May and June Update…

Wow, a lot has happened since I last wrote. Though I should have had time to update things, I haven’t really been able to sit down and write.

After our business trip to New York, we were home for a couple of weeks. Then we headed south to see the kids (son, daughter-in-law and grandson) in Kansas City. They had just moved into their new home and we went down to visit and help get them settled. We had been down there before, but hadn’t done much exploring of the city. My son and daughter-in-law were very excited about an area near downtown. It has a ton of small shops that they wanted my wife to explore.

Turns out I was happy to go along as the area they were talking about was the “West Bottoms”. Oh yeah, Chuck Hitchcock territory. If you are not familiar with Mr. Hitchcock, he has been modeling the yards around the KC area for decades. His Argentine Division of the Santa Fe has been featured in all major publications.

Kansas City is truly a railfans paradise. The freeway into downtown alone was tucked between the old airport and one of those yards. Unfortunately I was sitting on the wrong side of the car to get a shot of the railyard. I Figured I would get a shot on the way home, but my son took a different route.

Once in “the bottoms” my son found a parking spot and we started walking around. Turns out there is a great little hobby store there. Docs Caboose (docscaboose.com) is tucked amongst the old warehouses. It’s located at 1400 Union Ave.

Docs Caboose, Kansas City, MO.

I had a great time looking around, found some things that just had to come home with me. If in the KC area I would definitely take the time to stop by. A side note, as you can see in the photo there are tracks right outside the door. Be mindful as they are active.

The West Bottoms in Kansas City.
View down the tracks.

After we returned home it was time to have my 2nd knee replaced. Being as I had been through this before I was able to plan on a couple of small projects. The big one (not in project scale but impact) was replacing the HobbyZone (hobbyzone.pl) paint center for a set of their Modular Workshop System paint racks and drawers. If I had known about these when I had rebuilt my workbench, I would have designed it differently.

Anyways, the before..

The work bench now.

With the new system…

New Hobby Zone paint racks and drawers.
Wider view of Hobby Zone paint/storage racks.

Because of the power strip I built into the back of the work surface, I had to build the “shelf” along the back. Like I said, if I had known would have left that out so that I could have more drawer units.

Something I had found before but forgot to share was the following. It is a clearance marker. Found it in Red Wing on a siding on the Canadian Pacific’s line. The reason I had noticed it was that I was trying to figure out how to mark clearance points on the layout. Probably to “modern” for my layout, but it is cool.

They are from the Aldon Company, Inc. (aldonco.com). Their website is a wealth of information for railroad safety equipment. Looking for ideas, it’s a great place to visit.

The north end only had the marker bolted to the tie. The south end also had the tie and side of rails painted yellow. Also, as you can see the maker is made so that a sign or marker could be inserted.

Clearance marker on the north end of the siding.
Aldon Company clearance marker, top view.
South end of siding, with marker, entire tie and side of rail painted.

That’s it for now. The knee is doing better and I will be returning to the layout. I will keep you posted.

Till later, enjoy your summer…

 

 

 

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