So here's a video covering months of work on the alcove presented in minutes through time lapse.  I hope that you enjoy it!

Rick

This past Friday I hosted our operation group (NCIOG) at my home and shared the news about moving to Florida.  All of the guys were sad to hear the news as we've grown close over the last couple of years.  I told the guys that once I had a chance to look over everything that I would see what I could offer them for their railroads.  Keith W.

Last night our Operations group was at my house and did our very first ops session (more on that later).  One of the members, Bob W is an excellent photographer and stayed after the rest of the guys left to take some pictures.  Among the pictures he took were a number of shots of Buck & Loretta's place taken in the dark - and when I say dark - we turned all of the lights off in the room!  Here are the shots:

It is with sadness that I announce the beginning of the end of the Richlawn Railroad.  We have decided to move back to Florida to be near our family and have started the process of getting quotes from movers and listing with a realtor.

All construction on the railroad has been halted and I'm now thinking about what to do with all of my railroad stuff.  If I resume the hobby in Florida (in an apartment) I will definitely change from HO to N scale.

Thank you all for your support, comments, input & encouragement.

Rick

This post may seem basic by many modeler, but I wanted to share the process I have for installing my fascia mounted turnout control panels.  This is just one of may methods that could be used and I use this method because 1.) I don't know any better; and 2.) It works.

It seemed like it took me forever to finish the tunnel portal and rock cut area in the back of the alcove expansion.  Since I work from the back forward, I needed to complete this area so I can work on installing my gravel plant in the foreground.  I'll be using the Walthers "Glacier Gravel" kit (doesn't almost everyone?) and need to get the sub-roadbed in first so I can get the track and turnouts put down.  Below are a couple of pictures of the area.

For all of you that's been following the construction of the tunnel portal to remote staging located in the rock cut I've created a little video to show you how it looks from the "train view" via my MUVI micro camcorder.  You will remember that the area isn't visible to trainroom visitors as it's hidden by a foreground hill area.  I needed to scenic the area as I do enjoy making videos with the train cam and I also have a wireless train mounted camera I use during open houses.

O.K. - try not to laugh, but if you've got around 12 minutes with nothing else to do please check out my video of my very first operation "mini-session" in my alcove area.  The actual session took about 20 minutes but I edited it down to about 12 minutes to hopefully reduce the "snore factor".  The video is kind of a "quickie" but you can get the idea.  As usual, your comments, suggestions, and remarks are appreciated.  Thanks for watching!!!

In my last posting http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/6710 I had gotten to the point of starting to finish and install the tunnel portal.  This posting shows the latest work in that area.

Here the portal is just sitting in place for a test fit after adding paint & grass.

It's time to start working on the pass-through into my office for remote staging.  I already have the turnout in place with a Tortoise(tm).  I just finished the landscaped area on the left and glued it in place.  As I was looking at the area I felt like I was being watched!