At last, the bedroom becomes the train room.  (The last "room" I had for trains was a 6'x10' space in the corner of my folks garage 50 years ago).  So, I'm going to document bits and pieces of my progress in constructing layout #7, in a nice, comfortable conditioned 10' x 12' room.  More entries follow this intro.

Last year my better half encouraged me to take the plunge and act out on a long-standing desire to have a model railroad. And quite generously agreed to allocate a corner of the downstairs family room for this project. There were a few conditions -- one wall has a heat pump unit mounted that must be accessed intermittently for service. And the other wall had a window that is also seasonally maintained. This meant that whatever I built in the 7x10 foot space had to be movable.

 Hi All,

Well it's been awhile since I have been able to post anything, I've been rather busy with the latest edition to the family and work.  Today though marked a great day in the expansion of the locomotive fleet of the JL&T.

 OK, benchwork is 90% complete and I am soon ready for homosote and a backdrop. I'm looking for ideas for a lightwieght, low cost backdrop surface I can paint sky blue and airbrush clouds while adding cut-out scenery to the surface for depth illusion. Some have suggested luan and others are proponents of thin plywood - but that seems a bit heavy to me. The layout is a point-to-point which covers 20 feet  with a gentle curve to the right after 8 feet.

Some bad video of My new (to me...aka Used) Gp 38-2 IT. I have to stop buying Engines and rolling stock, I keep playing and not working on the layout. I hope you like this one.

Ernest

Hey – first blog post…!

A couple of weeks ago, I asked if anyone had photos of the slope sheets of hoppers to see what the metal looked like after the lading had taken its toll on the paint.  The cars seem to get worn to the metal in a curving shape that approximates the outside edge of a full load.  Original post is here:

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/4491

 Updated rail blogs today and tomorrow will have all mainline

track on layout complete.

http://scalewestrails.blogspot.com/
http://sandiegoandarizonaeastern.blogspot.com/

I hosted my first op session this week and learned quite a bit.  In my excitement I neglected to take any pictures so I can't write about my experiences there however one thing that worked VERY well in my estimation was my car card and waybill system. 

Some really bad video of my new Athearn SW1000 on my layout.

Where the Bridge is the two foam sheets came together. I decided to make a little bridge scene, does it look ok? I mean as far as you can tell from the poorly made video????

Thanks all for looking. This site is so cool. I wish I found it sooner.

Ernest