Latest news from the Pacific Northwest Railroad.

Update 11/26/06

Its been a long time coming to post some progress on the PNR. And as a matter of fact there has not bee a lot of progress on my home layout. I have been putting a lot of effort on our club layout. (http://www.bsme.org/) I have made some progress on the base ground cover and did some more backdrop painting. I have added more trees and am in the process of making more. I have got the intermodal area ballisted and painted the concrete. Got the foundations in for the rest of the buildings behind the yard area. (check out the layout pictures page) I have also been trying my hand at weathering some rolling stock and have enjoyed that.
As far as the club goes I have built a bridge for a small river and weathered that. Built a tunnel portal for next to that bridge. Along with Steve and Roger , (some of the club members) we have been working on a town scene and have been scratch building all the buildings for it from proto type pictures we have taken of local buildings. We have a couple more buildings to build and then go back and detail and paint them. We have also made about 250 trees and have started installing them also. (check out the projects page) More pictures to come soon since I got a newer camera with better depth of field.

Update 1/21/06

Well what's new on the PNR? Got two neat things for the layout for Christmas. One is  called TrainSpeed. It is a digital readout of the train speed as it passes over the sensors. Now we have a grasp of scale speeds and can operate the trains more prototypically. No more racing around the layout, speed limits must be obeyed! Another  is called a RRampMeter. It is a digital readout of track voltage and current used on the layout at any time. Great way to keep track of condition of DCC and its usage. I also managed to put decoders in two Life-Like SW1200's and put strobes on their rooftops. I have got DecoderPro, a program for programming decoders via computer, and have it hooked up to my command station. Just in the learning process but looks to be a great tool for programming decoders. As for modeling projects, I have been working on a lighthouse for the club layout and a propane delivery truck. Look on the projects page for pictures. Until next time...

Update 12/01/05

Well the layout is slowly progressing. I have been working on the sawmill area and have got all the buildings and foundations down in place and ground cover and a lot of trees planted around it. I sure has taken on a new look. I have been working on tunnel liners and tunnel portals for the area at the end of the center island. Then I can cover the last of the foam with hydra cal and get back to making more trees. I have not had any operating sessions lately, I guess too busy modeling! I have also been very busy working on a water front scene for the club I belong to. Docks with a cold storage, a fish cannery, a restaurant and tackle shop. Also a light house which has been a fun project. Look at the layout pictures for some updated ones around the saw mill.

Updated 9/25/05

It has been a long time since I have updated my progress. The first new change is that I am now on DSL and what a difference from dialup! My DCC conversion is continuing with more loco conversions. The track is all up and running and we have had operating sessions since the conversion. Anyone thinking about converting, don't wait, do it NOW! It is very much worth converting. Operating the layout is so much more enjoyable with DCC. I have still been busy working on the club layout and it has cut into my own layout progress but I am still making progress. My wife has sewn up curtains for the bottom of the layout and they look great. I have been making more trees and worked on more of the scenery. It is exciting to get more plywood and pink foam covered up. Since my last update I have developed a product for our hobby and got that to market thanks to my friends at New Rail Models. It is called  a THROTTLE POCKET and goes on your layout to hold your DCC controllers. Go to their sight and check it out. They have many other great products. I have been scratch building some things for my saw mill scene. A live deck with debarker, bark hopper and a saw dust loader and am working on a lumber storage building.  I did receive my undec Atlas Shay and what a fantastic loco that is. With some custom decals it will make a great addition to my saw mill operations. I have been continuing to work on powering some MOW vehicles.

For the club I have been working on some docks and buildings for our water front scene. I even fabricated a crab pot to go on the dock. Details are so much fun to make. I also have chosen to scratch build some tunnel portals for a different look. I have posted some pictures on my projects page of some of these projects. I hope to add some pictures to the layout pictures page soon of my over all progress.

Thanks for visiting my websight and I will try to post updates more often. I hope you enjoy my progress as much as I have.

updated 1/10/05

Wow time flies. The holiday season has came and went. Before that it was all work at the BSME club layout. We are making great progress on the new layouts there. We had a successful open house season in December at the club layout. As for my home layout Christmas was good to it! It is now converted over to DCC control. It now has a Digitrax IR Chief command station installed. All the dc block switches are gone! Things are up and running but some minor track wiring is in order to make it operate efficiently. Track feeder placement is different in DCC than DC. Wow what a difference in operating the layout! Can't wait for the next ops session. I am working on installing decoders in my older locos. Getting the milling of chassis figured out and fitting the decoders. Things are progressing well. Will take some time to get the motive power converted over to DCC. Hope to have more pictures to post soon.

updated 9-04-04

Well getting back to working on the Railroad.

Have been working on gluing down track, pulling nails that I used for temporarily holding it down, filling in ties next to where the rail jointers are and  ballisting the track. This time I am choosing to paint the track first and then apply the ballist and later weather between the rails with airbrushing and chalk. I didn't like the look of rail brown and so I am using roof brown. I spread the ballist with a small cup and a brush to get the look I want and then I wet the dry ballist with alcohol in a sprayer and then glue down with 50% white glue and 50% water with a splash of alcohol as a wetting agent. Check out the layout pictures page for some pictures of my progress.

I wouldn't say ballisting is the most fun but the reward of seeing the finished look is very worth all the effort!

update from 5-04

It has been a while since I have updated this sight with my progress.
Since April 1 I have gotten involved in the BSME n-scale group in building a new layout in their new home in Alger Washington. They lost their old sight of 11 years and had to take down both the HO and N-scale layouts and were without a place to start over for about 9 months. Both groups are going strong on new layouts in their new home. I have taken a break from my own layout to help in getting the new club layout off to a good start. I will get back to my own layout soon so check back for more updates here. You can go and check out the BSME web sight     http://www.bsme.org/   to see the progress we are making there. (summer has slowed the web sight updates there too) Thanks for visiting my websight and hope you enjoy what I have put together so far.