Welcome back everyone! Special thanks to Russell Straw for filling in during my absence. Let's get into it. After a short vacation in New Hampshire for the 100th Laconia Motorcycle Rally, it was time to head west bound. Saturday: Was day two of travel, stopping in Erie PA for rest before completing the last leg of the trip. We stopped in Ohio at the country's oldest Harley Davidson shops to shop and rest then continued through the day to end a 13-hour trip. We had a lot of detours at the end and since we arrived in Illinois so late, we decided to stay at Angela's dad's house. Sunday: We got up and started the process of unloading the bikes from the trailer. Since my battery was dead, we hooked up a charger to it and went for a Father's Day breakfast. Once back the motorcycle fired up and we started the process of unloading both motorcycles and getting everything packed for the hour and a half ride back to the rental property. Once back, everything was unloaded, and I started working like a mad man on the NTrak module for this coming Friday. Hopefully I can get a lot done on it tonight after work. So how about you? What did you accomplish? I hope all the dad's had a good Father's Day. We'll be back on Friday the 23rd to start another weekend planning thread, until then, be safe, have a good week and as always... High Greens!
Good mornin to Y'all Hope all of you Father's had a spectacular day - yesterday!! @Jim Wiggin - Glad you made it home safely and that you had a wonderful vacation So..... Saturday: - The OPS session was visited by the dreaded - Murphy. However, he was kicked out in short order, and, the OPS session was a success. Sunday: I ordered a couple of the new H12-44 "kits" from Wheels of time. So, I prepped a couple of VO-1000 chassis for their impending arrival (When that'll be - ? - I don't know.... yet) Y'all have a great day and week, Wolf
Good morning all. Hope everyone had a great fathers day. This weekend I had "plans" in the train room. Plans, as do trains, sometimes derail. Friday night and Saturday afternoon we spent w/ our "young-uns" and their families. My kids took me and the MRs out to dinner Friday night. Saturday, we went to a graduation party for my youngest grandson. He graduated high school and is moving on to college. My oldest daughter and her husband had a huge BBQ celebration for him. Yesterday, I spent most of the day cleaning one of my electric guitars for selling. It is a Gibson Firebird that I rarely play anymore. I have purcha$ed a new Gibson acoustic so I am $elling one of the electrics that I rarely play to ea$e the pain of paying for the new one. Consequently, I got nothing on the train front. Have a great week all!
Saturday I joined the NMRA PCR Sierra Division zoom meet-up and was able to demo a couple of the projects that are in the works and collect some early feedback to improve the designs. Before the meeting though I worked with our landlord to finish the last bits of the solar installation that we can do for now (short one panel due to the glass being shattered), now we wait for PG&E to schedule the power shutoff so we can swap the main electrical panel from 100 Amp to 200 Amp. Hopefully that will take place in the next week or two and have a short power outage (electrician needs 6-8hrs to swap the panel, then we need inspections to be completed before we can power up again). Not much got done on Sunday other than some grocery shopping.
Over the weekend I managed to paint a couple of 40’ trailers, a covered hopper, a 60’ boxcar and a piggyback flatcar. Also worked on decalling a 50’ boxcar and one of the trailers along with starting on the 60’ boxcar. Saturday went to the club with a pair of Athearn SD39’s and ran NW general freight train. Sunday went to my son’s house to celebrate Father’s Day. Jim, was that the dealership along 480 in Cleveland, if so it was moved from it’s original location on 150th Street. I did the computer conversion of the DMS at the original store back in 2002. I was told by the owner that H-D had to get the owners permission to use the name H-D in Ohio from the dealer as they had claimed the name when the dealership started. The dealer had a classic car collection in a back room of the dealership. The current dealer bought the dealership from the previous owner. Rick Jesionowski
Still under construction, but making ground. I have the frame and lower deck cut for a corner module. I need to head out to obtain more 1/2" and cut the upper deck to fit. Once I assemble and put in place on the layout to confirm fitment/alignment I can take apart, drill wire run holes, paint, fit backdrops, then finally mount to layout. There are no supports for the upper section on the left side of this module as it is already in place on the layout. Model Railroading will be fun again once all this construction is finished.
