
It’s been a long time. Today I moved my table. It’s going to take some time to get it set up again. I’m excited to get back into modeling.
It’s been a long time. Today I moved my table. It’s going to take some time to get it set up again. I’m excited to get back into modeling.
Updated Plan – Added a spur for a future train station
Here are some photos from this past weekend. My focus has been on laying track so the scenery needs a lot of work. I have a few more switches to wire up then I may begin filling in scenery.
I really like working with the curved turnouts, they add a lot of flexibility to my industry options. I find that using a curved turnout at the exit end of a curve allots the industry to be larger because space isn’t wasted by turnouts after curves.
Sherry Ott, a freelance photographer, has some tips for taking photographs from trains. Check out the blog post here.
The Alaska Railroad has, in typical Alaskan ingenuity fashion, fabricated what appears to be a transfer car made out of a shipping container. These special cabooses are used in transfer service between yards or on short switching runs. As such, they lack amenities such as a bathroom and cooking or sleeping spaces. The ends of the car are left open and will include railings and chains to protect the rail-workers.
Source
It’s a day late, I know, but here’s a couple photos of my newest engine:
This GP-38 will be used for light duty freight: a few box cars, a reefer, an open hopper, a couple tankers, log+lumber etc. I bought this Atlas engine on e-bay. It came with DCC+Sound and cost me $94, including shipping from Alaska.
Here is a look at my track plan. It consists of two outer loops and various sidings for industries. The spur on the left will be expanded down to a coal unloading dock on the coast. Industries in the center will include a sawmill where logs will be dropped off and lumber will be picked up, a liquefied propane unloading station and various shipping depots. In the upper right corner, the cut out shows the two loops traversing a mountain via a tunnel. There is a spare switch in the mountain for a potential helix. This helix may eventually lead to a future upper deck where passenger service will be managed. The layout is currently in one corner of my home office, there is a lot of potential for expansion.
One of my nephews, Ben, came to visit today; and he wanted to run the trains! Of corse, for a six year old, this means maxing out their speed! I don’t have many sidings in my layout. Since converting from Kato Snaptrack, I haven’t invested in many yet. Maybe that will be a goal for this year: build up some sidings and industries to make operating a little more fun. Then Ben can do more than run the train around the loop as fast as he can…
I’ve migrated my blog over to WordPress. As a result, it may look slightly different but I feel its an improvement. WordPress will provide me with greater flexibility and more options in the future. One big feature I already like is the ability to share posts with multiple social media outlets. Google’s Blogger more or less limited you to sharing with Google+ only, which I didn’t care for.