CN 4401 GP9 Athearn Genesis 

Yesterday I read stevie's blog "Adventures in Ballast and layout height" and decided to share my thoughts on layout height.

I am 180 cm (5' 11 1/2") tall.

Kris Kristofferson penned the line: “I’d trade all my tomorrows for one single yesterday.”   I think he may have been a model railroader.  We all have our reasons that bring us into this hobby, but the underlying reason, I believe, is nostalgia.  It’s true, many of us model the here and now, but the bulk of us are trying to recreate a moment or season in our past.  

Working on some foreground scenes for my paper mill complex.  Still need to weather the heavy equipment but that will come in time.

The tracks at GHP is the eastern terminus for the railroad and uses both tracks in this area for switching.  The layout uses a "modified" double oval being that the main track is the outside loop and the passing track is the inside loop.  The passing track has almost all of the industries on the layout with the exception of the Town of Bownell which is the midpoint and has a few sidings there.  

Well here it is April and finally jumped in to backdrops wile this is not the final work on this here is a video on what I did and how I worked out what I will be painting. Also a look at two bridges that will be model on the layout. Looking at the prototype and and the beginning work on the layout. Hope you enjoy.

Mike Deverell

   Here we have the layout plan for the 2'x8' switching layout with a 4' removable staging/lead I am thinking of a height of about 3' so I can sit in a rolly chair while operating it. It includes a nice amount of industries with a list and story of the layout shown on the plan.

The helix is complete:

Track is laid to the end of the second level of the peninsula:

I've got a lot of saw dust from building the new bench work. I figure I can use it for wood chip loads and a wood chip pile on the layout. A lot of the dust is wet though from working outside in the spring, and some of the chunks are too large.

I'm looking for suggestions on how to dry out the saw dust and decrease the size of some of the larger chunks. Let it air dry out of the wind on some baking sheets? Use a blender?

Any advice is welcome.

Umauma Railway & Navigation

The Umauma (pronounced Ooma ooma) Railway and Navigation along with the subsidiary, the Umauma Plantation Railway, is a common carrier on Hawaii Island. It draws inspiration from the Oahu Railway & Land Co., the Hawaii Consolidated Railway, Ltd,, Hawaiian Ag, and the many, many Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and Hawaii plantation railroads. 

I have a couple sections of previously built benchwork that I want to finish the rear tracks before I bolt it to the wall. I sifted some play sand and the moment I put some down I realized the scale was wrong. Its closer to rip rap than ballast. Frustrating. I have agonized over the years about finding the correct color and texture of ballast. I have several bags of collected sand and several bags of WS ballast purchased about 20 years ago. The collected sand is much too fine.