Thankful Thursday

A couple of weeks ago, I posted what - for this blog anyway - was an unordinary post, but something that's often on my mind when I'm engaged in this great hobby. Without repeating it all here, suffice it to say that our creative endeavors can provide much needed time for R&R&R (Rest/Relaxation/Reflection) and that time will often remind you how blessed you are not only to have that time available to you, but to have so many others that are so willing to spend some of their precious time helping you along the way. Given the feedback I've received on that post, it sounds like many of you feel the same way.

So while this isn't my first edition of Thankful Thursday (click here for that), they've been far too infrequent and - like Wordless Wednesday, which I hardly ever miss posting - I'm going to try to make this a weekly thing. There's certainly enough to be thankful for - I only need to stop and think for a moment...

I've posted here and here about the folks that have contributed so much to the progress of the Valley Line - I literally couldn't have gotten this far without them. But an update is long overdue. So, at the risk of leaving somebody out, but in the spirit of the season, here's a quick list of elves that have helped out in recent months:

(apologies that I don't have pictures of everyone - or "you're welcome" if you don't like having your pic posted)

• B&M SW1 Project
• Philip Taylor for contributing the model which has provided many hours of enjoyment, before it even enters "revenue service"
• Dave Owens & Tom Johnson for contributing decals
• David Hutchinson for contributing detail parts and additional decals (not to mention MANY prototype photos and technical information)
• Hunter Hughson and Seth Lakin for Mainline Modeler articles and additional tech info
• Rick Abramson, and John Kasey for contributing additional detail parts
• Ralph Renzetti for help with airbrushing & decaling advice (and TIA for help with weathering!)
• Scenery help

Jim Dufour

Bill Schneider (as well as for the Cromwell Diner and other structures)

• Trackwork help

Jim Lincoln (and special thanks to Randy Hammill for the scale track and office building that Jim's installing here)

• DCC and Technical Help

Kaylee Zheng

Nick Santos

• Also Lou Papineau and Alexander Wood
• 3D Printing
• Mike Redden - who's contributed countless hours from designing the girders for the Rt. 15 overpass way back when, to working on NHRR-specific details for Alco switchers (DEY-3 and DEY-5)
• Chris Zygmunt

Chris has created a bunch of cool NHRR-specific details, whistle posts and these cool crossing signs.

• Podcasts specifically, and Lionel Strang & his A Modeler's Life podcast specifically. Lionel has created a rich & extensive community of folks from all walks of life with a wide variety of skills that are all eager to help each other with their projects and generous with their time - usually offered with a healthy side of good-humored ribbing. Anyone who follows the Valley Local Facebook Group knows I owe a lot to the folks on the AML Wednesday Night chat, not only for their insight but their company as I labor at the workbench.

While I've thanked my regular crew elsewhere, apologies in advance if I've forgotten somebody on this list even though I tried to limit it to just this past year. Like most of you, there are countless others we can think of that have offered a bit of advice at a critical moment, some helpful feedback on a process, or have in some other relatively small way helped us make some additional progress on our layouts. I know you'll join me in offering our thanks to all those that take the time to give back to the hobby and help us all along.

It's sometimes easy to take for granted all of the generous people this hobby introduces to us, so let's take some time this week to thank those who have contributed something to our efforts, who have spent some of their valuable time to help, influence, inspire, and inform us.

Finally, thank YOU for continuing to follow the blog, for your comments and feedback, and especially for your patience when I'm not posting as often as I'd like. While I do the blog primarily for my own future reference, having the benefit of your experience and encouragement makes it even more worthwhile.

Here's hoping you and yours are having wonderful holiday season.

Thankful Thursday & Progress Report

Anybody that's known me for a while knows that I tend to work in a pretty linear fashion, often to my detriment (thus minor roadblocks for anyone else become major, progress-stopping obstacles for me). But thankfully, lately I've somehow worked myself out of that mode - and have been making lots of (minor) progress on many (little) things.

But first, it being "Thankful Thursday," I want to acknowledge a debt of gratitude that's piled up a bit over the last bunch of days...

I finally got around to framing a cool New Haven RR placemat that I got from Pieter Roos some time ago.

Found out that there's actually such a thing as an 11x15 frame!

And it goes awesome with my plates!

Another Pete (Pete Luchini this time) came up with some tanks for Hartford Rayon and an N-scale farmhouse for some forced perspective I'm planning.

I was going to use the farmhouse behind the track at Dividend, but there's just not enough space there for the illusion to be effective - so I think I'll be using it in the "Middlefield" section of the Airline (whenever I can get around to it).

