Special Thanks

I would like to take a few moments to give thanks to Mountain Town Hobbies in Mt. Pleasant Michigan for all the help they have given to me over the past few years in getting together the items I have needed to build up this hobby. They have special ordered many items for me that they don't even stock as my needs have come up. The people who work there have made valuable suggestions, and saved me a lot of time and effort. I highly recommend that store to anyone who is into this hobby.

Outdoors Here I Come

The snow is almost gone and I am getting the bug to go outside and run the garden railroad. I have repaired the broken buildings and I am set to go. I have set the buildings on the layout. I might have to do some clean up on the outdoor track. The ground may also need a bit of leveling. The transformers are all set out and connected to the track.

This will be the earliest I have ever been able to run the train since I first set it up about 5 years ago. The earliest I have done it in the past was in mid March.

The Inventory is Over

At last the inventory is finished. I have a lot more train cars than I thought. If I wanted to I could inventory my buildings, track, people and a lot more stuff, but enough for now.

I have gone back to buying track for the HO New York Central layout. only two more packages of 28" diameter curved track. and a lot more straight track and I will be done with that phase of it. Then I concentrate on the tables to put the layout on. I believe I've mentioned in an earlier post that I will need to build them so they are portable just in case I need to move the layout at a later date.

The layout will accommodate a passenger train, I'm still looking for a good DC steam locomotive New York Central of course, and a freight train, a few extra cars would be nice. I plan to build in a freight yard and a small village. I have collected a few buildings but I still have a long way to go.

Finally inventorying my rolling stock

I found an inventory program online called Yard Office. I am trying it out and so far I like it a lot. It keeps track of just about everything you want to know about the items you have.
I started with the garden railroad and will soon be working on the HO stock.
I did discover that the program does not work in Windows 7.

Pere Marquette locomotive needs a workout

As I look over my G scale items to run next spring, I came across my #1 gauge  Pere Marquette locomotive and caboose. I have been on a quest to find rolling stock for it. I prefer passenger cars however I will take anything in 1/32 scale. So far no luck what so ever. I might just have to resort to having cars custom painted. I have no idea as to what that would cost.

I have enough curved track to set up an 8ft circle, but I don't have a transformer yet to power the track. I still could use some straight track, a circle just isn't interesting enough. Plus I will need to be sure the place I lay the track is very level as the locomotive is very picky as to the levelness of the track.