The Stock Spur

With the PNR regional meet bearing down on me, and needing to get the roundhouse back in its seat, I was feeling pressure to finish the stock spur while it was still convenient. So, between coats of paint on the outside of the house, I bent some lengths of rail, and soldered feeders to their […]

Concurrent projects

Days to go until the big train meet and I have a crash of concurrent projects consuming space in my office. On the left we have the roundhouse with its new floor receiving some repairs. In the distance, the track crew, who also happen to be the roundhouse repair crew, are working on fixing a […]

Last puzzle pieces

I don’t recall why a former me decided to leave the stock spur as a short stub. I’m sure it seemed reasonable at the time. Maybe I planned to build a stock pen together with the spur. In any event that part of the layout has been a piece of 12 mm foam core for […]

Turntable Improvements

To avoid any nasty crunching sounds as I was disrupting traffic on the main these past few days, I undid the three screws that secure the turntable module and levered it out and onto an open drawer. While it’s accessible, I will be making some improvements. First of all, the lock has not worked properly […]

Major Service Disruption

After determining the source of my derailment was a sudden twist to the track, I spent a few days pondering how to address it. Should I shim or should I sand? Which rail needed to move? The Trackwork Torsion Testing Tool (TTTT) told me where the problem was, but not exactly what the problem was. […]

The Trackwork Torsion Testing Tool (TM)

While almost every derailment on Pembroke can be traced to a gauge problem – typically too tight – a couple of sites continue to defy explanation. Backing south into the heel of the south siding switch, for example, the rear (now leading) drivers of 1120 gently drop off the rail and onto the ties. Going […]

Fiddling the shelf

“Sounds fiddly,” my darling wife said when she heard the plan to fill the space between turnout controls with half-inch channel. Boy, did she get that right! Despite the provision of recesses on the sides of the turnout controls allowing for 1/16″ of overlap, every single piece – there are ten so far – needed […]

Shelf mockup

My darling wife kindly pointed out that the turnout controls I installed earlier this month are ugly. Now, they should almost disappear once painted black, but in keeping with my learning about Art Nouveau, I also designed them to flow into a half-inch decorative shelf that will extend most of the length of the layout. […]

Fascia gets a makeover

inspired by the Tim Warris’s amazing Bronx Terminal layout, I tried to copy his idea of rivets on the fascia. Unfortunately, I didn’t embrace them the way he did, and so my “rivets” are too sparse and small and just look like, well, #8 Round Head Robertson screws, which of course they are. I’m about […]

Standing desk and step installed

Eleven months in gestation, the standing desk is finally installed. This project started with a doodle during the Daylight Savings Time switch last year. Within a day, Ken Rutherford had asked if it would be finished by Christmas. It is, just the following year. The whole thing is what I would call “door construction.” Two […]