Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

The main yard at Ortona has had some scenery added between the tracks. Peter and I may have went a little overboard with the bushes between the tracks.

The town of Ortona was done last Friday by Glen.

The town has a station, a wharehouse and a oil depot.
The town of Lakeview has started to take shape.

It will have a coal dealer, a freight house and a few town buildings. The station is in front of the sawmill. There will also be a dinner and a ferry service there.
Happy New Year!

Points to Ponder

As the new year begins and operations return to normal we should consider the direction we want to proceed. Continue our grab a train and go approach, knowing someone else will correct switching mistakes and set up trains for us, or do we want to help take ownership by learning how the layout operates and why each operation is important, and should be done correctly, for the enjoyment of everyone? If you prefer the latter, read on.  Some of the ideas listed below have been discussed before and some are new. All are designed to be educational, spread out the work, and help each member avoid mistakes, that we all make, from time to time.

Verification of rolling stock locations. Have a list at each town listing industries and the rolling stock that should be at each one. At the start of each session members will be assigned a town to check. This will get all members not only to know industries and their location but also emphasized the importance of proper spotting of rolling stock. Any errors will be corrected at once, before sessions begin.

Verify consist. Operators should do this, when picking up a train and after switching each town. If it is wrong, correct it. This will help eliminate switching errors.

Designated start time. Do we want to have a start time, e.g.. 6:30 or 7:00, or when enough members are present? No specific time.

Dispatcher. Do we want to have trains dispatched in a logical order? They could also control train movement. Operators have to ask the dispatcher for clearance to proceed to the next town. The Dispatcher should ask things like, have you verified your consist, or do it for them, are you east or west bound, are you switching the next town? We should not have 2 people switching in the same town.
  First comment from our dispatcher friend, Gary. "Stagger train starting times to vary operations and congestion on the railroad."

Do we want to identify yard tracks by, putting a number on a piece of plastic glued to the ties of each yard track, or a sign post, or an illustration of the yard on the fascia?

Two man crews. Theoretically we could double our membership. What is the advantage? Experienced members could help newer members. Two people checking switching moves and departing consists. Camradery. Foster new ideas. A new member can join a crew without having to buy all the equipment at once.

Merry Christmas

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

The heat is on, Merry Christmas to us!

Scenery continues to be applied to all the new areas. The ballasting is complete, so get out the Brite Boys. A lot of the wiring has been hidden in the open areas of the layout.

What's left? Finish the scenery, clean the track,  paint the fascia, and hang the curtains. Train orders for the branchline need to be made up and printed, and some changes need to be made to the mainline train orders also.

The Sawmill area is complete.

Friday fun

The log pond area get some scenery.

Lincoln Station with 1 of Glen's trees.

Dave Bears

Part of the logging spur

Old Ortona

The tool storage area Larry created.

CP. Honours military.

Canadian Pacific honours Canadian, U.S. military with special locomotives

See all newsNovember 12, 2019 Calgary, AB

Canadian Pacific (CP) unveiled five specially painted locomotives on Remembrance Day in Canada and Veterans Day in the U.S. honouring the culture and history of the armed forces. The five Electro-Motive Diesel SD70ACUs will take the message of military pride across the CP system.

Go to CP's web site or Google CP7020, Joseph sent me the link, I think he is drooling over the thought of theses coming out in HO scale.

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

The next 2 weeks the Tuesday night meeting will be on Monday night.

Lots of goodies, thanks Rick and Glen. I guess the statement "behind every good man, there is a good woman " applies here.

The area under Ortona has been reworked by Larry to hold the vacuum cleaner, extension cords and tools. He had also, previously build a sliding box for extra track.

Glen has been putting in extra hours adding scenery to the new areas of the layout. All the trackwork is now operational, but it needs to be cleaned in some areas, and some turnouts need over center springs and adjustments.

All the rockwork in the spar tree is completed. The wood retaining wall slides up for access to the tunnel. Removable log loads are stored at the end of the spar tree siding. Also note the 2 bears, lazer printed by Dave, in the mouth of the cave, unpainted as yet.

Dave also printed and painted a log unloader for the sawmill.

Elsewhere now has a background of building flats, as does Ortona

Hobby Shop

Supplied by Gary Pembleton

Thursday morning blues

Enduring 48 deg. Fahrenheit temperatures, Glen and I glued down some scenery. I notified Bill about the heat.

Behind the sawmill 

Static grass behind Lakeview 

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

Now you see it.

Now you don't.

Old #9 on it's return trip on the logging spur.

The gangs all watching the inaugural trip on the branchline! 

Backdrop buildings being arranged at Ortona. 

Yes the branchline is operational. 

Friday fun

Glen tried out a static grass applicator. The park with his wire tree has a fine grass application, where as the areas below are a courser product. Be sure to check it out at Northdale.

 Donald started ballasting the Ortona yard, Tom added more, and Glen glued it down.

Glen added and painted the side of the hill on the logging spur. With the occasional shout out, "Larry M. Could you please make a piece to plug this hole?" Larry has been the go to guy for cutting odd ball pieces to fit in here or there. He also said he may go up and finish the last section of fascia.

Rob has taken up residence in the trestle area. Fitting in rock, which Glen then mugs in. Rob also glued down the trestle and tracked it. Yes the logging spur is completely tracked and wired.

I finished putting track in the sawmill area and wired it up. Some ballasting and scenery were also completed. Scenery behind the sawmill has to be completed before it can be installed.
On Tuesday we will test run the branchline after some track cleaning. Then we will start on a general clean up, as all the sawing and drilling will be completed.
Well MIKE, the final tests of YOUR idea, exciting eh!
So what's left?
Lots of cleaning.
Lots of scenery.
Lots of Facia painting.
Lots of sorting and storing tools, scenery material, wood, and wire.
Lots of garbage removal.
Lots of curtains to be hung.
Lots of enjoyment of what we have accomplished. Thanks to all.
Our biggest and longest project since the original construction. Hmmmm, what's next?

Tuesday night at the Huff and Puff

After a short meeting we continued on with our work night. It was nice to see Tom could make it to the meeting.
Almost all of the fascia was cut and installed. Two bottles of ballast was put down, and rock work around the tunnel progressed.
All of the branchline was hooked up and it tested out OK. It was then disconnected so ballasting and wiring can continue.

Busy as beavers, we were. Now thats how work gets done.