April 2018 - Update

A couple of my new deer are seen on the hillside.

It is now getting very close to the end of my modeling season. Peter and I accomplished a lot of projects this winter but my layout got neglected. I had not actually done anything on the WRD at all till this past weekend. A great sale on LED spotlights at many of our local stores got me thinking of changing out the helogen bulbs which throw off a lot of heat. I have over 30 spotlights in the two rooms my layout own. At the discounted price of two bulbs for a dollar they all got changed. The lighting is much better now with almost no dark spots on the layout. Will see how the photos turn out.

I had a package of deer I got over the winter that I also installed in some areas that could use more interest...a five minute job. I have a couple of locations on the layout that tracks run off the edges. These I finally fixed. So in a couple of afternoons I got a lot accomplished on the layout and don't feel that bad that nothing got touched all winter. In the next couple of weeks the post levels will be dropping as I will be heading up to the lake on a regular basis. I do have a backlog of topics to blog about so there is a lot to cover. I actually built a lot of rolling stock, updated engines and a few structures that need to be covered...so I hope you follow along although the post might be limited to time available...George Dutka

The LED's are installed and the layout appears brighter with even lighting.

An Accurail hopper kit I recently assembled and weathered using only PanPastels. The coal load is still to be installed. This modeling season I completed a lot of rolling stock...now to find a place to put it all.

On the weekend I finally cleaned up this end of the siding. When I built the extension at Westboro, the Frt. House stop block was changed to the other end of the track. The trackage is one of my disconnect track location. I never fixed or moved the track to the edge of the faceboard at that time. The scene is now cleaned up.

My new visitors to the WRD - a great deal for a buck.

One of the deer in the background.

FOS Scale Models had an offer last month that if one ordered $50 worth they would throw in this structure. I had a few things they had that I wanted and of course they did not bring any of it to Springfield...so I placed an ordered and looks like I am getting a bonus.