This weekend, my wife and I made the trek to Minneapolis to visit Tom Gasior and his Splitrock Mining Co. layout. Tom and his wife were great hosts and it was a joy to get to know them a bit.

Of course, the highlight of the visit was operating on Toms splendid layout.

Check out the Splitrock online:  FACEBOOK   &   MRH BLOG

- Bill

The "One module" challenge contest introduced in the September MRH is a great idea.  Manageable modeling avoids ambition overload.  Building 4 to 8 feet at a time gets usable results, and provides good learning opportunities for people at all levels of modeling.  New techniques are welcome. 

A basic tip: 3/4 inch MDO plywood is good for framing, especially if much moving is likely.  Modules used for portable displays need robust construction.  

Hard to believe it has only been three months to the day I started to H&C.  And lots new since update #5! 

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/23718#comment-209855

Starting with a Lionel 3RL dummy locomotive, I've made a powered 2RL model for my shortline.

Well, I think things have progressed enough that I can start a blog about it.

A few years ago, I decided to make a shelf layout.  A few incarnations have occured, design-wise, but I've settled on an idea, and started construction.

The layout is, quite literally, eight feet of New Jersey.  eight feet long, one foot wide, it features a whopping eleven feet of trackage, with a single turnout, representing a single industry, somewhere in New Jersey.

As a Locomotive Engineer there is hardly a trip I make on my daily run where I don't see a deer. Often they will cross the tracks right in front of my oncoming train. Sadly, some don't make it in time and become meals for vultures. I wanted to make sure I had deer represented on my layout. Of course, mine remain motionless in a trance. If you look closely you can spot the buck just like the crew on my HO scale Seaboard Central does everyday.

Work on scenery in the steel mill and more work on wiring the signals

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P7dnlXfNp7A

Took some time to doodle up a schematic for the dispatcher and probably crews to use for the future operating sessions on the HBR.  I still need to add car capacities at the various sidings and spurs.  What else do people have on their schematic maps for their crews and dispatchers?

When I was in high school I built a train table using the design in the "HO Railroad that grows" by Linn Westcott. When I expanded the layout i built a second table. Seven or eight years later I dismantled the layout, and threw most of the scenery and track away, but the train tables became storage tables.