Good morning.
37 degrees for a start of the day.
Louis - I think you sort of suspected that the locomotive wasn't mint, but you seem happy with it. Enjoy !
Ken in VA - I hope you can finally get an appointment with the VA. A really sad situation. I have tried to just find out about prescriptions from the VA and found that I would have to be broke and destitute before I could get anything from them.
Willie - I find that making grade crossing can be a pain in the butt, but really aren;t too hard. They're just something to put off, over and over again. I finally put this one in a few months ago. Still have to add a bit of ballast at the edges, but for now it will do.
Here are the ones I started on last weekend. Instead of mixing up some hydrocal which I usually use, I used spackle as I did have some handy. Taped off the area where I didn't want to cover, put the stuff down and left the room. Couldn't run trains with the spackle in the crossings. Went down stairs yesterday and pulled up the tape to see what you see here. A little sanding, paint and ballast should trim out the edges and I'll probably use some evergreen styrene between the rails like in the crossing above.
The last one willl need some work as the crossing is across a turnout. A bit of filing and cutting on the styrene will take cars of that and then ballasting and ground cover can be put in. This town had the track pulled up and relaid three times before everything fit correctly with the buildings. Not a very large space to work with.
Johnny - An interesting story. The war devastated parts of London and other cities, but the Brits just plugged ahead and did what they had to. When I was in London, some of the residents told similar stories. They were interesting to talk with.
Got a few thing to do so I'll be back later.