A couple packages showed up on my doorstep late yesterday. Patrick came over today and we brought them downstairs. The first one was the resolution of the Atlas return from a couple weeks ago. This time it had two each of four different 40' containers. The second package was a nifty item I spotted for sale here on the forum.
With the layout tour just a week away, Patrick worked on the skirts some more, while I did some cleaning, track repair, train movement, created a new train, and did a little painting.
This is what I bought on the forum. It's a non-functioning, Lionel 213 lift bridge. It couldn't be more perfect really. I never needed it to work, it just has to sit there and look good. It will represent the lift bridge at Prescott, WI.
It does have one slight problem though, not enough height clearance for tall cars. The tallest car I'm aware of, is the MTH husky stack.
I'm not too worried about the towers, I can build some decent looking foundations to raise those up. It's the bottom of the bridge that will need work. I got lucky, because the length is perfect, and I had no idea how long it would be.
Patrick started working on the last rail installation.
Finally got the missing part put on this car. Only problem was, two other parts fell off in the process.
I moved the Empire Builder, which had been making the circuit for visitors, out of the way to main two on the upper deck. This cleared the way for the new train to loop the upper deck. Since Patrick will be helping run trains next week, he asked if I would let him run the C&NW SD-45. So I threw some cars behind it, and gave it a test run. (sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the new train)
Normally, I run the upper loop in a clockwise direction, but opted to have the new train go counter. Well, that exposed a track flaw that only the SD's three axle trucks could find. The gap at the far left was not aligned very well, both vertically and horizontally.
I ended ripping out that segment of rail, shimming the ties, to fix the vertical problem, then re-spiking it to fix the horizontal problem. What a pain.
I turned Patrick loose with the landscape fabric. He did aisle two faster and better than I did aisle one. He picked up where I left off, and within a couple hours...
had gone all the way around, finishing aisle two.
Then he nearly finished aisle three.
Just a little more cleaning, and I'll be ready to go. Maybe on Thursday, I'll have my son help me set up the BN camera caboose, and I'll swap out the engine that's on the lower loop train for the new BN U-33-C so the caboose matches, then we can put the live picture up on the big screen for visitors.
I need to figure out how I'm going to replicate the chimney.