And finally, courtesy of "Add to Cart" (and a great Independence Day sale), I got a large tank for Hartford Rayon, some bumpers, a couple of billboards (including one for Ballantine's!) and enough doors and windows to do quite a few custom structures.

When speaking of Hartford Rayon, you're essentially speaking of Dividend and at the end of my last progress report there I'd just dropped the backdrop. So the next step was to get out the fiberglass mesh tape and topping to cover the joint/seam. . .

 

After the topping dried on the backdrop and I blended it all in with some of my blue sky paint, I backfilled the void left by removing the old scenery base with some foam board (done like this), glued with PL300, and weighed down.

Just when I was starting to get that old bogged down feeling in the basement, I decided to change tack and spend some time up at the workbench. Besides, I needed to make up some "car protection" for the ends of the new sidings I've put in . . .

The Tichy bumpers are inexpensive, but finicky to assemble. I think I'll make up an assembly jig if I end up doing any more of these.

I also got to the billboards, which turned out to be a pretty fun & quick build . . .

The main "addition" I'd make to the instructions is to use a metal brush of some sort to add some wood grain to the otherwise-smooth plastic pieces. Note the glossiness of the parts above.

And here they are "distressed." It's a subtle effect, but I think my drybrushing technique for making styrene look like wood will work well here.

Billboards all ready to go to the paint shop to be "wood-i-fied"!

Speaking of the paint shop, I got some more "old time" crossing signs and whistle posts from my buddy Chris Zygmunt so I added them to the pile of bumpers and wheel stops that needed to be painted.

I use three colors of rattle-can paint for this - Black (for the crossing signs), Brown (for the bumpers), and White (for the whistle posts).

As you can see, the main "pro tip" for handling such small parts while painting is to use clothespins and masking tape, sticky-side-up. Of course, sticking the tape to some scrap cardboard makes everything easy to handle.

Taking the Missus' admonition ("you have plenty of different things you can do on the layout so you shouldn't get bogged down"), I pivoted from painting to electronics - pecifically, addressing an issue with K-1d #359 and its TCS decoder. As you can see from the photo above, it looks fantastic (painting/weathering not done by me), but it really ran like garbage at the lower speed steps. That really kills the illusion for a local freight engine.

I figured the "easy" thing to do would be to "just" swap out the TCS decoder for a Soundtraxx/Tsunami (which is what all my other K-1 locos have onboard). 

I've done decoder installs before, but just in diesels. It took me a while to gin up the courage to open up the K-1 . . . and I immediately regretted it %^)

Yeah, I pretty much know what all those wires do - and I know conceptually what I'd need to do to change out the decoder - but with an onboard Keep Alive, a hard-wired steam chuff cam, and a speaker in the smokebox, I decided to put everything back together and see if I couldn't solve the problem through some additional programming.

To circle back completely to the "Thankful Thursday" theme - I'm thankful that fellow AMLer Shawn Becher saw my dilemma when I posted about it on the Valley Local FB group and arranged a time for us to get together to try and fix the problem.

But he's in Wisconsin. I'm in Connecticut.

One "COVID Consolation" is the explosion of virtual visits that we've all had to get accustomed to through Zoom meetings, Google Hangouts, FaceTime, and such. In this case, Shawn and I were about to get "together" and work on the decoder.

Thanks to his help, I was able to create a custom speed table that smoothed out operation quite a bit. It's still not quite as smooth as my Tsunami-equipped steamers, but it's nice enough that I created a "Loco Card" for it (which is especially helpful here since TCS has many more sound functions than the Tsunami) and took it back down to the layout.

So that's where I'm headed next - back to the basement. I have to get back to work at Dividend - and I also want to put the 359 on a couple of test local freights to see how it runs when it's not on a test track.

Oh - and speaking of operations, be sure to tune in to the NMRA-x at noon this Saturday. I'll be doing a presentation on how I operate the Valley Line. Hope to see you there!

Thankful Tuesday - New Track Plan!

Way back in April (seems like an eternity ago, given global circumstances), I received an email from Ian Thorpe, a modeler in Sydney, Australia. He'd been reading the blog for some time and was intrigued by the track layout - so much so that he took advantage of some "extra" time and drew up a trackplan.

After a few iterations and back & forths, I hereby present the latest version of the Valley Line trackplan!

