Well, after 3 moves, getting married, and buying a house(and a whole ton of other stuff we don't need to talk about ) , I'm Back! yep, its Deano :mrgreen:

Monday night after work I stopped by Menards and picked up the wood I needed to start my NEW LAYOUT! This layout will end up being 16'x11' , two foot wide all the way around(modular style) and will be 4' high off the ground. I ended up getting two 2'x8' sections of 3/4 plywood, and enough wood for framing and the legs. This will at least give me one side of the layout to start with. I would have loved to get all the wood for the whole layout at once, but with all the new bills I now have, just wasn't possible, I'm going to do this in sections so it will take some time.

As I mentioned, I have been through a few moves in the last few years, I have all my trains boxed up but haven't even looked at some of my stuff in years, I am kind of scarred to open a few of the boxes, I hope all is well and not destroyed The only things I am sure are ok are the collection of stuff I have of Waynes, it was all put back in the same box I got them in and has been in every bedroom closet I have had in the last few years . After I get up the first two sections this weekend I am going to start opening boxes, it will be exciting to say the least.

I hate to say it but I am unsure on what exactly the layout is going to be, though I am leaning on doing the UP during the mergers(80's - today). I also have no idea of the track plan other then it has to have a mainline with only two switches on it, one on each side of the layout, other then that...I got nothing, yet . I was thinking perhaps one side of the layout in Midwest theme, with the other side looking like out west, would be a real challenge for me. ALL advice and input is more then welcome, I may or may not use it, but it is all welcome .

I will get some pics up this weekend.

Till the next post, stay on track folks
-Deano

All vehicles have been sold

Bruce

We've basically had the same smilies since we opened Big Blue. Some are used often, others aren't. Some people use them, others don't. Now is you chance to voice your opinion on our smilies. Feel free to list any smiley that we have in our list that you don't particularly think we need, and on the other hand, if you would like to see us add one, please list them here as well. Just for starters, we've added the following:
crazy
applause
:wait: and so
We also deleted the, "this thread is worthless without pics" smiley, since it it way too large and has probably only been used once or twice, if that.

You can see all the smilies we have here, just be sure to see both pages. I forget that there are so many that there is a second page. :oops:

Just list the smilies in this thread that you would like to see removed or added. We will consider all comments before we revise the list. Remember, you suggestions should be appropriate for a "G rated" model railroad forum like ours. There is no timeline for this, we can make changes at anytime, but we'd like to do this around the time we do the next software update in the next few weeks.

One can never have too many Metroliners. Thankfully, unlike the real thing, these run great. The only real nuisance is keeping all the lights on (brief losses of power shuts them off).

I now have two trainsets, and I'm hoping to get a third sometime later this year. In particular, I want to model Snackbar coach 868, which was the only unrebuilt Metroliner to get the Phase II striping (all of Walthers other Phase II cars aren't quite right). The balance will be the Penn Central painted variety, which would let me to a 6 car PC set.

The cost kills me, but a third trainset would not only allow me to get all the consist variety I'm looking for, but would also allow me to run my "hour of NEC" without having to juggle or recylce a consist (there would be two eastbounds and a westbound in a single "hour")

These are the trainsets as I ran them at this year's open house. It was fun to shuffle the consists so that I didn't bring out the same train every time. Once or twice I got someone to drive the other trainset, and we'd have a Metroliner set zipping around the club layout in both directions.

Trainset 1



Trainset 2

Felt like I was at a parade today...
First by...

Then, there were two of these...

Followed by this yellow critter...

...another one of these...

...one of these...

...this contraption...

...and finally these two guys...



They were all real friendly and waved and each one honked as it crossed the crossing, some much more enthusiastically than others.

I'm pretty sure they were track maintenance vehicles though I must admit, I have no idea as to the function of each one.

Packey, our webmaster, says that we are due for a software update, probably sometime in late April or May. We've got a few other things planned when we do this. First, you are aware of the problems we've had with our current gallery software. We've been trimming the contents down these past few weeks, and it will be gone by the time we do the update. We've been lacking a chat room for a few years now and so we hope to bring one back. We could also replace the gallery with something else sometime in the future if we find we can't do without one.

We are also adding and deleting some smilies. We want to keep those that we use a lot, delete some that aren't used much and add some fresh ones that you should like. You will have your chance to have your say in that. We will open a smiley thread for comments. Right now we've added these: (crazy) (applaud) :wait: (and so?)

So final warning, anyone that still has items in the gallery, download them to your computers, replace them in posts that they're linked to, move them to some other photo sharing site... or just do nothing if you don't need to. Let us know if you need more time or our help, otherwise we will continue to systematically delete albums there until they're all gone.

To summarize, sometime in the next few weeks we hope to be able to:

1. Update our phpBB software to the latest revision
   
2. Drop our current gallery
   
3. Add a new chat room that is compatible with our basic forum software
   
4. Make a few changes to our smiley collection
   
5. And,possibly, (no promises though ), add a new gallery if it is deemed feasible.

Have two undecorated Athearn RTR DCC ready with quick plug GP 35 locos' Ath 91700. They are DCC ready with quick plug and has both the dynamic and non dynamic hatch covers. The locos are still sealed in their boxes. $75.00 each plus postage from New Jersey. If you buy both I will pay postage provided it's in the lower 48 states.

Bruce

Jefferson High School 4145 Samuelson Rd. Rockford Illinois:
March 28 10 AM-5 PM
March 29 10AM- 4 PM
$5 per person
I will have my modules there with the Lake County Society of Modular Engineers. Hope to see some of you there this weekend.