Well, you may, or may not, have noticed I have been fairly quiet for the past couple of months.

It seems my retirement came at just the right time for one of my other hobbies - model railroading!!

I belong to a club, which decided to change the operation and control of our trains, from the usual, low voltage DC current and electrically separated blocks of track, to Digital Command Control.

In order to accomplish this, all of the old wiring had to be removed, and new, heavier wiring run in its place.

Guess what the 'retired guy' got to do!!!

We removed close to 30 lbs. of old telephone wire from under the layout, and replaced it with close to one half kilometre of new wire!!

We have just wrapped up our fall Open Houses, our most successful in 8 years!!

If you're interested - and the moderators don't object, you may want to take a look at my "Other World".

www.scarborough-model-railroaders.org

If you click on 'What's New', and then on 'site' under the 5Nov2004 heading, you'll find some pics of yours truly having fun(???)

Bill

Almost forgot - my deadline for the majority of the wiring work was 27 November. Even though I was working at the club for a minimum of 10 hours a day, 7 days a week from mid October, I didn't meet the deadline.

But, I was able to get the rest of the wiring in place to be able to provide better operations by last Saturday, 4 December!!

Now, I'm taking a well deserved break from all of that work. Mrs. T has too many things for me to do in order to get ready for Christmas!!!

Bill

Wow Mr. Bill. That looks like a lot of work but I'm sure you enjoyed doing it. Hope Mrs. T doesn't work you too hard.
Cindy R

WOW Bill!!! I am impressed with the vast amount of wires that you had to rewire - I do not think that I would have ever been able to keep up with what went where!! Great job!! I bet you were happy it was all over!

I am also very impressed the model train layouts - the pictures are great - it must be very impressive to see that all in person!!

Thanks, Cindy and Mary. ..... and Mary - it's not over yet!! I was able to get all of the important track powered, through all of the different towns, but still have to take on the 2 major freight car yards. That will happen after the holidays, and at a much slower pace

Cindy, Mrs. T doesn't work me as hard as I work myself - besides unbending the phoney tree and getting lights on it,plus a train tree, I have yet to even think about MY Christmas baking - at least 2 christmas cakes (good thing I know how to age them quickly) and more shortbread (melting moments) than I care to think about - let's just say I have 10 lbs, of butter waiting!!!

Bill

Bill, wow, how fun! I looked at the other pics on the site. Where is this thing set up at?

wow Bill you HAVE been busy!!! What have you done with all the telephone wire?? we used to make door mats out of that stuff and the mats lasted forever...
i for one would like to see more pictures of the layout of the trains.. George's Dad used to have HO's running around their apartment in the city at Christmas time and George would like to continue the tradition..We need a dedicated room for them however..

Superturtle, great to see you again!!!

I really like your website!

Hi Superturtle,
look at this:
http://www.miniatur-wunderland.de/html2/framepage.htm

We've been there several times. It's always a great pleasure to see the details on this layout.

If you use the german framepage you will find some pictures ('Fotos') . Also from the USA part.
http://www.miniatur-wunderland.de/html/framepage.htm

Torsten

Mr. Bill, wow you sure have been busy. I am very impressed and know that I would have gone nuts with all that wiring. We should call you Superman, doing wiring, putting Christmas trees, and decorations and baking - how much energy!!

Keeping busy, reading, learning, being active will keep you young and I am sticking to this!!
And of course, laughing/smiling

Wow SuperT!! That is IMPRESSIVE!!!! A lot of work, I would've gotten those wires confused I'm sure. The photos are really cool, too. I had to look twice at the boxcar with the graffiti it looked so real. And some others made me chuckle (like the 'incident' with the Corvette and the blue car ... but it's the cow's head hanging out the back of the truck that made me laugh).

Now I'm excited to get to my Dad's on Christmas day to see his old Lionel running around the tree. Excellent work and a great hobby!!

Cool Superturtle?

What type of model trains? My grandpa was inventor of the original HO track! Cool huh?! PS, thanks for the cards, leaves, etc. I'm trying so hard to reach everyone. Give Mrs. Turtle a hug too!

Liz

Thanks for all of your great messages, gang!!!

Now, let's see.......

Cynde - We (The Club) own the building, an old commercial place, with main floor and basement.

Freddie - We sold the old wire for scrap - and used the money we got to buy ..... more wire!!

Torsten - Sorry, but I haven't had a chance to look at your sites yet - I'm hoping that Sunday will be okay.

Thanks, Elvira, Lisa and, of course, Eileen!! Removing some of the old wiring got confusing - some that should have stayed was cut out, and others that should have been cut out stayed LOL.
The new wire is REALLY easy!! Red and Black, and that's all

Liz - WOW.... Your Granddad invented the first HO scale track?? Fantastic!! The club has both "HO" scale, 1/87th in 1500 square feet of space, and "N" scale, 1/160th in 1200 square feet of space!!

N scale are pretty modern in their setup, but us HO'ers are happily reliving the transition from steam to diesel power, around 1958!!

And, Mrs. T got your hug!! Thanks, and hope you keep improving!!

Well, back to work for me - have to help finish the Christmas tree, check and clean the track in the tree and then test the tree train, put the tree in its final position and get the garden size train around the bottom, and then - housecleaning

Thanks again everyone!!

Bill

I certainly hope there is a photo of your Train Tree Bill we all sure would like to see it..!!Perhaps before you start housekeeping you can take a shot after it is all up and running..

Torsten;

Finally got a chance to take a look at the site you pointed me towards...... WOW!!!

Hamburg's Miniature Wonderland - and it is really great!!

No, my German is not very good, but I recognise this as the work of 2 brothers, and was featured in the american Model Railroader magazine not very long ago.

Thank you for the link!!

Bill