After a six week hiatus from model railroading, I finally made myself go down to the basement and work on the layout. I ended up roughing in the bridges and overpasses for Interstate 35/80 and Highway 141.

With a lot of folks down-sizing, I bet you could find a "free" tabletop for a layout. There's always someone trying to unload an old ping-pong table which makes a nice starter foundation for a nice sized layout. Even if you only used half of a ping-pong table, that would make a great starter layout. I would laminate some pink or blue insulation board to the surface and you're ready to start. Insulation board is around 12.00 a sheet at Home Depot or Lowes. I would go with a minimum of a 1 inch thick board.

One of the layouts I operate on features the D&H and NYC in Albany NY. Heavy passenger operations require many headend cars. I offered to create a D&H two-tone grey baggage car that the D&H had for a few years. A Walthers 72' baggage car was the starting point. It was nice in that it had a black roof to begin with. Here is a short photo essay on what I did to make this car.

  I spent about a half hour in the garage before work today hacking at the foam to get it ready to lay track.  My two extensions to the ColdStor module are intended to further represent the whole "Woodland fill" area.  I am finding that having rectangular endplates with the track and roadbed sitting right at the top edge is forcing me to put in features to raise the ground level as it approaches the ends of the module.

I picked up a Laser Art Structure Kit the "Drayton" it is a very small house but very common near the railroad tracks. I was really impressed at how quickly the kit went together with the tab construction and adhesive backing on the trim pieces.

Its been a while since I posted anything about my layout (The Western Pacific & Great Northern Model Railroad) so I thought it was time for an update. We have just had our house repaired from earthquake damage that we sustained from all the earthquakes that we have had here in Christchurch, New Zealand.After moving back into our (almost) new home it took me a few weeks to sort out the garage (train room) so that I could get back into it and carry on with the layout.

Our Minnesota FreeMo HO and N scale groups set up a couple of large layouts at the Great Train Expo in Shakopee, MN at Canterbury Downs Racetrack.  Nothing like live telecasts of the Breeders Cup and model railroading. This traveling show hosted exhibitors, vendors and many layouts and displays for everyone.

Here is a video I made of our HO set up, and includes many run-bys. My trains are the Union Pacific Express and  Mail train and the BN merger era "Rainbow Builder" passenger train.

Mea Culpa.... I completely forgot to finish off my series of layout photos from the 2012 Grand Rapids NMRA Convention. 

Skip's layout is the Arcadia & Betsy River RR, a two level standard gauge timber oriented layout. 

As soon as your walk in the door to Skip's layout you are greeted by this dramatic gorge scene: