A busier than expected fall is good for the finances, but bad for model railroading. In spite of this, I have been able to make some (minuscule) progress in constructing The Hills Line.

All the Ikea Ivar parts are now in place and painted, allowing for progress to begin on the actual railroad part of the railroad. If nothing else, taking the time to create a clean, warm, and inviting space always pays off in the end.

The first components of the benchwork for The Hills Line has arrived in our basement. I decided to go with IKEA's Ivar cabinets to provide a functional but fashionable base for the railroad. This system should allow our basement to be better used for other purposes, along with model railroading.

In between ongoing room preparations and refining the plan for The Hills Line, I've been able to setup and test out ISE's ProtoThrottle for future use on the layout. Others have already sung the praises of this product, but I wanted to offer my own observations and give a little insight to how it will be implemented on The Hills Line.

To begin, here's my current setup...

For those of you who have been following along with the drama of our basement reconstruction, including the loss of the Grimes Line, I’m glad to say that we’re finally back in a good place space wise. Which means construction of a new layout can begin. Which means it’s time to share my plans.

Presenting the CRANDIC’s Hills Line, under IAIS lease...

A final update from the Grimes Line.

Two and a half months after our issues began, we again have a fully functional basement. What was intended to be just a sewer line replacement turned into a complete makeover, including wall stabilization, waterproofing, and crawl space cleanup. The result is a much cleaner, drier, and safer space than we had before and will serve us well, regardless of what we decide to do moving forward.

Abandonment notices are never fun, especially when they’re unexpected. However the Grimes Line is being dismantled.

I had two immediate reactions to Scott Thornton’s message "Inspiration fosters a plan - using a conductor in operation”. The first was… Wow! That’s cool. The second was… Why didn’t I think of that? Since good writers borrow but great writers steal outright, I was inspired to develop my own version for the Grimes Line.

After a near 18 month lull, some progress on details for the IAIS Grimes Line. 

I recently purchased several set of joint bars from Precision Design (who makes a lot of cool stuff) with the idea of doing a stretch of track for photography purposes. It's definitely a work in progress but I still have the goal of adding the bars to most of the layout, which is very possible to achieve on a smaller line like mine.

This past weekend marked the five-year anniversary of construction beginning on my Iowa Interstate Grimes Industrial Track layout. Over those five years I’ve been fortunate to be able to share my progress in modeling the Grimes Line. Five years later, and I’m grateful for the opportunity.

Finished up work on IAIS GP38-2 #715. Thanks to a heads up from Joe Atkinson, I learned that the loco did not have its nose herald during my modeled era. A quick trip to the paint shop and we're once again prototypically accurate. Thanks Joe!