The final Friday of March is here and April is not too far off, it's time for Weekend Modeling Plans! My railroad weekend is starting early this week. I have Good Friday off and a friend and I have reinstated an old tradition we call Good Friday, Good Railfaning. My buddy Brian and I used to take a full day of Good Friday and railfan the C&I from Rochelle to Savanna Illinois right up until 2006. A few months ago I realized I had Good Friday off again and we should start the tradition again. This time we are railfaning the Transcon of the former Santa Fe near Chillicothe Illinois. I head out in just a few minutes into the morning darkness and hope to get some good shots and play with some new railfan tools. Jess, my railfan Jeep got four new all terrain tires for the expedition as we may take her off road for a few picture locations. There will be the typical food, trains, 4X4 and BS that makes railfaning so much fun. Saturday I may help out the club get the last of the yard modules done. Sunday of course is a holiday for most of us, Easter. Not much planned that day other than be with family. So how about you? Anyone else going out to get some pictures of our inspiration? How many have club meetings or shows? Track work, wiring, DCC? What ever your plans are, let us know, with pictures if you have them. We'll all come back on Monday, the 1st of April and compare notes. Until then... Happy Easter! and... ​High Greens!
I bought some structures last weekend at a show in Kingston NY. One was a Church. When I was a kid, each time I setup a layout my mother would say where is the Church going, you have to have a church on the layout. Well I am going to redo one of my T-Trak modules to have a Church scene in rememberance of her. I'm also going to add some more working signals to the modules. I need them for a show in Port Jervis NY next Saturday.
This will be a spring skiing weekend for us. Our daughter is in her senior year at college, so, depending on where she ends up, it may be one of the last times we ski together for a while. Not that we really ski together, anyway. She's an express, and we're strictly peddler freights. I've got my copy of RMC packed to read in the condo after skiing, though. Who knows what ideas I'll find?
Now that I have front and back lawns taken care of and my car nicely detailed I will wait for the cooler evening temperatures and tackle building a turnout. I am looking to build a #7 for an industry using some Atlas code 80 flextrack rail. My layout is mostly Peco code 80, but since I want to rebuild with code 55 I thought I could practice on the current set up.
Well I spent a few hours on a scratchbuilt turnout and learned a few things. When attempting to follow someone's abbreviated methods be ready to discover some hidden points that were not covered. Clean the rail before starting and use flux. I used old Peco track that was actually turning green and the soldering iron kept becoming contaminated. Less solder can be golden. Tin more that you think to make it all easier. A power sander would reduce much of the rail modification work. When soldering the points to the throwbar protect everything around it. The next one will be done in half the time. That is after I fix this one. For the savings, I am determined to master this. For now though, I can still run trains.
