In my last blog entry, I posted a cancellation of my September Op session because of a mystery short.

So now that Issue 4 is out the door, I'm back to working on the layout again - and I've solved the mystery short.

I first had to 0-5-0 remove all the trains from staging so I could look for things on the track, make sure I could find all the feeders, etc. Did that - and found several lose parts from railcars laying around (ladders and brakewheels) but nothing that would cause a short since they were all plastic.

I've been building "poor man's jig" turnouts all summer and now I'm going to replace all the commercial turnouts on the "Eugene end" of staging tomorrow.

My poor man's jig turnouts use Central Valley turnout (CVT) ties and some Fast Track filing jigs to make quick work out of building a turnout. I like the CVT ties because they're inexpensive ($8 each) and they have slots for the rails - so you just drop the rails in place and you get a properly gauged turnout.

One of my summer project while the layout is down is to replace all the Eugene staging ladder turnouts with jig-built turnouts. The current staging ladder is all commercial turnouts and we get more derailments on that ladder than I would like to see. The solution is to replace the commercial turnouts with jig-built turnouts ala Fast Tracks or Proto:87 Stores turnout kits using Central Valley ties.

I ended up with my laptop connected to our big screen TV for the National Train Show and we need to leave it connected to the big screen TV since it took some fiddling to get it all to work seamlessly.

I'm posting this note on a borrowed computer, and it doesn't have all my software I use to prepare the images, etc - so I will be making brief posts (without photos) for now and come back in after the fact once the Train Show is over and I get my computer back to add more details and to add the photos!

July 8, 2009 - Today is the Layout Design SIG layout tours! I love going on the SIG tours because they tend to pick the "cream of the crop" layouts in a region. While the LD SIG tour is a self-guided car tour, it's a real hoot because the layouts generally exhibit great design characteristics.

July 6, 2009 - Just completed the first full day at the NMRA National Convention in Hartford. We shot video of several clinics and will be posting them on MRH Theater in the coming weeks.

One of the more interesting highlights of the first day was the Operations Road Show that teaches Timetable Train Order operation.

Now that Model Trains Video has a new Ops Live video volume for sale, here's a preview ...

Here's some "best of" photos from the just recently completed Feb 09 op session on my HO Siskiyou Line.

Right off the bat, events indicated this would not be a typical op session on the Siskiyou Line. This session we simulated April 14, 1989 - and since the DRGW has purchased the SP, there's black and orange power starting to show up on the SP. For example, Roseburg had a pair of DRGW GP40s that were available power.

Here's some "best of" photos from the just recently conducted op session on my HO Siskiyou Line.

(Moderator note: Originally posted in 2008 but was marked as spam, so we're resurrecting it.)

Another totally nostalgic trip from 2008 - these HD cams were superseded quickly, and now any smart phone is better. - Jeff Shultz, MRH Admin

In case you haven't noticed, we're on the edge of an amazing high definition video boom that has the potential to completely transform how content is presented on the internet!