Friday and Saturday I was back to doing homework, especially in hopes that I can get a little ahead before leaving next month for two weeks at the National Scout Jamboree in Glen Jean, WV. Saturday evening we took the dogs to the dog park (one of their favorite things) and, while there, spontaneously decided to look at the sofas at Big Lots next door. We've been thinking about getting a leather(ish) kind of sofa since my wife's allergies have been bothering her while sitting on the fabric that she shares with the dogs. Discovered that that not only had a couple that we liked, but that they were 20 percent off for Father's Day. So, we took the dogs home, came back, and bought the sofa and the matching recliner, then two trips to take them home in my pickup truck. Sunday was church but our church met later than usual and had church in the pavilion of our local park followed by lunch. I was surprised with a visit by one of my second-cousins (my cousin's kid) who was visiting nearby from Indianapolis. She came home with us and talked for a while, then a short rest, and we (me, wife, dogs) went to our son's house where our family (except for the ones in Texas) had a nice cookout together. We made it home after 8:00 and decided to try to drag the sofa in and get it assembled. Finished that just in time to relax for a bit before bed. Hopefully, I'll get out to the train club on Tuesday.
It's Monday already? Well, got a few metal wheels installed Saturday morning but wasn't motivated enough to do much more than drink coffee and watch a few trains run. The wife set up a late lunch with some of our friends which was good. Sunday, zero motivation so didn't accomplish anything. Maybe next weekend! Hope you all have a great week!
The weekend was one of those up and down ones. Saturday my wife and daughter decided to make a cake from an old family recipe. The first step was transcribing the recipe from the very yellowed and delicate paper it was written on. The recipe was my wife’s great grandmother’s recipe. I had to make a grocery store run for some missing ingredients. The cake came out delicious and reminds me of what we used to call a Pennsylvania Dutch spice cake which would make sense since her great grandmother was Mennonite. Sunday, Fathers’ Day was a very low-key day. We just lounged around the house. The kids assembled my Fathers’ Day gift, a new outdoor range. We were going to go out for dinner but decided not to because none of us felt like dealing with crowds. Instead, we order cheesesteaks from our favorite place. I installed a floodlight at the pond. It is a temporary location as I need a short extension cord so I can place it in a permanent location. I tuned up 20 pieces of rolling stock. I also ran some trains. I organized some things around the layout and workbench.
I continued working on my GP7 paint/detail job. The weekend before this one, I drilled out a hole for a 3 mm LED in each of the two metal barrel-style headlight housings that were characteristic of CN's GP7 order. The LED tip doesn't go all the way to the front, which is great, because I can use the inside as a kind of reflector. To mount those barrel headlights to the body, I drilled out a 5/32" hole where the dual headlights are on the Athearn body, and the LED tail end's flange just fits in there. Cool! I'll wait to finish decal work, and add the series resistors and diodes before I glue the headlights to the body. I have an idea on how to make the lighting system a part of the shell, with a small connector to just unplug if I want to play around with the frame and drive train only. Taking my time this time around, since there's some extra work, both manual and brainual, involved.
Thanks for the Father's Day wishes! Glad stuff is working out. Good luck on the N-track project. Down with Murphy! College bound! Groceries are important. Ooooh! Covered hopper! @jhn_plsn, fine construction project. Homework! Ahhh, watching trains run. New outdoor range! Cool! Ahhh, ran some trains. Gotta' love Gp-7's I am on here Monday night after returning from youngest daughter's in North Alabama. Friday, my oldest daughter came to stay due to apartment arrangements falling through. Glad she is here! Saturday afternoon saw me attending my cousin's ninetieth birthday party. After this I went to North Alabama. My son-in-law to be fixed us delicious hamburgers. Next morning, I was able to catch a small bluegill. First one of the year. Today after not catching any fish, I went to the oldest child's for lunch. He and I had delicious Bar-B-Q. After lunch and a lengthy visit, I came home where my daughter fixed steak and baked potato. . All MRR that was done, was done before Friday. However, after chores , more MRR'g will be done! Specifically, more on the previously mentioned locomotive's Let's see, laundry, house cleaning, MRR'g, fishing(?). Forward! Have a great week!
I painted the corner module, reassemble, drilled wire run holes, and put it in place. I think I will wait on the next module to add backdrops so I can do 8' at a time. Fitment and alignment are good and its solidly mounted. The next double deck module is straight forward so should only require 10 stand and stare moments of pondering what I got myself into.
Hey Rick, no this was Farrow Harley Davidson in Sunbury Ohio off 71. I have passed it multiple times going back and forth to NH and finally had an excuse to stop. Picked up a few shirts and saw they were having a car and bike show. Would have stayed longer but we wanted to get home.
Jim, If you ever find yourself coming across Ohio on I-76/80 instead of I-70, let me know. I (and the Sebring Model Railroad Club) are less than 20 minutes south of there.
My order of HOn30 freight car truck frames should be here Friday. Then I can get busy and finish some log cars which are collecting too much dust. Did some searching around on-line for an N scale item, (long OOP), but that was fruitless, as expected. Finally sat down and did some further reading of the recent Kalmbach V&O book. Got everything set up to build a couple more HOn30 resin box cars. Then was distracted to further work on my hydroplane racing button collection. Their first race of 2023 is this coming weekend!
