Once I finished Travis 2.0 I was all fired up to add DCC to the little critters. The project promptly ground to a halt. Adding a sound decoder was easy. You go light with the soldering iron and just put wire A where it should go. I use Digitrax SDH166D units in all my locomotives. They cost less than $50, which has allowed me to put them in all my locomotives (3 so far). I know there are allegedly better sounding decoders, but they are beyond my budget. They still sound like steam or diesel, and that works for me.

My interest in building a pier has led me to some exploration locally as well as digging into my roots. This started rather benignly with an interest in having a waterfront wharf similar the Craftsman models type wooden pier. At about the same time my office was asked to help review some plans for the local pier and former sugar warehouse.  I posted a mockup of this on another post but have subsequently been to the site and was able to talk with the harbor master who shared some vintage photos.

I have models from Z to G - Z, N, HO, Lionel, and 1:29, to be specific, and one of these little gems is a Lionel ALCO FA from the post-war era. Originally, the FA was painted for Union Pacific, but somewhere in the late 1980s I decided that it would look better in a different scheme. First it got a stylish dark blue and dark grey scheme with silver trim, and then - for reasons I cannot begin to explain - I repainted it gold. Solid gold. Solid metallic gold.

The truth is I'd rather build the Placerville Branch then operate it; least right now. I know that for several reasons. The latest is that about a month ago I finished up a summer of building projects.

As the final landscaping work was happening, a question came to the fore-front; Does the foot bridge add to the scene, or does it appear to just be too much in the area. For this final photo the bridge has been removed. Last posting of the work in progress has the foot bridge in place. Votes either way will be welcomed.

This week I'm looking at how to turn plastic into wood in a few easy steps.

See you next week

Kathy

The last several days have quite productive. Benchwork is up on the wall, I've started setting up OperationsPro, and I was able to get to Dallas a day of prototype research.

Benchwork

The hollow core doors have a 3/4" layer of foam on top, and a few tweaks to the front shelf. I picked up some shelf brackets for the office wall and got them mounted.

I have been very very derelict on posting anything on my blog for over a year. I know shame on me. Since we are focusing on the TOMA (the one module approach) concept here at the magazine I began to take a good long look at what I at my track plan. One of the features of TOMA is having a run off or staging area on each end of the module.

Greetings all: