Before returning home last Monday, the Fort Wayne Historical Society's NKP 765 was in the Enola Yard near Harrisburg for a series of NS Employee Appreciation Day excursions. Several trips across the famous Rockville Bridge and into the Harrisburg Amtrak station brought about several "incidents."

On the first day of excursions, a number of rear end "fender benders" were reported  - - according to officials, some motorists were startled by something they had never seen before and weren't paying full attention to their driving.

I was bored late last night so I decided to put together one of my new Accurail 55 ton hoppers. Not too complicated and would be a little relaxation before bed. Or so I thought......

Last week was an educational one -- unpacked a couple of cars from my Canadian and ran them around the track. These are long passenger cars with a lot of fittings underneath and diaphragms -- quite unlike the doddlebug passenger car and old heavyweight that I have been using for track testing. As I expected, found a bunch of problems on the upper level -- one somewhat expected and a couple that were not. The expected problem was really an assembly issue -- built a section of bridge track and the ends stuck up just enough to drag on the underside of the car.

Funds have been really tight for my family as of late and back a few months ago when I decided on a scale change from N to HO, it probably wasn't the smartest decision as far as hobby finances. It had to be done though. As much as I've always loved N scale, my nerves were getting to the point where I just could not handle dealing with couplers and small detail parts anymore.