After experimenting with a diesel engine mounted on a flatcar, the North Central (An amalgamation of the Sandy River and Rangely Lakes, and the Wiscasset, Waterville, and Farmington 2 foot gauge railroads) decided to build a proper 2’ gauge diesel switcher.  Enclosing the prime mover in the smallest practical hood, to give decent visibility, and using a small steel cab, the locomotive looked like it was built as a locomotive, not as a collection of parts thrown together.  (Or at least, the railroad executives thought as much…)

I have been rebranding HO diesels to add to my C&O inventory.  I now find that there are no more decals available.  Can anyone help?

When I started ballasting my spurs, I ran into a small problem!  I am using sifted dirt from my backyard and I have two sizes, fine and coarse.  In the coarse one, I realized that there was some once living things in it (mainly needles form the numerous conifers in the backyard) and thought that I would just remove it when I apply it.  Well, this turned out to be much more involving than I first thought!

During a recent op session I was having pickup problems on my turnouts causing trains to stall. I discovered that I was loosing power on the switch points since I was relying on the hinge connection instead of wiring a dedicated feeder.

Again,

another small update.

The intermodal track with the ballast/dirt mix.

The final position of the Unnamed food plant.

The track leading to it.

The first step to adding the Peco inspection pit to the Bachmann car shop was to glue up the basic pit.  First, removal of the extra tabs on the two end pieces.

The pit glues up nicely.  You'll see that the pit has molded in rail clips, and the car shop floor has molded in rail guides:

Time to snap out of my analysis paralysis.  A number of years ago, I acquired a Bachmann Plus Car Repair Shop kit off of the Bay.  For those of you who may be unfamiliar, it's a 3-bay metal barn with large skylights in the roof and molded-in track grooves in the base to add your favorite flavor of rail.  I had purchased it with the intent of using it for a small shelf layout with the premise of a shortline operating over UP and BNSF tracks in northern Colorado.

Hello virtual beings...at least we are virtual on this great website,

How about if we create an inventory of Train Simulators? I'm going to define a Train Simulator as any software program that:

1. Allows you to create your own layout, with track, locos and cars

2. Allows you to simulate switching activities by using locos to move cars to different tracks

I have to admit I have never played any Train Games, like those Tycoon-type games. Do those games fit my definition above?

After spending much time wrestling with some design shortcuts I took 10 years ago, I decided to scrap the current Penn Lake, and start over.  My library of Chuck Yungkurth books inspired me to actually model some of the operations I currently represent with staging.  And finally, my advancing middle, is no longer compatible with some of the choices I made a decade ago.

Haven't posted for a while........

Just too  busy "Working on the Railroad" so cyber time has been relegated.

Anyway, for those of you who remember I am following 'top down' building principles for a small double deck layout.The top deck track work is almost 100% complete and I just needed to build a turntable for Atherton engine terminal.

Here it is........close to completion: