This is the HO layout I help work on every week at a friends house.

This layout has been under construction for over 8 years now. The owner often reminds us, that "it's the group's layout, he's just the lucky guy who lives there."

For once I took some time out of my dispatcher duties to photograph some of the operations taking place on our layout. I thought I might share a few words describing whats going on and these pictures for a visual aid. As an over-view, this is an HO Scale layout in the basement of my good friend Lee Melton. While the layout is technically privately owned, he sees it more as joint ownership with everyone who puts in the blood and sweat.

It has been a while since I made any posts about our CTC system project.

This screenshot shows a rough draft of the CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) interface.

I am using Digitrax SE8c and BDL168 boards connected to the computer through a PR3, using JMRI to build the panel and logic.

One of the fellows in our round robin group holds work sessions every Wednesday evening on his HO Scale layout, and each regular member is free to pick a project and run with it start to finish, with the layout owner footing the bill. This is great for me, because I get only the joys of layout building that I like, without any cost! And there are so many that come over to help almost every Wednesday night, that this layout is better than 80% done, in just a few years.

I have been fortunate enough to finally find a local layout group to get involved with. Everyone gets together to work on anyone else's layout who would like the groups help, and we all share in the enjoyment.

Mile Posts on the prototype railroads serve many important purposes. On model railroads they can serve equally important jobs if installed carefully.

Of these jobs, mile posts can tell a train crews where they are and help them determine how fast they're going.

It's about time I start blogging about my railroad modeling interests. I have the tendency to get started doing something (model railroading for instance) then after a few months, other things seem to draw me away for a while. So I may blog a few times a week, then go months without anything!

However, the nice thing for me is I just got involved with a very active model railroad group just a few miles away, and I'm sure I can draw some writing inspirations from this group.