At the beginning of the month of August, I got stuck with how to wire the LED panels for both the 4 Bluepoint manual turnout controllers and the two panels (one on each side of the peninsula) that I needed for the 2 Tortoise turnout controllers. With the help of several MRH subscribers pointing me in the right direction, I was able to get that task completed as shown in my previous blog posting.  This posting will show progress made on the construction of the support structure for the main level of my layout.

I was banging around in the train room the other day and had my yearly flash of thought that made some sense. I thought I would see if any one agrees or has thought of it before.

My idea is to make the valance around my layout from 3/4" foam. It is light enough to require lightweight hangers, easy enough to paint and best of all softer than wood when you hit it with your head. plus if you have a twelve inch valance you get thirty-two running feet out of a 4' x 8' sheet.

Any thoughts?

In the last 10 years we have gone through three steps in lighting. If i had to do it over i would go with LEDs. This is good example of massive use of LEDs. There are two videos in this post.

A few years ago I saved the slats from an old, cheap bed that my daughter wasn’t going to use any more. I knew I’d find a use for them eventually and sure enough, we needed quite a few risers. In fact the slats were very good quality fir, much nicer than the 1x2 furring strips we’d used for the rest of the benchwork.