A continuation to story I began to tell in Modeling 22 Stories Up, this blog is intended to follow my progress of the actual layout's construction.

All aboard! 

We just got our household goods delivered yesterday, and it looks like all the hobby supplies made it safe and sound.  I need to check through stuff, as the models I shipped have spent 3 months inside a very large metal box, in the hottest part of the year, to what is one of the hottest places on our planet.

I did something I shouldn't have done, with time pressing upon me, and I did something that I needed to do and should have done a long time ago - I drove my prototype's mainline.

I started in Essex Jct, Vermont, and followed it down to South Royalton, Vermont (I've covered the area south of there to WRJ before).

Today was the local train show - and sadly it was the worst ever. Small, (it moved from the local high school to a small hotel), without many vendors (I wanted some terrain material, and nobody had any!), and the timing was bad - it was the same day as the Hookset show, located across state.

Clearly the timing meant a lot of venders that used to come to ours were, well, across state.

I've had a couple of IHC locos in my collection, purchased years ago simply because they had Central Vermont markings.

One of them is an 0-8-0 switcher, that I wouldn't mind getting to run.  To me, the IHCs are a lot more "toyish" than model, but I don't care - I would just really like to have a heavy yard switcher to add to my list.

I've decided to do a quick, basic turn around on this - I won't be super detailing it, or making it match the prototype bolt for bolt.

I've gotten tired of looking at glossy plastic, and decided it was time to learn how to weather rolling stock and locos. 

The book Done in a Day by Pelle Soeeborg was recommended to me as a good place to start, and I picked up a copy, only to be somewhat disapointed it was all on modern equipment. Still, the techniques seemed sound, so I thought I'd see if I could learn something.

So I just got back from the Springfield MA train show - yup, it only closed a half hour ago, but we left closer to 2 pm, after a 9AM start.

The show seemed a bit smaller this year, but it's hard to say exactly why. At first attendance seemed down, most likely due to the 0 degree temperature, but the parking lot was very full when we departed (and the day had warmed up).

Here's a monday movie for everyone - Switching the Chainsaw.

Enjoy!

I happen to have (read had) a happier than normal paypal account; due to the fact that I've been selling off other non-train hobby related items these past few weeks. So there's this auction up on eBay....and I'm thinking to myself, well, the last thing I need right now is another locomotive - especially an expensive brass jobby.

But.....

So I looked at my paypal account, and placed a bid.

And I won!