Monthly Archives: April 2016

Another Car for the Layout

Here’s another eBay find. These Danbury Mint cars sold for ridiculous prices when new, but now can be bought for around $20. I’d never put one out on the layout at full price ($100)–but this eBay find will go out later this week.

danbury-mint-model-a

More Pond Progress

I was able to make some more progress today. I got the rest of the liner-hiding rock-on-a-roll installed on the front and mostly filled the pond with water.

pond-liner-and-rock

I need to get some additional plants, line the bottom of the pond with rock-on-a-roll and finish up. But I think it will look good.

Webcam?

With a Raspberry Pi in the train shed that’s connected to my network, I could easily attach a webcam and be able to “see” the layout even when I’m trapped in my basement office. I decided to go for it:

webcam

All those bags in the far background are the dirt from my birthday that I haven’t finished spreading around yet.

Help with the Pond

I started working on the next steps of the pond, installing the liner and the first section of “rock on a roll” that’s intended to hide the liner.

While filling the pond, I had some help–I don’t know why playing with the hose is always so interesting 🙂

 

More Trees and Dirt

Most folks wouldn’t be excited to get dirt for their birthday, but I was very pleased. My wife allowed me to spend my birthday money on topsoil so I could make more progress on filling the raised bed to the level of the track. Once that’s done, I’ll be able to ballast the track and build my mountain. I also picked up a few more dwarf Alberta Spruce trees, which were on sale at Lowe’s. I know what I’ll be doing this weekend 🙂