I apologize for the long absence. I have been building my bucket layout for nearly two years now. The video today is the end results of the second professional decoder install. To keep the story short the first one did not go well. A "six week turn around turned into nearly two years of "I mailed them Monday they should be there Friday."

I had a few hours spare today so I decided to make a wheelbarrow to add to the shanty scene.

It's a 3 part plastic Preiser model and went together easily. I started by painting it black, then a dark brown colour. Once dry I stippled on some burnt sienna artist acrylic. I let this dry for about an hour then gave it an all over thin coat of brown wash I also added a black wash to the bucket base.. Again let it dry and stipple a few random spots of the burnt sienna. 

A nice little project that dose not take long but adds some interest to a scene.

I know there are some awesome workbenches out there that you guys have.  I'm currently looking to get some ideas for mine. As of now it's basically a desk with stuff scattered. I'd like to get some cabinets or whatever is out there so I can get it nice and organized. Apartment living right now kind of limits me but still I search for greatness. Hopefully some of you guys will start posting photos of your work areas.

I wasn't sure what section on the forum to post this so threw it up here (sorry).

Last month I had an opportunity to operate once again on Tom Klimoski's beautiful Georgia Norhteastern Layout. His layout is based on the Georgia Northearn Shortline which runs between a CSX connection north of Marietta, GA to Ellijay, GA in the Northeast GA mountains. Tom's layout is a shelf style switching layout that fits in a room the size of a typical spare bedroom. It can easily keep two to four operators busy for a couple of hours. Here is a link to the session followed by the track plan of the layout.

Hello all!

I have managed to get quite a few little tasks done on the layout over the last few days. I painted all the ties, cut out and painted the paved areas for the Latex and Lumber Distributors, painted the road surface, and made some lumber loads.  More details and pictures in a following post.

Craig

I've done a bit more work on the shanty for my yard. I added the steps, lights, coal bin and some loose bits. It still needs a lot of extra tufts bushes etc added but I only have the one size tufts right now. I will also add some spilt coal around the base of the bin.

So - what functions do you use the most and what buttons do you have them assigned to?

I've been having a good time playing around with my new LokProgrammer and have been pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to change function mapping.

Perhaps TOO easy . . . because I just can't decide how I want to map the buttons.

(somebody started a thread just titled "Alco", and my Baldwins were getting a bit jealous)