Click to enlarge

Thanks to my buddy Randy, I've had a trackplan on the homepage of the Valley Line website ever since the site was created almost 7(?!) years ago - but there have certainly been a few tweaks and changes since then, so it's a great time for a new version.

So THANK YOU Ian for all your work on this, but especially for reaching out from way "Down Under" to let me know you're enjoying the blog. It's so cool to be part of a worldwide community - and it's truly amazing that so many folks in this hobby are so skilled and willing to share their talent with us.

Thankful & Thoughtful Thursday: Whither Ops Sessions?

Yes, this here ol' blog is starting to ramp back up a bit. Counting yesterday's Wordless Wednesday (which I don't think I've ever missed, no matter how busy I've been), this will be the third post this week! So that's something to be thankful for - for me, anyway. Means I'm able to get back down to the basement.

Speaking of which:

Compare this to yesterday's view and you'll see that I did, in fact, get down to the basement - if only to clean it up for a "Virtual Layout Tour" last night. Thankfully, after a months-long hiatus (including some scenery work), the layout fired up fine (no shorts!) and ran fine as well.

One definite effect COVID has had: we've all gotten VERY creative about how we get "together" for such things. It wasn't that long ago when an online, real-time layout tour would have been the stuff of sci-fi dreams. And now, thanks to the necessity of the current situation, it's become pretty common.

Another thing to be thankful for is a great virtual - which often evolves into in-person - model railroad community. Probably the largest one I'm part of is the AML group. I've mentioned "A Modeler's Life" podcast many times before, and sometimes they mention me too - yesterday "officially." I got the above certificate and swag in the mail just in time to share it with the folks on the AML's Patreon chat last night.

And thanks to my buddy ChrisZ, I finally got around to opening the latest package that he dropped off waaaaaay back on May 25 (right before I got distracted by house & car projects). Looks like I have more whistle posts to paint. And, yup!, those are the latest iteration of the "old time" RR crossing signs that aren't available anywhere else but here. These have the round sign included on the pole too - with and without reflectors(!) Frankly, on first look, I can even see the reflectors (I think on the prototype they're only 1/2" in diameter!), so he may not bother with them on future castings, but I'll hold my verdict until I paint them.

So LOTS to be thankful for lately!!

But now, some food for thought. I won't ever be thankful for COVID, but one consolation noted above is that it's really amped up everyone's creativity. From having more time for our hobbies to figuring out new ways to share our progress and get "together" (including virtual conventions and layout tours).

What about operating sessions though?? How are the larger layouts that require multiple operators going to fare in this COVID world? There had already been a trend toward smaller, more portable layouts, driven primarily by increased levels of detail, more attention to realistic operations, and increasing mobility of our society.

Now, on the one hand, it looks like that trend is an even smarter way to go in the future - building something you can manage either alone or with one other person (or two at most). Less chance of exposure that way. On the other hand, I suspect our society may get a lot less mobile as folks do more staying-at-home, "staycations" and such. They may even buy larger houses since they'll be spending more time there (and maybe even working there full time through telecommuting as well). But will larger houses translate to larger layouts - and more operators?

One thing that seems certain, at least for the short term: large operating sessions are on hiatus. Do you think they'll come back? Or is this the start of a "new normal" in model railroading?

The recent explosion of virtual meeting technology and experience has demonstrated that a modeler doesn't have to ever be a "lone wolf" if they don't want to be - no matter where in the world they live and no matter how much this or any other pandemic prevents us from getting together in person. A guy named Dave Abeles has even figured out a way to do remote, virtual operating sessions where his crew gathers online, from their own homes, to operate his large home layout - and he's the only one actually in the basement (you'll definitely want to check out his blog about it here).

Will that become the new normal?

At the other end of the spectrum, I know of another layout owner that's restarting his large ops sessions next month. I won't be able to attend (I'm rarely able to get there under even normal circumstances), but I'll be watching his progress and precautions with great interest. The reality is that many of our fellow hobbyists are part of the vulnerable population (including yours truly, thanks to Crohn's), and as much as we crave getting back to normal, we want to be sure to do so responsibly.

I guess what a lot of this boils down to for me is that, if I'd had a crystal ball during the winter of 2015, would I have decided to triple the size of the layout? At the time, I figured "expand the layout, increase the operators, maximize the fun" and that's proved true over the many operating sessions I've had since. But if I'd known that 5 years later it could possibly be dangerous to have large groups of vulnerable people together in a closed basement, I may very well have decided differently.

Heh - crystal balls are way overrated. Usually it's best not to know the future and just live your life.

