We are back from another weekend. How did you do? Saturday: Since it was Saint Patrick day and Angela's birthday, I took a break from trains, other than finish cleaning the work shop, and helped her get some of the domestic duties out of the way. Krispy Kreme had a special of green donuts so I stopped and got her some. As a New Englander, I still prefer Dunkin, but Krispy Kreme ain't bad either. We finished the evening with friends for dinner in Peoria and got to see a brace of Iowa Interstate GP38s and one NS GP38 pulling a string of covered hoppers. Good food and really good German beer was a nice wrap up on Angela's day. Sunday: I let Ang sleep in while Lucy and I got up. Not much train stuff done today either. We took a small road trip to our favorite dinner in Atlanta Illinois then stopped by the maple syrup shop (the trees were dripping!) for some locally made pancake mix and maple syrup. Once home, the rest of the day was spent doing yard work and enjoying the 55 degree, sunny weather knowing the next few days were going to be rainy and in the 40s. Sigh, when will we get spring? So a break from trains and it sounds like I wasn't alone this weekend. A break is good for the creative juices. So how about you? Let us know what you accomplished. We'll assemble again on Friday the 23rd to start the process all over again. Until then, have a great week, stay safe and as always... High Greens!
Lots of wiring (again) as well as starting to ballast sections as I paint the track. Some progress pix:
Friday I made some more trees. It’s official I’ve made over 200 of them now. Sunday I continued work on my scrap yard. I ballasted track, put down some ground cover, put up some wooden fencing. I was able to obtain a second hand blender and started making scrap out of tinfoil. Now to figure out how to make a pile.
I had built a Pola kit for a blacksmith around 20 years ago and it had been collecting dust for years. I recently picked up this Woodland Scenics prebuilt trailer so they were put in the last open space on my layout. My layout is set in a rural area so this should fit in I hope. This is an "in progress" photo of the scene. Some hydrocal was used to level the area for the buildings to be set on and the first bit of ground cover was put down late yesterday. Another application will now be put down to blend in the colors, a grade crossing built and gravel applied for the road and parking area. Trees and bushes will hopefully complete this little scene.
I did some more work on the my first t-track module, I added the first layer of ballast and will add a second layer this evening. Lesson learned, don't paint the area under the ballast brown! It shows through and needs a much deeper ballast layer to hide it. I'm currently debating whether to airbrush the track brown like many JNR lines of the 60s seemed to be, or leave it the standard grey of new ballast.
For the first time in too many years, I attended the local HO modular club's setup. They have a new place to assemble, in an old mall. It was actually a rather nice and all too brief pleasure.
I have been working like a dog the last couple of weeks. It seems it's feast or famine. I have stuff that I want to do, but either I have no time or no money.
