Home Page › Forums › Modeling the Missouri Pacific, Texas & Pacific, etc › Mopac or Texas & Pacific layouts › I’ve bit the bullet, Jan. 15, 2011 › Reply To: I’ve bit the bullet, Jan. 15, 2011
My last post was at the beginning of August, and I was continuing with construction of the second turnback (180 degree direction change) module. Then we went on vacation as the end of August approached, and we thought a hurricane might come in so I moved all the components upstairs.
Well, boy howdy, as they say, we got not exactly a hurricane in metro Houston but just fifty inches of rain. We were on the other side of the country, watching those green and orange trains along with a few mountains. We got back to Houston a day later than planned, had no water in the house and hadn’t even ever lost power. But the module construction sort of got deferred.
There was lots of freight car construction in the interim, but now I’m back to getting that first module stood up. I have enough legs in inventory, I’m doing the wiring now, so it should go up tomorrow. The other module is back on the fabrication platform, to do the outer curved sides.
The cabinet-grade birch I use comes from Woodcraft or Rockler. Lately, neither one has had inventory of the 5′ long wood, so I ordered some. I got, shall we say, a lot of comments from the wife when this stuff arrived, 80 lbs worth. But today I cut it up into nominal 6″ panels for module sides, so I’m good to go for awhile.
I bought a property in Wichita in August, closed on it in October, and I’ve had my first meeting with the Wichita zoning board. It backs up on what I would refer to as the Orient, or maybe the Santa Fe, although the present company that operates on it is the K&O. About a mile west of there it becomes former MP Hardtner branch trackage, and it’s a pretty active railroad today although not exactly a main line.
Ron Merrick
