As I mentioned, I am giving up on building a high level, around the room, layout in favour of a small switching layout that I can construct and run sitting at the dining room table.

Plan A was to design a layout and build it but I am at a loss for a decent track plan. I have decided to build the layout and then design the track in situ.

I previously mentioned my "Studio" and plans to get something going there. So far since I was there last I have been back twice. Both times to pick up or drop off stuff. 

Between this, that and that other thing I never seem to be able to plan time there to work on things. 

The staging level had been completed and running for several months and I had been inching along on the main level due to a lot of diversions to my time in the layout building. But now, I have finally been making some progress on getting a major portion of the visible part of the layout in working condition. 

It has been almost 5 months since I have really even touched the railroad, and closer to 8 since doing any "scenicking" on this "scenic" railroad in progress.  But this weekend I got back to it. The Dover, NH side is about as far along as I want to go until I have a static grass applicator, which I went ahead and ordered this weekend.  I know most build their own but I don't trust my skills in that area and could afford the expenditure so I went with the GrassTech II.  

I have been able to snatch a little time here and there this summer to work on this really neat project, upgrading the venerable standard Atlas 704 Signal Tower HO kit using a laserboard  upgrade kit from Vector Cut:

http://www.vectorcut.com/RR.htm

I first learned of this item through a post here on MRH:

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/19937

I ordered it last winter and have now been able to work on it.

The last train, returning empty!

The next step in my lighting program is to test my Valance design and install it.

Catch up on my lighting thread here: http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/21591

Long time since I posted on the status of the Grande Pacific Railroad.  Back working on RR for the summer to hot outside and have done the vacation cruise.  Here is the Big Orb Scene. Here is link to photo album.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.361443270692787.1073741848.234942163342899&type=3

Hello,

it's been quite a while since my last post. I continued on my Garve and Ullapool Railway and rebuilt my Leckmelm modules. I also laid the track at Inverlael station and build a small fiddle yard for the branchline that leaves the main line at Inverlael.

But in early spring I constructed a second level above my Garve and Ullapool Railway. There I will built a H0 american layout. loosely based on John Allens Gorre & Daphetid.

This will be the first of what I hope will be a series of posts about a new layout I am building.

The layout is in N scale, and inspired by the rails between St. Johnsbury, VT and Newport, VT.  It is a 14x9.5 foot “U,” accessible from all sides.  My operational “givens and druthers” as they fit into my layout look like: