Welcome back everyone. I hope you had a great weekend and got some time to work on your model railroad projects. Let's get started. Saturday: My new alarm clock, my aching back, woke me up at 5:00am. After tossing and turning, I got up a little before 6:00am, got dressed and headed to my favorite midwestern lumber store. Fortunately, they open at 6:00am. I was able to pick up the material I needed to build the shadowbox of the N scale layout. Once home, I made breakfast for Ang, and I then set out building the shadowbox. I stopped at 4:30 to go have dinner with my buddy Steve and his wife and discuss his N scale layout. We got home around 9:00pm and once the dogs settled down called it a day. Sunday: I got to sleep in, make my coffee and watch a few episodes of New Yankee Workshop before heading north to Angela's grandma's house. At our age, having a grandparent is a gift so spending time with her is important to us. We brought a Costco chicken pot pie to cook for lunch and while Ang and her grandma were visiting, Ang's dad and I went to his place to pick up the Falcon and drop of the Mustang. We got back and enjoyed a nice meal and visited some more before leaving at 4:00pm. Ang I drove home, and I immediately went to the garage to work on the shadowbox. I finished the base and valance, now to do measurements to see how tall the backdrop will be between the layout and valance, but that will have to wait until next week. So how about you? What did you get done this weekend? Let us know. We'll return on Friday the 13th to start the process all over again. Until then, have a good week, be safe and as always... High Greens!
Received my orders of Bluford corn and Kato wiring. So spent time fiddling with those. With the wiring, was able to run a couple of trains. Found an FVM caboose which seems to have a truck or wheelset issue. Wobbly and derails here and there. Grrrrr. Watched too much football. Weekend over.........
Saturday was mostly spent running errands and doing some projects around the house that the wife had been wanting done. Made her happy so it was worth it. Sunday, I helped get all the laundry done, ran a couple more of the errands I didn't finish Saturday. All the need to do's got done but still a couple of want to do's didn't get done. Then cooked hamburgers and sausages on the grill. Had a blob of grease spray out of one of the sausages and cause a little flare up. Got my eyebrows singed a little. After dinner and a shower, I did get to go down and spend a few minutes at the work bench. Got some trucks and couplers replaced on a pair of new cars, fixed a coupler on another, sorted some paints my wife dug out and piddled with a couple of other things. Weekend was over way to fast. Hope you all have a great week!
Well, one more day left in my weekend to make progress on the sections for the free-mo project mentioned Friday (based on Severy KS). I have the plywood baseboards (2X4 ft squares) cut down and am working on other pieces... I did make some progress (after cleaning off the workbench) on a small depot scratch build for the Frisco Waco, MO depot as a stand in for my Lightning Creek Branch on the Crawford and Cherokee (home layout), but had to order some windows. I continued to massage decals for W&NW hoppers to get rid of pesky air bubbles. I also put together an old Branchline kit for a WP car. A good one for the operating fleet. I thought that the lettering was nice. I patched out and replaced older maintenance stencils, repainted the roof, gave it some VMS matte clear coat, and (not shown) started some weathering. Hope you are having a good weekend. -Bob T.
Friday, did manage to get the second color paint on the GATC 50' Boxcar and painted the weights to go into another pair of Bowser H21a hopper cars before going bowling, in which we did not bowl great but the team managed to win 7 points as everybody was having trouble with the strange oil pattern on the lanes. Saturday, did not go to the club as I found out it was the weekend for the Division 4 Berea train show, which I never go to as they seem to have nothing I am interested in. I got one side decaled on the GATC 50' RBL and an Atlas 3650CF Covered Hopper. Sunday, got up and read a little before starting the laundry, later in the evening managed to finish the other side of the decals on the two above mentioned cars and some of the end decals. Also started on upgrading a Con-Cor (Ex AHM) 3219CF Covered Hopper with better looking ladders and grabs and then a Plano Running Board. Rick Jesionowski
Good morning everyone, Saturday morning I headed out to my friends' place which took longer than expected due to the heavy traffic of beach goers on what ended up being one of the last warm days of the season. Surprised how many cars are on the road with gas at close to $6.00 a gallon here. Once I got there we had a really constructive session and ironed out all the details of what each of us will be doing. First photo is one end of the staging yard that I am building the controls for. It's under the main level of the layout and is 40 ft long. I had not been down to his place in years and was impressed with how much progress he has made. The main line is all operating and I followed a long coal train around the entire layout to understand the track plan. This second photo is of a large Ntrak corner that he brought to the National Train Show in San Jose in 2000 and has now integrated into this layout. Seems his train had found part of another train in one of the tunnels. On Sunday I took it easy. Did some more work on the Ntrak staging yard and ordered some wiring and connectors.
