Piedmont Division Blog

So I've been busy with other things like graduations, vacations, summer cookouts, movies, cooking and being with the family. The last time I worked on the layout was in April and I have not touched it since except to show it off once or twice to a few friends or family. It's not that I planned to be away from the layout for so long, but life has a way of taking over and other things happen. The burning desire to get into the train room has died too a bit, I was always eager to get in there and start up a new project, but that desire is not there as once before. Now I just miss getting in there and spending the day on making some progress. I must confess that there are about a dozen unfinished projects that require my attention such as:

1. Installing ground throws on manual switches in yard
2. Installing Tortoise electrical switches (still have to figure out the wiring method) on main
3. Add ties to staging yard track
4. Ballast the staging yard track
5. Add details to the roundhouse renovation
6. Clean the track
7. Build some of the kits for the details to add to the roundhouse renovation (see #4 above)
8. Finish backdrop behind staging yard
   1. Sand the patch
   2. Paint the backdrop
   3. Add clouds to the backdrop
9. Finish the Allied Rail Rebuilders kit with details, painting, weathering, etc...
10. Finish the road details for the locomotive servicing facility
11. Add sanding tower and base
12. Add diesel fuel and oil tanks

The list goes on......oh my!

Mr. Murphy Law Strikes Again! Last week Monique had a few of her co-worker friends over at the house Friday night to celebrate our son’s 18^th birthday and unannounced she invites them to see the train room. Uh oh, whut!!!!  Being unprepared for the impromptu tour I head up to the room, turned on the lights and the power strips to all the lights and such. Sweat begins to well up on my brow…… So I am showing them around the train room point out some new scenery I just put in earlier in the day, and then Monique says..."Turn on the trains and run them around a bit...." Oh boy, I knew this would be trouble, I’m on the spot now! Then I power up the DCC system and plug in the wireless throttle and turn on the power to the track, and my NS loco with sound enabled decoder does not start up! Funny thing, because typically without even selecting it and when I turn on the track power the sound starts right up on the loco like the diesels are just getting revved up! Not this time! Enter Mr. Murphy! Only the front head light is on. I select the loco again and still nothing. I take the loco off the track and put it on another section of track, select it again and still nada! Oh well, so I run another loco and then it stops on some dirty track! Dang…Mr. Murphy again! Can you say the phrase “not prepared?” Had I known that we were going to demonstrate the layout I would have cleaned the track and tested all the equipment before hand. Be Prepared from the old Boy Scout days would have come in handy right about them. Earlier in the day I was installing new scenery and such and did not clean track or run trains at all. Mr. Murphy you can go home now. A couple days later I go up to the train room by my self just to check everything out and so I turn on everything, power up the DCC system and enable the track power and then select the sound enabled loco, and sure enough everything works fine. Even the other loco on the still “dirty” track runs like a charm! I cannot tell you what I did to make it work this time around, not even sure what made it not work on the night of the “demonstration”. In any case, I’m happy that everything is working now and not actually “broken”. Fingers crossed! So, there you go another episode of Mr. Murphy and the law of model railroading.

The TGX HO boxcar from 2Guyz and Sum Trains arrived on the inbound tracks of the classification yard this weekend and the switching of cuts from the mixed freight consist began soon after the inbound locomotive was sent for refueling and a servicing checkout for the next haul. Here in the photo on the left the TGX boxcar is seen at the 4th position from the lead just behind a couple of Southern boxcars and a bulkhead flatcar with a wrapped lumber load, and in front of two Pacific Fruit Express refer boxcars. Other cars observed in the consist were empty hoppers and empty tank cars toward the end. Once the lead prime mover was sent to the locomotive servicing facility the Southern H16-44 assume it's role in taking a cut of cars from the inbound classification yard to the freight yard near Asheville Station.  Before making it's way to the freight yard the small cut would have to pass near downtown Asheville. But, first here are a few images of the coupling details and switching operations in the classification yard.

Read and interesting thread posted in the Layouts and Layout Building Forum in MR online today about having your layout construction contracted out instead of doing it yourself. Contracted Layout Building in MR is the title of the thread and there seems to be a debate by folks who have their layout paid to be built. The debate is if this is a good or a bad thing in the MR hobby. This is my posted entry on the topic:

To each his own! I don't give a rats behind hoot if someone wants to blow their money on having their layout built.If someone has the money and can afford to contract out the work of building a layout, more power to em! Probably gets the layout up a lot faster than the DIY folks, (BTW that includes yours truly!) I consider myself a DIY kinda guy, not just for building my layout, but for around the house too. I take pride in doing tasks around the house that most people have to pay to "get er done"! Like painting (interior/exterior), minor electrical work, carpentry, flooring, dry wall, woodworking, etc... I save a lot of hard earned dough ($$$) by doing it myself around the house. Now the stuff I will not do is roofing and major electrical like putting in a new circuit. I have worked with both, but do not have the skill set to do it reliably. Now, it might take me six months put that 900 sq. ft. of tile floor in working nights and weekends, but I saved a lot of money in the process, no, a ton of money! And I can say it did it myself! Pride! I like the satisfaction I get when looking back at a finished project on the layout or in the home and knowing it was built with my hands, not someone else's. I also know what my skill set can handle, and when I don't have the skills I try to learn as much as I can about how to approach a new task. Some folks have the skills and patience to get things done themselves and some don't. Those folks who don't' have the time, energy, or acumen have to pay to get it done! What's wrong with that? I wish there were more folks out there looking to pay people to get their layout built; I would love to get paid to build em! Talk about a dream job, building model railroads and getting paid to do it!

After our sleigh ride and driving back from Sombrero Stables at Snow Mountain, CO I noticed a BNSF coal consist traveling south alongside Hwy 40 between the towns of Tabernash and Fraser, CO. I instructed Benjamin to take my Canon Digital Rebel camera from the Jansport backpack and start shooting as many pictures as possible as I slowed down to around 35 mph on the road back. I have added 19 images to the Blog header image rotation from this series and another 22 images into the general image folder for the PD site. The towns of Tabernash and Fraser (el. 8,400 ft) sits in the valley between Ninemile Mountain (el. 9,695 ft), Sheep Mountain (el. 10,627 ft), and Ptarmigan Peak (el. 11,772 ft). This southbound unit coal train had two prime movers at the head, two in the middle of the consist, and a fifth unit at the end. At this elevation the grade averages 2-3%, and with a mile long coal cargo, this unit was moving at around 20 mph and kicking up a lot of snow along the way. It was an amazing sight to behold!