March is in the rearview mirror and April is here, time for new growth, time for Weekend Modeling Accomplishments. I had Good Friday off and as soon as I had posted Friday's post, I headed out the door to meet up with an old friend to re-instate an old tradition of "Good Friday, Good Railfaning". We railfanned the former Santa Fe Transcon from Highway 39 west to Galesburg and caught a lot of action. Friday was a good day and I hope to share some of those pictures soon. Saturday was spent on a few small odds and ends on the layout but nothing major. Sunday of course was Easter so trains were allowed to rest on the siding while we celebrated the holiday. So how about you? Did you get some time to sneak in some train time over the holiday weekend? What did you accomplish? Did you get pictures? Let us know how you did. We'll get together again on Friday the 5t and do it all over again. Spring is finally in view for some of us and like me, show season is coming too. Time to get those projects finished up and ready. Keep busy and until next time... ​High Greens!
Ski season is pulling into the terminal at the end of the line, but we've still got one or two more weeks. I returned once again injury-free and having consumed but 3 beers all weekend, but no train work got done. As this season ends, I realized that the happy days of skiing with our daughter may be coming to an end. She's a senior in college now, and not sure where she'll be after graduation. What started with the "Daddy Lift" carrying her uphill in our back yard went through Ski School and the high school ski team. Now, we only get to ski a run or two together, which means riding up the lift and watching her disappear ahead like a trackless TGV, a yellow-helmeted dot in the distance. There are things more important than the trains.
I was able to build two signal control modules for my T-Trak modules, began rescenicking another module with a Church scene and also glued down some cork on a set of switching modules.
I tried to hand lay a turnout in N scale code 80 to match what I have in Peco, but found it very frustrating. First mistake was I used cheap solder, so now I have some silver bearing solder. I also have this one under my belt and will likely have success on the next one. Actually I could probably salvage this one by desoldering and re-attaching the rails to new ties. After I gave up on the turnout someone got me looking into car cards and operations again. This time rather than printing up car cards I wanted to start populating Decoderpro so that I can master it and eventually use it on a larger pike or with the freemo club. A simple switch list rather than messing with a deck of cards seems so much more appealing. I found it could easily be done once all the info is in the system, even if the layout changes with every show. Just create new routes and delete old routes.
After my tests with my first set of laser-printed decals, I'm revising my plans for two special freight cars I'm working on. The yellow doesn't show up well at all One is a boxcar, to be lettered "Duct Tape Express" - I decided to paint it with silver sides and a black roof, with black lettering. There are billboard cars for beer, meat and other stuff, so duct tape must have its representation, considering the amount of it consumed in certain parts... The other is a tank car for Rothschild's Sewage and Septic Sucking Services - I had it already painted red, so I added a 1/2 inch yellow stripe along the sides and will put black lettering on there. There will be brown streaks on it but that won't be rust!