But give some thought to what that means for the future of model railroad ops sessions - especially those at large layouts. And if you have some thoughts/recommendations/musings to share, I hope you will. I think we'll all benefit from hearing other perspectives.

So are socially-distanced ops sessions (or no big ops sessions at all) going to be the new normal or is this just a blip in the grand scheme of things? Weigh in below!

Yankee Clipper held at Saybrook Station while a Boston-bound freight passes on Track 1 during last night's virtual layout tour. New Haven fans will note all that's wrong with this picture. Here's hoping someday to run the Shoreline for real again, accurately and with in-person operators . . .

Thankful Thursday: Hubbard Homes Billboard

It's been almost 3 years(!) since I got this package in the mail from my friend Dave Messer. Here's what I found when I opened it all that time ago . . .

Click on the image to enlarge it. For more about Hubbard Homes, click here, and especially here.

Now that I'm making so much progress in Wethersfield (finally!), it's high time I figure out where to put this little nod to local history. Unfortunately, Dave's not here in person to confirm the location, but according to his letter, it should be about here . . .

Dave mentioned that it faced the tracks and, since it was nowhere near a street, presumably only train passengers could see it. The housing development was constructed primarily during the 1920s, when there was still passenger service on the Valley Line (commuter service between Middletown & Hartford continued until 1933). However, while this may be prototypically correct, it doesn't really look right.

So I tried it here...

And here . . .

And here . . .

And in a bunch of other places . . .

But I may end up settling on here . . .

This is Church Street and, traveling "east" (toward the aisle) you're driving into the heart of Old Wethersfield and the Hubbard housing development.

So, in a lot of ways it would make sense to put it here. But the Pull of the Prototype is strong - not to mention Dave's legacy in not only insisting on Prototype Placement (see Wethersfield Lumber), but also in providing such a cool story that I can share with others when they inevitably ask me: "So, what's the deal with that misplaced billboard?"

I think prompting such a conversation would be just the sort of thing Dave would enjoy - and it makes me smile to think of it.

Monday Mail Call (an early Thankful Thursday)

I don't know about you, but these days the Missus and I are getting just about everything we need through the mail. We get our groceries delivered through Peapod and just about everything else through Amazon. Consequently, the mailman is one of our few links to the outside world.

But over the last couple of days, he's become even more than a hero on the front lines of the current crisis, delivering our much-needed supplies. He’s morphed into a springtime Santa's elf with the things he's been bringing!

First of all, admittedly, he delivered the last of my "add-to-cart" evidences of weakness.

Having just a bit of, um, extra time on my hands here and there, I've been cleaning out the photos on my phone and one of the things I use the photo function for is to take screenshots of info on various items of interest. That's how I was reminded that I'd "screenshotted" a Kadee ad a few months back where they announced they'd be releasing PS-1 boxcars with the 6' door. And not only that, but it'd be available in the NYC scheme. And not only THAT, but these cars were delivered in April, 1948 and had the correct dates/data already printed on the car. Well whattayaknowaboutthat! Just a light bit of weathering for my Autumn, 1948 era layout and this car could go right into service.

So yeah, that was a must-get. Unfortunately, KD only ran one road number. And they were sold out just about every where by the time I got around to looking for one. But thanks to Google, I discovered that Harris Hobbies had one left! Well, turned out, by the time my order went through, they'd already sold it. But they promised they'd find me one - and, thankfully (and obviously, given the pic above) they did! Thanks Jack & Paula!

Then, the very next day, I got a package from my friend PeteL. He'd been going through his collection during the stay-at-home order and came across a couple of trucks that were surplus to him. He asked me if I was interested - "What kind are they?" The answer came back - "1948 Peterbilt tractor trailers."

Heh - I couldn't say "yes please!" fast enough! Vehicles for just about ANY layout are kinda tough to come by. And vehicles that are already built & ready to add to your layout (and even the right vintage) are very rare indeed. So yeah, these will be going on the layout soon - probably somewhere in the neighborhood of Wethersfield Lumber...

Now those trucks - they'd be getting thirsty at some point. So at some point, hopefully soon, I'll be needing to build a few gas stations. Well, how do you get the gas from the underground tanks to the trucks?

Well, you pump it.

In a strange case of serendipity, these pumps actually arrived the same day the trucks did! My friend Jim Lincoln (of Jim Lincoln Chev-Olds, though he's a Ford guy. . . it's a long story . . .) has been experimenting with his resin printer and came up with these awesome period-correct gas pumps! And in two different styles! Thankfully, he painted and put together one of the "kits" so I could see how to build them. I think the "glass" globe is some sort of tubing, but I'll have to ask to be sure I get the right stuff. These are gonna look great on the layout for sure! And when I get them done, I'll be sure and take a picture . . .

