It seems like a lifetime later, but in between back aches, and lethargy I got the ceiling sheetrock up. Then Paul had a free day and it wasn’t raining so we got the train room walls rocked.

There I am finishing up the last (sort of) piece of sheetrock on the walls of the train room.

While I was putting in the last screws, Paul snapped this photo with his iPhone. The wire hanging down will be the main power feed for the layout. I’m going to build a small support wall there to house a computer and the DCC stuff to run the layout. That will be at the end of the peninsula where the sugar plant will be located.

I need to put in some small pieces to cover the treated posts, and then turn my attention to the workshop part. I *think* I finally have the metal garage roof sealed up so it doesn’t look like Snoqualmie Falls in the corner every time it rains.  Tearing out scuzzy old sheetrock, insulation and whatnot will take a few weeks, since I’m lazy by nature, but it will soon be time for applying tape and mud to the joints.

I’ve been muddling through my ideas on a track plan. I know I can’t have it all, but I think I’m getting closer to my goal.

I didn’t like the way the Missoula yard was coming together, so I redid it and added the roundhouse and turntable. I’m not going to have enough room to approximate the 135-foot turntable that existed, but I can live with the smaller 90-foot turntable since I won’t be doing big steam. SD45s and U33Cs were the largest in my era. The two helixes (helices?) will descend to staging tracks that simulate St. Paul, Minnesota, and Auburn, Washington, or points in between.

I didn't like the first attempt at a yard. This is closer to what I want.

None of this is chiseled in stone. What is shown here is a rough idea of what I expect to put in place. The sugar plant peninsula is a vague placement holder for what will eventually be there. I really hope the Hoerner-Waldorf paper mill will be the signature scene on the layout, so I have not put tracks in there. I am sure I won’t be able to recreate the mill as it was, and I don’t intend to. I only hope to capture the essence of an industry with its many different faces over the years, not necessarily as it was in 1969.

To answer the question of “Why the sharp 10-inch curve from the Schilling siding to the paper mill?” Well, that’s sort of the way it was. The Chicago, Milwaukee, Saint Paul, and Pacific built its main line through the valley in 1905-1909 or thereabouts. The pulp mill was built in the mid 1950s (no paper machines then) alongside the Milwaukee main line. Imagine, if you will, the Olympian Hiawatha passenger train passing by the stinky ediface of a sulfer-belching mill. Well, that didn’t last long. The Milwaukee ceased passenger trains on the Lines West shortly after the mill was built. At some point, either the Northern Pacific, or maybe Burlington Northern, built a spur from a siding at Schilling to the pulp/paper mill. If anyone knows when, add a comment to this post. The other question is why is that siding so LONG? It will be shorter and maybe have two tracks in the final plan.

As you may guess, putting a train on the tracks to watch it run around and around and around and around is NOT one of my goals. I want to move cars from here to there and back again. My main concern is not having enough industries to make an operating session worthwhile, but at the same time I don’t want to have every square inch covered with tracks. There was a match-stick plant at Superior (about 40 miles west), and phosphate mine about the same distance east on the Philipsburg branch that can add yard traffic.

Paul came over last Sunday to help me unload the sheetrock, then we decided to put up what we could before dinner time.

Here I am putting the screws to the first sheet.  Paul took the photo with his iPhone.

The first sheet goes up on the ceiling of the new train room.

We got three sheets up that night, and I did one more on Monday night. Then it snowed and it’s too cold to work out there. Two-and-a-half sheets to go for the ceiling.

Until it turned cold, I was getting something done a few nights a week in the railroad room. I discovered that the roof has been leaking for… ever …  in one corner, but maybe I gooped enough caulking up there to seal it.

I’ve got all the insulation in the ceiling now, and more wires in place. I will have to make another run to the building supply store to get a couple more sheets of sheetrock because I miscounted. Then I have to kidnap a friend to put it up. That will likely be the hardest task. It may not happen until after Christmas, but there’s one weekend open before then.

