Sunday, December 29, 2019 thru Saturday, January 4, 2020
NTA = No Train Activity
Sunday, December 29, 2019
Special Guests: Jordan Osborn's cousins John & Kurt
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| l.to r. Kurt & John |
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| l. to ri. John, Kurt & Jordan |
Monday, December 30, 2019
Train Day!
with Rob Fair (6-7:30pm 1.5 hrs) and Josiah Crockett
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| Getting started on tonight's project. Removing mainline track and inserting crossovers by Rob's right hand. |
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| My daughter, Natalie Crockett and her daughter, Lisette Crockett. And, of course, Rob Fair! |
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| Rob Fair preparing the cork roadbed between the mainlines. |
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| Natalie took a picture so you will see a rare picture of me in my blog. |
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| Rob Fair checks the feeder wires for continuity. |
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| Finishing up the added crossovers. |
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| There you go! Mission Accomplished! |
A look around the layout...Josiah in control.
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
SPECIAL GUESTS
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| Granddaughter, Ida Zielke and grandson, Josiah Crockett. Yeah, yeah, yeah! |
Wednesday, January 1, 2020
Happy New Year!
Lots of SPECIAL GUESTS today:
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| Mom & Dad came for New Year's Lunch and then after a round of Rook (card game) we visited the trainroom. Mom & Dad are great encouragers for me and the trains. Mom always says, "Wow, this is unbelievable." Dad scratches his head and says, "I could never do it." |
Oh what fun it is! Check this out...
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| Dad, Ed & Clark check out Melrose Park. |
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| Nora drove the Steam Excursion while Lincoln engineered the CNW unit coal train. |
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| The three amigos still checking out Melrose Park. |
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| Jordan Osborn joins us as Nora and Lincoln keep their eyes and hands on the contols. |
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| Clark and Ed make their way to Chicago... |
Check out Lincoln's animated Christmas sweater...
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| Now the three siblings work together at the Control Tower. |
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| Here they are again keeping occupied. |
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| Jordan Osborn says good-bye for the evening. |
The first step is to attach the throw bar to the switch.
I also had to secure the switch machine to the track/bed.
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| I had to super-glue an addon to the throw bar on this switch. |
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| I had to super-glue an add on to this one too. |
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| This one didn't need any special adjustments. |
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| This one was a little tricky. I needed to do a bit more super-glue for this one to make the switch work properly. |
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| Here are all the tools I needed to complete the project. |
Finally, before wiring I had to drill the hole for the wire.
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| Next was to secure the wire above and below. Here is A2 attached. |
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| B3 attached. |
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| B2 attached. |
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| A3 attached. |
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| And here are all the wire connections attached on the bottom from each corresponding switch machine above. |
Thursday, January 2, 2020
NTA
Friday, January 3, 2020
More work on tree "planting and preparation".
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| I cut more of the dried plants at church and getting them ready for spray painting. |
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| Laying them out... |
Saturday, January 4, 2020
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| We had a sleepover last night with the Zielke grandkids (Mae, Henry & Ida). When they woke up this morning, Ida wanted to play trains. Of course, I was overjoyed. :) |
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| Ida at work at the control tower. |
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| Two freight trains passing each other. |
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| And the Metra Commuter coming around the bend. |
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| After we dropped off the grandkids, I prepared the plants for tree painting. |
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| I added the styrofoam sheets to protect the skirting around the layout. Sorry for the blurry picture. I must have moved. |
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| I painted one side and then flipped them over to paint the other side. The bottom side is painted and now here the plants are flipped over and ready for the second coat. |
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| And her are the finnished product. Ready for cutting to size and installation. |
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| I put the vairous sizes on different white foam boards for easy access for "planting". |
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| Here's the start of the corner grove. I can see I'll need to do some more "filling in" so no gaps show through. I'm a little surprised on how brown it looks. I may need to spray paint them a bit more. We'll see. |
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