First, I apologize to readers for not writing in this summer. I've just been too busy with family matters including having to travel back east for sometime to assist someone close. These things happen, particularly as we age.

I have been in the layout room working like crazy as time allows. I've built a number of kits, done some scratch building, installed my first operating lower quadrant TO board at Dugan, built some tall pines, replaced some blue point manual switch controls with Tortoises, and got a bit of scenery work done. 

Working on my new layout and trying toi figure out how to automate a the staging. I use Digitrax.

What I want to do is coming down the helix, go thru the staging yard and follow th tracks to the reverse loop then return to staging. What I am trying to figure out is how to do an automatic route thru the staging yard, thru the reverse loop and return to the staging yard and terminate. Could anybody help

Wayne

This weekend I started a powering project and thought it would interest fellow modelers on this site, so I will post the steps here as I go along.

I do believe this one has been done, but my reference escapes me.  Nonetheless, the project is so simple it's easier to do it than find the missing reference!

We start with a standard 30' CMW van and use the side panels to scribe the sides and the top with a razor saw.  The top is luckily the same ten feet as the side panels, offset, so we have natural joining lines to blend in the cut lines.

Even though the ATSF Paradigm Division is still in the plywood prairie style of scenery, it is now,  with the completion of the Union Station Engine Facility, 100% functionally complete and operational in DCC.  The first video is done in a slide format and shows the general step-by-step construction & completion of the engine facility in three phases over a two month time period (June thru August 2016).  Areas of emphasis have been annotated on the individual slides and/or have additional information provided before each section of the video.

Having moved house, I now find myself with no train layout.  In the apartment I'm renting, there's not a lot of room for a layout, plus I need to keep the place fairly tidy, so for now I'm in the process of working out the details of a new freelance layout I've created.  I'm calling it the Skagway, Juneau and Pacific, operating as a regional railroad in the Alaskan panhandle.  Here's the original mainline, circa 1900 (it was expanded rapidly beyond this in the 1st half of the 20th century):

It's been a while since the last update on my layout, so I thought it might be time to update the good readers on MRH as to what's new. I'll place the pictures at the beginning of this post.

Thanks for following along!

Paul Krentz

Free-lancing a fictitious portion of the N&W Pocahontas "Pokey" District