I went to Puyallup, pronounced something like Pooeyloop, (nah, it’s really poooo-yawl-up – thank you High Life Helicopters* for the correct pronunciation!) for the Great something this or that train show with a couple friends. It was a great show, no really, it was. My philosophy now is make one run through all the tables looking for good stuff, but not buying, then look for those items on the return trip. Saved hundreds of dollars that way. (There was that Samhongsa Atlas NP 2-8-8-2 for $250 that some other deserving soul got, and the Atlas NP RS-3 that also got snapped up.)

NOTE TO MANUFACTURERS: MAKE MORE NP STUFF. It sells in a heartbeat, while UP, SF stuff grows MOLD and rots waiting for buyers. I couldn’t count the number of UP-SF items from the last millennium that was still for sale. I saw UP-SF stuff for sale that was still unopened from 1979.

But, I picked up a Micro-Trains Burlington Northern fallen flags 4-pack (#22102) for $28! That’s SEVEN dollars a car. Perfect price. I already have one of these sets, but this one I think I will make a video of opening the shrink wrap, removing the pizza cutters and replacing them with Atlas wheels, and RUNNING it. Imagine that, there is one person on planet Earth who will – gasp! – RUN Micro-Trains cars. That’s me. Those collector types with have a mass spontaneous heart attack. They’ll burn me at the stake for being a heretic. “YOU CAN’T RUN THOSE CARS; THEY ARE SACROSANCT ICONS! WORTH BILLIONS!” Watch me. Note to rabid “collector” types; I will sell the first set I bought for $9000 PLUS shipping. You can probably convince the IRS that it’s an investment, but don’t blame me if the best price you can get later on is a buck-99. 50 cents a car.

I was really tempted to buy an HO Northern Pacific Atlas GOLD HH660. Being a fanatic NP guy, I had pre-ordered one at a major on-line retailer shortly after they were announced. I’m talking September 2010, here. I watched the other on-line dealers get theirs in August 2011, but I sat back smugly thinking, “Hah, hah! I’ve got mine coming from that Colorado place.” August went, September came… and went, and ALL the other internet dealers were sold out. In late September, I sent an email to the dealer: where’s my loco? The answer came back, “We haven’t received our shipment yet.” WHAT! I sent an email to Atlas. The answer was something like: “We have completely filled ALL orders we have received since Tyrannosaurus Rex was an egg, and we are TOTALLY out of stock on ALL items and we will NEVER have anymore, ever, neener neener.”

Houston, we have a problem here. Those knuckleheads in Colorado will STILL be waiting for their shipment when Bill Gates runs out of money. At another train show in early October, I saw a non-sound NP HH660, and I grabbed it immediately, thinking it had to be the last unsold one on planet Earth. (I suspected Atlas made only 12 of the NP version, and about 2 million of the “Harvey WallaBanger and North Southern Podunk Short Line”; they’re EVERYWHERE IN MEGA QUANTITIES) So, what happens? At the Puyallup show, I see this no-name retailer with TWO of the Gold series NP models. I should have bought one, but I passed them up and bought a Digitrax sound decoder to install in the non-sound model I bought earlier. Probably a mistake, but, oh well. Solution: NO MORE orders to big on-line dealer in Colorado. I’ll take my chances with no-name outfits instead of you.

Then we went to see the three N scale open house layouts, although the last guy thought he was done for the day. It was a long day. Thank you Tyler for taking the time to show three late-comers your marvelous model railroad.

Three great layouts of different philosophy. 1. Put a train on the tracks and run it through flawless scenery (switching cars is in the future, maybe); 2. Put lots of trains on the tracks and deliver individual cars where they go in a huge layout, and, by the way, what’s this thing called “scenery,” (that’s not fair because it was there and to his standard of “good enough;” mine too, and that’s what I will likely end up with) and 3. I’m small, but I’m going to put cars where they go and WOW! those switch stands look great and the scenery is marvelous, and look at this and look at that, and how about that…. What a day of ideas and dreams. Gotta get going on my layout. Again, thank you Walt, Roy, and Tyler for opening your homes to us crazy model railroaders. I hope to someday repay the favor with my own layout.

