Its been awhile

Well looking at the last time I posted here back in 2015 it feels like ages ago and much has happened since then. First having a second son in 2016 then my motorcycle collision that laid me up in 2017 and finally starting the new ho layout the Newport Northern in early 2018 and my second medical layup this spring to say the least its been life. Not a huge amount has changed overall on the black creek since my last post. It is officially over 10 years old now, which Im still trying to wrap my head around. I have added a small staging yard off to the side and a few scenery changes and upgrades have been made to a few spots as well as some electrical and track maintenance to a switch was required to keep the layout functional. Over all it has aged well and still lets trains run as well as the day the track was laid with a little cleaning of course, I dont run it much these days unless the boys ask to see it go. At the present most of my time has been spent on the new ho layout, getting it operational for the boys, who have taken to it like moths to a shining light bulb, but with them getting bigger I have been noticing things have moved on the creek when I leave the room and forget to lock the train room door from time to time.

 Some mooning going on

 Heres the new transfer caboose after the vandals got to it

 I figured I could use a transfer caboose as the employees complaind they needed a more safe shoving platform for loading the ferry. I used an old flatcar and a housing kit and railing from another crane kit

 Another scene change up I never really liked how the house was situated so it was time to spruce it up some

 Heres the new staging running out to the right side of the layout I used a little metal bridge to fill the gap. It pops out if I need to move the layout for a show.

 Heres a before and after I painted the grass to more green colour I can believe I never did it in the ten years I have had the layout

 I finally got some lights working for evening operation and someone has opened a door at the warehouse

 These 3 shots are what I have taken of my train room starting in late 2017 you can see the ugly yellow paint that plastered our basement when we bought the house and see one of my crutches from my motorcycle accident I was hobbling around on one crutch by that time. In early 2018 I had cleaned the room out and painted and was ready for the new layout. Construction started in febuary building most of the bench work before going back to work. The last photo is the latest of the new layout, after have 4 months off due to a medical leave I was able to get a lot accomplished in that time, though theres still lots to do I at least have a functional layout that the boys are really enjoying.

 Slowly getting there

Time for a new layout

Lots of changes on the home front since January, the wife and I had a son and moved out of Toronto to our our first house in Barrie. Finally I now have a train room to call my own with approximately 200 square feet to work in. Sadly there little time to work on anything with the little guy and lots else to be done on the house but for the time being I can start dreaming up my new ho layout. These are the ideas Ive come up with using a demo version on anyrail5 using under 50 sections of track. My new train room has to accommodate the black creek so it will take up the other side of the room leaving me with three other walls to work with. The final design is what Im gearing towards at the moment, I want a compact point to point layout with some interesting operation aspects yet be loaded with detail. I have locked down an era yet but I like 70s to the late 80s and most of the details I had left from my previous ho layout was from that time frame.  Basic operations for the layout consist of using smaller engines gp9s pulling a small freight from the staging at the bottom of the layout through the country side to the upper city industrial harbor to do some switching of local businesses and the harbor docks as well as dealing with the inbound and outbound ferry barge traffic before heading back. To mix things up a bit Ill have a small commuter traffic coming to the station using either a small passenger train or rdc which will tie up the main line for a little while. This time around I plan on building the bench work to be broken up into 4 to 5 foot sections in case we move in the next few years and keep it as light as possible using mostly blue construction foam. Hopefully I will be able to get this project going this winter when I have some more time and planning done.

The 2015 Barrie train show

This is my first time in the Barrie show, it was at the Bradford Greenhouse Garden Gallery so it being a greenhouse there is lot of natural light which was a nice. The only downside was the temperature difference through the building was heated and it being -28c outside it could get very hot or cold depending on the sun shining but from the amount of people I saw I figure the fridged weather only helped draw in a bigger crowd of people. I took a few pics of the show not much of anything I havent seen before, the garden g gauge look really well done with the trees and shrubs, I was very curious as to how my layout would photograph in natural light.

 The midland layout

Toronto railway museum

 The barrie club layout underconstruction

2014 Train show in Bowmanville, Ontario