Accomplishments? Yes. Train-related? Only in that they had to get done before I can do train stuff. Friday-I had the day off because I’m working today, so my wife and I ran a couple errands and had lunch together. Afterwards I cleaned up the basement. Saturday-late start because of rain in the morning. Ran a load of stuff to the dump from cleaning the basement and picked my last (probably) tomatoes from the garden. Peppers (green and Carolina Reapers) still coming in. Hopefully get some butternut squash too. Sunday-winterized the boat. I hadn’t started the motor in over three years-it was in storage while I was in Japan. And so after replacing the batteries, adding gas with stabilizer and changing the oil it started up just fine. I snapped a spark plug (up high thank goodness) while pulling them to fog it, so I had to run out and get a replacement. But I should be good for warmer weather next year now. Next weekend-train stuff-I swear. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I certainly agree. I wish I could visit my grandparents. Some would say you can't watch too much football. Made wife happy and worked on model railroad. Win-Win! I hate it when you have to massage decals. I heard (read) "covered hopper"... Forty feet long! Wow! Ya' gotta' take care of the boat. The work I done, I done earlier today. Last week's wedding trip required me to recharge for two days. Great trip though. Now back in the saddle. Now working on reporting marks for passenger car sides. Going slow but well. All have a fine week.
This weekend we got most of the Halloween decorations done. I got a good amount of the laundry finished. We made trips to PetSmart, the grocery store, and the pharmacy. The pharmacy was the big issue as we needed to get my wife’s medication before our trip. One medication, mounjaro, is extremely difficult to get right now thanks to doctors improperly prescribing it for weight loss instead of its intended use which is for diabetes management which has resulted in a nationwide shortage. However, today we were finally able to come up with a solution that will give her enough through our vacation. I did manage to put away the rolling stock pieces I wanted to. I cleaned off the workbench in preparation for the next project which I still need to select. As far as the six workers injured last week, we have heard a little information. Four are in critical condition. The one who was injured the least will be in the hospital for at least one to two months. The other three are looking at hospital stays for up to six months. The final two are in intensive care and have undergone multiple surgeries and are under heavy sedation. We are saying prayers for them and their families.
I'm late to this thread just because my weekend and my work haven't let up until now. This week should, in theory, be a little lighter since this coming Sunday is laity Sunday and I don't have to preach. Hopefully, I'll be able to use that time to both catch up on some older stuff and work ahead a little. In any case... Friday, I did a little homework reading in the morning and then got suited up, and left for the funeral of one of our long-time members. She went the way most of us wish we could, was of sound mind, had a nice visit with one of our retired pastor's wives, went to bed that evening, and never woke up. After the funeral dinner at church I came home and did homework the rest of the evening. Saturday, I did homework all morning and turned in my writing assignment shortly after lunch. After that, we took our grand-dogs (Tasha and Zoro) back to our daughter's house and from there to the airport to pick up our daughter and son-in-law from their Western Mediterranean/Tyrrhenian cruise. By the time we dropped then off at their house (where the dogs happily welcomed them) and returned home, the day was pretty well over and I didn't feel much like doing anything else. Sunday, was, of course, church, followed by a few hours at the Sebring Model Railroad Club. There, a different face was there actually doing work on our port facility expansion. He's a regular member, but had been waiting for us to reach the point where his skill-set applied. So, he had been there for a day or two and had already built and installed the land-form where the docks protrude into the water of the port. He was also cutting and installing the seawalls that run along the shore. With his work done, Lynn and I, the two who have been regularly working lately, can finish track laying and move on to wiring and scenery. Around dinner time, I left the club, went home, changed clothes, and left again for church where I attended our scout troops' court of honor. 14 scouts advanced in rank, 125 merit badges were awarded, along with 10 other awards, and this year's class of youth leadership was sworn in. In addition, one of our adult leaders was presented with the District Volunteer of the Year award, and one of our scoutmasters was awarded the Silver Beaver award. All of the district and council executives and other mucky-mucks were all in attendance. Monday, I had work, and then class, dinner, and then our regular scout meeting, during which I continued to work on a curriculum for our club to teach Railroading Merit Badge. I think I'm finally far enough along to start dividing up the teaching responsibilities with some of the club members who have expressed an interest in participating. I will try to remember to take pictures of our progress on the port facility at the Sebring Model Railroad Club this evening.
