Busy Busy Busy (an update)

The World's Greatest Hobby Show in St. Paul grows ever closer and things are coming along with the sprucing up of the layout in preparation. The front track had the uncoupler magnet adjusted and the track was relaid and ballasted.
Some serious track cleaning has gone on, much more serious than expected. The Soo line bandit MP15 works perfectly the same cannot be said for the trackmobile. It is so small and short of weight that it has problems navigating the switches. I've cleaned them until they sparkle like new yet the trackmobile still has issues. I've cleaned the trackmobiles wheels as well as I can and still it stutters and stumbles across the pointwork. Most annoying.
So I took the decision the other day to order a back up loco to work the scrapyard sidings. A Bachmann GE 45 ton switcher. The one with the outside counterweights and connecting rods. This should make the loco interesting to watch as it potters about. I ordered mine from Micromark. They had a deal where if you weren't bothered about the colour (like me) you let them pick the loco off the shelf you'd get it for just about half off the recommended retail price. That, my friends is too good a deal to pass over. I'm looking forward to see it run.
The next task is to sort out the couplers on the cars so they all work perfectly. That will be an interesting job. I am standardising on Kadees and have a selection of them to fit to my cars so they are all the same.
Then there are numerous detailing bits and pieces to do as well. Plenty to keep me going. The show is just a month away...

So unlike me

It really is so unlike me.

To get on and replace and reballast the track so quickly. But it's 90F outside and there is no way I'm mowing the lawn in that heat... So this morning after work I headed down to Hub Hobby in Richfield and picked up a couple of lengths of Atlas Cose 83 flex-track and some Chooch scrap bale loads for the gondolas. Therefore a few hours after I had got home things were looking pretty much as they were before I ripped the trackwork up.

The remounted Kadee coupler magnet works a treat. So another important task before the show will be to make sure all my stock has Kadees on them, all properly adjusted.

Here we go..

There.

The track is now lifted and the magnet removed. All I needed to do to bring it down to the correct thickness was remove the plate that is used to increase the magnetic field.

Next task, buy another piece of flex track...

The Ayes have it.

OK then. that was easy enough. The form is filled in and mailed off.
Time to think about what needs to be done.
First and foremost I should probably re-lay that front siding so that there is no slight hump over the hidden uncoupler magnet. I should probably do that soon too so if I screw things up really badly I have time to rebuild everything
Then standardize on couplers - Kadees. Get them fitted and properly adjusted on all the stock. Be nice to have them working perfectly it does look good when they work properly.
Another task should be to finish my Northern Lines GP10 conversion finally by adding the decals and handrails and bits.
Rolling stock. I pretty much have everything I need on that score. I'd like to do some extra weathering on them some of them are much too clean.
I'm sure there are some other miscellaneous bits and pieces that I could find to do. Details to finish the scenes different scrap loads for the gondolas. Plenty of things. If any of you think of anything post it.

Perhaps the story is not over.

Wingett's recycling sits in the model railway room untouched but not unforgotten. Why just this weekend I started on a article about it to submit to Model Railroader magazine.

To a certain extent layout building interests have moved on. But then today something happened to make me think about the model again.

I received an invite to the Worlds Greatest Hobby on Tour show at the Saint Paul River Center on November 20-21st 2010. A great show. A great BIG show. When I took Purespring Watercress to the 2006 show the estimated attendance was over 30,000.

I love exhibiting model railroad layouts and I think Wingetts recycling deserves a big audience. Don't you?

Granite City Train show report

Another show done.

The Granite City Train show is always fun. It's good to meet up with old friends and share stories, catch up with what's going on.

Wingett's performed well, though not perfectly. I know what needs to be done and that will involve relaying some of the track. But I don't have to think about that now.

I even appeared on local radio once again to talk about the layout as it was inspired by a local industry. That drew a few people to come and see the layout later on in the day.

A rather glowing write up of a persons impression of the layout can be read here...

Now I think layout development will shift back to my T scale projects until I decide what to do about relaying that track.

I'm a B-a-a-a-d Boy...

March 15th. Thats when the last post was dated and thats when I said I was going to start work on prepping the layout for the Granite City Train show.
Have I started?
Have I heck. I went out and bought myself a new camera and embarked on a picture a day project.
Though give me my due. I have turned the layout around so I can work on it from the rear to build the extension to the fiddle yard.
I find myself with two weeks to do the tasks I need to do.
Build a fiddle yard extension, paint and decal my locomotive conversion, add some scenic details and make sure it still all runs...

No problems...