Here is what I have been up to.

Things are going well! :)

Use your phone, smart phone or tablet to take pictures on you layout? You don't need to snap the picture just use the the highly magnified screen to check details, track alignment, etc. If you have an assisted light app turn it on first and it's like watching a wide screen TV. Think of the possibilities.

I have heard about dynamometer cars but really didn't pay much attention to them or what they was used for until a search on the internet. After a few minutes of looking at different types and and how people modeled them. I thought I would try my hand at building one.

    I grew up right next to the Newtown Square branch in Llanerch. In the days before television, My friends and I were entertained for an hour or so each day watching the shifting operations from a vantage point at the top of a shallow cut at the top of our street. We were up very close to the trains and got to know the crews quite well.

Used JMRI PanelPro to build the tower panel for my "what if" version of the Philadelphia and Delaware County Railroad. A single double-ended staging yard serves as PRR facilities in both Philadelphia and Harrisburg. Numbered turnouts are motored but I still need to install the stationary decoders to make the panel operational.

I'm getting ready to start some 'test' op sessions, and have been creating documentation to help guests quickly understand both the layout and the historical / prototype context I'm trying to recreate.

So, I created a few 'overview' sheets and posted them around the layout.  What do you think?

For those that have been as anxious as I to see my story on my layout, it is now available on the digital editions of the March 2016 issue of Model Railroader, under the byline "hauling coal on the Penn Central".....