I've been focused on getting the layout up and running with benchwork, wiring and trackwork taking up most of the available hobby time I have had.  Lately I've hit a bit of a wall with respect to wiring and trackwork, and needed a change of pace.  I found it.

While looking at the photo below I noticed a shed in the lower left corner that looked very similar to an existing kit:

For once I took some time out of my dispatcher duties to photograph some of the operations taking place on our layout. I thought I might share a few words describing whats going on and these pictures for a visual aid. As an over-view, this is an HO Scale layout in the basement of my good friend Lee Melton. While the layout is technically privately owned, he sees it more as joint ownership with everyone who puts in the blood and sweat.

There have been a number of threads in recent times involving layout size, having time to complete a layout, or  other areas of satisfaction.  On my layout, things have been kind of standing still except for some structure and rolling stock work.  I have decided to down-size by quite a bit.  Partly the reason is my aging knees are finding it harder to continue the duck-unders in what I have going.  It was  a feasible thing for quite a while, but has been getting to be a chore so much lately that I wasn't operating the layout very much.  The duck-unders

Recently a fellow model railroader asked if it was possible to to DCC a Plymouth CR-4. You remember what a CR-4 Plymouth switcher is right? Tyco was the company that put it out on the market.

This is what it looks like.

Well having to dismantle the layout to get ready to move has given me the opportunity to do some redesign work as I was not really all that happy with some of the elements of the Kingsbury Branch.

Thanks George for letting us Visit you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wsY9h9txRM

After many years, I am finally graduating from armchair modeller/locomotive & rolling stock collector to layout builder and operator. Being an apartment dweller, space is at a premium for me, so N scale was the obvious choice.

I am basing my layout on Canadian Pacific's Area H Industrial Spur, located in Etobicoke, Ontario (map). Below is my finalized track plan.

I was down at the hobby shop today looking over the white elephant shelf and lo behold, there's a wonderful prize there, a Lionel O-27 2-6-4 & tender with a $25 price tag on it.  I don't model O-27, but I know I could probably resell it myself for a little more than $25...and I see the engine has the special 0000 tag on it as well, which means that price tag isn't $25, this month it's more like $12.50...  I don't even really need to look, I know enough about Lionel to know this engine is not going to last long at this price.  Even so,&nb

I've had a thing for GP30s ever since that day in 1987 when I got a cab ride in UP 804 - my first such ride in a diesel.  That day convinced me (for a time) that I was meant to be a UP modeler, and while I didn't yet have a layout, I later modeled the 804.  My very first kitbash, that project consumed my limited hobby time through two busy years following college.