Or maybe a video?

Along with a lot of other folks creating videos for quarantine-weary, and content-hungry model railroaders these days, I joined in and uploaded a layout tour a few weeks back. It came out pretty good, I thought, and it at least provided some context for all the photos I've taken of the layout over the years. 

Now, I know enough about good photography (and, thus, good videography) to use a tripod when possible (check out this video of switching in East Berlin for a rock-steady example), but a walk-around tour of the layout is much more challenging. No matter how steady I thought I was holding my camera (ok, it's an iPhone 6), it still looked way more wobbly than I wanted.

The only time I'd ever heard about gimbals was in the context of one of my favorite movies. But the more I've watched other model railroad videos (not to mention, car videos - another passion), the more I'd heard about a cool tool that would make your camera movement silky smooth and steady.

So on one of my posts over at the Valley Local FB group, I'd mentioned maybe getting a gimbal for Christmas. Well, "Santa" apparently was listening . . .

One of the cool developments of the NMRAx Virtual Convention last weekend was that my mom and dad discovered the wonderful world of model railroading on Facebook - and all of the cool layouts, photos, videos, and artistry of the many talented people posting there. They'd tuned in to see my presentation (being such wonderful parents and all), but they've stayed on the NMRA FB group because of all the great content.

They figured I'd post more videos of the layout if I had the right equipment, and they just didn't want to wait until Christmas. So that probably undermines their "Santa" status. I guess they'll just have to be content with being wonderful - and very generous - parents.

Speaking of not being able to wait . . . I certainly didn't want to wait until "Thankful Thursday" to thank Pete & Jim for the very cool additions to the Valley Line, and to my mom and dad for making it possible to share it with you more often via video - and without making you seasick in the process.

If any of you have used a gimbal to video a model railroad, I hope you'll let me know. I'm learning what I can, but "Pan Following," "Pan & Tilt Following," "All Locked," and "All Following & Inception" have me a wee bit confused. Not sure yet which mode is best for shooting the layout. . . 

But I sure expect to have some fun experimenting with it! So stay tuned for more videos . . . (and more layout progress so I have something different to shoot!)

Throwback/Thankful Thursday: Chester (Chet) Rech

Going back through old photos looking for a road construction pic I took almost 35 years ago was a real trip down Memory Lane. I've mentioned Chet Rech here and there on this blog, but suffice it to say here that he was a huge early influence. That's him in the photo above, with his original 4x8 layout. Alas! the layout itself is no longer, having suffered two long moves - from Wilmington, VT to Milford, CT then to Old Saybrook. But Chet's work lives on, having been salvaged & reconstituted as the Somerset & Mill Hollow (aka "The Air Line")

I wrote the following sometime during the winter of 2005, shortly after his widow visited the layout when it was in Milford. At that point, I and a bunch of friends (many of whom still help on the Valley Line today!) had restored the original layout to operating condition for her to see & enjoy.

That was way back before blogs, so I never did anything with this little story. But remembering Chet's road construction story prompted me to go back and find it, so I'll share it here with you. It's another example of how the greatest part of this hobby are its people. I hope you enjoy reading it.

4x8 and 400 pounds: A Legacy in HO Scale

---

"Looks like you're pretty interested in trains." The small-town librarian noticed the pile of magazines stacked around me like sandbags around a foxhole.  It was the summer of 1983.  I was fourteen years old, away on family vacation and it had been raining for days.  With nothing else to do, the library's collection of Model Railroader magazines was a godsend.  I'd purchased my first copy that January and was eagerly soaking up the contents of every issue I could get my hands on, learning as much as I could about my new hobby.

"The man who donated them has quite a train layout.  I'm sure he wouldn't mind a visit - he lives just outside of town."  I could hardly wait to ask my dad if he could take me.  We called the number the librarian gave us and were soon welcomed into Chet and Martha's home like old friends.

After a short visit, we made our way to the basement.  Standing there in the middle of the floor, surrounded by workbenches, power tools, and various storage items was a standard 4x8 layout with brass track and 18" radius curves.  The Mill Hollow & Southern was based on the Hoosac Tunnel & Wilmington – or the Hoot Toot & Whistle, as Chet liked to call it – and what detail!  Every building was lighted and almost every one had a full interior.  There were two towns on two different levels and more mini-scenes than I could count.  It was obvious that Chet's primary interest was in detailing rather than operation.  His passion was evident in every nook and cranny.

