The past week offered opportunity to get back into the basement after almost 7 months away from the railroad and continue to make progress in any way possible. After a successful winter work session, the project list was still long with a few major projects remaining before more intricate and detailed work can begin. Some time was spent on each major goal, and the coming week will provide more opportunity for work.

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Interest in my previous post on backdrops was high, with several folks asking how I achieved my results. As I have several lengths of backdrops to paint, I decided to do a brief photo tutorial that runs through my method and explains more thoroughly each step of the process and what I am trying to achieve. I do want to give credit where it is due, and praise the work of many modelers but specifically Joe Fugate who's technique heavily influenced and guides mine. Despite this, I take a slightly different approach as any of us do with any technique to fit our railroad's needs.

As spline roadbed has started to wind itself through the (nonexistent, yet) hills of the Cascades, time waiting for glue to dry has been filled with a multitude of tasks from tuning turnouts, building turnouts, wiring, and most recently an endeavor into backdrop painting. Pictures of the new mountains below.

The week before Christmas, and the days right after found a great deal of time to make a concentrated effort on completing a majority of the benchwork on the railroad. We implemented a few new techniques on the upper levels and found these to be very effective. Next up, all the Masonite: spline, fascia, and backdrops. Details in following posts

Well it has been a very long time since the last post and life has been equally busy. Despite the craziness, still found time to get to the basement out of the summer heat and subsequent winter cold, and get some things accomplished on the railroad. Starting this project, I really didn't have a general idea of how fast things would move and how far we would be in roughly a year, but we have reached that point and I am actually quite surprised.

A busy spring has slowed progress on the railroad dramatically. Goals for February were pushed into March, and then into April. Despite this, some progress has been made. I will quickly run through what has gotten done, and my plans for the summer.

In between laying cork, building benchwork, and fiddling with turnouts, I have begun to weather this Maine Central boxcar that has been sitting on my workbench for a while now.

Merry Christmas! After a busy fall significant progress on the railroad could actually begin. Because of the design of the railroad, the staging yards will be built completely (benchwork, track, wiring, etc.) before connecting them with the other decks.