Like many, many of you, I struggle (and generally fail) at keeping a clean organized workbench.  As I have started and worked through projects over the years, I've tried just about everything to keep my projects organized - butter tubs, old greeting card boxes, even discarded instrument packages from scientific instruments!  See, I like to keep all the detail parts, replacement couplers, etc together in a single place while I work on a model, so I can just pick it up, work on it, and then set it down without spending time trying to hunt everything out of my on bench storage

So here's what I'm starting with:

On the far right is section one of this track plan, basically the refinery area and fiddle yard:

SO I have a tad bit of cleaning to do.  Tomorrow I'll get the measurements done for mounting the benchwork.

Reading over my account, I find it hard to believe that I haven't posted any work since 2010!!  But with an expanding family, a promotion, and an old house, I ramped back in 2011 on a number of modeling actions.  Layout building slowed considerably, and I turned my attention to more detail work.  Now that we have 1/4th of 2012 under our belts, I thought I start cranking out a few more then a few updates again.

The East Baton Rouge Parish Department of Public Works (Mount Rainier Division) acquired several new pieces of equipment this week, thanks to a government/military surplus auction (the Laurel Valley and Ponderosa Northern cars are custom paint/letters for two friend's N Scale Layouts):

After getting the oil out of my clothes, and finishing a lengthy list of piled Honey-Do's (!) I got back to layout work.  I FINALLY  got out the benchwork I got off Craigslist last Spring (surplussed by a local On30 modeler who was retiring to his boat), and started re-sawing it for the remaining two benchwork segments:

Those of you following my work last year will note that I haven't gotten nearly as far as I had hoped.  The good news is I've had fun along the way, and tried some new things.

While its good to spend time letting folks know about all the modeling we're doing, it's also good to take a break and look at how someone else has done it.   I did just that this past weekend, with a trip up the line to the N-scale NYS&A of Todd Treaster.  Todd hosts open houses through out the year, and this was the first one I had the chance to attend.

Coming in the basement door, the yard sits off to the right - and what a yard it is:

Over at the Railwire, we got an informal challenge this week to all build, in our respective scales, this:

The powers that be surmised it to be a track bridge that would allow loading of a box car on an adjacent, unseen track.

A couple of weeks ago, I sent Coxy a note asking for a new post on his blog.  He's weathering rolling stock right and left, and I was really liking his flickr pics.  Being the gentlemen he is, he tagged me, and asked for an update.  So here it is.