Things have been moving slowly on the BQR due to lost time removing failed solutions and correcting them. The largest screwup has been around the special order Atlas low profile under layout turnout motors -- it looked like a real solution for the low clearance between the main and upper deck. Problem is that when I go the installed and wired up the stem flexed so much that the throwbar never moved, but the linkage rotated freely, twisting around the skinny shank. Useless! Atlas support said 'gee, do they do that? Send us one and we will look at it...

Guys: I am hosting a Clinchfield OP Session this next Saturday starting at
11 am. Date is April 28th at my home. If we have enough operators we should be able to run a regular summer
1975 schedule.

Some of you know that my layout has had a persistent problem - I have an angled gap over the entrance to the aisle on my layout. Due to factors unforseen the angles (each different) at each end of the bridge I needed to span this gap were more than a little weird as well.

I've had three different attempts at bridging the gap with something I could swing out of the way or remove entirely, and all three of them changed sizes on me between winter and summer, tossing my track ends off.

Frustrating.

Well, here is bridge attempt #4:

To All: Dave Capron's Great Lakes Northern RR (GLN) needed a building to disguise

          the corner entrance of tracks from his main train room to the Bluefield Yard.

         I built Wedin International to serve this purpose. The main components are

         DPM module pieces. I added signs, weathering, glazing and dull coat to

One of the structures the Great Western Railroad had in it's Loveland Colorado yard was a double spout water tank. I desperately needed  to model this for My Ho scale GW layout. I have searched for a long time looking for a wood kit that I could afford. I was very fortunate to find a complete unopened Sheepscott Scale models water tank at a local Train show last fall. It still needs the roof  which I haven't started and also it came with only 8 hoop fasteners so I have ordered a package of 99 fasteners from my LHS. Here is a photo of My progress so far..

Hi fellas, here are a few more pics of my ¨soon to be´ HO layout... the vast Western USA is my expiration... I gotta thank my good friend and fellow N scale modeler Paul Brennecke.  Thanks to him I had the opportunity of visiting places like the Big Ten Curves and Moffat Tunnel in Colorado... guess that´s why I am a fan of UP!!

I played around some more with my new 16"x48" diorama. It's nowhere near as fancy as MC's shoofly track module but it seems to work OK for photography, especially when I take it outside. Here are a few more photos. Nothing looks more like sunlight than actual sunlight.

To All: I know! it's not prototypical. My youngest son works at Starbucks (the best coffee around),

          so I painted and lettered a car for that company using decals purchased on Ebay. Enjoy.

          Yours, Elvin Howland/Layout Concepts