With unexpected time for working on the railroad I was able to complete the base painting of the backdrops on the upper level. This work and concurrent adventures with fascia will allow for a more concentrated terrain building effort in the coming weeks. Hope everyone is safe and healthy!

John

Hey Everyone,

I've been away for a while.  Work, life and indecision have left me not making much progress on the model railroad.  Lots of things just popping up preventing me from getting to the workbench or just working on the railroad. I just couldn't get moving on my modeling.  So I took a small break...

Read about the last two updates here:

https://northcountrytrains.wordpress.com/2020/03/24/rebuilding-the-gp-mill-part-5-more-chain-link-fence-and-scenery/

https://northcountrytrains.wordpress.com/2020/03/27/rebuilding-the-gp-mi...

Its all heaters in the steam era in today's episode.

I've been spending my new-found time making more pine trees.  For the ones I showed on my previous entry, I used coconut fiber liner.  For these trees, I switched to using cheap furnace filter material.  I found the filter material to be much easier to shape and trim. Plus it is less dense and easier to pull the layers apart.  This results in a more "airy" tree, which I think looks more realistic.  Here are my results. 

The tree on the right is completed.  I still need to add the turf "needles" to the left one. 

Double headed locomotives require speed matching to run well together, especially true for switching.  I used page 50 in the NCE PowerCab manual rev.1.65 .   Control Variables ( CV''s ) should be changed in programming mode so that the initial setting of a CV ( Cryptic Vexation?

sheet cork is good. DO NOT use processed cork such as floor tiles. They are too hard and transmit a lot of train noise. Richard C B & Q La Crosse division.

Here's a screen capture of the final layout design. It's not to scale, but allowed me to test it virtually as I went along. After laying down the Kato track I tested it for several hours to make sure it did what I wanted.

It is loosely based on Brunswick, GA, where I now live after retiring. The area at the top is the old Hercules plant. I've already scratch built several buildings. I'll post some pics later.