Hello Everybody My name is Dan Kelley AKA: Rio Grande Dan here on the MRH forums.

I'm a member of the MRH Spam Police and spend 40 to 60 hrs a week reading through the many Posts and Blogs here on the MRH forums. While reading I keep seeing one problem that many new Model Railroaders are having and that is "WHERE & HOW DO I START?"

I have more than 80% of the Model completed. The doors and roof are the only major pieces left to complete the rest is small details and interior accessories.

The Base with the 6 inspection pits is complete except for weathering and dirtying up to look like 40 years of soot and grease that settled on the floor from the steam engines.

With as much time as this took I was afraid I would never get the windows in place.

This first photo only shows 7 of the 13 windows per side and the side doors on the two 125 foot long walls

The upper wall is the exterior with the 24" wide brick pillars and the lower shot shows the interior wall with the roofs 10" X 10" timber supports.

I took my time deciding just which project of over 300 I have planned for My Rio Grande Southern RR Circa 1930-40 I wanted to start first. Some of the structures I have planned will take 1 to 2 years to scratch build others only a few weeks.

I bought the Model Builders Software Video for Windows. So far I haven't built anything and it does have a learning curve. Not a hard one but it does have it's steps and you need to learn them.

I'm not in the Model Building stage right now but I did a test of the soft ware and there are a few ready to build sample structures you can print out in your scale and then assemble.

Last year Carstens Publication started a new once a year magazine exclusively HOn3 and in April of 2009 I pre-ordered their new "2009 HOn3 Annual" it arrived on time around the first week of August and I was expecting a book full of adds like most Narrow Gauge magazines. To my surprise it turned out to be an above average HO Narrow Gauge magazine with very few adds and lots of great construction articles and a number of multi-page step by step projects.

I finally Found some sheep for my stock cars and they each need painting as they are all pure white. Anybody ever see pure white Sheep other than Marys' ?

I have been looking for 3 years for sheep for my stock cars. A little more that 15 months ago I found 2 packs of 4 sheep each pre painted for $8.49 and said no way!! Some body out there has to make un-painted sheep in bulk for less money.

It's been a while since I posted anything on my RGS RR and NowI'n working on some ballast I have made from soil and ballast fron the actually RGS in Colorado. Here are a few photos of a mocked up area on my RR:

I love MRH forums for the simple reason that people trying to Advertise here for free by starting a blog as a cover for their products last about 20 minutes and admin gets a dozen e-mails reporting them and then they are gone forever. I like that every member here looks out for the forums and as soon as some dork tries to place a hidden add on the forums they are reported and bam they are gone gone gone.

My Computer has 3 Hard drives in it Drive C 250 GB, Drive D 1Tera Byte & Drive E 260 GB used as Virtual Ram which allows My computer to Run at super High Speed.

Well My drive "C" was my Photo and book File and had all my model Railroading and MRH magazine files as well as My e-mail and everything that I had for Model Railroading.