I came home from St. Louis RPM full of motivation to finish up some important things on the layout. The primary area of concern was the south side of my 16 x 2-foot layout.  I was unhappy with the photo backdrops I was using so while I was in St. Louis I took a couple of hundred pictures out east of the city in the farm country around Litchfield, hoping that some of those photos would work for backdrops.  Below.  Here’s what I started with when I came back home.  I removed all the trees, buildings and detail parts from the layout and got to … Continue reading No. 98: New Scenery for Ackley’s South Side

Back in February I took two of my kids to Metz, France for a day of indoor skiing.  I thought it would be a low-cost activity (it wasn’t) and a good way to keep our “ski-legs” into the spring (it was).  It was like skiing in a giant refrigerator, and it was actually a whole lot of fun.  The runs weren’t too long but there were all kinds of jumps and moguls and things to keep one interested. Anyway there is a single tow-bar that takes you back to the top of the hill.  Any disciplined skier knows you’re supposed … Continue reading No. 91: Inspiration for an M&StL 2-6-0

The final light fixtures for the Ackley layout were installed last weekend. You may recall that the layout is built at sit-down height under a sloped ceiling.  I placed LED lights in a triangular-shaped valance and installed the fixture on the sloped wall above the layout.  Then I installed a 4-1/2-inch Masonite fascia in front of the valance to clean everything up.  I still want to paint the fascia green to match the rest of the layout fascia and will get to that as time permits. Looks like I’ve got a little bit of “mission creep” above the fascia on the valance … Continue reading No. 83: Lighting Up – Lights on the Ackley Layout

Being broke from ski trips, swim team trips, car repairs and Christmas expenses, I tried to stay home in January to “decompress” and recover the bank account.  My son managed to get away for a week in Prague for a school event, but apart from that we spent a much-needed month at home. Photo Backdrops During January I got a lot of modeling work done.  One of the last great hurdles remaining on the Ackley layout is installation of photo backdrops.  Inspired by a photo sent by Jim DuFour, I printed off a number of photos and cut them out … Continue reading No. 79: Ackley Layout – South Side Scenery

Happy 2018!  I’ve always found the New Year to be a great time to reorganize and reprioritize life goals.  Getting organized and setting goals within the hobby is important too, so I always take a little time to set new hobby goals and priorities for the coming year. Getting organized is the first step to setting goals, so I spent a few hours on December 31st and New Year’s day doing a lot of cleaning, organizing, and goal setting in the layout room.  Below is a photo of what the layout looked like a year ago.   Thanks in some … Continue reading No. 76: 2018 Projects and Renewal

The Douglas Street crossing, or “center road” as I call it, was started last December during the Winter Offensive. I wanted to model Douglas Street as a dirt road since I expect the real road was hard-packed dirt in 1950.  Below, here is a close up from the 1970 aerial photo of Ackley that has been shared previously.  It kinda looks like a dirt road… I began construction of this road the same way I did with the other roads on the layout, by first building a subroaded base of HO scale cork roadbed (below), and then covering the subroadbed … Continue reading No. 75: Douglas Street Crossing at Ackley

Merry Christmas!  I hope you all and your families had a wonderful Christmas celebration! My wife’s brother and sister and all their kids came to visit us in Germany for Christmas.  We took them to Ehrwald, Austria for a week of skiing.  It was a wonderful trip and we got back in time to celebrate Christmas at home.  Below is a photo of my son, Jacob, at the top of the mountain at the Ehrwald ski area.  The scenery here was spectacular in every direction and we practically had the entire ski area to ourselves. I wasn’t able to do … Continue reading No. 73: Informal Ops Session

Recently my friend Doug Harding traveled up to Ackley, Iowa to visit the Ackley Heritage Center, which is located in the former Illinois Central depot in the bustling metropolis of downtown Ackley.  The Center had several dozen photos of the Marshall Canning Co. and other industries in Ackley and they were happy to share with Doug.  Doug scanned them and sent them to me the next day.   The best photo I have of the Heritage Center is below, taken on my one-and-only visit to Ackley in 2015.  One of my daughters took this one.  I guess I forgot to … Continue reading No. 64: Modeling the Marshall Canning Company of Ackley, Iowa, Part 2