This is an older iteration of my current layout. Basically it is a dog bone at grade disguised as a double track main.

Thank you for reading this.  I thought that i would throw out what I think I know and let the more knowledgeable correct my misinformation and thereby coalesce a useful body of knowledge.  Hopefully I can edit this thing after posting.

Here's a mural painted on the side of a BNSF abutment in Pinole, California.  It's labeled  "The Grand Canyon Line"  and seems to indicate that Warbonnet trains were a regular event in the San Francisco Bay Area. I'd sure apprecciate if some one could fill me in a bit about this.

In my mind there are two structures that vie for the title of most railroady, namely the depot and the interlocking tower.  For the decades, the depot was the interface between a community and the outside world.  And for decades, the orderly procession of trains along the line was in the hands of the tower operators.  At least I think so.

The creation of a miniature world is what hooked me on model railroading.  Rather than attempting to faithfully follow a segment of the prototype world, my layout is my imaginary impression  of many weekend trips out of and around the San Francisco Bay Area.

Lately, I have been having fun with the concept of "leading lines", more specifcally, the use of a road as a leading line.  A  leading line can be defined as a scenic device designed to pull the viewer into the picture.

While the leaders in our hobby have long moved on to "Supertrees" to create their verdant hills, I still find it expedient to use "puff ball trees" that is balls of polyfibre coated with coarse ground foam.  I used to glue them in place with either hot melt glue  or "tacky glue". Both certainly work.

 It has taken me awhile to realize that the keys to neat soldering of rail joiners are a clean hot soldering iron and fine gauge wire solder.  Thus I have a number of joints that are fat, oozy and unsightly.  My efforts to clean them up with files and a dremel have proven less than satisfactory.  I tried a desoldering vacuum bulb which also didn't do the job for me.

I sit on a ridge in a jungle valley looking through flowering trees to the distant mountains.  The air is fresh and fragrant.  The birds celebrate the day in song.  When it rains, which is often enough, I work on my model railroad because I like trains.  But more than that,  what I really like to do is to create a world in miniature and the trains are my vehicle to do so.