Crunch Time, Again

 The NJ-DMV Interchange is scheduled for this weekend. So local layout owners are in crunch time getting ready for the meet. I have been doing some tasks to help others to get ready. My layout is ready to go except for some minor repairs such as a broken switch stand from a last op session. 

One of the embellishments to operations on my railroad that I wanted to get done was to make random events cards.  I wrote about this idea earlier in this post. 

Last night I printed a set of random event cards. Most of them involve delays of some duration, longest is 15 minutes. A few require cars to be set out. About one third have no operational impact. 

I am trying to decide how to trigger the random event.  For now, I am going to place them near Brooke Tunnel and Stares Tunnels. Each train will draw a card when the pass Brooke going southbound or Stares Tunnel going northbound. That why I can have one box near both tunnels to house the cards. I am curious to see how they work out.

Meanwhile, I have been helping Marty McGuirk with building the paper mill for his layout.  

About 2 months ago I helped Marty with a redesign of the paper mill area of his layout to better match the prototype he was trying to model. The drawing shows the design I proposed to him.  You can see that the mill is a large complex and will be an important location for operations on his layout.

The clapboard building is 30 by 12 inches with some compression to fit the layout. The full prototype size in HO is about 36 by 12 inches. There are other structures in the complex that will be nearly as big. 

The photo below shows the first batch of laser cut parts that I cut for the building while they are in the glue up. Marty will install the windows and roofs. There are several other big buildings in the paper mill complex.

I have also been helping Doug Gurin with his layout design. He wants to have a refined drawing to show to the visitors this weekend.

 I also have a small modeling project to complete for Henry Freeman as he will be in town to operate and  pick up this model.

In between all that, I made some progress on the Pungy. I painted the hull and added stem and stem head. Next  I will install the railings and deck furniture. But that will have to wait until the weekend is over.