Well, May did not turn out exactly like I had hoped. Coming off that fantastic layout tour / open house at the end of April. The whole first week of the month was spent unwinding and getting ready to go to my daughter's graduation in Brookings, SD.
The only time I even went downstairs that week, was when I got phone call from a guy who had come out on the tour. He came over and we spent 3 hours talking about operations and how the layout should be run. Even though Gary is an HO guy, the layout seems to have left a good impression on him.
Gary and I have actually been acquainted with one another for a very long time, though my memories of him are much sharper than his of me, at least until now. When I was in my early teens, I attended a train show, and Gary had a timesaver layout. I was hooked on that thing. It changed my world and how I thought about trains. So deep down, he was a critical influence in my creating this.
After graduation, the rest of the month was spent picking and poking at a variety of small projects.
This is my rolling stock database. As I add cars to the layout, I record them here, then print the additions and give that list to my wife who hand writes out the car cards.
These are the card boxes. They come from Micro Mark, as does the rest of the car card system. It is a nice basic starting point. The card boxes are varnished wood, but I like to paint them black.
Here's the box at Pig's Eye.
An overview of the yard.
My wife found these really neat paper clips with numbers on them, on Amazon.
This is Northtown (hump yard). The numbered clips tell which track the cars are on.
Here we have the Minnesota Commercial yard and all of its tracks full of cars.
I had some of my LionScale boxcars show up from Charlie Ro. The BNSF one were OK, but the NS had 3 broken trucks out of 3 cars. The problem is that the very fine rim on the bolster is sheering off during shipping. You can see how the material has just popped out around the hole.
And its remains are still under the screw head. The simple solution is to ship these with the trucks inside, and let the customer screw them on. Though a redesigned bolster with a thicker flange would be even better.
The LionScale cars look good. The first four in this shot are them.
I unpacked and programmed new F 40 PH's.
And this Atlas Dash 40-B.
I bought myself a drafting arm, in order to finish drawing my track plans.
Finally, my wife and I restarted the electronics project for the signals.
Sorry if it's not up to my usual level of excitement this month. My helpers haven't been around, I haven't been feeling the best, and my tools are still packed away from the open. Let's see if I can pull it back together in June.