Good Morning Everyone...partly sunny and not too cold this morning. Hope winter is almost over. Checked the cabin last weekend and the snow in the woods is a healthy six inches deep.
Over the weekend we went to a party at a popular Bar and Grill that is closed during the winter, but opened for the party. Live band and food with an open bar!!! 75 or more people showed up and we knew many of the guests of party's host. We had resevations a a local motel that we stayed in before and locally owned and not too fancy, but clean and worth the price. It changed hands and unknown to us the place now has most of the rooms rented by the month. Our room was a dump with burned out lights, broken fixtures, dirty carpet and just a bad experience!!! I slept in the broken down rocker that was in the room.
Picked up Riley from the Doggy Motel this morning. She was so tired and glad to be home and she asked to be let into her crate and is now sound asleep. Sad part of the entire weekend is Riley's Doggy Motel was cleaner than our motel, but her room cost more than our ours.
TomO: That Vortex would be interesting for mixing paint. I like many, do not mix the paint enough before using. One trick I do use for newer paint is to carry the bottle(s) around in my pocket for a day or so. It really gets the paint mixed up as long as its newer paint. I agree with you that topics about the Ukraine situation do not belong in a model railroad Forum. We need to keep the subject matter in this Forum on the light side and the daily current events left to the network news and talk shows to report on. I respect everyone's opinion on the Forum and wish everyone well.
Thinking of Tom's layout and his mill when I drive past a pallet manufacture on the way to the cabin and there's huge piles of sawdust in their yard.
Read the Forum this morning, I suddenly remembered that I have a brand new, never ran the KATO DM&IR locomotive still in its box. If I remember correctly it's SD 38-2 DC, ready for DCC conversion. I planned on doing sound as well as straight DCC. I have another KATO DM&IR locomotive that I run on the layout. I purchased the DM&IR locomotives when I still wanted to keep the layout totally ore mining related. The two DM&IR locomotives will someday pull my unit ore train(s). The loco was manufactured for the installation of sound with a place for the speaker molded into the chassis.
Sometime ago, every-time I visited my LHS I saw a custom painted BB caboose in the DM&IR theme hidden in a display case. Who ever did the painting and decal work did a great job. It came with Kadee couplers and metal wheels all for the sum of $15.00. The owner of the store didn't know who did this work, so I am unable to locate this fine craftsman. I'll post some photos of the caboose in the future.
That gondola load would be open game for the mice our basement. I'll give a load one week to disappear if it was on the CM&N Railroad!!!
I've been thinking about using real sand and gravel for some gon loads. The mix would be cemented to the tops of plastic gon loads and make for a heavy load. Funny, I get my sand and gravel mix from the driveway where I store Cathy's convertible. I used it on the layout at Rocky Junction where the mainline splits.
That's all for now......
Greg
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This scene has gone undergone several changes and improvements over the life of the layout, adding mostly more vegetation and trees. I enjoy watching Stephen Bennett's videos and wondered what makes his layout stand-out from others. I finally figured it out that it was the lack of the normal use of Woodland's ground foam and he used scenic materials from different sources. (Nothing wrong with Woodland Scenics material.) One source Bennett used was Model Scenes from the Czech Republic so I ordered some materials from Model Scenes for foreground use where it will be usually seen by visitors. ModelScenes.com.
The road in the photo dead-ends like all the roads on my layout. A second crossing signal has been added to the other side of the road. The road may go from being aspalt to a gravel road. A Woodland's structure was added to the left of the billboard sign.-Greg
This is the mainline tunnel entrance that runs under the Saxeville Interchange on the C&MN. Lots of Woodland Scenics!!!-Greg
Another funny thing: lighting almost never happens due to cold gulfstream north and warm gulfstream in the south. When they appear, like maybe once a year, they make the news headlines.
