Do You See What I See?

I’m on the train for a business trip, so it seemed fitting to finally update you guys on the latest at the MCTD.

I’m Visualizing As Fast as I Can

I’m a slow modeler. (Hey! I hear you, y'know! I hear you guys saying, “Yeah, you’re a slow blogger, too.”) I admire the modelers who can just jump into a project without a set plan and come out with something great, but that’s not me.  This is not to say that I think you have to plan everything out to the nth degree before building anything; quite the contrary in fact. But I have to be able to visualize it. When I build something, especially a structure or scenery, I have to be able to imagine it and see in my mind’s eye how it will fit into the whole. Once I can “see” it, I go to town and usually finish the project relatively quickly.

So I spend a lot of time just staring at the layout.

A Memorable Memorial Day

So what's been going on these many quiet months?

I've been busy.

That’s not an excuse, but a proclamation, and in my opinion, a good one. Well, not for the blog, but for the layout.

It all started before last Memorial Day. We had planned a cookout for our families (a rousing success, I must say), and so I set a deadline for myself. You see, I didn’t want people to ask “How are your trains coming along?” and be forced to once again say “Well, I haven’t done much.”

So I did things.

The Goals

Goal #1 was to have enough track laid and operational to, well, operate. At least a little bit. Keeping in mind that not a single one of the family members attending are model railroaders, operation in this case meant the ability to run a locomotive with some cars on the main track and into some sidings. At the time, I had not yet ordered the large Peco Code 100 wye that I needed to split the track at the north (right) end of Wicomico St., so the main track ended just where the wye should be.

Having taken care of the bus (as described here), I was free to wire up the drops. I managed to complete that in a few hours over two evenings, and I didn’t even burn myself. (An achievement in itself considering my soldering skills.)

Goal #2, as I alluded to at the end of this post, was to get a backdrop up. As the photos attest, I wasn’t quite as successful on this count. (It’ll make a good topic for a later post.) It turned out to be a much bigger job than I had envisioned, and certainly more than a one-man job, so after 8 feet, I gave up. (I will go back to it as some point, but I’ll probably scrap what I have currently. I’m just not happy with it.) At that point I focused on trying to ensure that things ran well.

The Goals

And they did run well. I had more than a few people down to see the layout, and all seemed impressed, even the very young kids. This last point was especially good considering there is no loop on the layout, meaning there was not even a glimmer of the possibility of the roundy-round running kids usually love. (Although I will say the sound-equipped Conrail B23-7 didn’t hurt in keeping their attention.) I was able to deliver and pick up cars. The runaround worked well, and the lone code 83 spur caused no issues.

As these things tend to do, the running raised some points. First, it became obvious that I needed some sort of off-layout storage yard, which turned out to be as simple (at least for now) as extending the track the joins the layout. Second it was obvious that I needed to get the wye in. Both of those have been completed, making ops a bit easier.

One major drawback of the unfinished basement is that it’s really (REALLY) cold in the basement in the winter months. So, my progress has been slow this winter (plus I’ve still been working on my portion of the the WMRR club layout as mentioned here). With warmer spring temperatures around the corner, I’m hoping to get moving again. More on the slow progress I’ve made in the next post.

Until then!

Time Flies!

I just looked at the blog and realized nine months have gone by since my last post. What a slacker! (What scares me even more is how quickly those nine months went by.)

So, just to give a quick status, while the blog hasn't been updated, the layout has. Not a ton, but some. (You see, I also belong to the Worcester Model Railroaders, and have a pretty significant street running project going there, too. So that's been seeing a lot of my modeling cycles.)

Just a taste of what's happening on my section of the Worcester Central Lines layout at my club. But that's another blog!

At any rate, I've laid all the track, gotten it wired, and have done a few impromptu solo op sessions along the way. Tired of losing a few feet of track every time I wanted to set up a train, I also built a (somewhat rickety) staging addition that goes on the left side of the layout.

On the non-ops side, I've been doing some planning on structures, as well, and laid my first bit of scenery!

I'll expand on all this with real posts (and photos) in the weeks to come. Stay tuned!