My buddy Clark Propst and I have been going back and forth for a month or two online about my new layout plans.  When we moved into this house in December 2015 I convinced myself that I could not rebuild the M&StL in Ackley, Iowa in the space available–about 16 feet–so I began planning to model a smaller location, one that was even smaller than Ackley. I looked at a number of locations and once again the B&O line thought Rushville, Indiana was high on the list. Rushville, Indiana is a little town in eastern Indiana where secondary lines of the B&O, PRR and NYC … Continue reading No. 9: Ackley Layout: Back to Ackley

My kids had a swim meet in Berlin recently and before the meet we visited the “Tropical Islands” indoor resort, which is about an hour south of Berlin.  The resort is housed inside a gigantic airship hangar that was built around 1989 by an airship company that went bust.  The airfield itself has a ton of history–it was originally a Luftwaffe airfield, then a Red Air Force field during the cold war, and now it is a vast parking lot.  The word HUGE does not begin to describe the Tropical Islands airship hangar.  It is the largest “indoor hall” in the … Continue reading No. 7: Layout Considerations for 2015

We moved to Germany in November 2015.  On December 17th we moved into a rented house in a little village called Albersbach, about 15 minutes north of Ramstein Air Base where I’ll be working.   The house is pretty interesting.  It is a three story house, but each floor was originally built as a separate apartment.  We rented the whole house, so we have three kitchens, eight bedrooms, and two dens (or living rooms).  The main den and “winter garden” (what Americans would probably call a “Florida Room) and kitchen, and a few bedrooms are on the middle floor, and our three kids claimed the upstairs … Continue reading No. 3: My Stuff Arrives in Germany