I have been given new track rights by the power of SWMBO.It was out of the blue and has taken me quite by surprise.Room size is 12 x 8 ft

The North deck is nearing completion finally. I needed to "imagineer" the ice block conveyor system on the east end of the deck as I have virtually no information on how the prototype was configured. If anyone has documentation on this and is willing to share, I'd really appreciate it. The deck is made in 4 sections that dovetail together so it can be easily installed and removed if needed. Our dog food cans came in handy as weights to hold down the decks onto birch baseboards while the epoxy setup. 

I recently came across these long-lost photos of the N-Scale Train-in-a-coffee-table I built for my mom for Christmas 2006 and I thought I'd share them here.  This was a fun project catering to my inner child, so prototype accuracy was a non-issue.  My mom cares not about such things as rapido couplers, switching operations or a landscape with only one type of tree.  

The details:

BLOG started July 2015, as a planning and building BLOG for an O scale short-line.

I finally completed the wiring for the 4th power district on the main level/third level.  This is the track that runs from Michaelson Jct. (aka Ottawa Jct., KS) both to the West Helix and on the branch line that runs over the top of the West Helix to the third level that has the cities of Michaelson (aka Ottawa, KS) and then to Elizabeth City, OK (aka Tulsa, OK). 

I was trying to come up with a good track cleaning design and here it is. It uses a freight car (boxcar or tall covered ones best), a cleaning cloth, small piece of wood or similar and nails/screws. To use it you simply wet the pad with your preferred cleaner and off you go and it can easily be added to a train.

Building:(Sorry no photos) To start out you find a good sized base and drill holes in your car base to line up with that. Through those holes you place screws and into the wood. Mounting the cloth can be done in many ways and two are shown.

Use:

Something barrow and something blue, well do not know about the blue part but we have the borrowed part covered. Thanks to Lee in Bellavista AR. Lee took down his layout. I got the trestle. Two pictures his and mine.

Now to modify and install.

The main trackwork at the smelter is completed.  I took advantage of a much needed rainy weekend.  Usually we are drowning here in BC, but it has been bone dry for the past couple of months and the water reservoirs are starting to get a bit low.  My lawn and garden are particularly glad to get the moisture.  

Since Kevin at Berrett Hill Trains (a MRH sponsor) sent an email about a once in a lifetime sale, I thought I would let people know they can easily use the touch toggles with the Arduino.

If you are not familiar with his products he makes touch sensitive controls (touch toggles) and control boards that connect to the controlled accessory. He has boards to control stall motor switch machines (e.g. tortoise), snap action machines (e.g. atlas twin coil), servo control and servos for turnouts or other animation, and a relay base to turn on/off heavy loads.