I haven’t posted since the day after the move. First few days were turning all the modules upright, and adding a couple of legs to some of them since they were all standing independently and a few were a bit unsteady. As I started to rejoin the modules, it became apparent that some would fit better in the new space if the were in a different location, so for instance module 11 moved to between 5 and 6. Most of them have a full 6 inch tangent, perpendicular to the end, but not all. Scenery height doesn’t always match, but I can demolish or add a hill or two.

There was one short module I had built that was vacant, which was for the 30 degree bend in the middle of 25th St. yard. That bend is kind of a major disruption in the orderly arrangement of track geometry, but I couldn’t live without it. As it is, I have one stretch of about six modules that are almost ready to be connected, and several sets of two and three that belong together. I built one new 5′ long module to make Eureka longer, and I’ll do something similar for Yates Center but that one will be harder since I’ll need to cut the existing module in half. Too much selective compression. The part of north Wichita where the MP, the WTA and the Santa Fe are all intertwined will get longer, but I think the Rock Island crossing is good enough. Downtown Wichita, the passenger and freight stations and Hardtner Junction are all a complete mystery right now, but I want to start with connecting what’s already built.

Besides layout work, I had to build what I call a fabrication platform to assemble the modules on. That’s now done, and after the 5′ one I now have a 7-1/2 foot one in progress. My old fabrication platform, supported on two sawhorses in Houston, go co-opted by my daughter who turned into a potting station, so I decided to leave it. This new one is easily accessible from all sides, so I can assemble the module, put the top (deck) on it, flip it over and do the through wiring all in one place.

Had a stroke of bad luck, that turned out to perhaps not be a problem after all, but I’m sorry to say my solution is probably unrepeatable. In the fall of last year I figured about how much roadbed I needed to buy, since I’d been using Homabed. Nope — the Homabed guy who had taken over for the original one went out of business in 2019. So there are two videos that I know of on YouTube showing how to cut your own, but I was really not sure if I could do the cutting to get the thickness down to 1/4 inch. Put a search out of eBay, and proceeded on with all my other plans since I was neck-deep in the move at the time. A few months later an item pops up, for 200 feet or so of it. Hmmm — it’s S scale. Somebody had bought enough of it to do a whole layout, and evidently something happened because this was a hobby shop owner in, as I recall, Ohio, who put it on eBay. His words were ‘the local S scale club doesn’t want it’.

If you’re familiar with Homabed, you may realize that it’s a fairly tight roadbed profile, maybe a foot of so outside the ties on each side before the slope. If you’re familiar with MoPac in Kansas, you may realize that there’s hardly any elevation above grade on the branch lines in a lot of places, in fact there’s hardly any ballast slope in a lot of places. So the S scale roadbed, which is still 1/4″ thick, is the equivalent of another foot of ballast each side of the track compared to the HO stuff. So I’m going to town with it, and I suspect it will hardly even be noticeable when it’s scenicked. I’m trying now to see if I can mix and match it, and it looks like I can. Not trying to be discouraging, but if I were to guess, I’d have to say there’s not likely to be another chance like this, so I suppose this story isn’t going to be very inspirational.

At this time, we are still half time in Wichita and half time in Houston, and that’s probably going to continue. The good news is I’m able to devote more time to it, although there are still occasionally people who want to pay me to do things. There are also a few kits sitting on my shelf that might need attention, so that takes some time away from the track laying.

RG7