I had a chance to catch up with Eric D. on Sunday during the Cub Scout meetings and invited him over this week to run trains again. This will be Eric's second session and about the 5th official operating session on the Irwin District. I have to serious projects that I want to finish before Eric comes over.
First, I have been working hard on detailing the West Staging area. While this is technically supposed to represent offline industries and staging in Pittsburgh, PA and points west, it is in fact very visible. As people walk into the basement, they can see the whole layout but West Staging is closest to them so it's important to me that is have some detail and at least somewhat completed scenery. I am almost done with the second new building "mockup" to add to the two industries already there. I have completed most of the grass scenery and added a couple of bushes to hide some of the rough edges of the scenery breaks. My final task is to complete some trees for the park on Route 30 and complete the line of posts that keep the cars from rolling over the hill ... about another two hours or so worth of work and I should be complete.
The second task is more difficult - fix the operating schedule. I finally determined 4-cycles for the 3 iron ore cars. Good deal. Now I just need to come up with something for the other 55 some odd cars that are physically on the layout! I did pull all the 50' boxcars to try and even things out a little bit. I am considering eliminating one of the industries on the P&LE in East McKeesport (probably Allegheny Cold Storage) for less congestion.
I'll post a photo before the operating session so you can see how far I got this week!
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