Thanks for the concerned PM’s I’ve received. I AM still alive, just been rather inactive the past couple of years. Lots of things have changed in my personal life and I no longer have a layout, for that matter I actually no longer have any of my equipment or tools. No locos, no decoders, no Digitrax, no P2K tank cars… however I will be going to the Timonium show this coming weekend to start over again.
It’s all sort of a mixed blessing, I did consider switching to N scale since I can get everything I want as far as locos and rolling stock go, but it’s also far easier to do sound and DCC with HO so I think I wills tick with HO. I’m not changing roads, either, Readign it will be again - however with a bit of proto-lancing. I realized as I planned the big basement layout that I wouldn;t be happy with operations on double track. Real exciting meets… so I took a tip from some of the histories I’ve read and my freelance portion will be that the Reading DID aquire control of the LNE post-WWII and I will work towards modeling part of the LNE mixed in with Reading lines. I’m undecided if I ant to make this before or after the LNE dieselized - RS-3’s are my favorite loco but RS-2’s will do in a pinch. Maybe repainted to Reading Pullman green. I know one place I want to definitely include on any railroad will be the cement plant in Nazareth at 248 and 191 - it’s a modern plant now but I rememebr goign past as a kid heading to my grandparent’s house and I have a pretty good idea what it looked like with tracks on two levels and a heavy concrete coal and stone dump off the upper track.
Anyway, it will probably be some time off before I can have much of a layout. At present I’m in an apartment and I could possibly do a shelf along one wall in the dining room. Even though the last one, I did all the benchwork in a weekend with just hand tools (and a cordless drill/driver), I will probably go with Sievers or Mianne benchwork this time. Expe