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Sunday, January 27, 2019

Aziz, Light!*


Original two lights, both two the left of this image:






Next, adding the new light directly ahead beyond the railroad:


Finally, the other original light, behind my right shoulder: 




Much better.  This level of light is adequate but still not ideal.  However, it will suffice for moving ahead on scenery.

Now I can truly say, "There are FOUR lights!"**

* Even if you didn't care for the Fifth Element or have never seen it, you only have to watch a few minutes to get to this quote.  I suppose, thanks to YouTube, you can just find that clip if you're really in a hurry.

**No, really, there are FOUR lights.  Okay, eight if you count each tube within the double tube florescent fixture.  The reference is from a Star Trek TNG episode.  Poor Picard.  Though, in his defense, no other person would be sane after enduring just half the stuff he had to go through.

Saturday, January 12, 2019

New-ish Tool

I finally made a tool I'd been planning to make for some time, and sure enough, I wish I had done it sooner.  A few years ago I found some small pieces of driftwood during a trip to the coast.  I brought it home thinking they might make nice tool handles.  I regularly use pins to make dimples for starting holes so the drill doesn't wander.  However, my fingers don't like it after making a few.  So, I simply drilled into the end of the driftwood and glued the pin in place with epoxy.  Now my wife wants one for her leather work!  She'll have to pick out the piece that best fits her hand.  This one works great for me.  At some point I may seal it but for now it works fine as is  Here it is being used to mark the corners for windows on a caboose cupola.



Tuesday, January 1, 2019

New Year's Revisions

Make sure you read that right - it says Revisions, not Resolutions.  I do have a few resolutions but they have more to do with growing our savings and losing pounds, standard fare.  We actually did both in the previous year and have a solid plan for doing so again this year.  I like achievable goals!

Rather than go through a what-I-did and what-I-hope to do for last year and this, respectively, I decided to focus on the Pine Branch Park section of the Ocali Creek Railroad (aka "the layout").  Apart from ballast and the occasional paint and glue, I shouldn't need to purchase anything for the railroad this year.  I intend to begin setting aside my monthly stipend for a rainy-day fund, or, heaven forbid, a DCC system replacement fund, though the MRC system I currently use is still chugging along.  Still, I've had to send it back once already and it would be foolish to think it will last forever.  And, should I ever expand the railroad to the point at which multiple operators becomes desirable, I'll want a second throttle.

With that said, here are the focused goals for the railroad, including a revised plan.

I've moved the Gas Station away from the team track.  This is to give more room for each scene and has the bonus of providing an additional industry.  I can spot a tank car between the gas station and the orange grove.  That section of track really is the "continuous run connection" for when I just want to watch a train run.  During an operating session it can be a spot.

In order to move the gas station, I had to eliminate the residences that were going to reside there.  In that space I have planned a small honey stand.  It will be a tourist attraction of sorts, as the stand will be made from an old horse-drawn streetcar.  It will sit on a small stretch of track, complete with a dummy horse attached.  Folks can have their picture made at the "Strickland Street Car" and buy some "Horse-drawn Honey"  The remnants of the old streetcar line will run down the street, truncated by the tracks which cross it and paved over in spots.  Ocala, Florida, actually used to have a horsecar line in the late 1800s.  I've only seen one blurry image:
This should be a neat little scratchbuilding project.  The name Strickland comes from our old neighbors when we first moved to Ocala in 1980.  They were beekeepers and sold honey from their screened porch.  Interestingly enough, my youngest son is learning about beekeeping through 4H, and we each got protective bee suits for Christmas.

The station is nearly complete and I'm itching to build the Purina Feed Mill.  Along with the mill I'll rebuild the three Laconia Ventilated cars I've collected and a Woodland Scenics Diamond T truck with Purina lettering.  My plan for this railroad has always been to complete each scene fully - that means structures, accompanying rolling stock if applicable, vehicles and figures.  And, each scene should in some way contribute to the story of the railroad with either era specific or location specific details, or both.

But before then I must finish the cabeese I began back in the Spring of 2018.  Look for a post on these early this year, hopefully within a month.  The station scene will likely be next, followed by the Purina scene.  Somewhere in there I'll lay out the streets.  The benchwork still needs trim and painting.  Finally, by the end of 2019 I hope to have all the track painted, detailed and ballasted.   "All the trackwork" sounds like a lot, but keep in mind the overall size of the railroad is 4'x6'.  I could paint, detail, and ballast the track all in a week of evenings.  Relatively reduced time spent on any one task is one reason I limited the scope of this project.

I've also renamed the staging connection to "Main East" and "Main West".  Tony Koester advocates this practice of locating your section of railroad on a larger network by calling staging something more bound to geography.  In my case, the main line heading east runs towards Deland, FL, and the main west heads into town (Ocala) where the railroad's main yard and shops are located.  For operators, that means little right now as those physical connections off-the-table don't go anywhere...yet.  But it does add to the sense of story and place and when I do eventually add staging yards, they won't just be tracks on a tabletop, but representations of destinations.

Finally, a word of thanks to all my readers.  Thanks for following along, and Happy New Year!