Just finished hauling 36 boxes of 12mm Attic brand Pewter laminate flooring into the basement. I think I’m good for a couple of stiff drinks and a night in front of the TV!
I also bought some good quality underlay for the floor. Its the same stuff I installed in our old house and it is worth the money. After letting the new laminate settle with the temperature of the basement, I’ll start putting it down.
Well, almost. I need to buy 13 more Dricore panels, but I’ll wait until Friday to do that. Yesterday I found some 12mm laminate flooring I like, so the plan is to purchase and haul the laminate home next weekend.
In the image we are looking at the center peninsula of the layout, Chetwynd will be around the corner to the left, and to the right (where the pile of stuff is currently sitting) will be the mainlines for the Dawson Creek and the Prince George sub (one above the other). The layout will wrap around the stud wall in the center of the image.
So it’s not quite Christmas, but I couldn’t resist a couple more locomotives for the railway! Today an Overland SD40-2 and an M630W arrived.. These two will have a future pulling road freights between Prince George, Chetwynd and Ft St John. The models will get Soundtraxx Tsunami decoders as well as some light weathering before going into service
Home Depot saved me a little work, although it took a 1/2 hour to round up an employee that #1 Could think for themselves
and #2 Could drive a forklift
So we have 120 Dricore panels in the back of my truck waiting to be carried downstairs:
After much grunting and swearing, the panels are now in the basement. Added to the 50 I already bought, I only need to buy 39 more. That will be next weekend’s project…..
I painted the drywall in the room with a good high quality paint (Behr Slate Grey). I did not bother mudding and taping all the drywall in the basement, since 98% of it will be covered by benchwork and backdrops.
Area where Chetwynd Yard will be built:
Looking towards Dawson Creek Yard:
Next up is the purchase and installation of 209 Dricore floor panels, followed by some laminate flooring. The Dricore panels look like this:
The black part is the bottom, and the top part looks like sub floor. This floor material, in addition to some good quality 12mm laminate should provide a comfortable area to work and operate the layout.
I should add I am NOT looking forward to moving 209 panels from the store to my basement!
Like a lot of people, I have more than one hobby. My “Summer Hobby’ is restoring and operating old railway motor cars, or speeders. Once used by railroads in MOW service before being replaced by high rail trucks, speeders are now owned and (sometimes) operated by private individuals across North America.
I belong to the North American Railcar Operators Association, or NARCOA for short. http://www.narcoa.org
Much like an old car club, we meet several times a year on selected railways, and with their permission and assistance, operate our cars on a portion of their tracks. We have our own rule book, insurance, and operating licenses, so it is all perfectly legal.
I currently own 4 cars, 2 of which run, with a 3rd almost complete and a 4th set aside as a future project.
That future project is quite special to me, as it is a former BC Rail Railcar Canada CBI car.
The car as I bought it:
The most interesting thing about the car is the lettering on the doors:
“Grounded for Operation in Electrified Territory” which to me says this car likely operated on the electrified Tumbler Ridge Subdivision.
The car is in rough shape, but I did managed to get the motor to run! It is a very model built by the Railcar Canada company in Hamilton Ontario, in 1981. The car still has its builders plate, with a serial number A022, making it the 22nd car built! It is estimated Railcar Canada and its successor Woodings built around 400 cars. It is currently stored awaiting the day when I can restore the car. I want to keep as much as I can on the car original, which means leaving the paint as found. Most of the work will be mechanical and interior. I stripped out most of the interior and all the old rotted wiring from the car before placing it into storage.
Through the magic of the internet, I managed to track down the original owner of the car, after it was purchased from BCR. It seems that back in the day, BCR would not sell any surplus speeders to Canadian residents, for fear they might run them on railway tracks! Americans, however, were free to buy as many as they wanted! The old owner of the car told me he was able to purchase my speeder from BC Rail for the princley sum of $30 Canadian. Yes that’s right, 30 bucks! Here is a photo the old owner sent me, of my car in the back of an old Ford Ranger (the original full size Ranger) in the Squamish (corrected thanks Dave!) yard.
Someday that old BC Rail motor Car will run again!
Board, sitting at home waiting for the big dump of snow were are supposed to get…
My first layout after leaving home was a small switching layout that ran around the perimeter walls of my basement. The plan came from a mid 1990’s Model Railroader article in which author David Barrow described a plan for a small layout based on Santa Fe operations. I originally constructed the layout in the basement of a rental home, then moved it to a different home and added onto it. I used 40 and 50 foot box cars and GE 44 Ton locos (from Bachman) to make the layout feel larger than it really was. Few photos of it exist, but here’s what I could find:
Main yard of layout, with diesel shop in the background
2 Overland GMD1’s switch the yard, I traded these 2 models away years ago…
An Overland M640 sits with 2 OMI C630’s. All were sold off, and I wish I had kept the M640 as its getting quite hard to find. I did find one for sale recently, but no funds were available to purchase the model! One day I will have the 4744 once again!
This layout was torn down, and replaced with an On30 D&RGW:
Chama Yard, under construction
Track and turnouts were handlaid Code 83. Turnouts were built using Fast Track jigs.
Cumbres The hole in the wall was to be covered by a wooden snowshed as per prototype
And I actually had some scenery at Loboto:
As I explained in another post, I soon grew tired of the On30 layout and tore it down in favor of a BC Rail layout. The On30 equipment was sold off to finance some BCR motive power and freight cars.
bcrailnorthline 