The Monument City Terminal Division: Fast Forward...

It has been a very long time since I posted. So long that, while I didn't exactly forget about this blog, I hadn't thought about it in some time.

But progress is being made, and I thought I'd post an update about it. If for no other reason that to see if anyone was still paying attention.

The past five years have been pretty busy. As I mentioned in "Do You See What I See?" I am a member of the Worcester Model Railroaders (link to the right). And for three of those years, I was club president. Pretty much all of my modeling efforts and a good chunk of "administrative time" for the past few years have gone to the WMRR.

Which is not to say I did nothing on my home layout. I got the Wicomico Street layout up and running, and it got some very minimal scenery. It consisted only of a couple of mock-ups and some sidewalk bits, but it was something. When one of my nephews came over, he'd always want to see the trains, and I would run them a little bit for him.

I even had an operating session or two. There was enough there that running a train would keep you busy for 45 minutes or so. So on that front it was a success.

All Good Things...

But all good things must come to an end:

After 20 years of active club membership, this will be my last. I've decided that I'm at the point where I want to focus on my own layout, and I simply can't do that and reasonably keep up with all of the things I'm involved in at the club. The club is moving locations, so this seems to be a good time to make my change as well (although I'm still signed up for track planning detail and an operating scheme, so I'm not off the hook yet).
The Wicomico Street portable layout had to come down. In "Planning And Pondering" I talked about building a portable layout. And I did. But at 17x2 feet with a 2 foot bump-out, it simply wasn't portable enough to allow me to work efficiently. So down it came.

A Fresh Start

The good news is that I've gotten off my butt and made progress on getting the basement finished. It only took seven years. So far I've gotten the vapor barrier and pink foam up, as well as getting a good chunk of the walls framed. This is no small feat, especially since up 'til now I've done all the work myself.

I'm happy with the progress, and I'm happy with the work. I feel like I'm getting there.

More to come later...