Well it has certainly been an eventful several months since the last update! After getting out to California back in early February, I spent six months living in a guest room at my friend's house who was kind enough to house us. Especially since I had my wife and dogs with me. During that time I bought a few new trains, but suffice to say there was no room for modeling or building. Everything sat in a storage center the whole darn time... Now though we are officially in our own home and I have started my new job! I have also joined up with the local train club, the Eastern Sierra Railroad Society. They are really great guys with a wide skill set who make me feel welcome, much like the club back in College Station. On the negative side, our new house does not have a readily available train room. There is a nice shed in the back yard though that could serve as a layout space once it is upgraded. Maybe something like the HOG layout or Shaun Toman's layout will work. For now, I am restricted to only working on locos and cars as I am sharing space in my wife's home office.
With that, here is a quick summary of the train stuff I have been working on since the last post.
New tank cars! I grabbed a three pack on eBay for under a $100 including one with an EOT by Ring Engineering. I haven't had one of these before and they are really nice! I have also picked up a few others so I have pretty decent length chemical train.
I have fully weathered my Chessie train. For those of you who have not seen my old blog from college, this train is the first I had after getting back into HO. It is a mix of old and new stock, including some of the first cars I ever owned. I modeled the Chessie because I love the engines and the scenery the railroad went through. But then I switched to my own freelance line so this train fell by the wayside. However it is now complete! I ran it as my debut train at the club and received a lot of positive feedback. I'll cover this one next time.
Next I upgraded my SD45T-2 to a dual speaker setup. There is a big Railmaster high base speaker above the air intakes and now a smaller, regular Railmaster speaker in the cab. This gives it a wider and louder sound range which is great in a crowded club.
Lastly I have finally upgraded my primary SRR locomotive, 1989. She now has ditch lights! These are some rather large SMDs that have been glued to the original ditch light details and installed in the cab headlight. I am probably going to have to tone them down at some point as they are so bright. However I am very pleased with them as I now have a ditch light equipped SRR locomotive in the modern scheme.
As for real trains, I have had a chance to get several awesome shots around these parts. I have even been to Tehachapi Loop finally! Lemme tell you, that is an awesome experience. Even the wife had fun!
I'm hoping to not be too lazy as to not start posting pictures with these posts, but only time will tell!
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