Saturday, January 4, 2014

Update: January 2014

Well, its been almost six months since my last update and it is certainly time for a new one.  Another continuing theme that is constantly plaguing me is my lack of time to complete any projects.  Planning has so far completely come to a standstill on the layout and the forney still remains in storage and unfinished.   I'm hoping to finish some plans soon but at the rate that this layout has been progressing, anything is still up in the air.  On the other hand, I have managed to finish some projects in HO scale, including the extremely prolonged process of replacing couplers on my rolling stock.   Much of my collection is now outfitted with Kadee #158 couplers with the exception of a few Bachmann coupler boxes that are really stubborn about accepting the new Kadees.  As well, the locomotive fleet has grown with the addition of an Athearn RTR SD45 in Rio Grande paint, #5319.  Another big project that has finally been tackled is three older locomotives that have been in storage for quite a while, a Bluebox F45, Bluebox GP9, and Life Like GP38.  I am planning to take the shell of the GP9 and use it to build a new On30 diesel that will use the chassis of the F45 while the Life Like GP38 will be repowered with the GP9's old chassis.   For now, the GP38 shell was found to be longer and narrower than the GP9's frame so some work will have to go on there.  For 2014 I hope to be more consistent with blog posts but for now that's all I have.