Hello friends. It's been a while since I posted anything but it's been a busy fall. Retired Sept 30. Wife retired 2 weeks later. We packed up and moved from Florida to Michigan at the end of October. Been getting settled in ever since. Ordered my benchwork and that should be here in 2 weeks. Also ordered all my track that I will need to build the new layout. Got most of it this weekend. The rest will be here this coming week. One disappointment though. I ordered a glass top work table that will roll under the layout.

Having spent months planning, designing and redesigning, I feel like I have now gotten a railroad that I will enjoy building and will be a blast to run., This is a short video tour of what I hope it will look like.

https://youtu.be/7_9Xtww6By8

Moderator note: embedded video for easier viewing

Well, I have tweaked, changed, modified, moved, updated the 9' x 11' layout to where I am pretty satisfied with the results. I know there will be more additional comments and suggestions, and while I do absolutely appreciate all of them, guys, and ladies, I have to stop somewhere. And this is where I am stopping. This will work. It will be very satisfying and will give me years of model railroading.

With a number of great suggestions and plenty of time to modify the design, I have taken another look and made some changes to the plan. Overall its still basically the same, but moving a few turnouts, modifying the track plan, adding a couple of sidings has given me even more to utilize when operations begin.

Thanks to all who made the suggestions. Its always welcome.

Greetings one and all. Its been a while since I have posted anything as I have been busy getting all of our ducks in a row pending retirement on Sept 29. I have gone through several layout designs as our final location has changed several times. First an apartment with a decent size spare bedroom. Then a  house with a full basement...that was a dream layout design there..now finally we have settled on a brand new mobile home with a nice size spare bedroom.

Just added a new page to my personal blog, if anyone is interested,

https://johnnybweb.wordpress.com/2017/03/12/design-now-build-later/

No, not twerking. Tweaking..looking at the design of the new layout and changing things up as something doesn't look right. I started out with a plan that I thought would encompass everything I like, or almost everything, but it was a bit too much. Started with 7 industries. Got that down to 4, plus a depot. Had 2 mainlines and a long passing siding. And a shorter passing siding.

Hello again fellow modelers. Its been a while since I have posted here as life has been rather busy. But I have exciting news to tell. If you will head to my personal blog, https://johnnybweb.wordpress.com, and read my newest entry, you will see what I mean. A New Chapter is About to Begin.

And please, I welcome your comments and input on the new layout design.

There have been many excellent model railroaders that I have admire over the years. So many, that I would be remiss if I tried to name them all. But two that come right to mind for me are David Barrow and Lance Mindheim. Many years ago I read about David Barrows Cat Mountain and Santa Fe and saw how realism can be acheived through simplicity.  His original CM&SF wasn't overly scenicked. It wasn't overly landscaped. But it looked right. Than a few years later he wrote about dominos, 2' x 4' boxes that you basically assemble right on the workbench.

Added a short blog on weathering on a new covered Hopper the birthday bunny brought me a few weeks ago.

http://johnnybweb.wordpress.com