The magazines and this website are full of articles and postings of some exceptional modelers.  I am not one of them.  My layout building journey started nine years ago.  My skills have improved, but in retrospect my layout was a failure and turned into the Plywood Pacific.  In this blog I will start posting my thoughts as a renew my enthusiasm for the hobby.

 I'm not really using a chainsaw. I stared pulling the structures and details off the layout for reuse. This cleared up a section that was ready to be torn out. There was some sawing and pounding. My wife came down and asked me if I was sad. I said no this was a good thing. She left and came back a little while later to remind me to take a break I was getting frustrated.

     I am starting my second layout and wanted to blog my progress.  I had fun practicing on my old layout but got to a point where I don't want to put any more effort into it.  I've read list upon list of mistakes people make with their layouts and I have made everyone of them. I am glad I did.  It allowed me to learn how to fix them, and get better with my skills. I know what I like and don't like, what works for me and what doesn't.

Happy New Year, one and all!!!  Last year (as in January, 2018), I began assembling my IHC 2018 Electrical Substation kit. My assumption is that I'm unique in doing such things, dropping a project midway to go off and begin about a dozen or so other ones before returning to the first.  Usually all goes well, this time a little hitch has happened. essentially the final step, the addition of a framework located over the majority of the substation area.  A number of insulators (counts to be 60) are to be attached to the sides of the frames into 85 pre-drilled holes.

Can any ID this AHM/Tempo engine to prototype class?  I can't seem to find an ID for the type.

The prototype Big Horn Subdivision of the BNSF is dispatched by CTC. This is a relatively heavily used segment of single track main with numerous sidings for meets. During my first operating session, I decided that given the lack of signals on my layout we would dispatch the layout using track warrants. This proved to be a huge workload for the dispatcher (me) and for the crews, and I was not satisfied with the fluidity of the layout. Too much of our time was spent copying warrants and not enough running trains. This set me to thinking about how better to dispatch.

It’s been long overdue, but benchwork is complete on The Hills Line. A modified L-Girder was built atop the Ikea Ivar shelves, giving a stable and consistent base. The roadbed will be two-inch extruded foam, carved to replicate the topography in Eastern Iowa.

You can see my recent work here.

Here are some photos from the last day our club layout was set up at the local mall.

I did some railfanning in the snow yesterday. You can see it here.