By the way, I have added a new link to Mike’s Spokane International Railroad Spokane International Railroad web site. You may have seen it in (shameless plug) N Scale Railroading magazine. (I’ll toot my horn a bit more as I helped put flocking on some of the trees, and I pushed the button on Mike’s camera when they were pouring the Magic Water.) On the way home, we stopped off at Kirk’s place to see where he is going to build the Milwaukee Road… ALL of it! From Kentucky, or maybe eastern Turkey, or east of Saturn, or somewhere around there, to northwest Washington with all the branch lines in between. I’m exaggerating, of course, but he is an ambitious fellow. If you need a back issue or 500, give Kirk a call. He’s got ‘em.

*Over three summers a long time ago, Gary, Steve, and Jim put me into some of the most inhospitable places in Alaska that you can imagine. From the snow covered mountains of the Alaska Peninsula to the 70th parallel… OH NO! I’m rambling. Momma, why does Grandpa smell like that? Go here…Well, honey, it’s because….

Nearly a year after the CCS 56-seat coach came out, I got my Northern Pacific diners. For a while I thought I wasn’t going to get them at all. I took a quick photo of one at the club layout. The colors in the photo don’t look like the actual model. This photo was taken with a Nikon P7000 and the built-in flash. Someday, I may set up the studio lights and do comparison shots.

Centralia Car Shops Northern Pacific Western Diner

It doesn’t look like much, but it’s a wall. Paul came over today to help put up these few pieces. Thanks!

From the garage side, the train room is getting closer to being enclosed. There is a gap to the left that I still have to add some framing before I can put up the two pieces of sheet rock leaning against the wall.

And from the inside, it’s still a wall, although if you look hard enough you can see insulation in the ceiling, too.

With the outside sheet rock up, I can finish the wiring and get it insulated.

I wasn’t happy with my Missoula yard, so I did some work on it. I have not thought out all the benefits/drawbacks. I just made track fit the space.

This is a second-first idea for the yard

There’s a guy named Al whose comments will be deleted with malice aforethought. Sorry to burden everyone with that statement.

Age sucks. If you are under 50, revel in the fact that you can remember things, like what you did 5 minutes ago. At 50, poof, it’s all GONE. Memory, health, desire, you name it, gone in a heartbeat. If you let your cat outside, walk 15 feet to the kitchen, and then think, “I’d better let the cat out.” – been there, done that. Ain’t got the T-shirt. Someone needs to make one.

I can sort of remember Visual Basic – several flavors. I can also remember Powerbuilder of various versions. I sort of do Visual C Pound. Yuck. I used to (sort of) know FoxPro (DOS days) and VAX Basic and Apple Basic (remember the Apple IIe?) and ForTran77. HTML kicks my butt cause it’s dumb. I can’t remember it. Bear with me as I try to remember what will actually work and what doesn’t no matter what the geeks say. I’m trying to add the WSMRRC’s Open House dates which you will not find on the club’s web site at this time even though they decided on the dates a month ago because….  It’s a LOOOONNNNGGGG story of turf wars.

By the by, I use Opera as my web browser of choice because – SO FAR – they haven’t descended to the level of ordering me how I will use MY computer. Sigh, it’s probably coming soon.

I have been fiddling with Right Track software, but am far from proficient with it. I’ve had a request to see what I am thinking about doing so here it is. I am going to use Atlas Code 55 track. I know that track has foibles, but they all do. I will use #5 turnouts for the yard.

My intention is to model the Missoula, Montana, area in the summer of 1969, the last year of the Northern Pacific Railway. I do not intend to model the reality of the day as space is limited. My primary goal is to build an “operational” railroad that will be fun. I am not terribly interested in putting a train on the tracks to watch it run. I want to do something with it.

Since I need to have trains come from somewhere and go somewhere else, I will incorporate a helix at either “end.”  Each staging yard, St. Paul and Seattle, will be set up with what I hope will be sufficient trains to make an operating session last a while. While I am not a great fan of helices, they do have some advantages for making a layout longer. These are quite large to keep the grade down, and allow for getting hands into them when needed.

The space shown below is roughly 11 1/2 feet wide by 17 1/4 feet long.

This is a basic start using Atlas' Right Track software (ver. 10)

There’s a lot a blank space because I really don’t know what else I want to put in there. With this shape, I can’t replicate the Bitterroot branch from the Y in the middle of the yard. I guess I’ll have to leave that for an NTrak series of modules or something.