Good morning.
43 degrees and partly cloudy with a forecast high in the mid 60's. With such nice weather, I didn't get anything done with the layout over the weekend.
Curt - That building is really looking good. Waiting to see it assembled and on the layout.
Faxes are turning into dinosaurs. I have seen the sending of faxes really drop in the past years. There are still uses for a fax, but now most of the work I do are through emails. Downloading information and then scanning and emailing back is becoming the norm. When it comes to ink cartridges, I know a couple to IT guys who have also recommended staying away from the companies who can refill your old cartridges at a pretty good savings. At work, we have had to relace a number of printers because we were refilling cartridges.
Willie - I have been using my GML throttle for years and years and have had no problem with walking into the plug (so far). If you are worried, you could also recess the jack. I did pick up a 10 foot extension for the hand unit. Any three wire cord for a regular stereo headset would work. I got one at Rat Shack. Also, I lucked out and put the jacks in locations that had plenty of room to people to walk by. I also keep a set of meters in line with it. Here's a photos. The hand unit is not plugged in in this photo, but you can the jack above the light. The photo of the building really looks good.
The other controller at the bottom left of the photo is what I use for the yard opposite the panel. I have no idea who made it, as it was given to me but it also works as good as the GML. That one did have a telephone jack on it and was a hassle to move around. That was another big reason for getting the GML system.
Justin - I also avoid Wal Mart if at all possible, I don't think I have been in a Wal Mart in over 10 years, and tht vivit was when I was with my wife on a Saturday shopping trip. We were only there for a few minutes and the nicest part of the trip was seeing Wal Mart in the rear view mirror.
Here's a photo of the old Northern Pacific Depot in Livingston where the model railroad club has their layout in the basement of the freight building.
The main building houses the Northern Pacific museum. The crappy photo is the MRL shops located north of the yard. I was going to take a closer photo, but the freight cars in the yard sere blocking the building. The telephoto on the phone camera isn't the best.
Here's another quick video at the club. I sort of screwed up by putting the camera down on the main line instead of the yard lead. You'll notice a big 0-5-0 get into the video. The track work at the club is excellent. I was there for almost two hours and there wasn't a single derailment. The only problem during the entire evening was a train losing it's caboose in a tunnel.
[video=youtube;q2h7Q0vFuXE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2h7Q0vFuXE[/video]
In video you can also see some trains running at the top of the screen. I can't believe that I didn't know the club was here. I have been invited to come over any time to run trains. I do have the BLI heavy mike that is a DCC locomotive which I did run Saturday night, but with all of the trains running, didn't want to cause a wreck by not paying attention to the train.
Later