We're back from our long weekend. Time to see how well we did, or didn't do. Saturday: was as predicted. We slept in and I prepped Jess for the hour long journey to that town no one agrees on the pronunciation of. And they say our towns in New England have weird names! It was a nice cool drive down the back roads to our destination. We saw my boss right away with his perfectly restored 1973 Gran Torino and talked with him for a while before bumping into Angela's dad and his Cobra Mustang. After talking we enjoyed the usual fair type food then stopped by Angela's dads house to visit before leaving town. We caught one train leaving the area and as luck would have it, Angela was able to get a picture of the Kansas City Southern trailing unit with her phone from the open top Jeep. After an enjoyable ride home we tucked our Jeep in for the night and enjoyed a frosty beverage on the porch. Sunday: we headed in to my favorite toy store, Menards. Armed with my new plans and a shopping list of material, I drove Angela batty with my Tim Allen style of hardware shopping habits. Soon however, I had plywood, a new saw blade, router, glue and some landscape lights in the cart and ready to go. We picked up lunch before enjoying a fall favorite at our local popcorn shop, caramel apples. Getting home, I had just enough time to get a few things picked up before my step daughter and her boyfriend came over for a cook out. A game of Horse shoes in our Horse Shoe pit, chicken, corn on the cob and many adult beverages with some great classic rock to fill in the sound aspect, made for a great night. Monday: One would think not getting to bed until 2:30am and consuming a lot of adult beverages would have had me sleep til noon and have a hangover. Well thanks to my "adulting" as the kids call it, I was wide awake at 5:30am and ready for a new day which included some much needed landscaping and brush clean up. I finished the day by playing Monopoly with Angela, Shelby and her boyfriend, then tied a knot of finishing the weekend by watching an episode of Star Trek. The original, not the Next Generation or a re-boot, the good ole classic one! So how about you? Did you enjoy your long weekend? Did you relax? Did you work on anything train related? Let us know. We'll be back in just a few short days on Friday the 8th to start the process all over again. Until then, have a great week, stay safe and as always... High Greens!
I made some progress on my generic food processing plant. It sat half finished all summer, and the sides warped pretty good. To solve that problem, I decided to install a roof and a "floor" to push the walls back into shape. To give the doors something to hold on to, the floor wasn't all the way at the bottom and I installed a cross brace on the dock door because it kept wanting to fall through. I also added the loading dock overhang, but at this point the sloped roof to the far end extension hasn't been added. 20170903_195658 by Rocket Jones posted Sep 3, 2017 at 8:14 PM Here, the doors are all in place and the roof is on. Some painting has been done to the dock and steps, and the annex is painted silver for the corrugated aluminum look. I also started some rooftop doo-dads. 20170904_200019 by Rocket Jones posted Sep 4, 2017 at 8:30 PM Another view showing the far end. So far, I'm happy with how it's coming out. 20170904_200046 by Rocket Jones posted Sep 4, 2017 at 8:30 PM
Long weekend went about as planned. Spent much time with college football and then grilling on Sunday. Rest of the time however was spent either in the workshop or the train room. Spent much of that time working on one of the buildings from the former Albemarle Division. It had quite a few places come "un-glued" from sitting in storage and so on. Spent the rest of the train time in the layout room putting in plywood and risers for another mainline track extension. Here's a shot of the building I'm "refurbishing". Oliver Tool and Dye. This was built in 2003/4 and kitbashed from a Bar Mills "One Kit", Evergreen sheet stuff, scraps from the box, etc. I am finishing it up and it will go near the small interchange area. I am now building the structure that will hold up the back of the hoist tower on the back of the building. edit: fixed photo link
I had a very good weekend. Not much modeling. I did however, get the fuel and water columns installed on my diesel service platform. And, I started the DCC install on the last two GP-9's (Of 5 units). Ordered some more SMD LEDs - in warm white (for the GP-9 lighting needs) - That's about it. Hope Y'all had a great weekend, Wolf
My weekend was spent shopping for things I'll need when I go back home, hopefully this weekend. I bought a new laptop Sunday and am having fun learning about what it can do. I don't think it'll replace my desktop, but I can take this anywhere in my apartment and use it with my wi-fi.
I built my lighting control box, basically three toggle switches and a 12 VDC 1.8A power supply. It awaits lighting to control. I'm continuing with running each of my locos around the layout to check for weaknesses and loco issues - for example an Athearn SW7 with Kadee couplers that dragged the coupler "tails" along the rails in the sharper left turns and jamming it in turnouts, stopping the train cold. A good sign is that all six-axle power that has run so far runs well and hits no snags. I'll have to visit the LHS to get some street lamps, plus I had an idea for building lighting that will simplify my work considerably - mount the lights on stands and put the structures on top of them. No need for connectors if I want to remove a building for some reason.
http://lancemindheim.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Dumpster2yardBsmall.jpg These dumpsters are real! I used paint shop to make them in different colors, and some I faded. Then printed them out in a few sizes.
