roster. Mine ran as well as could be expected, but I wanted something better. A friend suggested using a 44T frame and drive, so I went asearching on the net. I found two sites, one a blog entry describing how the modeller made his conversion and the other a commercial site, Neither satisfied my need for simplicity (read no shell cutting) or the pocketbook.

This is the most recent addion to the infrastructure of the Ghost River Rwy. A scratchbuilt trestle over the Ghost River gorge. The wood is cut to scale. I mainly used fir and cedar. The footings still need to be made and the water poured, but the threstle is otherwise finished. I deliberately placed some crossmembers between the bents, and the railing around the fire platform, on angles to give the trestle an aged look. Had lots of fun building the trestle.