My dad and I visited again the next summer and once I got my driver's license, I was able to make the trips by myself.  Over the years, we developed a friendship that went beyond model railroading.  Having lost both sets of grandparents way too soon, Chet and Martha became willing surrogates.  I even took my girlfriend, then fiancée, to visit.  When we were married in 1995, they came to our wedding.

I had known Chet for over 15 years when his health started to decline and when I read Martha's letter of his passing it was like losing a member of my own family.  A few months afterward, Martha phoned asking us to visit.  She was going through Chet's things and wondered if I'd be interested in taking the train layout.  In my mind, there could be no better keepsake of our friendship, and my dad and I made the long trip up to Vermont to pick it up.

When we got to the basement, we discovered to our surprise that we couldn't actually lift it!  When we tried to pick it up, it felt like it was bolted to the floor.  Only then did we realize that Chet had used "natural" scenery materials.  Those weren't hydrocal rock castings we'd admired all those years, but actual chunks of granite and stone!  And everything was covered in gallons of concrete-like plaster.  It was a beautiful layout, but weighed close to 400 pounds.

We had quite a time getting the railroad out of the basement in one piece, but it finally made its way home where it became the only "complete" section of railroad I had.  Once I set it up, I discovered that it had deteriorated over the years - and the big move hadn't done it any favors either.  Martha said she didn't remember the last time the trains actually ran, but I was determined to return the layout to its former glory.  One of my proudest moments was when Martha visited us for Thanksgiving later that year and I was able to show off the restoration, complete with a train operating over track that hadn't seen any action in years.

The result was a near perfect restoration – and anyone that sees the layout would recognize Chet’s work immediately.  The Mill Hollow & Southern is sure to be around for a very long time, giving me a chance to share the talent of a man whose attention to detail inspired me in my own modeling efforts and whose friendship gave me a legacy that lives on.

Thankful Thursday & Progress Report

For this week's "Thankful Thursday" I want to thank those who were able to share some kind words and stories about Dave Messer. I've written at length about how the folks you meet in this hobby are its biggest asset and how the friendships you develop through this shared passion are ones that last a lifetime. That's just the nature of this community. Unfortunately, when we lose one of our own, their passing leaves a large hole.

I'll admit that despite a recent "flow" on the layout, the motivational winds have diminished significantly over the past bunch of days. Fortunately, I did make some progress early last week . . .

The terraforming of the previous week being finished, it was time to give everything a base coat of dirt color.

The previous photo and this one show the state of things after all (well, hopefully all) of the base terrain was done - using a combination of cardboard strips, plaster gauze, foamcore board, cardboard, and drywall joint compound.

A base coat of "dirt color" (matched at Home Depot to a sample of actual dirt from my yard) immediately makes things look better.

For the most part, I didn't bother painting the road areas or where I needed to preserve structure footprint markings.

Moving my focus from the Wethersfield scene to Wethersfield structures, I sprayed the interior walls of the lumber co office black.

I also wanted to paint the foundations for the Ballantine's office. I hope to do a more detailed post on this structure soon, but for now I can say that it came from the rooftop of the Walthers Grocery Warehouse kit I used to model the main Ballantine's warehouse. Click here for that build. Having removed it from the roof, it needed a foundation & stairs, which I got from Walthers Modular parts. I just needed to paint it.

Here's a better view of the office(s). The Ballantine's office is actually a pretty cool structure once you add the foundation. I also sprayed the exterior walls of the lumber co office gray. I'll definitely need to weather those walls.

Finally, I continued my "starter craftsman kit" building by trying my hand at heavily weathered wood siding. These parts were sprayed a base of dark gray and then drybrushed with barn red. I think I need to add more red and then maybe "back it back" with weathering. The weathered white windows/doors/trim were done with drybrushed white over the same base gray. Experimentation continues. . .

That's where things were as of mid-week last week. There's been an ebb hobby-wise over the last week between the recent news and celebrating the Missus' 50th birthday (an admittedly much nicer reason to take a break from the layout). I also came down with a cold in there somewhere so have been using my early-morning hobby time to just sleep in a bit.

But I can see a wave on the horizon. . . after this "ebb", it looks like another "flow" may be coming. And in the spirit of "Messer Motivation" I want to catch that wave and ride it as long as possible - hopefully all the way to seeing the Wethersfield scene finally completed, and very soon.