Banta Silver Plume becomes a Pool Hall

I took the HO scale Banta Silver Plume Bakery and made it into a pool hall. The fun was the process of finding the dog picture, pool ball rack, pool cue rack, chalk board, wainscotting on the internet... resizing the pictures and make a styrene backing to get a three D effect. I modified some Woodland Scenics and Prieser figures to be players and used a resized doll house wallpaper provided by a railway buddy for the walls. At this pont in the build their still remains quite a bit of work to do.

The outer walls are done with waterbased wood stain. Then Bragdon powders are brushed on and then you wet it with mineral spirits. Finally is used micromark weather it as a wash. Also I distressed the wood with a wire brush. The trim is peel and stick plywood.

Switcherama II

Switcherama

Friday night was the grand experiment in an approach to operations that would optimize the FNGers opportunity to carry out complex switching moves in either a sequential or repetitive fashion.I first started by creating a list of 21 individual switching activities. I then made a second set...numbering each train order and cutting them into strips so I could assign them to operators providing variety and reduction in congestion at any given location.Next each engineer was given a switcher and caboose. There were no limitations on using siding or mainline tracks. First come first serve. The switchers had to use their cabooses like the prototype ensuring their proper positioning when moving from point A to B and keeping them close at hand while switching so there was a place for folks to warm up. After all it is December in the foothills.