Coal and Steel railroad new job card.

Index

1. "A tale of three Bridges - New Jersey".

2. "A rail journey pt. 2".

3. "N.E. Pennsylvania pt. 3".

4. "Minot, North Dakota GN-BN-BNSF pt. 4 Post 1".

4. "Minot, North Dakota GN-BN-BNSF pt. 4 Post 2".

5. "Great Northern's Class R's compared to SP MC-1's".

I initially started my blog about moving into a condo in Toronto and the restraints of real estate and building a proto/freelance railroad based on short lines running in Southern Ontario.

Now we are moving to Hamilton and I have a basement to extend my plans. 

USA Train GP7, first run. To be repainted for Algoma Central and converted to battery/radio control. But we just wanted to see it run, on this snowy February day:

I made a 20-minute-long video showing a technique for touching up a painted backdrop.This technique is a bit unique in that I use matte medium to blend progressively darker layers of color together on the backdrop itself. It can be a bit messy, but mistakes become your friend with this technique. I'm pretty pleased with the results!

I went to Monroe WA. today for a model railroad swap meet. They had three bldgs at the fairgrounds full of layouts and a lot of vendors. Crowd was large and one gent commented it was the largest crowd he has seen in awhile. Aisles were crowded and I think I made three walk throughs of the two largest bldgs.

The primary area I am modeling is southwest washington. It rains over 100 inches a year. I looked up Naselle and they get 114. The coast is pretty much a rainforest and so it is very green. Trees grow tall and the undergrowth can be impenetrable. So I am going to need a whole lot of trees. I will need both evergreen and deciduous trees. I also bookmarked a couple videos making evergreens from furnace filter. Some methods are better than others, even with the same material. 

Since my HO branch line layout is point-to-point, this slick module built by Iowa Scaled Engineering (iascaled.com) will allow me to run a train back and forth independent from my DCC system. This is very handy because I’ll be able to run a train while I’m working on the layout or to break in a new locomotive. Forgive me for the rough looking test setup.

future projects, Conway yard office and more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MdlZoTY2IQ

So ive setteled on N scale a Free Mo style module. I want just one major feature for each module. On this first module a log flume, rickety, leaky and rather steep. Water falling from joints puddles on the ground. I will plan the flume work as if it was track work and build with woodland scenic risers and inclines