One of the "Must Haves" on my layout has been a co-op and grain elevator.  I am fortunate that there is one located near to my home and I have been able to study the track arrangement and operations at the co-op. The blog discusses how I have incorporated the features of the prototype into my layout.

I ran across an interesting item when I was dining the other day at Noodles & Co. It’s called a Chopstick Buddy and it would make a great uncoupling tool holder. 

Dine at Noodles & Co. and pick some up for yourself. Different colors, too. :-)  The cost is right – free. 

One could shave down the chop sticks to make usable uncoupling tools and then glue or screw the Chopstick Buddy to the layout fascia. The sticks pop in and out of the holder. 

Hey Everyone, 

I'm looking for an expert on speed matching diesel locos on jmri in Oregon...like someone who runs a business doing dcc stuff. I'm a little weary of my friends trying to speed match my locos with marginal results. I want my trains to "run like a dream" but I need some help from a professional. 

As I mentioned I live in Oregon (Central) and I would be willing to travel a reasonable distance for it. I would prefer to not ship all my locos in order to keep the cost down.

Hi all,

I finally cleaned up the trackplan for my current (temporary) layout so its time for the corresponding layout topic.

It is a folded dog-bone design with stacked loops on one end. Both loops are hidden and represent points A and B (North and South, or East and West in order to be more precise). My railroad is the ATSF and the location is somewhere north of San Diego, in the mid to late 1960s.