Whistle blasting for the approaching grade crossing, #17 pulls the morning local freight westbound into the town of Comptche on my HO scale Pacific Coast Railroad. It is so nice to be able to make photographs that don't show unfinished areas now...

First off, to AZBaja, I apologize for my snarky and downright nasty comment, totally uncalled for. 

To the other topic that is apparently closed, I will say that while Ken Patterson did say that it seemed like work, he also presented Mr Pellegrino's railroad in a decent light. His operations were not delved into in great detail and that is probably because Ken is not a Railroad Modeller but is more building and art oriented.

Hello All!

I just finished a custom weathering job on a pair of ex-Santa Fe GP40X units I relettered and renumbered for BNSF.  I also installed and programmed ESU LokSound Select decoders with their ESU 50321 sugar cube style speakers.  Both units are currently for sale on my seabcen0 eBay page if anyone is interested.

Here’s a link to my latest video.  Both have been set up to work great with a ProtoThrottle too! 

https://youtu.be/XvcwKYa25bs

Recently one of the railroad business trade publications posted some interesting information on current freight car stats. Consider this some insider information on the current state of railroads active in North America today. 

 IN this series I'll be taking another Atlas Carwash and turning it into a Service Station for the club layout.

Not tired of SP? Good!

Now that the Meantime layout is fully functional, it was time to come up with an operations scheme that would be simple and easy. Car Cards and Waybills was too much for this small layout. Computer programs? Again too much work.

So this is what I came up with.

Its similar to the Car Order Card system, except I am using Car Spots instead of industry names. I labeled each car spot 1 through 18.

For various reasons, including the climate, I would like to build my benchwork from 1" square steel tubing. I have found a couple local suppliers. I'm confident I can find a way to get the stuff delivered. 

The first obstacle will be getting it up to my apartment. The web site I saw says the stock comes in 6 meter lengths. That's not going to fit in the elevator! I might be able to have it all cut in half at the "steel shop" where I buy it. 3 meters might fit in the elevator, diagonally. I'll have to measure.

I got the fever and the only prescription is more SP~!

I would like to see more information on Joe Pellegrino layout and how he operates his layout.   

I do think it was a disservice to all railroad modelers, when Ken said it looks too much like work etc.  That is the perfect way to scare off new operators or people considering operations as the final end goal of the hobby.  If it was work people would not do it. Operations is a game that railroad modelers find rather satisfying and fun to play.