My daughter and I attended Trainfest 09 on 7-24-09. We were originally going to take the daylong excursion on 4449, but decided to forego that and take a short ride and spend the rest of the day looking at exhibits and wandering the grounds.

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.

ok if you saw my lawnmower then this was a challenge put to me by a friend on N scale.org

he jokingly said that it could not be done that is too small an item to be made from scratch

so here it is made from scratch.  I used twist tie wire, piece of bass wood and 2 pieces of sheet styere

A couple of weeks ago, I sent Coxy a note asking for a new post on his blog.  He's weathering rolling stock right and left, and I was really liking his flickr pics.  Being the gentlemen he is, he tagged me, and asked for an update.  So here it is.

yep you read right a scratchbuilt lawnmower and no not the riding kind either that would be too easy.
it's not the best I could do, I did it in one night,but I think it looks
enough like a mower to work for what I want, it's going in a store window display in my Sears store.

Well What do Ya'll Think, Does it Look Like a Lawn Mower????

So, tomorrow AM I'm off to Owosso, Mi. for Trainfest 09. I'm looking forward to the smell of hot lubricating oil and coal smoke (well, oil smoke anyway). Although I'm not a big fan of steam, I'm looking forward to a ride on the "Daylight". My daughter and son-in-law bought tickets for she and I for my b'day, so its off we go. Its about an hour and a half from my house to Owosso, so we're leaving early and hope to have eight hours or so at the site.

I am in the process of reconstructing my desert mining RR which ran from Keeler CA/Cero Gordo Mines to Owenyo CA. where there was long transfer trestle and a short loading dock to move freight and ore from the Narrow Guage (Carson & Colorado to the Southern Pacific standard guage. I need the #4 Dual Guage turnouts to make the whole thing work.

Respectfully and with HOPE

Wild Bill

The other thread got me off my duff from just plain thinking to thinking about a plan for the next step for me.

I've taken what I've learned from my own chainsaw constructions, and what I've been reading, and what I've picked up from operating sessions, and come up with the following factors for my purposes.