A year ago I wrote that the Twin City Model Railroad Museum had found new space and was raising money in preparation for a move. Over the New Years weekend my wife and I stopped by their new space to see how they were doing.

I’m happy to report that they have successfully completed their move. In fact, they not only have managed to move their old layout and have it up and running, they also have added about a half dozen other smaller layouts for display and for children to interact with.

In addition, they have several display cases showing different scales or a variety of type of trains. Also, they have display boards explaining scale, types of trains and what the plan is for the space.

As far as the space goes, right now it’s one big space with a hodge-podge  of layouts and displays. They did have a floor plan of what the finished plan is, I didn’t get a picture of this, and some conceptual art of the space –

There will be a real railroad feel to the space, with false walls dividing the different areas. Another thing I didn’t take a picture of was an elevated space for the operators of the main O Gauge layout. When finished, it will look like a switch tower.

Here are 3 pictures of what greets you now when you walk in:

Some of the display layouts:

Some of the display layouts were supplied by other local clubs.

They also have a large children’s area with interactive layouts. Some being hands on and some have push and hold buttons to make the trains go and other things to move. And of course as you will see in one picture, if you have small children, you’re going to have to rerail things.

And the afore mentioned display cases / boards –

They still have along ways to go to get where they want to be. The main layout alone, though up and running, has no backdrop and big holes and gaps in the scenery where it was taken apart and put back together. Add to that all the walls and railroady structures they want to add ambiance, and you know they have some work ahead of them.

Having said all that, it’s still worth a stop by if you are in the area. Their new address is:

Twin City Model Railroad Museum, 668 Transfer Road #8, St. Paul MN.

Stay tuned, I will have an update of what I’ve gotten done in the last month very soon. Till then, Happy Railroading…

 

 

 

Happy New Year to you all. And Merry Christmas and Happy Thanksgiving as well, as I seem to have missed them all.

Looking back at my last series of posts (On the workbench) I was pretty confident that I would soon have time to do some major work on the layout. In fact in the first of the series I had said that I had a cut list and timing for getting the major projects going.

Unfortunately that all fell apart. First was work (and no, I won’t apologize for this as I have to keep a roof over the layout), the last quarter was hell with two trips suddenly tucked in between Thanksgiving and Christmas. My wife and I also host Thanksgiving, Christmas and this year New Years for family and friends, 20+ per holiday. And then the thing that totally shot any hope of getting anything done was a simple little thing off from my wife’s “Honey do list”.

She had originally asked if we could repaint the office as the color was left over from when my daughter had the room as her bedroom before moving out. I agreed as the color kind of sucked. The easiest way to tackle this was to move most of the stuff out of the office as we had desks, bookcases and other things tucked against the walls.

As I was laying out the plan to move things out so that I could gain access to the walls to paint them, my wife’s eye kind of glazed over as her mind went to work. Yes, I knew I was in trouble.

She felt that since we were moving most of the furniture out then why not move everything out. That way we could replace the carpet with a nice laminate wood flooring. And since we did that then she had some pictures of built in desks and shelving. If you give a mouse a cookie.

So her desk went down to the sunroom off from the dining room and mine went to the only other area that had any space… the basement. After I tucked a desk into the only open area large enough, which was at the end of the peninsula, getting anything downstairs was impossible.

Oh, and I had to have it complete enough to get things moved back in by Thanksgiving.

Tough schedule, but I felt I was up to the challenge. Everything was moving along well. Repaint ceiling and walls, check. Install floor, slight delay as Home Depot didn’t have enough in stock, but got it in, check. Start construction of built in desks and shelves, well this is where God decided to show he has a sense of humor.

My two least  favorite home projects are plumbing and taping and sanding sheetrock. As I was making pretty good progress on the desk part, a leak developed in the upstairs bathroom which came through the ceiling in the downstairs bathroom. I had to tear out a large part of the ceiling downstairs to gain access to the upstairs. It took me a couple of days to isolate the leak and repair it, which still left me with a large hole downstairs.

My wife decided that the office was more important and that’s was where I concentrated my efforts. I got most everything done in the office (except the cabinet doors) and moved everything back in the night before Thanksgiving. Then, between Thanksgiving and Christmas (and the business trips) I finished the doors and replaced the ceiling downstairs.

So, that’s why absolutely no progress to report, kind of. When buying wood for the office project I also picked up enough to get some stuff done downstairs. Before cleaning up out in the garage I cut a bunch of it up to sizes needed to get projects rolling downstairs.

They are as follows:

1/8 hardboard for the rest of the backdrops on the lower level and for the fascia on the lower level.

Wood for the power switch box ( will explain later)

Plywood for the upper valance supports.

And wood cut to size for the rails and stiles for the cabinet doors.

So I should have some progress to report soon, Till then, here is a picture of the finished office.

Till later, and it shouldn’t be long, Happy New Years to all and Happy Railroading…